Ringo Starr celebrates his 81st birthday with a journey of peace and love in Beverly Hills

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Sometimes the message of peace and love should be celebrated if you get near the car, at least when there’s still a pandemic going on and you’re a Beatle trying not to draw the crowd. And so Ringo Starr’s annual birthday celebration took place in a somewhat secretive fashion on Wednesday, meeting the press and posing for photos in front of his peace sign statue in the park on the corner of Santa Monica and Canon in Beverly Hills.

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Starr’s birthday gatherings are usually larger and pre-announced, with well over 20 fans who opted out of the site and were watching from behind a barricade on Wednesday. Perhaps more fans have been watching Hollywood’s Capitol Tower, where the star commanded global cries of “peace and love” at noon PST on 2014-17 and 2019. In other years, he’s based in Hard Rock Cafes around the world.)

He turned 81 on Wednesday, but said he doesn’t care whether it was an odd number like that or a major number in the last year. “Birthdays are birthdays, you know — you have to live with it, you know?” He told Variety before posing with guests including his brother-in-law Joe Walsh and Toto guitarist Steve Lucather. “I mean, emotionally, sometimes I’m 18. We were laughing in the car saying I’m 18 today because I’m 81 in reverse.”

As it turns out, Starr and his wife Barbara Bach stopped at the statue last year at this time, but without any fans or press in attendance, as attention turned to the special broadcast he provided rather than the live countdown. “Actually, last year, at the height of the pandemic, because we live here, Barbara and I just ran here to do it, to keep the tradition, by hand. Today we have more,” Starr said. He joked, pretending to get inside his jacket for the free face guards. “I have a mask here if anyone complains.” “That’s what it is today. Two years ago we were at Capitol Records and had a lot of guests playing with me and hundreds of people outside. But things have changed.”

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What was he doing to celebrate the age of 81? “I woke up this morning,” he said, laughing.

In fact, he has already heard from Paul McCartney: “He just called me. We keep saying hello to each other. I’m still waiting for the gift. “

And one wondered, how does he look better at 81 compared to most attendees decades younger than him? “I don’t know. I don’t wear a hat, that’s why,” he said at first, before deciding to reveal his secret.

Starr, who recently released an EP, “Zoom In,” is expected to release a follow-up EP later this year, and will appear in Peter Jackson’s “Get Back” Beatles TV epic this fall.

Ringo Starr in Beverly Hills – Credit: Chris Wellman/Variety

Chris Wellman / Variety

Ringo Starr and Barbara Bach in Beverly Hills

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