How The Beatles Ruined Comedian Mitzi McCall’s Big Break | Video

Doing “The Ed Sullivan Show” made careers — unless you happened to follow the Fab Four’s U.S. debut

A group of five men, with an older man holding a guitar and wearing a suit while another illustrates how to use it.
Television host Ed Sullivan receives some guitar lessons from Beatle Paul McCartney in between rehearsals at CBS television studios in Manhattan, where the English rock 'n' roll sensations made their nationwide television performance debut Feb. 9, 1964. Fellow Beatles John Lennon and Ringo Starr stand behind. (Getty Images)

Sketch comedy duo McCall and Brill thought they were about to have their big break, getting booked on the star-making platform of their time: “The Ed Sullivan Show.” The only problem: it turned out that they were one of the acts performing in between sets from the Beatles making their American debut.

Mitzi McCall, who died this week, shared the tale of woe alongside her partner and husband Charlie Brill on a classic episode of NPR’s iconic show “This American Life.”

“If you got a shot on ‘Ed Sulivan,’ you had a shot at stardom,” Brill said.

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