Who was rejected for the Sergeant Pepper album cover?



The collage on the cover of Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band shows a gathering of over 70 famous figures, cultural icons, and waxworks. 

How were the people chosen?

The organising principle is that The Beatles have chosen who will feature. Their choices are engagingly random.

English comic Tommy Handley shares the stage with Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, for example. Very much alive, Fred Astaire is next to the long-dead nineteenth-century author, Edgar Allan Poe.

 Film star Sophia Loren is in the image - but you can't see her. She and fellow Italian Marcello Mastroianni are hidden behind the waxworks of The Beatles.

Who missed out?

Changes were made right up to the last moment. Some very unlikely options were considered. 
  • A cardboard cut-out of Hitler was produced but (wisely) removed from the photoshoot at the last minute. 
  • Brian Epstein rejected John Lennon's suggestion of Jesus. He did not wish to reignite the controversy of the previous year.
  • Gandhi was painted out at the request of EMI. They feared his image might offend record buyers in India. 
  • Actor Leo Gorcey was also removed. His agent made the mistake of demanding a fee.

Where's the King?

Bob Dylan is there - but not Elvis. When asked about this, Paul gave the official version, 
“Elvis was too important and too far above the rest even to mention- he was more than merely a pop singer, he was Elvis the King."
Another theory is that this was payback for The Beatles being stood up by Elvis during their first US tour in 1964. They had made a long detour to visit Graceland, but arrived in Memphis to find that the King had left town for the weekend. 

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