He was a Beatle and he was a clown, he lived in the shades of the giants and he gasped for breathe at the thin air of fame - today Ringo Starr turns 80 - and he can laugh at himself again.
What was the man laughed at! When Ringo Starr, who is celebrating his 80th birthday, sang solo after the Beatles ended, the world held his gut. The drummer! As a singer!
Until this moment Ringo Starr was the guy in the background, the funny guy with the sailing ears, a small elephant, who got the girls Lennon and McCartney had taken off. Richard Starkey, as Starr is actually called, paid for early glory. While the other Beatles were successful alone, the father of two sons and a daughter got drunk: hash, coke, alcohol.
It was only in the fall of his days that Starr succeeded in emancipating himself from the past. John Lennon died. George Harrison died. Paul McCartney goes skywards. Ringo Starr was the eartling. A Beatle for everyone. And a genius musician. Colleagues like Peter Frampton accept the Liverpool worker son as a partner - and the public rediscovered their affection for him.
The album "Vertical Man", recorded with McCartney and Tom Petty more then 20 years ago, showed Starr as a legitimate heir to the Beatles. A cirle completes. Only if you don't have to be a Beatle anymore, you can be a Beatle for yourself. Later always on tour with the All Starr Band, with which his son Zak drums, the funniest Beatle was even able to laugh at himself again: "I don't think the Beatles were important to the world," Ringo Starr once said, "but as for me, it looks a little different.