The Beatles<\/strong><\/a>\u2019 Sgt. Pepper\u2019s Lonely Hearts Club Band<\/strong><\/a> remains the most iconic album cover of all time. From Paul McCartney<\/strong><\/a>\u2019s original concept to the final design, staged by British pop artist Peter Blake and his then-wife, Jann Haworth, it\u2019s not just an album cover, but a dazzling display of modern art that defines its era.<\/p>\n Not only a groundbreaking design for the time, the artwork also broke the bank, costing almost \u00a33,000 to create \u2013 well over \u00a350,000 in today\u2019s money and more than any other pop album sleeve at that time. The concept was for the four Beatles themselves to appear in costume as Sgt. Pepper\u2019s Lonely Hearts Club Band, surrounded by a gathering of influential people as if they had just performed a concert. A total of 58 different people are depicted on the final artwork, which was photographed by \u200bMichael Cooper. As Peter Blake once said, doing \u200b\u201dthis by using cardboard cut-outs, it could be a magical crowd of whomever they w\u200banted.\u201d\n<\/p>\n While you\u2019re reading, listen to The Beatles\u2019 Best Of playlist here<\/a><\/strong>.\n<\/p>\n Those chosen from a collective list drawn up by John, Paul, George, Peter Blake, Jann Haworth, and London art dealer Robert Fraser. Looking to avoid any serious controversy, Jesus Christ and Adolf Hitler were deemed unsuitable for inclusion, while other choices, such as Mahatma Gandhi and Leo Gorcey, were removed for different reasons. Also notable by his absence is Elvis Presley, who, Paul McCartney later said, was \u201ctoo important and too far above the rest to even mention.\u201d<\/p>\n Those that made the final cut remain a fascinating cross-section of cultures, importance, and each individual Beatle\u2019s own interests. To paraphrase the song, you might have known the band for all these years, so here we introduce to you, everyone else that featured on the Sgt. Pepper\u2019s Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover\u2026\n<\/p>\n Click here for an interactive version of the Sgt. Pepper who\u2019s who.<\/a><\/strong>\n<\/p>\n The author of the 1894 book The Holy Science, which attempted \u201cto show as clearly as possible that there is an essential unity in all religions,\u201d Sri Yukteswar Giri was guru to both Sri Mahavatara Babaji (No.27) and Paramahansa Yogananda (No.33). His prominent position in the top left-hand corner reflects George Harrison<\/strong><\/a>\u2019s (No.65) growing interest in Indian philosophy. In August 1967, two months after the album\u2019s release, The Beatles had their first meeting with the Maharashi Mahesh Yogi, at the Hilton Hotel on London\u2019s Park Lane, where they were invited to study Transcendental Meditation in Bangor, North Wales.\n<\/p>\n A hugely prolific occultist and author who formed his own religion, Thelema, Crowley\u2019s central tenet was, \u201cDo what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law. Love is the law, love under will.\u201d<\/p>\n Mae West initially refused to allow her image to appear on the artwork. She was, after all, one of the most famous bombshells from Hollywood\u2019s Golden Age and felt that she would never be in a lonely hearts club. However, after The Beatles personally wrote to her explaining that they were all fans, she agreed to let them use her image. In 1978, Ringo Starr<\/strong><\/a> (No.63) returned the favor when he appeared in West\u2019s final movie, 1978\u2019s Sextette. The film also featured a cover version of the \u201cWhite Album\u201d song \u201cHoney Pie.\u201d\n<\/p>\n Lenny Bruce revolutionized comedy in the 50s and 60s, ushering in a personalized style that influenced many later comedians. By the time he appeared on the Sgt. Pepper\u2019s cover, he had been arrested for obscenity, further making him a countercultural hero not only for The Beatles, but also the Beatniks and Bob Dylan<\/strong><\/a> (No.15). He died of a drug overdose in August 1966.\n<\/p>\n A German composer who pioneered the use of electronic music in the 50s and 60s, Stockhausen remains a godfather of the avant-garde, whose boundary-pushing music influenced The Beatles\u2019 own groundbreaking experiments in the studio, starting with their tape experiments of Revolver\u2019s \u201cTomorrow Never Knows.\u201d Paul McCartney (No.64) introduced Stockhausen\u2019s work to the group, turning John Lennon (No.62) into a fan; Lennon and Yoko Ono even sent the composer a Christmas card in 1969.<\/p>\n An American writer, comedian, and actor, WC Fields was the epitome of the all-around entertainer, whose career spanned both the silent film era and the talkies. His humor seeped into The Beatles\u2019 own, while the vaudeville world he came from would also go on to influence songs the likes of \u201cYour Mother Should Know.\u201d\n<\/p>\n Another progressive thinker who introduced new strains of psychology to the world, Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist whose Analytic Psychology school of thought pioneered the concept of individuation and self-realization in the early 1900s.\n<\/p>\n Before being namechecked in \u201cI Am The Walrus,\u201d Edgar Allan Poe appeared on the right-hand side of the top row of the Sgt. Pepper collage. The poems and short stories that he wrote across the 1820s and 1840s essentially invented the modern horror genre, and also helped lay the groundwork for sci-fi and detective stories as we know them today.<\/p>\n In contrast to Mae West (No.3), Fred Astaire was reportedly thrilled to be asked to appear on the Sgt Pepper album cover. A child star who initially started dancing with his sister on stage, it was with Ginger Rogers that Fred made his greatest mark, in a series of classic Golden Age movies including Top Hat and Swing Time. He also appeared with John and Yoko in the 1972 television film Imagine.\n<\/p>\n Born in 1938, American painter and illustrator Richard Merkin was enamored with the early jazz period that flourished in the years before his birth. His modernist style matched the abstraction of jazz music, and also inspired Peter Blake\u2019s tribute artwork, Souvenirs For Richard Merkin, created in 1966.\n<\/p>\n Having made a name for himself designing posters for the Ziegfield Follies that appeared on Broadway across the 1910s to the 30s, Peruvian painter Joaquin Alberto Vargas Y Ch\u00e1vez went on to create a series of paintings of pin-ups. Known as the Varga Girls, they gained widespread exposure in Esquire magazine during the 40s, and also inspired a number of paintings that would appear on World War II fighter jets.<\/p>\n Along with Huntz Hall (No.13), Leo Gorcey was one of The Bowery Boys, a group of on-screen hoodlums who grew out of The Dead End Kids and The East Side Kids. Their movie franchise ran throughout the 40s and 50s, and totaled 48 films. As the gang\u2019s leader, Gorcey was a prototype street thug who set the template for many to follow, though he refused to let The Beatles use his image unless they paid him a fee, which was declined.\n<\/p>\n A fellow Bowery Boy, Huntz Hall was known for playing the putz of the group, Horace DeBussy \u201cSach\u201d Jones.\n<\/p>\n Born in Italy in 1870, Simon Rodia emigrated to the United States with his brother when he was 15. Living in various places for the next 35 years, Rodia finally settled in the Watts district of Los Angeles in 1920, and began constructing the Watts Towers the following year. Consisting of 17 interconnected sculptures, the project took Rodia 33 years to complete.\n<\/p>\n Dylan and The Beatles influenced each other throughout the 60s, each spurring the other on to making music that pushed boundaries and reshaped what was thought possible of the simple \u201cpop song.\u201d It was Dylan who convinced John Lennon (No.62) to write more personal songs in the shape of \u201cHelp!,\u201d while The Beatles showed Bob what could be achieved with a full band behind him, helping the latter \u201cgo electric\u201d in 1965. It was with George Harrison (No.65), however, that Dylan struck up the longest-lasting friendship; the two played together often in the years that followed, forming The Traveling Wilburys<\/strong><\/a> and guesting on each other\u2019s projects.<\/p>\n The influence of Aubrey Beardsley\u2019s pen-and-ink line drawings had already made itself felt on Klaus Voormann\u2019s artwork for Revolver, and here the 19th-century illustrator, whose own style was influenced by Japanese woodcutting, takes a position not too far away from Oscar Wilde (No.41), Beardsley\u2019s contemporary in the Aesthetic movement.\n<\/p>\n A founder of the modern Conservative Party, Sir Robert Peel served as the UK\u2019s Prime Minister on two separate occasions, 1834-35 and 1841-46. While he served as the UK\u2019s Home Secretary, Peel also helped form the modern police force \u2013 and his name is still evoked today, with the terms \u201cbobbies\u201d and \u201cpeelers\u201d referring to policemen in England and Ireland, respectively.\n<\/p>\n Published in 1954, Aldous Huxley\u2019s work, The Doors Of Perception, was required reading for the countercultural elite in the 60s. Detailing the author\u2019s own experience of taking mescaline, it chimed with the consciousness-expanding ethos of the decade, and even gave The Doors their name. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature in seven different years and died on November 22, 1963, the same day that both With The Beatles was released and President John F Kennedy was assassinated.\u201d<\/p>\n A beloved Welsh poet who died in 1953, The Beatles had all been fans of Dylan Thomas\u2019 poetry by the time it came to creating the Sgt. Pepper\u2019s artwork. \u201cWe all used to like Dylan Thomas,\u201d Paul McCartney (No.64) later recalled. \u201cI read him a lot. I think that John started writing because of him.\u201d The late producer George Martin was also a fan, and even created a musical version of Thomas\u2019 radio play, Under Milk Wood, in 1988.\n<\/p>\n A satirical novelist and screenwriter, Terry Southern bridged the gap between the Beat Generation and The Beatles; he hung out with the former in Greenwich Village, and befriended the latter after moving to London in 1966. His dialogue was used in some of the most era-defining movies of the 60s, including Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb and Easy Rider.\n<\/p>\n Originally the leader of Dion And The Belmonts, Dion DiMucci established a successful solo career with hits such as \u201cThe Wanderer\u201d and \u201cRunaround Sue\u201d \u2013 doo-wop songs that characterized the rock\u2019n\u2019roll era that so influenced The Beatles.<\/p>\n Striking and versatile, Tony Curtis was a Hollywood idol who made a dizzying amount of movies (over 100) between 1949 and 2008. He will always be remembered for his role alongside Jack Lemmon and Marilyn Monroe (No.25) in the 1959 cross-dressing caper Some Like It Hot, but another stand-out remains his performance alongside Burt Lancaster as fast-talking press agent Sidney Falco in the 1957 film noir The Sweet Smell Of Success.\n<\/p>\n American artist Wallace Berman more than earned his place on the album cover: his pioneering \u201cassemblage art\u201d took a three-dimensional approach to the collage style that Peter Blake excelled in, and is an influence that can be felt on the Sgt. Pepper\u2019s design.\n<\/p>\n Like Max Miller (No.37), Tommy Handley was another British wartime comedian. Born in Liverpool, he would have been a local hero for The Beatles, and his BBC radio show, ITMA (\u201cIt\u2019s That Man Again\u201d) ran for ten years, from 1939 to 1949, until Handley\u2019s sudden death from a brain hemorrhage.<\/p>\n Something of a Mae West (No.3) for her generation, Marilyn Monroe starred alongside Tony Curtis (No.22) in Some Like It Hot, and became the Hollywood pin-up of the 50s. Her shock death still attracts conspiracy theories; Sgt. Pepper was officially released on what would have been her 41st birthday ( June 1, 1967).\n<\/p>\n From Bob Dylan (No.15) to David Bowie, Tom Waits<\/strong><\/a> to Steely Dan<\/strong><\/a>, Beat Generation author Burroughs has influenced many a songwriter over the decades. Less known is that, according to Burroughs himself, he witnessed Paul McCartney (No.64) working on \u201cEleanor Rigby.\u201d As quoted in A Report From The Bunker, a collection of conversations with author Victor Bockris, Burroughs recalled McCartney putting him up in The Beatles\u2019 flat on 34 Montagu Square: \u201cI saw the song taking shape. Once again, not knowing much about music, I could see that he knew what he was doing.\u201d\n<\/p>\n A student of Sri Yukteswar Giri (No.1), Sri Mahavatara Babaji is said to have revived the practice of Kriya Yoga meditation, which was then taken to the West by Paramahansa Yogananda (No.33). In the latter\u2019s memoir, Autobiography Of A Yogi, Yogananda claims that Babaji still lives in the Himalayas, but will only reveal himself to the truly blessed.<\/p>\n Together, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy (No.30) appeared in 107 films, mostly from the late 20s to the mid-40s, including iconic outings Block-Heads and Way Out West. Both had passed away before Sgt. Pepper was released: Hardy on August 7, 1957, and Laurel on February 23, 1965.\n<\/p>\n Lindner was born in Germany in 1901, but moved to the US in 1941, in order to escape the Nazis. In the 50s he developed a style of painting that drew upon Expressionism and Surrealism, along with the hyper-sexualised lifestyle that he encountered in New York. After appearing on the Sgt. Pepper cover, his abstract style would find echoes in the animated feature film Yellow Submarine.\n<\/p>\n The larger one with the mustache from Laurel And Hardy, Oliver played the irascible foil to the hapless Stan (No.28). A recording by the duo (\u201cThe Trail Of The Lonesome Pine\u201d) reached No.2 in the UK singles chart in December 1975.<\/p>\n A prolific author, philosopher, and economist, Karl Marx is best known for his 1848 pamphlet The Communist Manifesto, which outlined the central tenets of his theories, and single-handedly kick-started a political movement. His work continues to influence modern economic thought.\n<\/p>\n Along with Edgar Allan Poe (No.8), HG Wells shaped the modern sci-fi story. After penning groundbreaking novels such as The Time Machine and War Of The Worlds in the late 1800s, he turned to writing more political works and also became a four-time nominee of the Nobel Prize In Literature.\n<\/p>\n Yogananda learned the practice of Kriya Yoga at the feet of Sri Yukteswar Giri (No.1), who passed on the teachings of Sri Mahavatara Babaji (No.27). In 1920, Yogananda set sail for America, where he founded the Self-Realization Fellowship and introduced the Western world to meditation.<\/p>\n One of two wax dummies borrowed from a local hairdresser. This one wears a striped red-and-yellow hat, while its counterpart (No.36) sports a green bonnet.\n<\/p>\n A friend of John Lennon\u2019s (No.62) dating back to their time studying at Liverpool College Of Art, Stuart Sutcliffe was The Beatles\u2019 original bassist. While the group were living in Hamburg and playing around the city\u2019s clubs, Sutcliffe met photographer Astrid Kirchherr, who gave The Beatles their distinctive early 60s haircuts. Sutcliffe left the group in order to enroll in the Hamburg College Of Art, but his career was tragically cut short when he died, aged 21, from a brain aneurysm.\n<\/p>\n On the opposite side of the gathering to the first wax dummy (No.24), this second dummy takes its place next to Stuart Sutcliffe (No.35)<\/p>\n Another vaudeville star, British comic Max Miller picked up the nickname \u201cThe Cheeky Chappie.\u201d Known for his colorful dress sense and his risqu\u00e9 humor, Miller was the master of the double entendre. He also appeared in a number of films throughout the 30s.\n<\/p>\n Designed by George Petty, like the Vargas Girls (No.11), Petty Girls were pin-up paintings that appeared in Esquire, between 1933 and 1956, and also found a home on the front of World War II fighter planes \u2013 notably on the B-17 fighter jet nicknamed Memphis Belle.\n<\/p>\n In his iconic role of Johnny Strabler in the 1953 movie The Wild One, Marlon Brando captured the growing frustrations of the generation that gave birth rock\u2019n\u2019roll. Hailed as one of the greatest actors of all time, it\u2019s also notable that Brando\u2019s rivals in The Wild One, The Beetles, were almost-namesakes of The Beatles.\n<\/p>\n As the man who became Hollywood\u2019s first-ever Western icon, Tom Mix starred in a staggering 291 movies between 1909 and 1935.<\/p>\n A playwright, novelist, and poet, Oscar Wilde left no shortage of aphorisms for which he is remembered, along with the novel The Picture Of Dorian Gray and plays such as The Importance Of Being Earnest and An Ideal Husband.\n<\/p>\n A Hollywood heartthrob of the 30s, 40s, and 50s, Tyrone Power was known for starring as the titular hero in the swashbuckling adventure film The Mark Of Zorro, though he also played the role of outlaw cowboy Jesse James, and starred in musicals, romantic comedies, and war movies.\n<\/p>\n An American artist known for large sculptures that play with light and space, Larry Bell first made his mark with a series of \u201cshadowboxes\u201d constructed in the 60s, and has since gone on to receive acclaim for his wide-ranging work, including the Vapor Drawings of the 80s and a subsequent range of Mirage Drawings.<\/p>\n It\u2019s probably fair to say that Dr. Livingstone was to geographic exploration what The Beatles were to sonic innovation: fearless, ever questing, and mapping out new territories for the world. The famous \u201cDr. Livingstone, I presume?\u201d saying remains in common use today, and can be traced back to a meeting between Livingstone and explorer Henry Morton Stanley, who\u2019d been sent on an expedition to find the former, who had been missing for six years. Livingstone was discovered in the town of Ujiji, in what is now known as Tanzania.\n<\/p>\n An Olympic gold-medallist of the 20s, Johnny Weissmuller first made a name for himself as a swimmer before turning his eye to Hollywood. It was as Tarzan that he made his biggest mark on popular culture, returning to the role in a series of films and devising an iconic yell forever associated with the jungle hero.\n<\/p>\n Barely visible tucked in between the head and raised arm of Issy Bonn (No.47), Stephen Crane was a Realist novelist who, though dying aged 28, in 1900, is regarded as one of the most forward-thinking writers of his generation. His work incorporated everyday speech, which gave his characters an added realism, and his novels took an unflinching look at poverty.\n<\/p>\n A contemporary of Max Miller (No.37), Issy Bonn was a British-Jewish vaudeville star who also found fame on BBC Radio.<\/p>\n George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright who helped shape modern theatre. The first person to receive both a Nobel Prize (in 1925, for Literature) and an Oscar (in 1939, for Best Adapted Screenplay, for Pygmalion). His works continue to be staged in the 21st<\/sup> Century.\n<\/p>\n An American sculptor who served in the US Marine Corps in both World War II and the Korean War, HC Westermann took the skills he learned as a carpenter and turned them to creating Expressionist sculptures that criticized the horrors he had witnessed while fighting overseas.\n<\/p>\n Like Tommy Handley, Albert Stubbins (No.24) was a local Liverpool hero. Born in Wallsend, he became center-forward for Liverpool FC in 1946, where he helped the team win the League Championship the following year.<\/p>\n A disciple of Sri Mahavatara Babaji (No.27), Sri Lahiri Mahasaya learned the discipline of Kriya Yoga in 1861, and subsequently passed the teachings down to Sri Yukteswar Giri (No.1), who in turn, passed them on to Sri Paramahansa Yogananda (No.33), of whom Mahasaya said, \u201cAs a spiritual engine, he will carry many souls to God\u2019s Kingdom.\u201d\n<\/p>\n Speaking to the BBC in 1965, John Lennon (No.62) declared his love for Alice In Wonderland and Alice Through The Looking Glass, revealing, \u201cI usually read those two about once a year, because I still like them.\u201d It\u2019s perhaps no surprise, then, that the man who wrote the poem \u201cThe Walrus And The Carpenter,\u201d which influenced Lennon\u2019s lyrics for \u201cI Am The Walrus,\u201d is given a prominent display on the Sgt. Pepper\u2019s album cover.\n<\/p>\n Immortalized in the 1962 film Lawrence Of Arabia, in which he was played by Peter O\u2019Toole, TE Lawrence was a British archaeologist and military officer who became a liaison to the Arab forces during the Arab Revolt of 1916 to 1918. His 1922 book, Seven Pillars Of Wisdom, recounted his experiences during the war and laid the foundations for much of his legend.<\/p>\n The Beatles were famously photographed with boxing legend Cassius Clay in February 1964, in Miami, Florida. But it\u2019s a wax model of boxer Sonny Liston, the man that Clay defeated later that month in order to become the heavyweight champion, who appears on the Sgt. Pepper cover. Liston had held the heavyweight title for two years, from 1962 to \u201964, before losing it to Clay, who subsequently changed his name to Muhammad Ali.\n<\/p>\n Like its counterpart (No.38), this Petty Girl was one of a series of paintings by George Petty.\n<\/p>\n In a perfectly postmodern touch, The Beatles included wax models of their former Beatlemania-era selves looking on at their modern incarnation in full military psychedelic regalia. The models of John (No.57), Paul (No.60), George (No.56), and Ringo (No.59) were borrowed from Madame Tussauds for the Sgt. Pepper\u2019s photoshoot.\n<\/p>\n1: Sri Yukteswar Giri<\/h2>\n
2: Aleister Crowley<\/h2>\n
3: Mae West<\/h2>\n
4: Lenny Bruce<\/h2>\n
5: Karlheinz Stockhausen<\/h2>\n
6: WC Fields<\/h2>\n
7: Carl Jung<\/h2>\n
8: Edgar Allan Poe<\/h2>\n
9: Fred Astaire<\/h2>\n
10: Richard Merkin<\/h2>\n
11: A Vargas Girl<\/h2>\n
12: Leo Gorcey<\/h2>\n
13: Huntz Hall<\/h2>\n
14: Simon Rodia<\/h2>\n
15: Bob Dylan<\/h2>\n
16: Aubrey Beardsley<\/h2>\n
17: Sir Robert Peel<\/h2>\n
18: Aldous Huxley<\/h2>\n
19: Dylan Thomas<\/h2>\n
20: Terry Southern<\/h2>\n
21: Dion DiMucci<\/h2>\n
22: Tony Curtis<\/h2>\n
23: Wallace Berman<\/h2>\n
24: Tommy Handley<\/h2>\n
25: Marilyn Monroe<\/h2>\n
26: William Burroughs<\/h2>\n
27: Sri Mahavatara Babaji<\/h2>\n
28: Stan Laurel<\/h2>\n
29: Richard Lindner<\/h2>\n
30: Oliver Hardy<\/h2>\n
31: Karl Marx<\/h2>\n
32: HG Wells<\/h2>\n
33: Sri Paramahansa Yogananda<\/h2>\n
34: Hairdressers\u2019 wax dummy No.1<\/h2>\n
35: Stuart Sutcliffe<\/h2>\n
36: Hairdressers\u2019 wax dummy No.2<\/h2>\n
37: Max Miller<\/h2>\n
38: Petty Girl No.1<\/h2>\n
39: Marlon Brando<\/h2>\n
40: Tom Mix<\/h2>\n
41: Oscar Wilde<\/h2>\n
42: Tyrone Power<\/h2>\n
43: Larry Bell<\/h2>\n
44: Dr. David Livingstone<\/h2>\n
45: Johnny Weissmuller<\/h2>\n
46: Stephen Crane<\/h2>\n
47: Issy Bonn<\/h2>\n
48: George Bernard Shaw<\/h2>\n
49: HC Westermann<\/h2>\n
50: Albert Stubbins<\/h2>\n
51: Sri Lahiri Mahasaya<\/h2>\n
52: Lewis Carroll<\/h2>\n
53: TE Lawrence<\/h2>\n
54: Sonny Liston<\/h2>\n
55: Petty Girl No.2<\/h2>\n
56, 57, 59 and 60: wax models of The Beatles<\/h2>\n
58, 71, and 73: Shirley Temple<\/h2>\n