The cover is a collage of more than 60 famous people. Most of the people selected for the collage were requested by The Beatles. For example, George Harrison requested the three Hindu gurus who appear in the collage.
Lennon requested Adolf Hitler, Mahatma Gandhi and Jesus Christ. However, Jesus and Hitler were rejected because the record label feared a public backlash. The record label was nervous because of the controversy over the US Butcher Cover a year earlier. Mahatma Gandhi was excluded because EMI was worried about a negative reaction in India.
EMI needed the permission of all living persons in the collage, creating a nightmare for their legal department. All the celebrities in the collage gave their permission. Only one person, Leo Gorcey was removed from the collage because he demanded a payment of $400.
The following is the complete list of all the people on the cover of Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band:
Top Row- from left to right
Yukteswar Giri - Hindu guru
Aleister Crowley - Magician
Mae West - Actress
Lenny Bruce - Comedian
Karlheinz Stockhausen - German Composer
W. C. Fields - Comedian
Carl Jung - Psychologist
Edgar Allan Poe - Writer and Poet
Fred Astaire - Actor
The Vargas Girl - Fictional Pin-up Girl
Richard Merkin - Artist
Huntz Hall - Actor
Simon Rodia- Designer
Bob Dylan - Musician
Second Row
Aubrey Beardsley- Illustrator
Sir Robert Peel- 19th Century British Prime Minister
Aldous Huxley - Writer
Dylan Thomas - Poet
Terry Southern - Writer
Dion - Singer
Tony Curtis - Actor
Wallace Berman - Artist
Tommy Handley - Comedian
Marilyn Monroe - Actress
William S. Burroughs - Writer
Mahavatar Babaji - Hindu Guru
Stan Laurel - Comedian
Richard Lindner - Artist
Oliver Hardy- Comedian
Karl Marx- Political Philosopher
H. G. Wells - Writer
Paramahansa Yogananda- Hindu Guru
Sigmund Freud - Psychiatrist
Second Row
Stuart Sutcliffe- Musician / Former Beatle
Max Miller- Comedian
A Petty Girl - A Series of Cartoon Pin-up Girls by Artist George Petty
a second petty girl appears in the front row
Marlon Brando - Actor
Tom Mix - Actor
Oscar Wilde- writer
Tyrone Power- Actor
Larry Bell- Artist
David Livingstone - Missionary
Johnny Weissmuller- Actor
Stephen Crane - Writer
Issy Bonn - Comedian
George Bernard Shaw - Playwright
H. C. Westermann - Sculptor
Albert Stubbins- English Football Player
Sri Lahiri Mahasaya - Guru
Lewis Carroll - Writer
T. E. Lawrence- The Historical Lawrence of Arabia
Front Row
Sonny Liston- Boxer
Shirley Temple (appears three times on the cover)
Albert Einstein - Physicist
The Beatles (John Lennon, Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney and
George Harrison) all appear twice - once as wax models.
Bobby Breen - Musician
Marlene Dietrich - Actress
Diana Dors - Actress
A few additional facts about the Sgt Pepper Album Art:
- Two figures in the cover photo are hairdresser's wax dummies.
- It was the first UK album to have the lyrics printed on the inside cover.
- There was a long running urban legend that the green plants in the photo are cannabis.
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