Solicitor
Born: August 20, 1925;
Died: June 26, 2017
REX MAKIN, who has died aged 91, was a solicitor who came to embody his home city of Liverpool, not least for his small but enduring place in Beatles lore as the lawyer of the band’s manager Brian Epstein. He was also one of a number of claimants to being the inventor of the term “Beatlemania”.
He was a freeman of the city of Liverpool, an honorary professor at Liverpool John Moores University and – indulging a long-held ambition later in life – a columnist for the Liverpool Echo for 23 years.
His list of professional clients and friends was a roll call of Liverpool’s most famous, and included John Lennon, Sir Ken Dodd, the singer Gerry Marsden, the writer Carla Lane and the famous Liverpool FC manager Bill Shankly. He also acted for many of those involved in the Heysel and Hillsborough tragedies and proved the innocence of labourer George Kelly – who had been hanged for a double murder in 1950 – on behalf of his family.
His reputation was as a man who could be prickly and aggressively strong-willed, yet in his working practice he liked to take the side of the underdog. He didn’t just have celebrities in his wide circle of professional acquaintances, but reportedly also a roster of city officials, police and criminals.
His young ambition was to be a journalist and to move into newspaper management, but he had to wait until the age of 68 for the Echo to run his first weekly column. Originally entitled “Makin His Point”, it continued until his
death and was loved and hated by readers for its extremely forthright nature.
Elkan Rex Makin was born in Birkenhead in 1925, the only child of Joe and May Makin. He moved to Liverpool at the age of three, and studied at Liverpool College and the
John Bright School, Llandudno, before taking law at Liverpool University. His father insisted he have a profession, so he agreed that as a solicitor he was at least likely to make good and steady money. He founded his own legal firm, E. Rex Makin & Co, in 1949 at the age of 24.
In 1957 Makin married Shirley, and the couple moved into 199 Queen’s Drive in the affluent south Liverpool suburb of Childwall. Harry and Queenie Epstein lived next door at number 197, although their eldest son Brian, nine years Makin’s junior, was in London studying at RADA.
Makin handled the legal affairs of the Epstein family business, which included furniture, appliance and musical sales, and he grew to know Brian more after Epstein was put in charge of two stores by his father.
It was after he first saw the Beatles at the Cavern that Epstein told Makin he had discovered a band thart would conquer the world. “I thought it was baloney, just another pipe dream of his,” said Makin later.
Epstein famously asked Makin whether he could sign the group to an unbreakable permanent contract; the lawyer told him he should instead buy a standard contract template from a stationary store and that he would look it over for him.
In 1967, after Epstein’s faith had been vindicated and the Beatles had become the biggest group in the world, the band’s young manager died of an accidental overdose in London. Makin was on hand to attend to Epstein’s affairs.
Makin worked into his 70s, and kept writing until his death, despite a growing list of physical ailments. “If I retired I would die of boredom,” he said.
He is survived by his wife Shirley and children Robin and Susan.
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