“Got My Mind Set on You” [1987]: a “Girl in the Video” update

How could something Beatles-related be completely—truly completely—undocumented? 

Welcome to the madcap step-by-step on how I finally found a person who appeared in one music video more than 30 years ago and has virtually no digital footprint.

Got my mind set on you indeed!

In 2013 and 2014, I ran a series called “Girl in the Video” for which I tracked down and interviewed 50 women who appeared in 42 iconic music videos of the 1980s and early 1990s. 

Some were deep in the shadows. Most had not been interviewed about this before. Some of their stories were amusing. Others were moving. 

Though I was thrilled with the people I found and the number who participated, some declined—or eluded me.

TEN YEARS LATER…

10/7/24

I received a message on Facebook from a person who determined possible identifications for the lead woman of two videos: “Should’ve Known Better” by Richard Marx and “Shake Me” by Cinderella. [I am aware that you can’t accurately call that song or video iconic; it’s just one I remembered, and I am steering this Starship.]

He did this by using a facial recognition site called PimEyes. Like plenty online, it can be used for purposes both legitimate [like research for a writing project] and unscrupulous.

The Marx woman did not check out and I’m still waiting to hear back from the Cinderella one. 

This launched a related mission that would play out over five days.

I used the site to check some of the other women on my “where can I find a woman like that” list.

Only one ended in success—up to a point. 

George Harrison released two videos for “Got My Mind Set on You” [1987], his third and last #1 hit and his last song to crack the top 10 in the U.S. The one that got more airplay on MTV features George playing guitar in a room where inanimate objects moved along with the song. The other video is a girl meets boy scene that takes place in an arcade. 

It was the lead girl in the arcade video whom I’d tried to find in 2013. 

I thought my best lead would be the boy from that video, actor Alexis Denisof [Buffy the Vampire Slayer]. He kindly replied to me on Twitter. Unfortunately, he did not remember her name, which I can understand given the short shoot and time passed. 

Upon plugging a screenshot of the girl’s face into PimEyes, I was directed to a 2022 message board thread about her.

In that thread, a woman posted that she attended the same UK school as the video star, and remembered her name was Sarah. She also remembered that Sarah won a 1986 model contest for a British magazine called Just Seventeen—and she bought a copy of that issue so she could come back and report her last name: REDACTED.

In the UK, many people have the name Sarah REDACTED.

Still, I searched that name with the artist and song title. No luck.

I searched that name with the magazine name and found nothing.

That thread seems to be the only page on the entire internet linking that girl to that video and to that model contest.

On Facebook and Instagram, I did not see someone with that name whom I thought resembled the girl in the video, plus she may have a married/different name now.

I went through an online cover gallery of the magazine. It was a weekly, which initially made me think this was going to be time-consuming, but I soon found a November 1986 issue with Sarah on the cover, announcing her as the winner.

I asked several sources if they could email scans of the article [and masthead], hoping it mentioned details that could focus the search, i.e. city she’s from, name of her parents, etc.

Both a kind eBay seller and a UK university archive did. The eBayer refused my offer to pay him. The university collection is cleverly called Femorabilia.

Alas—and surprisingly—the article had no details about her.

I began tracking down people who worked for Just Seventeen magazine at that time, using both the Facebook page for it and searching for names from the masthead.

It was hard to reach most of them. I’m not connected to any of them on social media and messages sent to strangers on Facebook and Instagram go into “hidden” inboxes that many people don’t know about and therefore never check.

When names were uncommon, I tried to find emails, and occasionally did.

The few who replied did not know anything about Sarah.

10/8/24 

The November issue of Just Seventeen indicated that the contest had been announced in an April issue, so I revisited the cover gallery, found the issue, and again requested scans of it. Obviously Sarah wouldn’t be mentioned in the announcement of a contest she had not yet entered, but perhaps it would include other names I could contact.

It didn’t.

10/9/24

It sunk in that the April and November issues said that readers voted on the models. Therefore, there would be an issue between April and November that lists all the entrants/finalists...and maybe more.

Luckily, revisiting the cover gallery yet again yielded pay dirt because a July cover not only said “You pick the winner” but also showed all 10 finalists.

I requested scans of that interior where, finally, I learned one more piece of valuable info: the city Sarah was from.

However, that was not instantly helpful because, as I said above, her name is common.

After a fruitless search of name + city, I went back to the message board. I knew it was a long shot that the former classmate who posted there about Sarah two years earlier would see let alone reply to a new post, but I asked anyway: what school?

Incredulously—within minutes—she responded with the name.

I asked this person to email me so I would not clog up the message board with my additional questions.

In the meantime, I learned that the school closed years ago. I went back to Facebook to ask groups connected to the school if anyone knows Sarah or knows anyone who might.

You can’t post to certain groups unless you’re a member, and sometimes such groups don’t accept you if you don’t have a direct connection. Sure enough, one of them declined my request.

I searched for articles about the school with the hope that I’d find alum names for whom I could then find contact info.

I tried to find emails for the admins of those Facebook groups, the only members whose names I, a non-member, could see.

I contacted a newspaper archive in Sarah’s hometown, figuring a local model contest winner would have gotten some press and hoping someone would be willing to check, well, most of 1986…obviously a big ask.

10/10/24

The archive suggested posting to a Facebook group for her hometown, which has many more members than the school groups. Also, the archive could research for me for £35 per hour.

While waiting to see if the hometown group would accept me [which it did, after about six hours], I tried another Hail Mary—looking for any of the nine model contest finalists.

I knew they’d all met because they posed for a photo together, but assumed they didn’t learn much about each other that day—or if they did, likely wouldn’t remember it nearly forty years later.

Most of their names were also common. Of the nine, I did a quick search for six. I found that one had spent three years in isolation in Tibet and adopted a Buddhist name:

Rebecca Tisbury, 23, hugs a friend goodbye as she prepares to embark on 3 years of isolation at the Samye Ling Tibetan retreat, November 7. Rebecca, formerly a top fashion model, will emerge from the retreat in February 1997

I found record of another of the finalists, but didn’t pay to access contact info.

I found a third on Facebook and was surprised that she responded quickly [given that my message had gone into that aforementioned hidden inbox]. She did not know about Sarah but kindly said she’d ask around. I thought she meant the “former models” community. 

Minutes later, she sent a link to a Facebook profile I’d seen the day before but had quickly moved on from because that Sarah REDACTED [who was wearing sunglasses] did not immediately seem to resemble 1986 Sarah. But that was before I knew that Sarah was from the city of REDACTED…and this profile says this Sarah is from SAME REDACTED.

I messaged this Sarah, but instead of waiting weeks or more for her to stumble upon it [her last post visible to me was from 2014], I found emails for some of her Facebook friends and emailed them, hoping someone could connect us or pass along my request.

10/11/24 

Under my post on the Facebook page for her hometown, two kindly wrote that they know Sarah and will notify her. A person I emailed said the same.

Then weeks of silence.

11/4/24 

One of those go-betweens told me she was glad to reconnect with Sarah after at least a decade but also reported what already seemed clear: Sarah does not want to be interviewed.

Hugely disappointing.

But also exhilarating to solve at least part of a mystery that lasted five days, and before that 10 years, and before that 26 years. 

Appropriately, it was there all along in the lyrics to “Got My Mind Set on You”:

It’s gonna take time

Whole lot of precious time

It’s gonna take patience and time

Hopefully one day soon Sarah will feel comfortable sharing her memories of that experience.

Visiting Beatles sites in London, England

The Beatles have inspired me to be a day tripper three times to date.

In 1993, as a college student, I went to Europe for the first time and traveled by train to 11 countries; a highlight was a detour to Liverpool, England, to soak up some iconic Beatles hotspots. Some excited me more than the Eiffel Tower.

In 2018, I worked out a customized walking tour of locations associated with the Beatles in Hamburg, Germany (where my wife is from). Each is a short walk from the next.

Recently, I put together a third Beatles tour, this time for London, where the sites are a bit more spread out. I’m sure there are other points of interest I could’ve included, but I focused on seven of the biggies. I was in Londontown for my sister-in-law’s wedding—a whirlwind trip, only two nights—but I built in just enough time to squeeze in this experience. In fact, I went straight from a red-eye flight to a COVID test to the tour, then a quick shower and on to the pre-wedding family dinner.

The tour took about four hours. By day’s end, I’d walked more than 15 miles (but that factors in some walking not related to the Beatles, such as at the airport).

In order of appearance:

Abbey Road

Speaking of walking! 

My first stop was perhaps the mother nature’s son of all Beatles sites, yet also the most unassuming—a crosswalk. Of all the places I went on my tour, I spent the most time here because it’s the trickiest to photograph. In a case like this, a selfie won’t do, though I did take some because I was alone.

aiming camera at the end that the Beatles walked from

aiming camera at the end that the Beatles walked to

standing in the vicinity of where the photographer shot from;

note commemorative plate in pavement

close-up of plate

But you also need to ask a stranger to document your personal re-creation of the famous album cover image—while you both dodge cars. (It’s an active road. Many locals must hate that tourists are disrupting traffic literally all day.) 

Why don’t we do it in the road? 

(AKA almost getting run over to get the shot)

Finding a willing accomplice is actually not that hard because almost everyone or every group making pilgrimage to Abbey Road needs someone else’s help, so there’s a lot of quid photo quo. In the approximately 45 minutes I was there, people were taking turns taking photos the whole time, almost constantly.

At one point, a spirited woman from Israel recruited me and two others to form a foursome of strangers. She even took off her shoes (à la Paul).

I wish I’d known in advance about the Abbey Road Crossing Cam where you can see yourself go through the paces from a different angle. (Unfortunately and unsurprisingly, the footage is archived for only a day and I missed mine.)

Abbey Road Studios is mere steps away, heralded by clever signs on a low brick wall and encouraged graffiti. The low white barrier in front of Abbey Road Studios (seen in the distance) is marked with a John Lennon quotation. (I would have gone with a Beatles lyric.)

7 Cavendish Avenue; Paul McCartney’s house since 1965; 7 minutes by foot from Abbey Road

I thought this was a former address. Only when I was standing in front of the house did I learn that Paul still lives here! 

A shirtless man who was helping to renovate a house across the street told me (in an American accent) that Paul’s front gate is regularly wide open. It was when I arrived, with one security guard there, but before I worked up the nerve to take a photo, he closed it. The guy working on the renovation showed me a video on his phone of Paul waving to him from his front step...then waving for him to stop filming.  

Marylebone Rail Station; when facing the building, the street to the right is Boston Place, where all but Paul ran down to escape a throng of fans at the start of the film A Hard Day’s Night; “Boston Place” is also mentioned in the opening chatter in the take of “Hey Jude” that appears on the Anthology 3 album; 23 minutes from Cavendish

I was not sure of the exact section of the street to photograph because the details of the area have (obviously) changed since the scene was filmed in the early 1960s. Based on the visibility of the building in the background of the shot, I think that the Beatles were running down the far end of Boston Place (meaning the other end of Boston Place from the Marylebone front entrance).

view from the side of Boston Place closer to the station front entrance

20 Manchester Square; building that housed EMI from 1960-1995 and the stairwell seen on the album covers of Please Please Me and the anthologies 1962-1966 and 1967-1970; 16 minutes from Marylebone

As you can see, the building was under construction so I was not able to go inside, but the workers outside told me that it had been reconfigured anyway. (I think they meant prior to the current construction.)

57 Wimpole Street; the house in which Paul and John wrote “I Want to Hold Your Hand”; 7 minutes from Manchester Square

5-6 Argyll Street; former office of Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein and alleged site of interview in which John Lennon said the Beatles were “bigger than Jesus”; today the ground floor is a Five Guys (apropos since Epstein is one of the people considered the “Fifth Beatle”); 14 minutes from Wimpole

Inexplicably, the circular blue heritage sign here (and at Savile Row) is way above eye level.

3 Savile Row; formerly the location of Apple Records and the site of the Beatles final live performance (the famous, impromptu 1969 rooftop concert); 7 minutes from Argyll

If Abbey Road is the crown jewel of Beatles sites, 3 Savile Row—specifically the roof—is the Holy Grail. That’s because it’s not open to the public. Yet I tried in advance to get permission to go up there. 

The building was the headquarters of the Beatles’ record label, Apple. It is currently owned (or rented) by Abercrombie & Fitch, and the ground floor was, until a week before I went there, an A&F store. That store has moved a few blocks away.

It took a while to wend my way through A&F contacts till I reached the correct one: the Health & Safety Manager. He kindly took the time to respond to my request:

“We are not accepting any requests for access to the roof. This policy has been in place since we have taken over this location. The policy is built around our landlord agreements, privacy requests from neighbors, etc. So unfortunately too many elements to list.”

Naturally, I didn’t give up just yet. I tried to appeal to a larger sense of cultural posterity—as well as the basic human desire to feel appreciated. I wrote this:

“The acknowledgements in my books thank many people who at first declined a research request (sometimes multiple times), but eventually said yes, which helped me tell stories no one else was and in some cases helped me change things for the better.”

I then emphasized a writer’s reliance on the good will of strangers and assured him that I’d be quick, quiet, and careful. I also offered to sign a liability waiver and give him free books. 

Alas, access was still denied. At least now I know who to ask when I try again…

“And, in the end, the tour you take is equal to the tour you make.”

Visiting Beatles sites in Liverpool, England

In 12/18, I cobbled together my own Beatles tour of Hamburg, Germany, where they first played outside of the UK.

But I failed to mention that 25 years earlier, on 4/20/93 to be precise, while in college and traveling Europe for the first time, I had already done an ad hoc Beatles tour...of Liverpool, England, where it all started.

 251 Menlove Avenue ("Mendips"), 

where John Lennon lived 1945-1963

 The Cavern Club, 10 Mathew Street; 

the Quarrymen (first band Lennon and McCartney appeared in together)

first performed here in 1957; as the Beatles, they first played here

in 1961 (where future manager Brian Epstein first heard them) 

and last in 1963...with 273 times in between; 

the original closed and was torn down in 1973; 

it was rebuilt (in part from bricks of the original) 

and re-opened in 1985 

(but would go through more closures/reopenings)

 Eleanor Rigby, lonely no more.

 One end of Penny Lane.

 The barbershop mentioned in "Penny Lane."

(Squint to make out the photo I'm looking at.)

Strawberry Field, the children's home on whose grounds 

a young John sometimes played. 

It closed in 2005; in 2019, the grounds opened 

to the public for the first time.

9/28/21 addendum: visiting Beatles sites in London.