In a photograph in the new biography of the Beatles, "Tune In" by historian Mark Lewisohn, John Lennon stands in a Hamburg street in his underwear in the middle of the night, reading a copy of the Daily Express dated October 1960.

"One of the things he read in that paper was that when Eddie Fisher stayed with Elizabeth Taylor when she was in the London Clinic, he slept on the floor in the same room," Mr. Lewisohn said in an interview. "And in 1970, John did the exact same thing with Yoko, in the London...