With the possible exception of Alexis Mardas, who occupied a far less central role, nobody in the Beatles' milieu has received a more damning verdict from historians than Allen Klein. He was, one said, "a tough little scorpion"; for another, "fast-talking, dirty-mouthed … sloppily dressed and grossly overweight"; again, "short and fat, beady-eyed and greasily pompadoured". Beatles aide Alistair Taylor said, "He had all the charm of a broken lavatory seat" ... So consistent was the vilification that when biographer Philip Norman merely described Klein as "a tubby little man", it sounded like a compliment.