It made for a nice picture, but a less-than-nice story.
Here’s an excerpt from Muhammad Ali: Through the Eyes of the World describing the meeting:
Cassius Clay and The Beatles climbed into the ring and, as if they just hadn’t met each other, they went through what seemed like a total choreographed routine. There are wonderful photographs of this, in which he pretends to hit the first Beatle and they all fall down like dominoes and scamper about the ring. Then they go off to their history and he goes off to his. Then, a few minutes later, he called me over and said, “So who were those little [anti-gay slur beginning with “f”]?”
