Linda McCartney

(1941 - 1998)

Born Linda Louise Eastman on 24 September 1941 to Lee and Louise Eastman. Her mother was the daughter of a Cleveland family, the Linders, owner of a department store chain, and her father, the son of Russian immigrants, was a former Harvard Law School graduate turned attorney who specialized in copyright law in the show-business field. Ironically, his family name was Epstein, but he changed it.

Linda was raised in an affluent atmosphere in the family home in Scarsdale, Westchester County, in upstate New York. The Eastman’s also owned a luxurious apartment in Park Avenue and a house in East Hampton. She had an older brother, John, and two younger sisters, Laura and Louise.

One of her father’s clients was songwriter Jack Lawrence and Lee undertook some legal work on his behalf in exchange for his writing a song about his daughter. Lawrence wrote the song about the six-year-old girl called ‘Linda’ in 1947 and it was featured in the film The Story of GI Joe. It was initially a hit for Buddy Clark in 1947 and was also recorded by Perry Como and Charlie Spivak and His Orchestra. The most famous version is that by Jan & Dean. Jimmy Young and Dick James also recorded the number in Britain.

From an early age she became accustomed to the company of celebrities, thanks to the number of famous people who dined at the Eastman homes. They included William (Hopalong Cassidy) Boyd, the abstract artist Robert Rauschenberg, songwriter Hoagy Carmichael and jazzman Tommy Dorsey.

She graduated from Scarsdale High School, but admits: ‘I wasn’t a very good student.’ The High School Yearbook entry described her as ‘a strawberry blonde with a yen for men’ and Linda was to comment: ‘All I cared about were animals, rock music and photography, it was a great disappointment to my family.’ She then enrolled at the exclusive Sarah Lawrence School in Bronxville, followed by Princeton University, where she was studying history and art. Then her world was shattered by the death of her mother in a plane crash. Linda was 18 at the time. Her father was to remarry soon after.

She next moved to the University of Colorado to study art and history and there she met and married fellow student John (also referred to as Bob and Melvyn) See. The marriage seemed to be Linda’s reaction to her mother’s death and she commented: ‘My mother died in a plane crash and I got married. It was a mistake.’ She realized the marriage wouldn’t work and was to say: ‘When he graduated he wanted to go to Africa. I said, “Look, if I don’t get on with you here, I’m not going to Africa with you. I won’t get on with you there.”’

By that time they’d moved to Tucson, Arizona, where Linda gave birth to their daughter, Heather, on 31 December 1963.  See, a geophysicist, had gone to Africa, hoping she would follow him, but she wrote him a letter informing him of her intention to get a divorce. The marriage had lasted for only a year.

By that time Linda had begun to study art history at the University of Arizona. She also attended a course in photography, which was given by Hazel Archer at the Tucson Art Centre and commented: ‘Arizona opened my eyes to the wonder of light and colour.’ Linda bought herself a Pentax camera and she began taking a serious interest in photography.

In 1966 she moved back to New York, where she took a job as receptionist at Town and Country magazine. When an invitation arrived at the office to attend a press launch on a yacht on the Hudson for the Rolling Stones, she intercepted it and caught a cab to the quay. She recalled: ‘I must have caught the band’s eye because a woman came down the gangway and said I was the only photographer they would allow on board. I got well into it, using black and white. Then back on the quay all the journalists came up and gave me their cards because they needed the pictures. I got them back from the lab and, lo!, they were wonderful. After that I started to get a lot of work with bands like the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Lovin’ Spoonful, the Doors, Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead and the Beatles.’

Danny Fields, editor of Datebook, commented: ‘And the pictures she got that day — there were the other pictures, the official pictures of the Stones taken by some professional news photographer, and then there were Linda’s pictures. The Stones were doing things, striking poses, being arrogant and beautiful and fantastic and sexy. They did it, they danced for her camera, and she always had this quality. She took the best portraits of beautiful people of anyone.’

As a result of the Stones shoot, she was able to turn to photography full-time and also had an unpaid, but prestigious appointment as house photographer at the famous Fillmore East rock venue, in addition to receiving photo assignments from groups such as the Beach Boys.

She also met the Beatles for the first time officially at the Shea Stadium in 1966 and was to comment: ‘It was John who interested me at the start. He was my Beatle hero. But when I met him the fascination faded fast and I found it was Paul I liked.’

Seeking work in England, Linda sent a portfolio of her photos to Peter Brown at Apple. He was particularly struck by a photo of Brian Jones, which he liked. He said: ‘I sent the portfolio back and told her, “You’ll find one picture missing.”’

In 1967 writer J. Marks, who needed photos of big-name groups for a projected book Rock and Other Four-Letter Words, invited Linda to London. During her trip she was taken on 15 May to the Bag o’ Nails club at 9 Kingly Street by Chas. Chandler, to see Georgie Fame & the Blue Flames perform.

Paul was at the club with Peter Brown and recalled: ‘I saw this blonde across the room and I fancied her. So when she passed my table I said something stupid like, “Hello, how are you? Let me take you away from all this.”’

Linda commented: ‘It was like a cartoon. It sounds silly, but our eyes met and something just clicked.’

They were introduced, began chatting together and Paul took her to another club, the Speakeasy, but they got separated as Paul began to talk to members of the Who.

As Brian Epstein had been undergoing treatment for his drug dependency, Brown arranged the invitations for a select group of journalists and broadcasters to attend a special preview of Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band at Brian’s house at 24 Chapel Street on 19 May. Remembering he owed Linda a favour for the Brian Jones photograph, he invited her along.

During the party Paul sat in a chair by the fireplace and Linda took rolls of film of him sitting there. She returned to America, but was to meet Paul exactly a year later when he and John flew to the States to appear on The Tonight Show on 15 May to publicize Apple. At an early press conference she slipped him a note with her phone number on it and he called her and asked her to meet him at lawyer Nat Weiss’s apartment.

They spent the next few days together and Paul even baby-sat for Heather while Linda photographed groups at the Fillmore East in the evenings. Paul, always the family man at heart, was enchanted with Heather and after he’d returned to London Linda sent him a poster-sized blow-up of Paul with his arms around her four-year-old daughter.

He was back in America in June, travelling to Los Angeles with Ron Kass to attend a convention of Capitol Records’ executives. Linda paid for a flight to LA and they spent a few days together. She returned to New York with Paul, Kass and party and once he’d returned to London she phoned him and wrote letters to him regularly. When Paul’s five-year-romance with Jane Asher ended because of his dalliance with Francie Schwartz, he contacted Linda. He says: ‘I persuaded Linda to come to London for a visit.’ After some weeks they both began to miss Heather and Paul said: ‘I rang Heather in New York and said, “Heather, will you marry me?” She was five. “No, don’t be silly,” she said, “I’m too young.” “Well I can’t wait,” I said. So we went to New York and brought her back to London to live with us.’

In February 1969, doctors confirmed that Linda was pregnant and the couple decided to get married, going to Marylebone Register Office on 11 March to book their wedding for 9.45 a.m. the next day. At the time Paul was busy recording Jackie Lomax and forgot to buy a wedding ring, so he had to persuade a local jeweller to reopen his shop. He bought a plain gold ring for £12. The next morning the wedding had to be held up when Mike McCartney, the best man, arrived an hour late because his train from Liverpool had been delayed. Fortunately, no other weddings were booked that morning and the ceremony went ahead with Heather as bridesmaid and Peter Brown and Mal Evans as witnesses. None of the other members of the Beatles attended the ceremony as Paul had already begun litigation to dissolve the group.

The ceremony was conducted by registrar Mr. E. R. Sanders. Afterwards, the marriage was blessed at the Anglican Church in St John’s Wood by the Reverend Noel Perry-Gore. By this time, Linda’s father and brother represented Paul. John Eastman was a graduate of Stanford and NYU Law School and joined his father’s firm in New York. When Paul asked Lee for advice on how to sort out the financial mess at Apple Corps, Eastman recommended John.

John flew to London and met the Beatles. John, George and Ringo were considering hiring Allen Klein, but decided they could also hire Eastman, if only to placate Paul, and he was hired as general counsel. The first thing he suggested was that the Beatles buy NEMS. He started negotiations, but they fell through and the company was sold to Triumph Investments. Eastman blamed Klein and Klein blamed Eastman. The Beatles would have been satisfied retaining both men to look after their interests, but it was obvious that the two couldn’t work together, so Eastman was in the McCartney camp and Klein with Len-non, Harrison and Starr.

Paul’s ties with Eastman became stronger when he married Linda and John became his brother-in-law. Paul refused to sign with Klein and retained Eastman as his representative. It was Eastman who advised him that he had no choice but to file writs against John, George, Ringo and Apple in order to dissolve the Beatles partnership. After the wedding Paul formally adopted Heather and also composed the song ‘The Lovely Linda’.

An interesting incident had taken place the previous year, before Paul had finally parted with Jane Asher. He’d visited a clairvoyant in Brighton who had told him that he would marry a blonde and have four children. The couple had three more children: Mary, Stella and James Louis.

After the Beatles’ partnership had been dissolved, Paul formed Wings, insisted that Linda be a part of the band and taught her to play keyboards She also recorded in her own right, using the alias Susie & the Red Stripes for her single, ‘Seaside Woman’. Linda’s personal achievements were to be considerable. She established herself as a leading photographer, with several books of her work and exhibitions in various countries around the world. Together with Paul she appeared in a cameo role in the popular TV series Bread, set in Liverpool. It was scripted by Linda’s friend, Carla Lane. She also wrote a best-selling book based on her vegetarian recipes and has a range of vegetarian foods stocked in major supermarkets on both sides of the Atlantic.

On 30 July 1991, her father died of a stroke in New York. He was 81 years old. It was Lee who advised Paul on investing in music-publishing copyrights, with the result that Paul’s MPL publishing company, with over 1,000 major copyrights, including many standards, together with a range of popular musicals, is the largest independent music publisher in the world.

Linda was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1995, and died at the age of 56 on April 17, 1998 at the McCartney family ranch in Tucson, Arizona. She left her entire estate to her husband through a Qualified Domestic Trust Fund

Copyright: Bill Harry, from 'The Beatles Encyclopedia', published by Virgin Publications.