Linda McCartney Biography

Linda Louise McCartney (née Eastman,  September 24, 1941 – April 17, 1998) was an American photographer, musician and animal rights activist. Her mother and father were Lee Eastman and Louise Sara Lindner Eastman, heiress to the Lindner Department Store fortune. Despite rumours to the contrary she is not related to the Eastman’s of Eastman/Kodak.

She married Paul McCartney of The Beatles on March 12, 1969, and was a member of Wings. The McCartneys had four children together: Heather Louise (from her previous marriage, whom Paul McCartney adopted in 1969), Mary Anna, Stella and James Louis. Linda became Lady McCartney when her husband was knighted in 1997.

Linda McCartney, one of the classiest women in the Beatle entourage, wrote several vegetarian cookbooks, became a business entrepreneur (starting the Linda McCartney Foods company) and was a professional photographer, publishing Linda McCartney's Sixties: Portrait of an Era. McCartney was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1995, and died at the age of 56 on 17 April 1998 at the McCartney family ranch in Tucson, Arizona. She left her entire estate to her husband through what is known as a Qualified Domestic Trust Fund, which allows deferral of estate taxes due on her assets until after her husband's death.

On May 15, 1967, the then Linda Eastman met Paul McCartney at a Georgie Fame concert at the Bag O'Nails club in London. She was in the UK on an assignment to take photographs of "Swinging Sixties" musicians in London. The two later went to the Speakeasy club on Margaret Street to see Procol Harum. They met again four days later at the launch party for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band  at Brian Epstein's house in Belgravia. When her assignment was completed, she flew back to New York City. In May 1968, they met again in New York, as John Lennon and Paul McCartney were there to announce the formation of Apple Corps. In September of the same year, he phoned her and asked her to fly over to London. They were married six months later at a small civil ceremony (when she was four months pregnant with their daughter Mary) at Marylebone Registry Office on March 12, 1969.

After giving birth to Mary McCartney (born in London on August 28, 1969) Stella McCartney (born September 13, 1971) and James McCartney (born on September 13, 1977 in London) she said that four children was enough (meaning her first daughter Heather as well).

Her brother, entertainment lawyer John Eastman, has represented Paul McCartney since the break-up of The Beatles. McCartney now has six grandchildren, all of whom were born after her death: Mary's three sons Arthur Alistair Donald (born April 3, 1999), Elliot Donald (born August 1, 2002), and Sam Aboud (born August 11, 2008), and Stella's children, Miller Alasdhair James Willis (born February  25, 2005), daughter Bailey Linda Olwyn Willis (born December 8, 2006), and Beckett Robert Lee Willis (born January 8, 2008).

She made an uncredited vocal contribution to The Beatles' title song of Let It Be in January 1969. After the breakup of The Beatles in 1970, her husband taught her to play keyboards, and permanently included her in the lineup for his new group Wings. The group garnered several Grammy Awards, becoming one of the most successful bands of the 1970s, but had to endure jibes like, "What do you call a cow with wings? Linda McCartney." Linda later admitted that the early accusations about her singing out of tune in the early days with Wings were true.

In 1977, a single entitled "Seaside Woman" was released by an obscure band called Suzy and the Red Stripes, on Epic Records in the United States. In reality, Suzy and The Red Stripes were Wings, with Linda McCartney (who also wrote the song) on lead vocals. The song was recorded by Wings in 1972, in response to a lawsuit by ATV (which owned The Beatles' Northern Songs catalogue) about Paul McCartney's practice of granting his wife co-writing credit on his songs, which had the effect of transferring a share of the publishing royalties to his own MPL Communications company. The lawsuit was settled out of court.

McCartney and her husband shared an Oscar nomination for the song "Live and Let Die," which they co-wrote. Linda McCartney's album Wide Prairie, which included "Seaside Woman," was released posthumously in 1998. Paul McCartney worked with the help of The Beatles' engineer, Geoff Emerick, to finish the album. Along with eight other British composers, he contributed to the choral album A Garland for Linda, and dedicated his classical album, Ecce Cor Meum, to his late wife.
Linda McCartney inspired Paul to write “Lovely Linda”.

Linda McCartney - In Her Own Words

Linda in a 1984 Playboy interview on John and Paul’s relationship:

LINDA: "The sad thing is that John and Paul both had problems and they loved each other and, boy, could they have helped each other! If they had only communicated! It frustrates me to no end, because I was just some chick from New York when I walked into all of that. God, if I'd known what I know now... All I could do was sit there watching them play these games."

PLAYBOY: "But wasn't it clear that John wanted only to work with Yoko?"

LINDA: "No. I know that Paul was desperate to write with John again. And I know John was desperate to write. Desperate. People thought, well, he's taking care of Sean, he's a househusband and all that, but he wasn't happy. He couldn't write and it drove him crazy. And Paul could have helped him... easily."

Paul's Wide Prairie Interview

Paul McCartney reveals the story of the private courage, tears and anger that lay behind the making of his late wife Linda's solo album, Wide Prairie, in an interview published in USA Weekend, conducted by the McCartneys' close friend, Pretenders' frontwoman Chrissie Hynde.

Paul tells Chrissie how, despite a 2 1/2 year fight against breast cancer, Linda showed tremendous bravery by working on the album up until the last weeks of her life. Obviously very moved by the interview herself, Chrissie said, "The legacy of Paul's music and the Beatles is one thing, but I think his real legacy is this love story he had with Linda." Although Linda first composed some of the songs on the 16-track album in the early seventies, it was not until March this year that Linda, who died in April, finally completed the recordings.

Paul tells Chrissie, "Before we went out to Arizona, about a month before she died, we were putting the finishing touches on the album. We were going to work on promotion now, this time of year, and instead of me doing this interview she was going to be doing it. It is an album she was very proud of. But when she died, I thought I've just got to fulfill that plan."

Paul also revealed his trauma when, after Linda's death, he had to return to their private recording studio to mix and produce Wide Prairie. It was from these sessions that the USA Weekend McCartney cover story title, "Tears and Laughter" originates.

Paul explains: "A couple of months after she died I managed to get myself into the studio to finish up the album, because that was very much what Linda wanted. I called up my old friend Geoff Emerick, the Beatles' engineer, and he came over. Geoff had lost his wife to cancer too, so the pair of us were just crying on the console at times. But then we'd listen to Linda's spirit and fun coming through the songs and we'd laugh and remember how funny she was.

We called the mixing sessions the 'tears and laughter sessions' because although at times it was very moving to do, it was also very uplifting." Paul also told of the emotional impact the songs on Wide Prairie have had on him and his friends. "The song 'Cow,' which is about a cow in its last day grazing in a field before it is sent off to the slaughterhouse, is a pretty tough song. Linda played it to friends of ours and they just cried and went vegetarian the very next day as a result of this song." "It is a powerful song and I cry too when I hear it. But it's typical of Linda, she wanted to get the animals' message over because it's so poignant." Linda was not without her critics and McCartney discusses the anger that lay behind two of the songs on the album, "The Light Comes From Within" and "I Got Up," which focus on those who mocked Linda's campaigns for vegetarianism and the love of animals.

Paul reveals that even though Linda did not hold grudges, she did vent her emotions through these two songs, on which she shockingly swears. "The Light Comes From Within" was the very last song she ever recorded and is Linda answering her critics. Paul said that when it came time to record the song, even he was surprised by Linda's outspoken lyrics. "When it came time to record her vocal I said 'these lyrics are a bit strong, are you sure you're going to be able to record this?' She said 'Yeah, watch me.' She went into the studio and did it in one take. I thought, 'Well, there you go babe,' that's my baby, that's fairly uncompromising. Linda hated compromise. If she wanted to say it, she'd say it and she didn't figure anyone had the right to tell her not to." "And that was the last song she sang, so she literally had the last word on this one."

Linda McCartney was an established professional photographer when she met Paul McCartney. I've dispalyed a sampling of her work here.

Check out Linda McCartney's amazing collection of books here.

Beatles Wives and Girlfriends

• Cynthia Lennon
• Maureen Cox
• Pattie Boyd (Harrison Clapton)
• Linda McCartney (Eastman)
• Jane Asher
• Yoko Ono
• May Pang
• Olivia Harrison
• Barbara Bach