Maureen Cox
 Maureen Cox…she was the one…the incredibly lucky one…an Apple Scruff, before their time…the one Beatle fan who not only got herself into the Beatles inner circle but married one of them as well….Cynthia Lennon was smart and John’s childhood sweetheart…Pattie Boyd was a model and part time actress…Linda McCartney was a big time Rock photographer for Rolling Stone Magazine but Maureen Cox was just another one of the thousands of girls in Liverpool who were Beatles fans and wanted to be with a Beatles, and she got her wish, TWICE (read further down for that revelation).
She met Ringo in 1962, at the age of 16, while she was an assistant hairdresser in Liverpool. She saw him on the street and chased him down to get his autograph. On the spot he asked her out….to come see the band to play at the Cavern. Like Ringo, her dream was to own her own Beauty salon. There was a time period where EMI chose to hide their relationship, and in publicity pictures she was listed as an EMI secretary and Ringo’s personal assistant. She never called him Ringo saying “Ringo just seems funny…his name is Richie.”
 They were married 3 years later on 2/11/65 at Claxton Hall Registry. At the wedding were: Brian Epstein who was the best man, John and Cynthia Lennon and George Harrison. During their 10 year marriage, they had 3 children Zak (currently the drummer for The Who), Jason and Lee.
Maureen and Ringo’s marriage began to fall apart over the five years following the Beatles' breakup in 1970. Ringo's infidelities were increasing, his alcoholism becoming more of a problem. To make matters worse, Pattie Harrison found out about George and Maureen's ongoing affair and proceeded to tell Ringo, which made him furious. One night when the Starkeys were visiting George and Pattie, George told Ringo how much he loved Maureen. Rumors have persisted that this fateful evening led to the breakup of both their marriages. It certainly gave Pattie another reason to listen to the words that Eric Clapton was saying to her and writing in his music.
A friend of Maureen’s noted that: "Ringo never lost that place in his heart for Maureen. He'd only lost that person that fell in love with her."
Ringo was reported to have been “devastated” by the death of his ex-wife Maureen Cox Tigrett (she later married Isaac Tigrett, the founder of Hard Rock Café and House of Blues) who died on December 30, 1994 in America, after complications following a bone marrow transplant.
Maureen, who lived in Beverly Hills, California, had been suffering from leukemia for some time, and was being treated with chemotherapy at a hospital in Seattle, Washington. As her condition worsened towards the end of the year, doctors advised her that a transplant was the only option left open to them. The donor was Zak, Ringo and Maureen’s eldest son, but the operation was not a success. A friend of hers said to the press "She took a part of Ringo with her when she died last week. There was so much of Ringo that he had lost over the years which only Maureen held in her heart."
Paul McCartney wrote the song "Little Willow" (scroll down for the touching story of this song), which appears on his 1997 album Flaming Pie, as a tribute to her memory, and he dedicated it to her children. Ringo penned “Cryin” in 1976 for her and “Sometimes” for her in 1978 (scroll down for the lyrics to both songs).
In Maureen’s Words: On the girls at the Cavern Club:
"The girls used to hang around the Cavern all day long, just on the off chance of seeing them (the Beatles). They'd come out of the lunchtime session and just stand outside all afternoon, queuing up for the evening.... The object was to get as near the front row as possible, so that they could see the Beatles, and be seen. I never joined the queue till about two or three hours before the Cavern opened. It frightened me. There would be fights and rows among the girls. When the doors opened the first ones would tear in, knocking each other over. Then when it got near the time for the Beatles to come on, if there was a gang of four say, they would go off in turns to the lavatory with their little cases to get changed and made up. So when the Beatles came on they'd look smashing, as if they'd just arrived...They were obviously dying to be noticed and get to know one of them. But no, it was really just everything about being there. It was terrible, the mad screams when they came on...."
Maureen's life became regularly threatened when some of the fans figured out that she was dating Ringo.
Here she is reliving that terrifying story:
“They were playing at the Locarno once. Just before they'd finished, Ritchie told me to go outside and sit in the car and wait for him so no one would see me. I was sitting in the car when this girl came up. She must have followed me. She said "Are ou going out with Ringo?" I said no, oh no, not me. He's just a friend of my brother's. "Liar," she said, "I just saw you talking to him." I'd forgotten to wind the window up. Before I could do anything she had her hand through the window and scratched me down my face. She started screaming and shouting some very select language at me. I thought this is it. I'm going to get stabbed. But I just got the window up in time. If I hadn't she would have opened the door and killed me.”
Maureen Cox on Answering Her Husband’s Fan Mail:
I like answering the letters. I've been doing it for five years now. I get some lovely replies back from the parents. I do get behind sometimes. When I was having Jason I got behind for a few weeks and had three shopping bags full of them. I don't do it just because people are polite. I know that if I liked someone enough to write a nice letter to them I would like some sort of reply. I've had letters from fans saying this is their fifteenth letter. They must feel awful. What they've been doing is writing to the office. The office gets thousands and just can't cope. Not that I want any more sent to me than I get now, thank you.
Cynthia Lennon’s Words on Ringo and Maureen:
“Although whilst in London he gallivanted around with one of the prominent models of her time, Vicky Hodge, when Maureen arrived in London, the smoke screen came down and Ringo and Maureen behaved like two little love birds. The beautiful occasional birds disappeared from view and Ringo got on with the serious business of courting his true love.
I loved Maureen, she was down to earth, honest, and if she had known of Ringo's infidelities while she was in Liverpool, I wouldn't have reckoned much to the chances of the girl or girls in question if she had found out. She was madly in love with Ringo and would have fought tooth and nail with anyone who had the nerve to try and take him from her. Ringo knew this, of course, and must have been a panic many times in case of indiscreet gossip or thwarted lady friends telling all. As it happened, Ringo was lucky enough to get away with it in the face of incredible odds and loyal friends.”
More from Cynthia Lennon:
“Maureen was really incredible with Ringo, especially when the boys were recording until the early hours of the morning. Instead of going to bed she would wait up until he came home and serve him a wonderful roast dinner, even if it happened to be five in the morning. I, on the other hand, would spend all morning trying to keep the house quiet in order that John could sleep until the usual two o'clock in the afternoon. I would then creep upstairs and serve him breakfast in bed with tea and the newspapers. They really were cossetted at home.”
Paul McCartney on Little Willow:
I wrote "Little Willow" before we knew anything about Linda's diagnosis, and there was a terrible moment when we were listening to it. It always used to make us cry anyway, but once Linda was diagnosed it was terrible, because we looked at each other and she said, "Oh God, it's about me now." And it was horrible, it was a very sad moment. But you know, none of us get out of this alive, and you have got to look at it philosophically. As I said at the New York memorial service, we shouldn't judge a life by its length. You could have people who live forever and be complete idiots. You can have people who live just a few special years and it's quite often the case that people get what they have to say said, and then they find that they don't live that long. And I certainly think in many ways that was Linda's thing. Except you know, it's horrible for me 'cause she was my best friend. And for the kids, because they were her best friends, too. So it's tragic from that point of view.
Little Willow (c)1997
by Paul McCartney
Bend, little willow
Wind's gonna blow you
Hard and cold tonight
Life, as it happens
Nobody warns you
Willow, hold on tight
Nothing's gonna shake your love
Take your love away
No one's out to break your heart
It only seems that way. Hey
Sleep, little willow
Peace gonna follow
Time will heal your wounds
Grow to the heavens
Now and forever
Always came too soon
Little willow
Nothing's gonna shake your love
Take your love away
No one's out to break your heart
It only seems that way. Hey
Bend, little willow
Wind's gonna blow you
Hard and cold tonight
Life, as it happens
Nobody warns you
Willow, hold on tight
Ah, little willow
Little willow
More from Paul McCartney on “Little Willow”:
And I just thought "Well, it would be nice to do a song with this mood. Convey this mood. But also for the kids. So that I could kind of somehow convey how much I thought of her you know. So that was it and I came up with Little Willow. So it's one of my favorites because of that."
Cryin' (c)1976
by Poncia-[Richard]Starkey
I tried my best to get things over,
I did everything I could do.
I didn't really mean to hurt you,
But you must have realized we were through.
Now don't it make you feel like cryin',
Watchin' a good love slowly die.
You and me could spend a lifetime tryin'
But we'd be better off just to simply say goodbye.
Just like two fools we couldn't make it.
The movie just went on too long.
I've been 'round and you've been through it,
But now I know we're getting strong.
But don't it make you feel like cryin',
Watchin' a good love slowly die.
You and me could spend a lifetime tryin'
But we'd be better off just to simply say goodbye.
It's time we burned our old love letters
And started out on a brand new life.
Now no-one else can come between us
'cause I'm not your man and you're not my wife.
Still it makes me feel like cryin',
Watchin' a good love slowly die.
You and me could spend a lifetime tryin'
But we'd be better off just to simply say goodbye.
Sometimes (c)1998
by [Richard]Starkey-Hudson-Gracal-Dudas
Sometimes I roam, sometimes I fly
Sometimes I walk around with my head up in the sky.
I didn't really mean to hurt you,
You must have realized we were through.
Sometimes I'm up, sometimes I'm down,
Sometimes I was happy just having you around.
I didn't really mean to hurt you,
You must have realized we were through.
It's easier said than done,
I know I'm not the only one
For you, and I must say it hurts me too
Sometimes I'm big, sometimes I'm small,
Sometimes I think we lost the fun of it all.
I'll remember all the good times,
I hope that you remember too,
Remember too, that I loved you
Beatles Wives and Girlfriends
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