Today is also the 35th anniversary of the release of the album
"McCartney" in the UK. Quite a strange coincedence considering that
most of the songs on the album were written about Linda.
--- In beatlescentralclub@yahoogroups.com, rachel_rabbit2001
<no_reply@y...> wrote:
>
> April 17 will be the 7th anniversary of her passing. She was only 56
> when she died.
>
> (www.beatlesnumber9.com)
> When Linda McCartney married Paul, she also married his fame and the
> resentment of thousands of weepy, love sick girls. Linda was again in
> the unwanted spotlight during the Wings years, and this time the media
> had even more fodder for the fire—she was an amateur singer and
> musician, and perhaps hardly even that. It's only in recent years that
> she has been acknowledged for being an excellent photographer, artist,
> animal rights activist, businesswoman and cook, all in her own right.
>
> Linda Eastman was born on September 24, 1941 to an upper middle class
> family, and raised in Scarsdale, New York. Oddly enough, Yoko Ono also
> lived in Scarsdale, sometime after she had first moved to New York,
> but only for a short time.
>
> Linda's father was an entertainment lawyer. Linda seemed to have a
> happy enough childhood; high school classmates remember her as a
> spirited, smiley girl. Her mother died in a plane crash when she was
> nineteen, and she retreated to Vermont, then Arizona for a college
> education.
>
> At the University of Arizona she majored in art history and picked up
> a predilection for photography. While in Arizona she also picked up a
> husband, the father of her daughter Heather. Linda's first rushed
> marriage is often described as something Linda entered into under the
> influence of grief, after her mother died.
>
> After college she moved back to New York, and got a job as a
> receptionist at Town and Country magazine. Linda's big photography
> break was a chance opportunity to photograph the Rolling Stones on a
> yacht. She grabbed her camera, snapped her pictures and suddenly her
> pictures were in high demand.
>
> Linda was naturally a good photographer. She watched people with eager
> eyes, and took the photo when it was the right moment. Her pictures
> created a scene or established a character, and were often considered
> beautiful, sometimes moody and gritty.
>
> Linda's photography skills made her a member of the music scene. She
> captured The Doors, The Who, Jimi Hendrix, Simon and Garfunkel, Bob
> Dylan, Otis Redding, Janis Joplin, and eventually the Beatles. She
> became a Rolling Stone magazine photographer.
>
> Linda is said to have had many amorous relationships with the
> musicians she photographed. Most notorious, was her relationship with
> Jimi Hendrix. In the first interview Paul gave after Linda had passed
> away, he was asked about his past rendezvous in relation to Linda's
> rendezvous. Paul thought that Linda and him had about the same
> experience, though is doubtful that Linda could have ever caught up to
> Paul.
>
> She met Paul for the first time in England at a music club called The
> Bag O' Nails. Paul noticed her almost immediately. That same year she
> took the famous Sergeant Pepper pictures, the ones with Paul and John
> shaking hands in an overly exaggerated way. The first picture of Paul
> and Linda together was snapped during this photo shoot.
>
> A "dirty weekend," as Linda referred to it, was next, and also
> included discussions of books, philosophies, passions. It wasn't long
> before Paul was completely smitten. He asked Linda and Heather to live
> with him in London, and Linda accepted. Sometime during their
> courtship Linda told a friend that she wasn't quite sure about Paul,
> she thought she didn't really have a chance at a serious relationship
> with such a playboy and celebrity. But Paul always knew Linda was
> special—she always returned to his thoughts.
>
> In 1969, Paul and Linda married and George and Patti Boyd were
> arrested for possession of marijuana the same day. John and Yoko
> married within two weeks of Paul and Linda.
>
> During the infamous Beatles money disputes, Paul wanted Linda's father
> to handle their money. The other three Beatles were decidedly against
> involving family members, and any other people close to them. It is
> also rumored that the rest of the Beatles didn't necessarily trust
> Linda and her intentions. Same went for Yoko when she first appeared
> on the scene (and oftentimes after too).
>
> When Paul and Linda married, Linda was about four or five months
> pregnant with their first daughter Mary. Mary was born around the time
> of the Beatles breakup, and Paul has said that was the first time he
> ever saw magic.
>
> When Paul's first solo album came out, he decided that he would be the
> first to announce the breakup. Almost half of this album is about, or
> dedicated to, Linda ("La La La, La La La, the Lovely Linda).
>
> Distraught and stricken over the breakup, Paul hid away with Linda at
> his remote farm in Scotland for a while. Their second daughter Stella
> was born within two years of Mary, and along with her birth, and a
> hard labor for Linda, came Wings. Paul wanted to be with Linda and the
> family, and Linda wanted to be with Paul and the family, so Linda
> joined the band. Her voice and musical talents were derided, but she
> did eventually improve on the piano. Her voice was inconsistent, but
> sweet, and sometimes even nearly beautiful.
>
> Amidst all this, Linda and Paul decided to become vegetarians. One
> day, they looked out the window at the lambs they were raising, and
> the lamb on their plates, and decided to give up meat.
>
> Linda and Paul became big animal rights activists. Linda also enjoyed
> cooking, and she wanted to share her food with others, so she wrote a
> cook book and started a frozen food line. She made millions, and Paul
> often joked that her frozen food line was taking in more money than
> the Beatles ever did.
>
> Wings had several different members, and lasted until about 1980, when
> Paul was busted for marijuana in Japan. His ten day stay in the prison
> would be the longest that Paul and Linda had ever been, and ever was,
> separated. Paul is often quoted as saying that in their 29 year
> marriage, they were only separated one night—excluding the prison
> incident. Of course, this was not the only time that Linda and Paul
> had been caught in possession of marijuana.
>
> In the early `70s the McCartney's earned an Academy Award nomination
> for the theme of the James Bond Film, "Live and Let Die." In the late
> `70s they had their last child, a boy named James.
>
> From there, Linda continued to have hearty meals and lots of family
> time. And she always took pictures. Over the years she acquired many
> pictures, which eventually turned into a retrospective `60s photo book.
>
> In December of 1995, Linda was diagnosed with breast cancer. In 1996
> she received the Lifetime Achievement Award from PETA for her
> animal-rights work.
>
> By 1997, she was in remission, but it wasn't long before the cancer
> came back, and headed towards her liver. She died on April 19, 1998 in
> her Arizona home, with her family by her side.
>
> Paul pledged to carry on with his late wife's animal rights and
> vegetarian campaigns. He has stuck to his word, though he is now a bit
> more vocal about land mines because this is his second's wife passion.
>
> Today people remember Linda as a loving person, photographer, mother
> and wife. Sometimes, they even drop and ignore her last name.