PUBLISHED IN THE OTTAWA CITIZEN on Tuesday, April 21, 1998
THE UNKNOWN LINDA
By Nick Krewen
Special To The Citizen
She was known as a photographer, animal rights activist and staunch vegetarian, but LINDA McCARTNEY's lasting legacy may be in a most unlikely role: as the solid pillar support behind her famous Beatle husband, PAUL.
"She was the perfect partner," says ANYA WILSON, a veteran Toronto-based publicist who once worked for McCartney over a two-year period as a record plugger in the '70s.
"I can't think of a more supportive partner. She was willing to do everything she could to support him. I can't think of him having a better partner at all."
"You don't see a lot of couples where they're each other's best friends," adds ALAN LYSAGHt, a Toronto radio interviewer who met and talked with the McCartneys while he was assembling the award-winning radio documentary The Beatles: The Days In Their Life.
"I really got the sense that they really were best friends, and that Paul just wouldn't imagine doing anything without her."
"You've got to look on it as one of the greatest love stories of all time," continues LARRY LeBLANC, Canadian editor of Billboard Magazine, the bible of weekly music industry newspapers.
"It really truly is. They decided to stay together despite everything."
Hmm. Devoted mother of four children -- MARY, STELLA, JAMES and from her first marriage, HEATHER. Lover. Friend. Not exactly the stuff that makes headlines.
In the usually transient world of entertainment, however, a showbiz couple that eschews the spotlight for a more stable family environment is extremely rare. In the case of the McCartneys, it lasted from their marriage in London on March 12, 1969 until Linda's untimely passing from liver cancer last Friday in Santa Barbara.
Except for a ten day spell in a Japanese jail cell when Paul McCartney was busted for marijuana possession, they never spent a day apart -- usually living quietly in a West Sussex farmhouse or another property in Scotland.
"She obviously brought him something that he needed in his life," says LeBlanc.
"If you look at McCartney's history, family has always been very important to him. His relationship with his father and his brother, MICHAEL McGEAR has always been close. When he was ready to settle down and have a family, boy did he settle down and have a family with a vengeance. They created their own universe."
"They were both very, very private people" says Wilson, who promoted the McCartney solo album Red Rose Speedway to U.K. radio stations.
"They were not partiers. Apart from their obvious music connections, they were very private people that wanted to keep their lives as normal as possible."
And that perhaps is a key characteristic of Linda McCartney that people have been misunderstanding over the years: her inner strength.
Their romance began amid a firestorm of controversy, no surprise considering that at the time they first met -- at the 1967 album release party for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band -- Paul McCartney was an eligible bachelor who for all intents was betrothed to JANE ASHER.
The daughter of powerful New York entertainment lawyer LEE EASTMAN and his Linder department store magnate wife LOUISE, LINDA EASTMAN first made her professional reputation as a band photographer for Town and Country magazine. Tall, blonde, and beautiful, her reputation as a groupie preceded her photos, as the mill abounded with rumored liasons with ERIC BURDON, MICK JAGGER, and STEPHEN STILLS among others.
When she met McCartney, she doggedly pursued him and eventually he succumbed, inviting her to move in with him in 1968. A year later, after she informed him she was pregnant with their first daughter Mary, they wed. With the marriage, McCartney inherited an instant stepdaughter, Heather, from Eastman's first marriage to a college geology student, whom he embraced on his own.
"He went from being very much a bachelor to an instant family," says LeBlanc. "Have you ever seen anybody embrace a family like that?"
The marriage wasn't without hardship. The new Mrs. McCartney robbed a lot of female teenagers of their opportunity to snag one of the singers from the world's most popular rock 'n roll band, and they clearly took offense at what they perceived as pulling the rug from under Jane Asher's feet.
"The perception of her when she married Paul was a silly one, that she snagged the last available Beatle," says Lysaght. "She broke lots of hearts by marrying him. But compared to the public perception of YOKO (ONO), she was a relief because at least she more fit the stereotype of what a Beatle wife would be. She was white, middle-class and blonde, as opposed to Yoko, who I don't think most people have ever really understood."
Although she wasn't blamed for the Beatles' dissolution to the same degree as JOHN LENNON's companion Yoko Ono, some darts were aimed her way concerning a wedge that formed between McCartney and the remaining three Beatles over the handling of the band's financial affairs -- a mess since the 1967 death of band manager BRIAN EPSTEIN.
John Lennon, GEORGE HARRISON and RINGO STARR wanted New York lawyer ALLEN KLEIN to handle their business affairs, while McCartney favored his in-laws, LEE and son JOHN EASTMAN.
The split, which saw McCartney empower the Eastmans as his legal counsel, was one of the mitigating factors in The Beatles' 1970 meltdown.
But the biggest and most enduring ridicule Linda McCartney suffered was for her musical ability, or perceived lack of it, even though she was listed as co-author for some of her husband's biggest solo hits, "Another Day" and "Uncle Albert."
When she joined THE WINGS as keyboardist and singer in 1971, the mockery peaked.
"He wanted her in Wings. He wanted her to play with him. Paul was always the leader in their lives," protests Wilson.
Even a 1975 solo single that Linda released called "Seaside Woman" that was released under the pseudonym SUZY & THE REDSTRIPES in 1975 failed to dissuade the critics.
Even Paul felt the sting of public reproach.
"I know there is a feeling that Linda might not be able to do it," Paul told Rolling Stone in 1989. "That's not my feeling, but the critics say that. I've always maintained that she has a type of SHANGRI-LAS type of appeal. It's not like JOAN BAEZ, where the notes are all there."
"There's that really nasty tape that circulated after the 1989 tour," Lysaght recalls. "It's brutal. Somebody had sampled just her vocals on `Hey Jude', and she's flat as a pancake on the whole thing. It could have been an off night, to be fair to her, but it was unflattering."
When it came to her charitable causes, though, no one could criticize Linda McCartney.
Two cookbooks, a successful line of frozen vegetable dinners and constant pro-vegetarian, pro-animal rights campaigning won her deep admiration.
According to Anya Wilson, campaigning for vegetarianism was a lifelong interest for Linda McCartney.
"She use to send little newsletter out with Mrs. Mac's vegetarian stew recipes," recalls Wilson. "But she was very much into health back then.
"I think she was a role model for the modern woman. She worked, kept a family and ran a house. She was a very special, multi-talented lady."
Even moreso, the McCartneys learned the secret to a successful relationship that could be a lesson to us all: they learned to let it be.
-30-
©1998, 1999 Nick Krewen, Octopus Media Ink
THANKS: BRIAN GORMAN, CHRISTINE ENDICOTT