Linda McCartney

Linda McCartney was born Linda Louise Eastman in Manhattan, New York, on September 24, 1941. She had one older brother named John, and two younger sisters named Laura and Louise Jr. Her maternal grandfather was Max J. Lindner, founder of the Lindner Company clothing store in Cleveland, Ohio. Her father, Lee Eastman (born Leopold Vail Epstein), was the son of Belarusian-Jewish immigrants Louis and Stella (Shkolnick) Epstein from Gomel. His sister Rose Frisch became a recognized scientist who worked on women's fertility and population studies. Her father practiced entertainment law in New York and counted among his famous clients Harold Arlen, Tommy Dorsey, Willem de Kooning, Jack Lawrence, and Mark Rothko. At Eastman's request, Lawrence wrote the song "Linda" when she was one year old. She then attended Vermont College in Montpelier, Vermont, where she received an Associate of Arts in 1961. Her brother John, who studied law like their father, later became the attorney and manager of her husband Paul McCartney. She preferred nature and animals while growing up and enjoyed horseriding as a child. She then left the University of Arizona without graduating, and married Joseph Melville See Jr. (in June 1962). Their daughter Heather was born in December 1962. They divorced in 1965, and Linda resumed using her maiden name. ==Career==

Photography Linda became a receptionist and editorial assistant for Town & Country magazine. He said that shooting rock groups was "a bloody pain in the neck. But with the lovely Linda, all this changed ... Now their eyes were pinned on her." The photo shoot marked a turning point in her life: Eastman's father wanted her to undertake formal training with a professional photographer. "Well, I never had the patience for that," she said. "I had to trust my feelings." Eastman had gained some experience in celebrity photography and became an unofficial house photographer at Bill Graham's Fillmore East concert hall. Among the artists she photographed there were Todd Rundgren, Aretha Franklin, Grace Slick, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Eric Clapton, Simon & Garfunkel, the Who, the Doors, the Animals, John Lennon, and Neil Young. Her photo of Young, taken in 1967, was used on the cover of Sugar Mountain – Live at Canterbury House 1968 in 2008. She photographed Clapton for Rolling Stone magazine and became the first woman to have a photograph on the cover (May 11, 1968). After she married McCartney, her photo of the two of them appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone on January 31, 1974, making her the only person to appear on the magazine's cover who was also the photographer. Her photographs were later exhibited in more than 50 galleries internationally, and at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. A collection of photographs from that time, ''Linda McCartney's Sixties: Portrait of an Era'', was published in 1992. She also took the photograph for the cover of Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson's single "The Girl Is Mine." Music After the Beatles broke up in 1970, Paul taught Linda to play keyboards and recorded an album with her, Ram, as a duo. The couple formed the band Wings. They garnered several Grammy Awards, becoming one of the most successful British bands of the 1970s, but had to endure gibes about Linda's singing. In 1977 the reggae-inspired single "Seaside Woman" was released by an obscure band called Suzy and the Red Stripes on Epic Records in the United States. Suzy and the Red Stripes were Wings, with Linda (who wrote the song) on lead vocals. The song, recorded by Wings in 1972, was written in response to allegations from Paul's publisher that Linda's co-writing credits were inauthentic and that she was not a real songwriter. In 1971 Northern Songs and Maclen Music filed a lawsuit alleging that Paul McCartney had violated an exclusive rights agreement by collaborating with Linda on the song "Another Day," which had the effect of transferring a 50% share of the publishing royalties to his own McCartney Music company. The lawsuit was "amicably settled," according to an ATV spokesman, in June 1972. The McCartneys shared an Oscar nomination for the song "Live and Let Die"; they were photographed together at the event in April 1974. Linda's album Wide Prairie, which included "Seaside Woman," was released posthumously in 1998. Along with eight other British composers, Paul contributed to the choral album A Garland for Linda, and he dedicated his classical album Ecce Cor Meum (1999) to Linda. Vegetarian cookbooks and company Linda and Paul decided to become vegetarians in 1975. This shift led to the creation of cookbooks and a company. In 1989, she released her first vegetarian cookbook, ''Linda McCartney's Home Cooking'' (she credits author Peter Cox "for all of his help and research" on the copyright page). Next in 1991, Linda started her own company called Linda McCartney Foods, that served frozen vegetarian meals. and in 2007, the Hain Celestial Group bought it. Her second vegetarian cookbook, ''Linda's Kitchen: Simple and Inspiring Recipes for Meatless Meals, was published in 1995, and was nominated for a James Beard Foundation Award in the Vegetarian Books category in 1996. A few decades later, Paul, Stella, and Mary McCartney updated her previous cookbooks and released them as the 2021 cookbook, Linda McCartney's Family Kitchen: Over 90 Plant-Based Recipes to Save the Planet and Nourish the Soul,'' which was nominated for an IVFF award in 2021. ==Personal life==

Marriages Melville See Jr. (1962–1965) Eastman's first marriage was to Joseph Melville See Jr., whom she met in college. He gained a geology degree from Princeton and pursued graduate studies at the University of Arizona in Tucson. Eastman followed him there, where she enrolled at the university to study art history. While she was there her mother was killed in the March 1, 1962 crash of American Airlines Flight 1 over Jamaica Bay, New York. She married See on June 18, 1962, and their daughter Heather Louise was born on December 31, 1962. The couple had dissimilar lifestyles, became increasingly unhappy, and divorced in June 1965. He was an academic who spent much of his time studying and doing research, while she preferred a home life. She loved the wide open spaces in Arizona and enjoyed riding horses through the desert landscape. The settings, with saguaro cacti, reminded her of scenery from western films, which inspired her to take up photography as a hobby. They got together again the following May in New York, while McCartney and John Lennon were there to inaugurate Apple Records. A few months after he returned to London, McCartney invited Eastman to spend some time with him there. When she arrived, they went to his home, where they spent the evening. "He must have been really happy that night," said one of the fans who often loitered outside his home. "He sat on the windowsill with his acoustic guitar and sang 'Blackbird' to us from his upstairs room." McCartney was attracted to Eastman for a number of reasons, which he explained later: "I liked her as a woman; she was good-looking with a good figure, so physically I was attracted to her." British fans reacted negatively, partly because his marriage ended McCartney's status as the last unattached Beatle. He spent days in bed and drank excessively, wondering what to do with his life. After a few troubled months, Paul McCartney wrote "Maybe I'm Amazed" in Linda's honour. He explained during an interview that the song was written "for me and Linda," and that with the Beatles breaking up, During their 29-year marriage, the McCartneys had four children: she brought her daughter Heather (whom Paul later formally adopted) from her first marriage, and together the couple had Mary (b. August 28, 1969), Stella (b. September 13, 1971), and James (b. September 12, 1977). They sometimes went to his farmhouse retreat in the west of Scotland which he had originally purchased to "escape Beatlemania." Linda recalled the setting: McCartney began writing more of his songs away from the studio. "I found that I was enjoying working alone," he said. Lifestyle Animal rights activist A strong advocate of animal rights, Linda lent her support to many organizations, such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the Council for the Protection of Rural England, and Friends of the Earth. She was also a patron of the League Against Cruel Sports. After her death, PETA created the Linda McCartney Memorial Award. Marijuana In 1984, McCartney was arrested in Barbados for possession of marijuana; her husband had been arrested in 1975 in Los Angeles on the same charge. After flying to Heathrow Airport, she was arrested on charges of possession. She later said that, while hard drugs were "disgusting," marijuana was "pretty lightweight." ==Diagnosis and death==

McCartney was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1995, and her condition worsened when the cancer metastasized to her liver. Paul was aware of the prognosis and later said, "The doctors had told me privately that we'd caught it too late, that she'll have about 18 months. And that was what she had." She died from the disease at the age of 56 on April 17, 1998, at the McCartney family ranch in Tucson, Arizona. Her family were with her when she died. McCartney was cremated in Tucson, and her ashes were scattered at the McCartney family's farm in Sussex. Paul later suggested that fans remember her by donating to breast cancer research charities that did not support animal testing, "or the best tribute: go veggie." A memorial service was held at St. Martin-in-the-Fields in London, which was attended by George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Billy Joel, Elton John, David Gilmour, Peter Gabriel, and other celebrities among a congregation of 700. A memorial service was also held at Riverside Church in Manhattan two months after her death. Paul said at her funeral, "She was my girlfriend. I lost my girlfriend." McCartney left all of her property to Paul, including royalties from books and records and rights to her photos. He pledged to continue her line of vegetarian food and to keep it free from GMOs. Tributes and dedications , Scotland In June 1998, the artist Brian Clarke exhibited The Glass Wall (Dedicated to Linda McCartney), a 1,012 square foot artwork in stained glass, at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery in New York. Created by Clarke between 1997–98, a period in which he and McCartney exhibited their collaborations in photography and stained glass together at the Swiss National Museum of Glass Arts in Romont, the artwork—which takes as its motif the fleur-de-lys or lily, cited as Linda's favourite flower—was renamed in tribute to her after her death. The exhibition, of the same name, ran until September 1998, after which The Glass Wall was acquired by the Corning Museum of Glass, and installed as part of its permanent collection in Steuben. After her death, the Edinburgh International Film Festival premiered Wide Prairie, a six-minute cartoon fantasy film McCartney made with director Oscar Grillo. In April 1999, Paul McCartney performed at the "Concert for Linda" tribute at the Royal Albert Hall, organized by two of their friends, Chrissie Hynde and Carla Lane. Among the artists who performed, besides Paul, were George Michael, the Pretenders, Elvis Costello, Tom Jones, and Neil Finn. Paul closed the concert by dedicating the event to Linda, whom he called his "beautiful baby," and their children. On 19 July 1999, just a few yards from Calderstones House in Liverpool, Paul officially opened the Linda McCartney Children's Play Area in Calderstones Park, unveiling a plaque at the entrance and planting a Cypress Oak tree (Quercus fastigiata) nearby overlooking the play area. In January 2000, Paul made donations in excess of $2,000,000 for cancer research at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York and the Arizona Cancer Center in Tucson, where Linda received treatment. The donations, through the Garland Appeal, were made on the condition that no animals would be used for testing. Also in 2000, The Linda McCartney Centre, a cancer clinic, opened at The Royal Liverpool University Hospital. In November 2002, the Linda McCartney Kintyre Memorial Trust opened a memorial garden in Campbeltown Library and Museum near where the family's Scottish farmhouse was located, with a bronze statue of her created by sculptor Jane Robbins, Paul's cousin. ==Representation in media==

Elizabeth Mitchell and Gary Bakewell played the McCartneys in the 2000 TV film The Linda McCartney Story. She was portrayed by Catherine Strauss in the 1985 TV film John and Yoko: A Love Story. The McCartneys guest-starred as themselves in The Simpsons 1995 episode "Lisa the Vegetarian." She appears in the 2021 Peter Jackson documentary The Beatles: Get Back. On October 31, 2025 it was announced that Saoirse Ronan will be portraying McCartney in The Beatles – A Four-Film Cinematic Event directed by Sam Mendes, due to be released in April 2028. ==Discography==

Albums • Ram (1971) (with Paul McCartney) • Wide Prairie (1998) Solo singles Session work • Paul McCartney – McCartney (1970) • Denny Laine – Holly Days (1977) • Denny Laine – Japanese Tears (1980) • Paul McCartney – McCartney II (1980) • Paul McCartney – Tug of War (1982) • Paul McCartney – Pipes of Peace (1983) • Paul McCartney – Give My Regards to Broad Street (1984) • Paul McCartney – Press to Play (1986) • Paul McCartney – Flowers in the Dirt (1989) • Paul McCartney – Off the Ground (1993) • Paul McCartney – Flaming Pie (1997) ==See also==