Linda McCartney – September 24, 1941

“that was my feeling: Maybe I’m amazed at what’s going on … Maybe I’m a man and maybe you’re the only woman who could ever help me; Baby won’t you help me understand … Maybe I’m amazed at the way you pulled me out of time, hung me on the line, Maybe I’m amazed at the way I really need you. … every love song I write is for Linda.” – Paul McCartney

Born Linda Louise Eastman in Scarsdale, New York. Her father Lee Eastman (born Leopold Vail Epstein) was an entertainment lawyer who had Harold Arlen, Tommy Dorsey, and Jack Lawrence among his clients. Her mother, Louise Sarah Linder), was killed in the American Airlines Flight 1 crash into Jamacia Bay, NY, in 1962.

On the 1950 census for Scarsdale, NY, the Eastman family lived at 4 Dolma Road. Lee and Louise lived with their son John (future manager and attorney of Paul McCartney), and daughters Linda, Laura, and Louise, as well as a maid, Eloise Wiggins. Lee was a corporate lawyer. Other neighbors included a bank vice president, a writer, a manufacturing executive, a secretary, and three maids. The only immigrant was a maid from Finland. The only minority was the Eastman’s maid. There are only 23 people listed on the page.

Later life

Linda graduated from Scarsdale High School and received an Associate of Arts from Vermont College and then attended the University of Arizona, leaving without graduating when her mother was killed.

She married in 1962, had a daughter, Heather, and divorced and returned to her maiden name in 1965.

While always interested in photography, while working at Town & Country Magazine, she learned the ins and outs of photoshoots and photographed the Rolling Stones during a record promotion party on a yacht. She later said “I was the only photographer they allowed on the yacht. I just kept clicking away with the camera, and they enjoyed it and I enjoyed it, and suddenly I found that taking pictures was a great way to live and a great way to work.”

She worked as the unofficial house photographer at Bill Graham’s Fillmore East concert hall and there she photographed the following, among others:

• Todd Rundgren
• Aretha Franklin
• Grace Slick
• Jimi Hendrix
• Bob Dylan
• Janis Joplin
• Eric Clapton
• Simon & Garfunkel
• The Who
• The Doors
• The Animals
• John Lennon
• Neil Young (photo used on the cover of Sugar Mountain – Live at Canterbury House 1968 in 2008.)

She was the first woman with a photograph on the cover of The Rolling Stone (Eric Clapton) and the first photographer with a self-portrait on the cover (Paul McCartney and herself). Her work has been exhibited in more than 50 museums and galleries, including The Victoria and Albert.

She met Paul McCartney in 1967 and they married in 1969. After the breakup of the Beatles, McCartney taught her to play keyboard. They recorded the album Ram together and eventually formed the band Wings.

Linda McCarney’s Musical Career

Linda was an animal rights activist and vegetarian. She wrote vegetarian cookbooks and started a company that sold vegetarian meals.

Linda was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1995 and died of the disease at the age of 56 in 1998, at the McCartney family ranch in Tucson, Arizona. The McCartneys had been married for 29 years. They had three children together, and Paul formally adopted Heather.

Paul McCartney has donated money for cancer research at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York and the Arizona Cancer Center in Tucson, with the proviso that no animals be used for testing. The Linda McCartney Centre, a cancer clinic, is open at The Royal Liverpool University Hospital.

Paul McCartney was not the first man to write a song about Linda Eastman. When she was a child, her father asked one of his clients, songwriter Jack Lawrence, to write a song for her. The result was Linda, recorded by Buddy Clark and later by Jan and Dean.

Other happenings on September 24, 1941:

• The Inter-Allied Council met in St James’s Palace. Representatives of the Soviet Union and Free France as well as the governments-in-exile of Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Greece, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, and Yugoslavia unanimously affirmed the common principles of policy outlined in the Atlantic Charter.
• 70,000 Yugoslav partisans captured Užice and made it the capital of the mini-state known as the Republic of Užice.
• On the defensive since Charles Lindbergh’s remarks in Des Moines, the America First Committee issued a statement denying that Lindbergh or his fellow AFC members were anti-Semitic and invited Jews to join the organization’s ranks.
• Born: Guy Hovis, singer, in Tupelo, Mississippi
• Died: Gottfried Feder, 58, German economist and early member of the Nazi Party

Tomorrow – An actor/director

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Sources

• Wikipedia.org
• Ancestry.com
• Onthisday.com
• Picryl.com
• Youtube.com