Paul McCartney’s wife, Linda, dead

London, April 20: Linda McCartney, the woman who reduced hysterical Beatles fans to tears when she married Paul McCartney has died. The other half of the most stable Beatles’ marriage, Linda McCartney worked her way through a variety of careers, photographer, pop musician and vegetarian campaigner and business woman with a multi-million pound stake in a vegetarian food business. It was as Linda Eastman, an American pop photographer, that she met Paul McCartney in 1967. She had made a name for herself as a pop photographer with exclusive pictures of the Rolling Stones. She was on assignment in London when she met Paul at the launch of the Beatles’ `Sergeant Pepper’ album.

Linda McCartney, who today is being written about as a courageous woman, who had an exemplary marriage and brought up four “normal” children (two daughters and a son from her marriage to Paul and one daughter from a previous marriage) under the public glare, was not always so well loved. Hostility to someone who was seen as a “pushyAmerican” was huge in Britain. She was pilloried by the press in Britain and blamed for the break-up of the Beatles. When she joined her husband on stage as key-board player and backing singer in his group, The Wings, she was derided for her lack of talent. Their hits included the Mull of Kintyre, recorded in 1977 and best-selling album Band On The Run. As a campaigner for vegetarianism and animal rights she got the rough end of the stick as some one who championed fringe causes.

The un-showbiz quality of the McCartney marriage has been much commented on. The two are said to have spent only one night apart in the last 30 years. In an interview to a British paper last year Paul McCartney said, that when he met Linda “She was just different. She was a woman. The others were girls… I just went for her in a big way. That was it. We’ve never looked back.” Linda McCartney was diagnosed with cancer three years ago. She disappeared from public view and was unable to be present when her husband received hisknighthood or at the inauguration of his school, Fame, for talented children from underprivileged backgrounds. It looked like she was making a recovery and made her first public appearance in three years at the premiere of her husbands first full orchestral work, the symphonic poem Standing Stone. The McCartneys left directly after the performance to Paris to attend their daughter Stella’s debut fashion show for the French design house Chloe.

Announcing Linda McCartney’s death at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts awards ceremony in London, David Puttnam, the producer of the film Chariots of Fire, said, “She was a remarkable woman, half of a remarkable marriage, and brought up some remarkable children”.