Linda Louise, Lady McCartney (; September 24, 1941April 17, 1998) was an American photographer, musician, cookbook author, and activist. She was the keyboardist and harmony vocalist in the band Wings, which she had formed with her husband Paul McCartney of the Beatles.
Beginning in the mid-1960s, Linda began a career as a photographer, landing with Town & Country, where she soon gained assignments to photograph various musicians and entertainers. By the late 1960s, she was a regular fixture at the Fillmore East, a New York concert venue, where she became the unofficial house photographer capturing numerous performances at the legendary club, and was the first woman to have a photograph on the cover of the influential music magazine Rolling Stone. Her photographs were displayed in galleries and museums such as the Victoria and Albert Museum, and were collected in several books.
Linda had been learning to play keyboards from her husband, and after the 1970 breakup of the Beatles, Paul and Linda recorded the album Ram together. They formed the band Wings in 1971. She continued to play alongside Paul following Wings' breakup in 1981 until The New World Tour in 1993.
She was an animal rights activist. Linda's Kitchen: Simple and Inspiring Recipes for Meatless Meals, the second of her two vegetarian cookbooks, was nominated for a James Beard Award in 1996. She also founded the vegetarian Linda McCartney Foods company with her husband.
Early years Linda McCartney was born Linda Louise Eastman in Scarsdale, New York, on September 24, 1941. She had one older brother named John, and two younger sisters named Laura and Louise Jr. Her mother, Louise Sara Eastman (née Lindner), was from a German-Jewish family. 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.New York, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820–1957 His sister Rose Frisch became a recognized scientist who worked on women's fertility and population studies.Pam Belluck, "Rose E. Frisch, Scientist Who Linked Body Fat to Fertility, Dies at 96" , The New York Times, February 11, 2015. Retrieved September 25, 2018 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.Sounes, Howard. Fab: An Intimate Life of Paul McCartney, Doubleday (2010) pp. 172–175 At Eastman's request, Lawrence wrote the song "Linda" when she was one year old. It was recorded by Buddy Clark in 1947 and went to No. 2 on the Billboard Best Sellers chart, and was recorded again in 1963 by duo Jan and Dean.
Eastman graduated from Scarsdale High School in 1959. She then attended Vermont College in Montpelier, Vermont, where she received an Associate of Arts in 1961.Norwich University, Mining for Old: Linda McCartney at Vermont College , August 10, 2012 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. After graduating from Vermont College, she attended the University of Arizona and majored in fine arts while taking up nature photography as a hobby. While she was studying there, her mother was killed in the 1962 crash of American Airlines Flight 1 in Jamaica Bay, New York. 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. In 1965, she became romantically involved with photographer David Dalton. She studied how he worked during photo shoots, how he set up shots and managed lighting and composition. When she began her own shoots, such as with music groups, he said he was "astonished" at how easily she could take control of unruly or uncooperative musicians.Carlin, Peter Ames. Paul McCartney: A Life, Simon & Schuster (2009) pp. 169–170 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."
Dalton was also impressed by the intelligence of Eastman's daughter. "Linda and I would get high and Heather would say the most amazing things ... I'd think, 'This is André Breton at six years old! He added that he found Linda's relationship with Heather a "very charming aspect of her life with this wonderful child."
When the magazine received an invitation to photograph the Rolling Stones during a record promotion party on a yacht, Eastman immediately volunteered to represent the publication. 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." But she had studied the photography of horses at college in Arizona under Hazel Larsen Archer and became an avid nature hobbyist, using a Leica camera. A few months after her Rolling Stones shoot, she was allowed backstage at Shea Stadium, where the Beatles performed.Sandford, Christopher. McCartney, Random House (2005) p. 140
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.Brian Southall and Rupert Perry, Northern Songs: The True Story of The Beatles' Song Publishing Empire (2007).
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. In 1999, the H. J. Heinz Company acquired the company, and in 2007, the Hain Celestial Group bought it."A Healthy Way of Life" , Hain Celestial Group, accessed February 1, 2011. "Linda McCartney food line boosts Hain Celestial" , Newsday, November 10, 2010. That it was owned by Heinz: Nigel Slater, "When the McCartneys came for lunch" , The Observer, April 29, 2007.
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 Joseph 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.
Paul McCartney (1969–1998)
On May 15, 1967, while on a photo assignment in London, Eastman met Paul McCartney at the Bag O'Nails club, where Georgie Fame was performing. They met again four days later at the launch party for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band at Brian Epstein's house. When her assignment was completed, she flew back to New York City.Miles, Barry. Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now, Vintage-Random House (1997)
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".Norman, Philip. Shout!: The Beatles in Their Generation, Simon and Schuster (2005) e-book
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". McCartney also liked her sense of independence: