The Beatles and Marriage

 

Sometimes, I like reading these newspaper articles written in the 1960s because they give us an idea about what people were reading about the Beatles during the time and the biases that the writers had toward them.  This is a great example of that.  

The Beatles and Marriage

By Lloyd Shearer

Courier Express

April 27, 1969

    For the first time in their colorful, rambunctious, mercurial lives, all four Beatles are married. A few weeks ago,  John Lennon, 28, divorced father of a six-year-old son and the oldest and most freaked out of the quartet, married Yoko Ono, 34 in a three minute ceremony on Gibraltar.  At his wedding, Lennon wore tennis shoes, a hairy yak coat, striped pants, a beard, and facial makeup that made him look like a poor man's version of Genghis Khan.

     Yoko, marrying for the third time, wore a white crepe mini dress, black knee hose, dark glasses, and an umbrella hat. Together, the way-out pair provided irrefutable evidence that man is indeed descending from apes and simple primordial protoplasmic cells.  Said Lennon, "We don't believe in marriage, but we thought we'd try it out on a cross-channel fairy. Unfortunately, they've stopped holding marriages on fairies in England. So we went to Paris on our honeymoon, then interrupted our honeymoon to get married on the Rock of Gibraltar."

    A few days before the Lennon marriage, Paul McCartney, possibly the most normal of the Beatles, married Linda Eastman, a blonde, freckled widget from New York. Linda, at 27, one year older than McCartney, met Paul on a photographic assignment and fell almost instantly in love with him. Last October, she and her six-year-old daughter flew to England and moved in with Paul, but only after he and his longtime love, actress Jane Asher, had called it quits.

     Beatle number three, George Harrison, has been married to model Pattie Boyd since January 21, 1966, and drummer Ringo Starr wed Maureen Cox, his childhood sweetheart, in 1965.  Ringo, the least talented but considered by many to be the cutest of the four, is now the proud father of two sons, Zak  Almoot, 4,  and Jason, 1 1/2. 

    Since all the Beatles are finally under the marital roof, the question that comes immediately to mind is, what will marriage do to The Beatles? Settle them? Transform them into good, solid, conventional Englishmen?  Will any of their marriages last? What effect, if any, will marriage have on their popularity?

     Friends who have watched the boys develop from Liverpool slum urchins into world-famous multi-millionaires predict, hopefully, that marriage will turn them a bit more conservative, a bit more careful, but they are convinced that, essentially, the musicians will remain free souls, just so long as they have enough money to defy the establishment and bug the old fuddy-duddies.

     Already, the British police have arrested John Lennon, George Harrison, Patti Boyd, and Yoko Ono on charges of possessing marijuana. They have also arrested Mrs. Harrison's 21-year-old sister, Jenny Boyd, who pleaded guilty last November.  Beatle John was fined $360 after police, helped by drug-sniffing Labradors, found a pound of pot in the Montague Square apartment where he was living with his then-pregnant girlfriend, Yoko Ono. Several of the Beatles and their pals are, therefore, no strangers to the pot scene.

     A film producer who has traveled with the boys says, "From now on, I'm sure they're going to cut down on the grass smoking bit. I have no doubt about it. John doesn't want Yoko in jail, and George feels the same way about Patti. Both these guys are protective when it comes to their wives. Even though they've got plenty of loot, they're also protective about their careers. They say they will never do any live entertainment in front of the public again, and maybe that's true, but they know damn well they can blow the whole thing if they keep on defying public opinion, especially in the US, where most of the royalties come from."

    " I know it doesn't look like it,"  the producer continues, "but the Beatles have been trying to put their house in order for about a year now."  Last June, the quartet founded a company on London's Saville Row called Apple Corp. The company's intent was as amiable as its name. Their music has earned the Beatles millions in surplus funds. They wanted to channel the money into helping others. "Anyone with a great idea but no means to capitalize on it," Paul McCartney announced, "will be helped by us, if possible."

     But giving money away turned out to be more difficult than making it, and several of the Beatles' schemes ran aground. Their Apple boutique sold clothes designed by a weird Dutch group called The Fool.  After a run-in with the landlord over a mural they had painted on the building, the Fool departed for Los Angeles. The Beatles then decided they wanted out of the clothing business. They gave away $36,000 worth of mod garments and closed their companion shop, Apple Tailoring. 

    Other enterprises were more lucrative. Apple Records, first talent discovery was Mary Hopkin, whose single "Those Were the Days" proved to be a smash hit. The Beatles also put out on their own label their Yellow Submarine album and a modern jazz quintet production.  Two Virgins, the Lennon-Ono contribution, met with trouble, however, because of its controversial cover, which shows the pair in their birthday suits. So many copies of this album have been confiscated by authorities; not even Telegramathon Records, the US distributor, has any idea of how many have been sold. 

    The only Beatle who truly concerns himself with the business end of Apple Corp is Paul McCartney. But the flood of great young artists with great ideas and no money has dampened even his enthusiasm for venture capitalism and philanthropy.  To help straighten out the financial mess Apple Corep has become., McCartney recently brought in his brother-in-law, attorney John Eastman. Eastman is working closely with another efficiency expert, Alan Klein, the financial wizard behind the Rolling Stones. Klein's daily lecture to The Beatles centers around the premise that they could double their current earnings. The Beatles, however, do not seem to be primarily interested in money. 

    Ringo Starr, who, nine years ago, began working for $14.40 a week, wants to develop into a top-flight actor. Ringo played the Mexican gardener in the sex film Candy and has just finished starring in another Terry Southern work, The Magic Christian, along with Peter Sellers. 

    George Harrison is mostly interested in composing. Last year, he studied Indian music and composed the scores for several films. John Lennon, the most bizarre Beatle of them all, is hard at work on another TV spectacular. His first was a bomb. This one is to be called the Rock and Roll Circus. It will feature the Rolling Stones, Marianne Faithfull, and Lennon dressed as a tumbler and Yoko as a witch.

     Rumors concerning the Beatles have always been plentiful, generally focusing on their occasional disputes. It is true that once in a while, they throw soup at each other, but even their squabbles are characterized by an underlying mutual respect and love. There was a time, of course, when they did everything together, but now that each is married, they socialize infrequently and tend to go their separate ways.  To date, marriage has not adversely affected their popularity for all the Beatles shenanigans; a recent poll shows that they are still the most admired celebrities in Great Britain.