By Maris Ross
UPI
February 27, 1966
"Money Can't Buy Me Love" sang The Beatles --- and it didn't. With fame and fortune of their own, they could have married fame and fortune, but their wives are just ordinary girls-- an ex-art student, an ex-hairdresser, and a little more glamorous, an ex-hairdresser who became a model. That leaves Paul McCartney, 23, as the only bachelor Beatle.
What's it like being a Beatle wife? "Just great," said Cynthia Lennon, husband of John [sic]. "I've no regrets about it."
But it's not all fun, and means keeping a bit in the background. Beatle manager, Brian Epstein once said, "The Beatles present a better image without girls in the foreground."
You also have to put up with the 1000s of other women who adore their husbands. "I don't let it bother me," said Cynthia. "I know it's not for real. It's the music, I'm sure that makes them feel that way, but one of the things I have realized now, in the high price one has to pay for fame is loss of personal freedom."
When the Beatles gained their first yelling fans, they were all taken to be bachelors. Nobody realized that John and Cynthia, now both 25, were married in the summer of 1962, just before the Beatles cut their first disc. "Love Me Do." They had met over a pot of paint when they both did a course at the Liverpool School of Art.
"I never kept my marriage a secret," said John. "It's just that when we first came on the scene, nobody asked us. I kept my wife out of it, and I do now, because I've always disliked reading about people's families."
Drummer Ringo Starr, 25, was the next to go, and he admits he was worried at first about what the fans would think, but in the end, "I thought I would get married, whatever happened," said Ringo. "I don't think many teenage girls broke into tears when they heard the news."
He was married on February 11 of last year to ex hairdresser Mary Cox, known as Maureen, to her friends. Ringo and Maureen, 19, had to pay the price of publicity when the press discovered their seaside hideaway within 24 hours of their wedding and camped outside the gate. The couple ended up giving a news conference on the first day of their honeymoon.
George Harrison, 23, put Ringo's experience to good use when he became the third Beatle to wed on January 21 of this year. His bride was an ex-hairdresser turned model, Patricia Ann Boyd, 21, otherwise known as Pattie. They announced outright that they weren't going on a honeymoon, because "we would just be hounded and wouldn't get any peace."
They went instead to Georgia's $56,000 five bedroom bungalow in suburban Esher south of London, and got some peace behind the 14-foot-high wall that surrounds the property.
The Beatles' wives have long hair in common, in addition to the fact that they all do quite a bit of staying home. On October 26, 1965, The Beatles went to Buckingham Palace to receive the single honor of membership of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) from Queen Elizabeth. John and Ringo could have taken their wives along, but they stayed home looking after their respective sons, John Jr. now two, and Zak, born September 13. Epstein went to the palace instead. Pattie, unmarried then was on a modeling job, and Jane was rehearsing a new play.
When their husbands go on tour, the wives stay home. Cynthia went along on the first US tour early in 1964, but this led to adverse publicity when one national British newspaper told how it tried unsuccessfully to talk to her at London Airport on the group's return. "Not a word, Cyn," one of the Beatles' publicity men was quoted as saying to her.
In 1964, Maureen went off on a month-long holiday in the West Indies with Ringo when she was only 17. A story appeared in the press that her father, ship steward Joe Cox, had learned she was 5,000 miles away only because he read it in the papers, but he would have given his permission for her to go anyway. Paul and Jane were also on this trip.
When Maureen came back, she said she was not going back to her hairdressing job in Liverpool. Ringo said, "Maureen is to be my personal secretary. She can give my mum and dad a hand with the mail."
Both Maureen and Cynthia, like their husbands, grew up in the rough seaport of Liverpool. Maureen lived with her parents in a block of slum clearance flats on Liverpool's Boundary Street. "I met Maureen three days exactly after I joined the Beatles, and from then on, it's been a knockout all the way," said Ringo. "We met in the Cavern. Doesn't everyone?"
The Cavern, the now-famous cellar club in Liverpool, was the place where Epstein first met the Beatles. At their first recording session in 1962, he decided they needed a more distinctive drummer, so they chose Ringo in place of their old one.
Cynthia, the longest married, is poised, sincere, and rather shy. She has artistically furnished their home. She cooks plain food well and doesn't like it if John keeps jumping up and down from the table to change records. A dinner guest recalls, "She once said, 'For goodness sake, sit down. You're giving me indigestion.'"
John has always wanted to keep her out of the mob scene. At London Airport on the return from that same US trip in 1964, John was heard to shout while surrounded by battling fans, "Get Cyn out of this!"
One thing they don't have to worry about is transport. The Lennons have a Rolls-Royce, a Ferrari, a Volkswagen, a minicar, and a chauffeur.
Pattie, the newest Beatle bride, is a blue-eyed baby-faced blonde who likes the fashion for skirts way above the knee. She comes from a family of six in Somerset, southwestern England. She was educated at a convent and spent most of her childhood in Kenya, where her father had a farm. She started working as a hairdresser, didn't like it, and turned to modeling. Her "dolly girl" looks made her a favorite with fashion photographers and led her to part in A Hard Day's Night. After it, she said, "I'm no actress. I'm terrible." She decided to stick to modeling.
George kept denying rumors of marriage right up to the morning of their wedding. "Now, the rumors can start about me, I suppose," said Paul. In fact, they started long ago about him and Jane, the daughter of a surgeon and an up-and-coming actress. So the question mark over the Beatles is, when will the last one get married?
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