Linda McCartney

Linda McCartney (born September 24, 1941, Scarsdale, New York, U.S.—died April 17, 1998, Tucson, Arizona) was an American photographer and musician who was widely known for her marriage to musician Paul McCartney, a former member of the immensely popular rock band the Beatles. Alongside her work as a photographer, McCartney was a noted animal rights activist and vegetarian, authoring several cookbooks and launching a line of prepared vegetarian meals. She performed as a keyboardist and backup vocalist in the rock band Paul McCartney and Wings (also known as Wings).

Early life

McCartney was the second child of Lee Eastman and Louise Sara (née Lindner) Eastman. Her mother was a wealthy heir to the Cleveland-based Lindner Co. department store business. Her father was an entertainment lawyer who worked in New York City. Among his clients were the abstract painter Mark Rothko and the songwriter Jack Lawrence, who wrote the hit song “Linda” (recorded and popularized by singer Buddy Clark in 1947) at Eastman’s request for his young daughter. McCartney graduated from Scarsdale High School in 1959. Later that year, she enrolled at Vermont College (now called Vermont College of Fine Arts), where she graduated with an Associate of Arts degree in 1961.

After graduating, she studied art history at the University of Arizona and took up photography as a hobby. Her mother died in an airplane crash in Queens, New York, in 1962. After her mother’s death, she left the university and sought solace and tranquility by caring for animals. Later in 1962 she married Joseph Melville See, Jr., who was a graduate student at the time. The couple had a daughter, Heather See, before divorcing in 1965.

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Career

McCartney launched her photography career while working as an editorial assistant at Town and Country magazine in New York City. After garnering some experience by assisting photojournalist David Dalton (her boyfriend at the time) on professional assignments, she began lobbying the staff at Town and Country to let her cover prominent events. Her first major opportunity came in 1966 at a promotional event for the Rolling Stones rock group that was held on a yacht cruising the Hudson River. Her photographs deftly captured the band members in candid and relaxed moments, and Town and Country published her images as an editorial feature.

The Rolling Stones feature led to more assignments and commissions to photograph the burgeoning music scene of the 1960s. McCartney photographed influential performers such as Albert King, the Who, the Animals, and the Doors at music promoter Bill Graham’s Fillmore East venue in Manhattan. She went on to create distinctive portraits of musicians Jimi Hendrix, Aretha Franklin, Janis Joplin, and Grateful Dead, among others. Her career as a rock photographer reached its height in 1968, when her intimate portrait of musician Eric Clapton graced the cover of Rolling Stone magazine, making her the first female photographer to have her work featured on the magazine’s cover. Her iconic images from the 1960s were collected in the book Linda McCartney’s Sixties: Portrait of an Era (1992). Her other notable photography books include Linda’s Pictures: A Collection of Photographs (1976), Roadworks: Photographs and Words (1994), Light from Within (2001), Linda McCartney: Life in Photographs (2011), and Linda McCartney: The Polaroid Diaries (2019).

She met Paul McCartney in May 1967, while on assignment in London. They saw each other again a few days later at a party celebrating the release of the Beatles influential album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967). He visited her the following spring in New York. She went to stay with him in London in 1968 and never left, moving in with her daughter soon after. The couple married in 1969 and had three children together, Mary, Stella, and James.

Linda and Paul McCartney were an inseparable couple who also collaborated on creative projects. After they recorded Paul’s second solo album Ram in 1971, the couple teamed up with guitarist Denny Laine (formerly of the Moody Blues) and drummer Denny Seiwell to form the rock band Wings. The band’s first album, Wild Life (1971), received mostly lukewarm reviews from music critics, but Wings soon found their groove with the hit singles “My Love” (1973), “Live and Let Die” (the theme from the James Bond film of the same name, also 1973), and “Band on the Run” (1974). Wings charted a total of 27 Top 40 hits in the U.S. and released five consecutive number one albums, including Red Rose Speedway (1973), which featured Linda’s photograph of Paul on the album cover, and the live album Wings over America (1976).

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McCartney was a lifelong animal lover, and in 1971 she decided to publicly embrace vegetarianism with her husband. In her cookbook, Linda’s Kitchen (1999), she sums up the reasoning for her lifestyle change succinctly: “If slaughterhouses had glass walls, the whole world would be vegetarian.” She also authored the cookbooks Linda McCartney’s Home Cooking (1980) and Linda’s Winter Kitchen (1997). In 1991 she launched Linda McCartney Foods, a line of prepared plant-based meals. She also served as a spokesperson for the animal rights organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and the network of environmental organizations Friends of the Earth International.

McCartney was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1995. The disease metastasized to her liver shortly after. She died in Tucson, Arizona, in 1998. In a 2019 interview with People magazine, Paul McCartney said that losing Linda left him in a constant and prolonged state of grief: “I think I cried for about a year on and off. You expect to see them walk in, this person you love, because you are so used to them.”

In 1975 she shared a Grammy Award with her Wings bandmates for best pop vocal performance by a duo, group or chorus for the song “Band on the Run.” Additionally, she earned a Grammy Award with Wings for best rock instrumental performance for the song “Rockestra Theme” in 1980.