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 PROFILE: Both of these hit songs--which were
written twenty-five years apart--were composed for Linda Louise Eastman McCartney. “Linda” was written for her while she was a little
girl. Her father, Lee Eastman, was one of the top show-business lawyers in the country and
in 1947 a client named Jack Lawrence--a song-writer--owed him some legal fees. Eastman suggested an easy way for Lawrence to pay his
bill--write a song dedicated to his five-year-old daughter. The tune would be published
through an Eastman-controlled company, and the royalties would offset Lawrence’s
debt. It was a good deal all around, and Lawrence wrote “Linda” as his part of
the bargain. Lawrence’s song took off like
a rocket. That year alone, it was a Top 10 record twice, for Charlie Spivak and for Ray
Noble’s Orchestra (with Buddy Clark crooning).
Linda was too young to know that she was
“sort of famous” when the song was first released. But when Jan and Dean remade
it in 1963, sixteen years later, she was twenty-one. Their version reached the national
Top 30. The album on which it was included was entitled Jan and Dean Take Linda
Surfing. A few years later, while Linda was
working as a receptionist at Town and Country magazine, she wangled
her way onto the boat where a press party was being held for the Rolling
Stones. Her photographs, the only ones from the event, won her fame as
a photographer. Thereafter, the door was opened for her to associate with and
take photos of other rock stars, including the Doors, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan and Otis
Redding. She dated Hendrix, Mick Jagger, Jim Morrison, Neil Young and others--but
had not yet found the love of her life. In 1967, while in London to photograph Stevie
Winwood’s group, Traffic, she met Beatle Paul McCartney.
According to Peter Brown in The Love
You Make, she pursued him avidly. It was worth it; on March 12, 1969, Paul and Linda
were married. Heather, Linda’s daughter from her first marriage, served as the
bridesmaid.
Judging by all reports,
their marriage was a happy one, both person ally
and professionally. Linda joined Paul as part of his band Wings, and Paul
joined Linda as an animal rights activist. “My Love,” which husband Paul
described as a “smootchy ballad” about his wife, was McCartney’s second #1 song after splitting from the
Beatles.
Linda McCartney died in 1998, from breast
cancer, at the age of 56.
 LindaRemembered.com
The
Linda McCartney Centre
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