Are you all ready for another exciting trip back
through time in the Tuesday Timeline? I
know I am, so let’s get started right away!
Today is April 17, and looking at my list of facts
about that date, it was a very memorable date in history over the years. Let’s take a look back at some of the
significant events that took place on the seventeenth day of April.
1397
– Geoffrey Chaucer tells the Canterbury Tales for the first time at the court
of Richard II
1492
– Christopher Columbus and Spain sign the Capitulations of Santa Fe for his
voyage to Asia to acquire spices
1524
– Giovanni da Verrazzano reaches New York Harbor
1797
– Sir Ralph Abercromby attacks San Juan, Puerto Rico in what would become one
of the largest invasions of the Spanish territories in America
1897
– Aurora, Texas UFO incident
1907
– Ellis Island immigration center in New York City processes 11,747 people, the
record for most immigrants arriving in America on any given day
1942
– French prisoner of war Henri Giraud escapes from his castle prison in Festung
Konigstein
1946
– Syria obtains independence from French occupation
1961
– A group of CIA financed and trained Cuban exiles lands at the Bay of Pigs in
Cuba with the intent of overthrowing Fidel Castro
1964
– Jerrie Mock becomes the first female to circumnavigate the world by air
1969
– Sirhan Sirhan is convicted of assassinating Robert F. Kennedy
1970
– Apollo 13 returns safely to Earth following ill-fated mission
1975
– Cambodian civil war ends
2003
– Dr. Robert Atkins, founder of the Atkins Diet, passes away at age 72
April 17th just also happens to be the
date that quite a few famous people celebrate a birthday today. If you’re celebrating a birthday today, I
hope it’s a good one. You share the day
with the following people. Olivia
Hussey, Michael “Maniac” Sembello, Sean Bean, Boomer Esaison, Lela Rochon,
Kimberly Elise, Timothy Gibbs, Liz Phair, Redman, Jennifer Garner, Victoria
Beckham, Gabriel Soto, Monet Mazur, Lindsay Hartley, Rooney Mara, Jacqueline MacInnes
Wood, and Paulie Litt are all blowing out candles on their cakes today!
Sadly, the date we’re going to go looking back on
happens to be one woman’s last day.
The date we’re flashing back to is April 17, 1998.
On April 17, 1998, the world said goodbye to Linda
Eastman McCartney.
It seems unbelievable that if she was living
today, she would be seventy years old.
She was born on September 24, 1941 in New York City, and grew up in the
area of Scarsdale, in Westchester County.
She was the second of four children to Lee and Louise Eastman. Linda’s father was the son of Jewish-Russian
immigrants, and his original name was Leopold Vail Epstein, which he changed to
Eastman.
TRIVIA: Eastman was an attorney who worked with
songwriter Jack Lawrence, who at Eastman’s request wrote a song called “Linda”,
when Linda was just one year old. It was
published in 1946, and recorded by Buddy Clark in 1947.
Linda’s mother, Louise, was tragically killed in a
plane crash when Linda was twenty years old, and Linda later revealed that the
incident made her very cautious about travelling by air.
Three months after her mother’s death, Linda
married her first husband, Joseph Melvin See Jr. (they had met while Linda was
taking classes for fine arts at the University of Arizona). The couple had a daughter, Heather, on the
last day of 1962, and their marriage lasted for approximately three years
before Linda filed for divorce. Linda’s
first husband would later take his own life in 2000.
Around the time of her divorce, Linda had gotten a
job as a receptionist for the offices of “Town & Country Magazine”, and it
was through this position that she developed the first of her many careers
throughout her lifetime.
Photographer.
Linda was the only unofficial photographer allowed to take
photos of the Rolling Stones, at one of their promotional parties. Over the next few years, Linda would take
photographs of some of the most popular artists and bands of the late 1960s. Aretha Franklin, Janis Joplin, Bob Dylan,
Neil Young, and even John Lennon were early photographic subjects.
A photo that she had taken of Eric Clapton back in
1968 even made it onto the front cover of Rolling Stone magazine, the first
time that a photo taken by a woman photographer made the cover. Six years later, she herself would be the
subject of a Rolling Stone cover, making her the first (and so far only) person
to have taken a cover photo AND been the cover subject of the magazine!
But when it came down to Linda’s 1974 photo shoot,
she didn’t exactly take all the credit.
She shared the cover with the man who became her second husband.
The love affair began on May 15, 1967. Linda was at a Georgie Fame concert at the
Bag O’ Nails club in London, when she ended up bumping into a man who had
already made a name for himself on the music charts just five years earlier.
His name was Paul McCartney, of the Beatles.
After a few meetings (including at the launch
party of the Beatles “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” album), Linda and
Paul soon fell in love with each other, and after a whirlwind courtship united
in marriage on March 12, 1969. It was
Linda’s second marriage, and Paul’s first.
The couple would eventually have three children together...two
daughters, Mary (b. 1969) and Stella (b. 1971), and one son, James (b. 1977).
TRIVIA: Mary McCartney is now a famous photographer,
Stella McCartney is a famous fashion designer, and James McCartney has taken up
a singing and songwriting career.
It was right around Stella’s birth that the resume
of Linda Eastman McCartney grew to include a second career.
Musician.
After the Beatles had broken up in 1970, Paul had
taught Linda how to play the keyboards, and the following year, Paul and Linda
released an album together entitled “Ram”.
Shortly thereafter, Paul had asked Linda to join a new project that he
had formed. It was a band that he had
called “Wings”. As far as Paul McCartney
was concerned, lightning struck twice as “Wings” became one of the most
successful bands of the 1970s, and songs like the one below this paragraph
became huge hits on the charts.
ARTIST: Wings
SONG: Band On The Run
ALBUM: Band On The Run
DATE RELEASED: June 28, 1974
PEAK POSITION ON THE BILLBOARD CHARTS: #1 for 1 week
SONG: Band On The Run
ALBUM: Band On The Run
DATE RELEASED: June 28, 1974
PEAK POSITION ON THE BILLBOARD CHARTS: #1 for 1 week
“Wings” would release eight studio albums between
1971 and 1979, and the band was nominated for and won several Grammy Awards
during their time together. However,
critics were quick to dismiss the singing skills of Linda McCartney as being
off-key and out of tune...an allegation that surprisingly enough, Linda owned
up to as being true!
At least Linda took it all in stride, and for what
it was worth, I believe that her singing improved with each subsequent “Wings”
release. Linda even appeared in the
music video that Paul McCartney filmed with Michael Jackson back in 1983 (back
in the days in which “Mac & Jack” were still friendly with each
other). Watch it below, I say, say,
say...
In later years, Linda would add another hat to her
wardrobe of career ambitions.
Vegetarian cookbook author.
Linda McCartney had been a vegetarian for years
before marrying Paul McCartney, and she was the one who convinced Paul to
become a vegetarian in the mid-1970s.
Since then, Linda and Paul have teamed up to write a selection of
cookbooks featuring hundreds of vegetarian friendly appetizers, entrees, and
desserts. In 1991, Linda began her own
line of frozen vegetarian meals, which allowed her to amass her own personal
fortune, completely independent of her husband’s. Linda and Paul McCartney even appeared on “The
Simpsons” in 1995 on the episode “Lisa the Vegetarian”. According to Paul McCartney on that episode,
if you play the song “Maybe I’m Amazed” backwards, you can hear a recipe for
lentil soup. Has anyone tried this and confirmed
that this is true? Please let me
know! But, vegetarianism and animal
rights were platforms that Linda McCartney really believed in, and she really
did a great job in her cameo on The Simpsons.
Sadly, “The Simpsons” episode would end up being
one of Linda’s final performances.
The same year she appeared on “The Simpsons”, she
was given a sobering diagnosis by her doctor.
She had breast cancer.
Over the next three years, Linda McCartney tried
to fight the spread of the disease, but it quickly spread to her liver. By the first few months of 1998, it became
clear to everybody that Linda McCartney was dying.
Just before Linda McCartney passed away, Paul’s
last words to her were reportedly these.
“You’re
up on your beautiful Appaloosa stallion.
It’s a fine spring day. We’re
riding through the woods. The bluebells
are all out, and the sky is clear-blue.”
On April 17, 1998, at the McCartney family ranch
in Tuscon, Arizona, Linda Eastman McCartney passed away at the age of 56. Her memorial service attracted a congregation
of more than 700 people, and was attended by Peter Gabriel, Elton John, and McCartney’s
Beatles bandmates George Harrison and Ringo Starr.
It’s been fourteen years since Linda McCartney’s
death, and since then, her name still lives on.
A tribute concert was held in April 1999 in Linda’s memory, in which
Paul McCartney performed with artists such as George Michael and Elvis
Costello. In 2000, Paul McCartney
donated two million dollars for cancer research and that same year, the Linda McCartney
Centre opened up at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital, dedicated to the
treatment of cancer. And in November
2002, the Linda McCartney Kintyre Memorial Trust opened up a memorial garden
complete with a bronze statue of McCartney in memory of her. The design of the statue came courtesy of
Jane Robbins, a cousin of McCartney.
As for Paul, he has moved ahead in his life. Aside from various musical projects, he has remarried twice since Linda’s death.
He married former model Heather Mills in 2002, but they ended up
divorcing six years later in what could be considered one of the ugliest
celebrity divorces in recent years. In
October 2011, he married his third wife, Nancy Shevell.
But I think deep down, Paul McCartney will always
have a permanent place in his heart for Linda.
They were married for almost thirty years, and shared so much together. In the entertainment industry, marriages
begin and end more often than the average person changes their underwear. For Paul and Linda to have a marriage that
really did last until death did them part, was remarkable and romantic.
That was our look back on April 17, 1998. In memory of photographer, musician, vegetarian cookbook author, and devoted wife and mother, Linda Eastman McCartney.
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