Beatle Wedding - Maureen & Ringo - Part 2

Beatle Wedding - Maureen & Ringo - Part 1

February 11th 1965

Maureen and Ringo get married.

February 12th 1965

Honeymoon in East Sussex.

Pattie, eating cake, at her cookbook launch during the 1970s, ''Not just a Pretty Face''

Patricia Ann Boyd

Patricia Ann Boyd, known as Pattie, was born on March 17th 1944 in Taunton, Somerset to Colin Ian Langdon Boyd (known as Jock) and Diana Frances Drysdale. She was the eldest child and was the sister of Colin (1946), Helen Mary (*Jenny Boyd, 1947) and Paula Boyd (1951) and half-sister of David and Robert. She never really knew her father (her parents divorced in 1952). She worked at Elizabeth Arden before a client for a fashion magazine asked her if she had thought of modeling as a career. She then modelled in London, Paris and New York for Mary Quant, Ossie Clark, etc. She also appeared on Vogue with Twiggy and had some modelling gigs with her sister, Jenny. She was offered the role of a schoolgirl in A Hard Day's Night in 1964, a role where she says one word : ''Prisoners''. She met George there but was going out with another guy, Eric Swayne. George first asked her to marry him and then invited her on a date but she declined. She told the story to one of her friend who said to her : Are you completely mad ? George Harrison asked you on a date and you said no ? (Pattie was not so familiar with the Beatles). She ended things with Eric (she wasn't really in love with him, she stayed with him because he gave her modelling gigs...) and went on a date with George and...Brian Epstein. She started to live with George at Kinfauns in 1965. They married on January 21st 1966. They got divorced on June 9th 1977 because the religious beliefs of George were becoming too strong for her and there were also infidelities on both sides (but mostly on George's), as in every Beatle marriage (well, at least the first ones). She later married Eric Clapton, who famously wrote Layla for her while she was still married to George. This marriage was also a failure, according to Pattie it was hell : he was always drinking heavily, had a child with another woman during their marriage, etc.

Jane Asher

Jane Asher was born on April 5th 1946, she was almost four years younger than Paul. She was the daughter of Dr.Richard Alan John Asher (who committed suicide in 1969) and Margaret Eliot. She has a brother Peter Asher, who used to be in Peter & Gordon and a younger sister, Clare Asher. Jane came from a very different background: her parents were intellectuals, whereas Paul came from ''rough'' Liverpool. She was a child actress : she played in Mandy in 1952 and has been an actress ever since. She met Paul while she was interviewing the Beatles in 1963. George also fancied Jane (he hadn't met Pattie at the time) but Paul won her heart. They started dating and dated for five years, getting engaged in 1967. Jane said herself (when she was dating Paul) that she didn't see herself marrying anybody else...Paul was a womanizer, he didn't stop having one-night stands, he thought since they weren't married, it was allowed. This was quite common in the minds of young Liverpudlian boys. Jane was also not very keen on drugs, like Cynthia and she didn't like Paul's addiction to LSD. When she returned home after a flight, she found him very different (due to LSD). One day, she returned home early and found Paul in bed with Francie Schwartz. She immediatly left and her mom came to collect her things later. She then married the illustrator Gerald Scarfe in 1981 and had three children : Katie (1974), Alex (1981) and Rory (1984).

Cynthia Powell Lennon

Known as ''Cyn'', Cynthia Powell was born on September 10th 1939, a war baby, to Liliann Roby and Charles Powell. She has two brothers : Charles Jr. and Anthony (known as Tony). Cyn came from Hoylake, which was quite posh compared to John's neighborhood. That's why he called her prim and snob. Her nicknames from John were Miss Powell or Miss Hoylake, back when they weren't even dating. They met at Art College in Liverpool. Cyn was a very serious student, in fact she wanted to become an art teacher while John was failing every class or so, not knowing what he would do in life...She was engaged to some ''fellow in Hoylake'' (from her very own words) but still, she was fascinated by John's wit and love of trouble. John asked her to dance at a college party (before the summer holidays) but she said she couldn't, because she was engaged. Then John said : ''I didn't ask you to fucking marry me, did I?'' in typical John-style. She was about to leave when they decided to go to a bar, she went, which was very unusual from her. They then went to Stuart Sutcliffe's appartment and the rest is history. They had a son, Julian, in 1963 and they had to get married very quickly before the birth of the child. Their relationship was not perfect and quite volatile on John's side : he admitted to have cheated on her at leat a hundred times with groupies, friends, celebrities, etc. There was a great lack of communication, John was never the best communicator and Cyn was quite afraid of John sometimes so she kept to herself, thinking that problems would solve themselves later... She didn't enjoy doing drugs and she didn't understand John's need to do so. He eventually met Yoko Ono, who pursued him a lot. At first, he wasn't even interested in her : his ideal woman was Brigitte Bardot, not a small japanese woman who was older than him ! Cyn then got married to Roberto Bassassini in 1970, an Italian hotelier whom she had met in 1966 on a trip to Italy with her mom and Julian. In 1976, after her divorce from Roberto, she married John Twist, a friend of a friend. She divorced him and met Jim Christie, her partner for 17 years until they parted in 1999. She then married Noel Charles in 2002.

Cyn's books:

- A Twist of Lennon (1978) - She really restrains herself in this book, being really gentle and all...

- John (2005) - Excellent read, I've read it three times.

Flying Kites

One of my very favorite pictures of Jane and Paul, with her lovely red hair.

Maureen Starr

Maureen Starr,

Real name : Mary Cox but also known as Maureen Starkey was born on August 4th 1946 in Liverpool, the only child of Joseph Cox (Joe), a ship steward and Florence Barrett (Flo Cox).

She was six years younger than Ringo, whom she married on February 11th 1965. She was 18 at the time. Mary left school aged 16 and started her training at Ashley Du Pré (hair salon in Liverpool) to become a hairdresser. As the hairdressers did at the time, Mary changed her name for a more fashionable one : Maureen (which means, interestingly, in Irish, little Mary...). Maureen was a regular at the Cavern, where the Beatles first started. Each girl fancied a beatle, for Maureen it was Ringo (who joined the Beatles, replacing Pete Best, in 1962), even though she kissed Paul first as a dare. Ringo noticed Maureen's striking features : her beautiful big dark eyes (Ringo used to say they hypnotized him..), her bouffant black hair with a fringe, etc and asked her to dance. They began dating shortly after this, but Maureen was only his steady in Liverpool at first (when they first started dating, she was only 16...). It really was when she rushed to him in London to take care of him (he had his tonsils removed) that it became very serious. They married in 1965, and their first son, Zak Starkey (2nd beatle child, first one was Julian Lennon in 1963) was born on September 13th of the same year. In 1967, on August 19, came Jason Starkey and finally, on November 11th 1970 Maureen gave birth to a daughter, Lee Parkin Starkey. Maureen and Ringo sadly divorced in 1975, his drinking was becoming unbearable (he didn't know what to do with himself since the Beatles separation) and he started a relationship with an American model and photographer, Nancy Lee Andrews. Maureen had a short fling with George Harrison in 1973 (while the Harrisons and the Starrs were still married...). Maureen met Isaac Tigrett, founder of the Hard Rock Café and they married in 1989 in Monaco and had a daughter, Augusta King Tigrett in 1987 (she was already a grandmother to Zak Starkey's daughter, Tatia Jane (b.1985) back then).

Welcome to Women Of The Beatles

Welcome to Women Of The Beatles,

A blog that will follow the lives of the Beatle girls,
the women whom the beatles dated or married.

First wives & girlfriends club : Cynthia Powell Lennon (John's first wife), Jane Asher (Paul's girlfriend), Mary Maureen Cox Starkey (Ringo's first wife) and Patricia Ann Boyd Harrison (George's first wife).

Second wives club : Yoko Ono (John's second wife....), Linda Louise Eastman (Paul's first wife but she was mostly around the second wives though), Barbara Bach (Ringo's second wife) and Olivia Trinidad Arias (George's second wife).

I have a stronger interest for the first wives club and it will definitely show.
My favourite Beatle girl is and has always been Maureen.
I loved her style, her hair, her makeup and the way she was
always doting, very loving and tender.