[Celebrities] Cynthia Lennon, the First Beatles Wife, Dies at 75

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Cynthia Lennon, the First Beatles Wife, Dies at 75
From New York Times

Cynthia Lennon, the first wife of the Beatles' John Lennon, who chronicled their troubled marriage in two memoirs, died on Wednesday at her home in Mallorca, Spain. She was 75.

The cause was cancer, according to a memorial on the website of her son, Julian.

Ms. Lennon, then Cynthia Powell, met Lennon when he was a student at the Liverpool College of Art in the late 1950s. She was a studious, proper young lady, in stark contrast to him.

"He was a total rebel, and everybody was amazed by him," she said in a 2005 interview on ABC's "Good Morning America."

She ended her engagement to another man, he broke up with his girlfriend, and they began dating. It was during this period, Ms. Lennon said, that she first dealt with his jealousy and anger. She said that he smacked her in the face for dancing with another man, after which she broke up with him for several months.

She became pregnant in 1962 and married Lennon on Aug. 23, just weeks before the Beatles recorded their first single, "Love Me Do." She was ill prepared for the fame that engulfed John and his bandmates.

"I didn't marry a Beatle," she told the British newspaper The Independent in 1999. "I married a broke student who played the guitar and ponced all my grant money off me."

Their son was born in April 1963, as Beatlemania was spreading across England. Brian Epstein, the Beatles' manager, hid the existence of Lennon's wife and son to make him seem available to the legions of young women obsessed with him. Many fans were distraught when the Beatles appeared on "The Ed Sullivan Show" in 1964 and the words "Sorry, girls, he's married" appeared with his image on the screen.

As the Beatles' fame grew, Lennon became more distant, with little time for his wife and their son. Ms. Lennon stayed home with Julian while John toured and traveled. Lennon came to resent his wife's conventional ways.

It was around this time that Lennon met the artist Yoko Ono. Ms. Lennon discovered their relationship after finding the two of them sitting on the floor of the Lennon home cross-legged, clad only in robes. John and Cynthia Lennon divorced in 1968, and she received a reported settlement of £100,000 (roughly $150,000 at the time).

After the divorce, Lennon cut off contact with her and their son for years, and many accounts of the Beatles' history minimized them. "We are like walk-on parts in John's life," Ms. Lennon said in 2005.

Ms. Lennon told her side of the story in two memoirs: "A Twist of Lennon," which she also illustrated, and "John."

Julian Lennon rekindled his relationship with his father before he was murdered by Mark David Chapman in 1980. Ms. Lennon wrote that Ms. Ono asked her not to come to the memorial ceremonies in New York. But the two women grew closer over time.

"I felt proud how we two women stood firm in the Beatles family," Ms. Ono wrote on her website on Wednesday.

Cynthia Powell was born in Blackpool, Lancashire, on Sept. 10, 1939. She was married four times, most recently to Noel Charles, who died in 2013.

Julian, who is also a singer and songwriter, is her only immediate survivor.

On the last page of "John," Ms. Lennon wrote that if she had had another chance, she would have lived differently.

"If I'd known as a teenager what falling for John Lennon would lead to," she said, "I would have turned 'round right then and walked away."