Linda McCartney: A Portrait [Paperback]

Danny Fields (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 2001

In August 1968, Linda received a phone call from Paul inviting her to stay with him in London.Linda and I had dinner on Sunset Boulevard.She looked down at the table and then right into my eyes."Do you think he says that to lots of girls, what if he isn't serious?"I told her, "You love him.What can you lose?Just go."It was one of my finer lectures. -Danny FieldsWhen Danny Fields first met Linda Eastman in 1966 they were both part of the struggling and largely ignored rock music press.She was an aspiring photographer, raised in a wealthy New York family, on assignment to shoot the notorious Rolling Stones.On the strength of those stunning photos Linda's career as a photographer exploded overnight.For almost three years she was a major figure on the New York rock scene.Though a devoted single mother, she hung out with members of Warhol's factory and photographed superstars like Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Winwood, Jim Morrison, and Janis Joplin.But when Paul McCartney of the Beatles, one of the world's most eligible bachelors, invited her to live with him in London, she gave up her career and joined him.For over thirty years, until her tragic death from cancer in 1998, Linda McCartney was one of Danny Field's closest friends-a confidant in art, love, career, and men.Like virtually everyone she came in contact with, Fields was won over by this completely natural woman, a person of style and substance in a milieu where artifice was the order of the day.Fields relives those glory days in mesmerizing detail.This is the book for anyone who thinks they've read everything about the most exciting period in popculture history.Find out more about: * Linda's unschooled, but innate, talent with a camera and her revealing, landmark photos of late '60s rock royalty, which launched her reputation as a celebrated and respected photojournalist * the enormous hostility directed at Linda by the public and the media after her marriage to Paul McCartney became front-page news around the globe * her thirty-year relationship with Paul, an inspiring tale of true love and undying devotion * her later careers as a musician, artist, activist, and businesswoman * her courage in the face of mortal illnessLinda McCartney: A Portrait is a fascinating personal document about an epic time and a simple woman whose grace and integrity gave strength to everyone she touched.From her turbulent life in the '60s to her struggle for self-identity to her devotion to family, Danny Fields is able to put you inside Linda's story because he was a part of it.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Fields, a noted rock manager and journalist, offers chatty reminiscences about his late friend Linda McCartney. The story begins with her childhood in a New York, upper-middle-class family headed by entertainment lawyer Lee Eastman. Then Fields breezes through his first meeting with Linda in 1966, her work as a rock photographer, and her various brushes with such icons as Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, and Tim Buckley. The extended courtship and marriage of Linda and Beatle Paul McCartney, Linda's effect on the Beatles, her brief stardom as a member of Wings, and her subsequent post-rock life with Paul until her untimely death in 1998 are also covered. Although Fields treats Linda as her own person--not just a wife of a Beatle--this book will mainly appeal to diehard Beatlemaniacs. However readable, engaging, and heartfelt, Fields's biography degenerates into a series of personalized vignettes that contributes little to the understanding of rock music in the 1960s or the Beatles themselves. A marginal purchase.
-Dave Szatmary, Univ. of Washington, Seattle
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

"I wish I didn't have to write this book" is the first sentence of Fields' "portrait" of the late photographer-singer wife of Paul McCartney. Fields means that he wishes she were still alive and no fit subject for such a book. It doesn't take much reading of it to join him in his wish. Oh, he cautions that he knows the book isn't "an ultimate `biography'." But he doesn't warn us that it reflects him and his inadequacies as a writer far more than it does Linda McCartney. Not having gathered evidence like a real biographer, or reporter, for that matter, Fields relies on taped and previously published testimony to back up his own memories as an authentic enough friend of Linda's--he met her in 1966 in New York when both were assigned to dog the Rolling Stones on their first performance tour. Whenever his memories let him down, he pads his prose with sentimental gushing about the '60s and the glamorous world of rock 'n' roll. Ever name-dropping and fatuous, he yet exhibits endearing loyalty to Linda, defending her against all attackers and slighters and puffing up her photographic and musical accomplishments. But, finally, this is an ignorant, gauche, and embarrassing book, a sort of grossly overwritten fan-magazine sob story. Don't underestimate, however, the readership for such stuff. Ray Olson --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Renaissance Books (April 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1580631797
• ISBN-13: 978-1580631792
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.5 x 2.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,215,531 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars IGNORE THE HORRIBLY WRITTEN REVIEW FROM BOOKLIST, April 21, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Linda McCartney: A Portrait (Hardcover)

To anyone with enough genuine interest in the story of Linda McCartney--if you've read this far down the webpage, you deserve to hear the truth. And not the truth as seen by a stuffy, clueless professional reviewer who can sense an easy-target book to slam a mile away. I have read over 30 books about the rock scene in the 60's and this one told me details I'd never ever heard. I rank it as extremely well-written and the author names names because there are so many great ones to choose from! This book is as much about the beatles and the stones and Warhol's bunch as it is about Linda. You feel like you are PART of the story because Danny Fields certainly was her very good friend. And he can write and involve you in a book you just can't put down...

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not Quite Enough, December 18, 2001

By 

D. Movahedpour "doeadear" (CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Linda McCartney: A Portrait (Hardcover)

I have been wanting to read an intimate biography of Linda McCartney for some time now, so I was anxious to read this book. Written by her long-time close friend, Danny Fields, I would have expected a bit more. Even though the book delves deeper into Linda than any book on the Beatles has been able to, it still wasn't quite enough. A lot of what Fields says about her childhood and teen years, before he met her, is conjecture. There is very little detail about that period of her life. Fields knew her best in the mid-sixties when, as a single mother in New York City, Linda entered the then embryonic world of rock photography. There really was no rock press at the time, and Linda got in on the ground floor, and was able to be a part of a scene that very few people could imagine today.

While Fields vacillates from defending Linda to criticizing her, he is more than fair in his assesment, and, at times, a bit overboard in his praise of her. Although I didn't feel I knew Linda much better after reading the book, one point in Linda's favor became very clear. She was a very strong woman, with self-confidence and a deep, abiding love for her husband and children. She weathered storms I cannot imagine most women being able to handle. And, when the slings and arrows were aimed solely at her, instead of wallowing in self-pity, she felt instead a sense of pain for what the embarrassment caused Paul and her children to suffer.

This book doesn't shed a tremendous amount of light on Linda Eastman McCartney, but it is still valuable for the brief glimpse into the woman before Paul.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A breath of fresh air, May 4, 2000

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Linda McCartney: A Portrait (Hardcover)

What a warm, generous and enjoyable book! I found it affectionate, but balanced and credible (the anecdote about how Paul and Linda "paid" New York cabbies was rather revealing). The quotes from Pete Townsend added a lot, too. I had no idea he was so close to the Macs, and his insights were always a delight. Linda comes off as a flesh and blood woman who made a conscious decision to make a difficult relationship work -- and viewed in those terms, her life was a success. I wish more attention had been paid to Linda's relationships with Mary, Stella and James (only Heather is mentioned often). But this is a small quibble with an otherwise moving love story.