Quiz: How much do you know about the Beatles’ wives?
Just four lads from Liverpool – but between them, they’ve had a wide variety of partners.
I guess this is understandable because all four are (or were) rather cute and they certainly had the money that many a girl finds attractive.
Of course, some of the wives (do you know how many and which they were?) married their Beatles before they found fame and fortune.
Check your knowledge of the Beatles wives.
We’ll start with some easy ones.
All four – John, Paul George and Ringo – have been married more than once. But which one of them has been married the most?
Which of the four Beatles had or has the longest-lasting marriage?
Three of the Beatles’ wives are (or were) American. Which wives were they and which of the Beatles were they married to?
Two women who were married to a Beatle would include ‘photographer’ on their resume and both had photographic exhibitions. Who are / were they and which of the Fab Four were their husbands?
More regional questions: One wife was born in Mexico, another in Japan. Can you name them? That was easy – so can you name the three wives that were from the north of England? Can you name the one who was from the south of England?
At time of writing three of the women who were married to Beatles are no longer with us. Which was the first to die? Which are the other two and who were they married to?
Of the nine women, five were born in the 1940s, two in the 1930s, one in the 1950s and one in the 1960s. If they were all alive today, who would be the oldest and which of them would be the youngest?
One Beatles marriage broke down because a) she had an affair with a close musician friend of her husband’s and b) he had an affair with another Beatle’s wife. Who were the four people involved in this tangle?
All the Beatles had children. But there were three marriages that produced none. Which were they?
Which was the first Beatle to become a grandfather?
How many did you get right? Oh, you need the answers?
But before we get to that, this video might help if you need clues.But beware, one ‘wife’ shown was actually a girlfriend and one wife isn’t shown on the video at all.
Here are the answers:
Paul McCartney has been married three times so is the most-married of the four. John, George and Ringo were each married twice.
So which of the Beatles’ marriages lastest longest? Was it John and Yoko? Paul and Linda? No, the longest lasting is that of Ringo Starr and Barbara Bach. They were married in 1981 and at time of writing, still are. In second place were Paul and Linda (1969 to 1998) and John and Yoko in third (1969 to 1980).
The three American wives were / are Barbara Bach (married to Ringo Starr), Linda Eastman (who was married to Paul McCartney until her death) and Nancy Shevell (who is currently married to Paul McCartney). (PS. Wikipedia says that Yoko Ono is Japanese, not American).
Linda Eastman (McCartney) was a photographer prior to her marriage. Pattie Boyd (Harrison) later took up photography and had her work exhibited.
George Harrison’s second wife Olivia Arias is Mexican and Lennon’s second wife Yoko Ono is Japanese. The three northern English wives were Cynthia Powell (Lennon), Maureen Cox (Starr) and Heather Mills (McCartney). The wife from the south of England was Pattie Boyd (Harrison)
The first of the Beatles’ wives to die was Maureen Starr. She died in 1994 aged forty eight. Linda McCartney died in 1998 aged fifty six and Cynthia Lennon died in 2015 aged seventy five.
If all the Beatles’ wives were still alive and having a reunion (how strange that would be) the oldest would be Yoko Ono (Lennon) who was born in 1933. The youngest would be Heather Mills (McCartney) who was born in 1968. Yes, a thirty five year gap.
Pattie Boyd (Harrison) had an affair with Eric Clapton. (The two men remained friends) During the Boyd-Harrison marriage, George had an affair with Ringo Starr’s wife, Maureen. Again, the men remained friends.
All the Beatles’ marriages produced children except Pattie Boyd’s marriage to George Harrison, Barbara Bach’s to Ringo Starr and Nancy Shevell’s to Paul McCartney. As Barbara and Nancy were born in 1947 and 1959 respectively, that is likely to remain unchanged 🙂
In September 1986, Zak Starkey, Ringo’s son, made Ringo the first Beatle to be a grandfather when he and his wife had a daughter.
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