The biography of former Beatle, John Lennon—narrated by Lennon himself—with extensive material from Yoko Ono's personal collection, previously unseen footage from Lennon's private archives, and interviews with David Bowie, his first wife Cynthia, second wife Yoko Ono and sons Julian and Sean.
09-30-1988
1h 40m
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Main Cast
Movie Details
Production Info
Director:
Andrew Solt
Writers:
Andrew Solt, Sam Egan
Production:
Warner Bros. Pictures, David L. Wolper Productions
Locations and Languages
Country:
GB; US
Filming:
GB; US
Languages:
en
Main Cast
John Lennon
John Winston Ono Lennon, MBE (October 9, 1940 – December 8, 1980) was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Along with fellow Beatle Paul McCartney, he formed one of the most successful songwriting partnerships of the 20th century.
Born and raised in Liverpool, Lennon became involved as a teenager in the skiffle craze; his first band, The Quarrymen, evolved into The Beatles in 1960. As the group disintegrated towards the end of the decade, Lennon embarked on a solo career that produced the critically acclaimed albums John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band and Imagine, and iconic songs such as "Give Peace a Chance" and "Imagine". Lennon disengaged himself from the music business in 1975 to devote time to his family, but re-emerged in 1980 with a new album, Double Fantasy. He was murdered by Mark Chapman three weeks after its release.
Lennon revealed a rebellious nature and acerbic wit in his music, his writing, his drawings, on film, and in interviews, and he became controversial through his political and peace activism. He moved to New York City in 1971, where his criticism of the Vietnam War resulted in a lengthy attempt by Richard Nixon's administration to deport him, while his songs were adopted as anthems by the anti-war movement.
As of 2010, Lennon's solo album sales in the United States exceed 14 million units, and as writer, co-writer or performer, he is responsible for 27 number-one singles on the US Hot 100 chart. In 2002, a BBC poll on the 100 Greatest Britons voted him eighth, and in 2008, Rolling Stone ranked him the fifth-greatest singer of all-time. He was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1987 and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994.
Yoko Ono is a Japanese artist, musician, author and peace activist, known for her work in avant-garde art, music and filmmaking as well as her marriage to John Lennon. Ono brought feminism to the forefront through her music which prefigured New Wave music (whether she was a direct influence is still debated). She is a supporter of gay rights and is known for her philanthropic contributions to the arts, peace and AIDS outreach programs.
Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE (born 18 June 1942) is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of The Beatles (1960–1970) and Wings (1971–1981), McCartney is the most commercially successful songwriter in the history of popular music, according to Guinness World Records.
McCartney gained worldwide fame as a member of The Beatles, alongside John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr. McCartney and Lennon formed one of the most influential and successful songwriting partnerships and wrote some of the most popular songs in the history of rock music. After leaving The Beatles, McCartney launched a successful solo career and formed the band Wings with his first wife, Linda Eastman, and singer-songwriter Denny Laine. McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100 million singles in the UK.
BBC News Online readers named McCartney the "greatest composer of the millennium", and BBC News cites his Beatles song "Yesterday" as the most covered song in the history of recorded music—by over 2,200 artists—and since its 1965 release, has been played more than 7,000,000 times on American television and radio according to the BBC. Wings' 1977 single "Mull of Kintyre" became the first single to sell more than two million copies in the UK, and remains the UK's top selling non-charity single. Based on the 93 weeks his compositions have spent at the top spot of the UK chart, and 24 number one singles to his credit, McCartney is the most successful songwriter in UK singles chart history. As a performer or songwriter, McCartney was responsible for 32 number one singles on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, and has sold 15.5 million RIAA certified albums in the US alone.
McCartney has composed film scores, classical and electronic music, released a large catalogue of songs as a solo artist, and has taken part in projects to help international charities. He is an advocate for animal rights, for vegetarianism, and for music education; he is active in campaigns against landmines, seal hunting, and Third World debt. He is a keen football fan, supporting both Everton and Liverpool football clubs. His company MPL Communications owns the copyrights to more than 3,000 songs, including all of the songs written by Buddy Holly, along with the publishing rights to such musicals as Guys and Dolls, A Chorus Line, and Grease. McCartney is one of the UK's wealthiest people, with an estimated fortune of £475 million in 2010.
George Harrison, MBE (25 February 1943 – 29 November 2001) was an English rock guitarist, singer-songwriter, actor and film producer who achieved international fame as lead guitarist of The Beatles. Often referred to as "the quiet Beatle", Harrison became over time an admirer of Indian mysticism, and introduced it to the other Beatles, as well as those of their Western audience. Following the band's break-up, he had a successful career as a solo artist and later as part of the Traveling Wilburys, and also as a film and record producer. Harrison is listed at number 21 in Rolling Stone magazine's list of "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time". Although most of The Beatles' songs were written by Lennon and McCartney, Beatle albums generally included one or two of Harrison's own songs, from With The Beatles onwards. His later compositions with The Beatles include "Here Comes the Sun", "Something" and "While My Guitar Gently Weeps". By the time of the band's break-up, Harrison had accumulated a backlog of material, which he then released as the acclaimed and successful triple album All Things Must Pass in 1970, from which came two singles: a double A-side single, "My Sweet Lord" backed with "Isn't It a Pity", and "What Is Life". In addition to his solo work, Harrison co-wrote two hits for Ringo Starr, another former Beatle, as well as songs for the Traveling Wilburys—the supergroup he formed in 1988 with Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne, and Roy Orbison.
Harrison embraced Indian culture and Hinduism in the mid 1960s, and helped expand Western awareness of sitar music and of the Hare Krishna movement. With Ravi Shankar he organised a major charity concert with the 1971 Concert for Bangladesh.
Besides being a musician, he was also a record producer and co-founder of the production company HandMade Films. In his work as a film producer, he collaborated with people as diverse as the members of Monty Python and Madonna. He was married twice, to model Pattie Boyd from 1966 to 1974, and for 23 years to record company secretary Olivia Trinidad Arias, with whom he had one son, Dhani Harrison. He was a close friend of Eric Clapton. He is the only Beatle to have published an autobiography, with I Me Mine in 1980. Harrison died of lung cancer in 2001.
Richard Starkey, MBE (born 7 July 1940), better known by his stage name Ringo Starr, is an English musician, singer-songwriter, and actor who gained worldwide fame as the drummer for The Beatles. When the band formed in 1960, Starr was a member of another Liverpool band, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. He became The Beatles' drummer in August 1962, taking the place of Pete Best. In addition to his contribution as drummer, Starr featured as lead vocals on a number of successful Beatles songs (in particular, "With a Little Help from My Friends", "Yellow Submarine", and The Beatles version of "Act Naturally"), as co-writer with the song "What Goes On" and primary writer with "Don't Pass Me By" and "Octopus's Garden".
As drummer for The Beatles, Starr was musically creative, and his contribution to the band's music has received high praise from notable drummers in more recent times. Starr described himself as "your basic offbeat drummer with funny fills", technically limited by being a left-handed person playing a right-handed kit. Drummer Steve Smith said that Starr's popularity "brought forth a new paradigm" where "we started to see the drummer as an equal participant in the compositional aspect" and that Starr "composed unique, stylistic drum parts for The Beatles songs". In 2011, Starr was picked as the fifth-best drummer of all-time by Rolling Stone readers, behind drummers such as John Bonham, Keith Moon and Neil Peart.
Starr is the most documented and critically acclaimed actor-Beatle, playing a central role in several Beatles films, and appearing in numerous other movies, both during and after his career with The Beatles. After The Beatles' break-up in 1970, Starr achieved solo musical success with several singles and albums, and recorded with each of his fellow ex-Beatles as they too developed their post-Beatle musical careers. He has also been featured in a number of TV documentaries, hosted TV shows, and narrated the first two series of the children's television series Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends. He currently tours with the All-Starr Band.
David Robert Jones, known professionally as David Bowie, was an English singer, songwriter and actor. He was a figure in popular music for over five decades, regarded by critics and musicians as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s. His career was marked by reinvention and visual presentation, his music and stagecraft significantly influencing popular music. During his lifetime, his record sales, estimated at 140 million worldwide, made him one of the world's best-selling music artists. In the UK, he was awarded nine platinum album certifications, eleven gold and eight silver, releasing eleven number-one albums. In the US, he received five platinum and seven gold certifications. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996. Born and raised in South London, Bowie developed an interest in music as a child, eventually studying art, music and design before embarking on a professional career as a musician in 1963. “Space Oddity” became his first top-five entry on the UK Singles Chart after its release in July 1969. After a period of experimentation, he re-emerged in 1972 during the glam rock era with his flamboyant and androgynous alter ego Ziggy Stardust. The character was spearheaded by the success of his single “Starman” and album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, which won him widespread popularity. In 1975, Bowie's style shifted radically towards a sound he characterized as “plastic soul,” initially alienating many of his UK devotees but garnering him his first major US crossover success with the number-one single “Fame” and the album Young Americans. In 1976, Bowie starred in the cult film The Man Who Fell to Earth and released Station to Station. The following year, he further confounded musical expectations with the electronic-inflected album Low (1977), the first of three collaborations with Brian Eno that would come to be known as the Berlin Trilogy. Heroes (1977) and Lodger (1979) followed; each album reached the UK top five and received lasting critical praise. After uneven commercial success in the late 1970s, Bowie had UK number ones with the 1980 single “Ashes to Ashes,” its parent album Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), and “Under Pressure,” a 1981 collaboration with Queen. He then reached his commercial peak in 1983 with Let's Dance, with its title track topping both UK and US charts. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, Bowie continued to experiment with musical styles, including industrial and jungle. Bowie also continued acting; his roles included Major Celliers in Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983), the Goblin King Jareth in Labyrinth (1986), Pontius Pilate in The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), and Nikola Tesla in The Prestige (2006), among other film and television appearances and cameos. He stopped concert touring after 2004 and his last live performance was at a charity event in 2006. In 2013, Bowie returned from a decade-long recording hiatus with the release of The Next Day. He remained musically active until he died of liver cancer two days after the release of his final album, Blackstar (2016).
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Harvey Philip Spector (December 26, 1939 – January 16, 2021) was an American record producer and songwriter. The originator of the "Wall of Sound" production technique, Spector was a pioneer of the 1960s girl group sound and produced over 25 Top 40 hits between 1960 and 1965 alone. After this initial success, Spector later worked with artists including Ike and Tina Turner, John Lennon, George Harrison, and the Ramones with similar acclaim.
He produced the Beatles' Academy Award-winning album Let It Be, and the Grammy Award-winning Concert for Bangladesh by former Beatle George Harrison. In 1989, Spector was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a non-performer. The 1965 song "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'", produced and co-written by Spector for The Righteous Brothers, is listed by BMI as the song with the most U.S. airplay in the 20th century.
The 2003 shooting death of actress Lana Clarkson in his Alhambra, California home led to his being charged with murder in the second degree. After a 2007 mistrial, he was convicted in 2009 and given a prison sentence of 19 years to life. An appeal of the conviction was heard by the California Courts of Appeal in April 2011, but the murder conviction was upheld less than three weeks later. Spector's attorneys intend to pursue another hearing by the appeals court and will seek a review of the ruling by the California Supreme Court.
Cynthia Lennon was born on September 10, 1939, in Blackpool, England. She grew up in a middle-class family and developed a passion for art and music from a young age. Cynthia's artistic talents were nurtured by her mother, who recognized her daughter's creative abilities and encouraged her to pursue her dreams.
In the late 1950s, Cynthia enrolled in the Liverpool College of Art, where she studied art and design. It was during this time that she first met John Lennon, who would later become her husband and a member of the iconic rock band, The Beatles. Cynthia and John fell in love, and despite initial resistance from her family, they got married in August 1962.
As The Beatles gained worldwide fame, Cynthia found herself thrust into the spotlight as the wife of one of the most famous musicians of all time. However, she struggled with the pressures of fame and the challenges of being in a relationship with a rock star. She often faced criticism from the media and endured public scrutiny of her marriage to John, which was strained by John's infidelity and his growing involvement with the band's manager, Brian Epstein.
Despite the challenges, Cynthia remained committed to her art and pursued her passion for painting. She found solace in her artwork, which allowed her to express her emotions and reflect on her experiences. Cynthia's paintings often featured abstract and surrealistic styles, and her work was well-received by the art community.
Cynthia and John eventually divorced in 1968, and Cynthia focused on raising their son, Julian Lennon. She continued to paint and held several successful art exhibitions in the years that followed. She also authored two books, "A Twist of Lennon" and "John," which provided insight into her life with John and their relationship.
Tragically, Cynthia passed away on April 1, 2015, at the age of 75, due to complications from cancer. She left behind a legacy as an accomplished artist and a devoted mother. Cynthia's contributions to the art world and her role in the early years of The Beatles' history are remembered and cherished by fans and art enthusiasts alike. Her story is a testament to her resilience, creativity, and unwavering love for her son and her pursuit of art despite the challenges she faced throughout her life.
Julian Lennon is an English musician and photographer. Lennon is the son of John Lennon and his first wife, Cynthia. Lennon was named after his paternal grandmother, Julia Lennon. He was the direct inspiration for three Beatles' songs: "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" (1967), "Hey Jude" (1968) and "Good Night" (1968).
Lennon is devoted to philanthropic endeavors, most notably the White Feather Foundation and the Whale Dreamers Organization. These organisations promote the co-existence of all species and the health and well-being of the Earth.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Julian Lennon, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Sean Taro Ono Lennon (born October 9, 1975) is a British-American musician, songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist. He is the son of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, and half-brother to Julian Lennon.
May Pang is a prominent figure in the music industry known for her work as a personal assistant to John Lennon, as well as her contributions to the music world as a photographer and author. Born on October 24, 1950, in New York City, May Pang grew up with a passion for music and photography, which would later shape her career.
May Pang's journey in the music industry began when she joined Apple Corps, the multimedia corporation founded by The Beatles in the late 1960s. Her dedication and hard work caught the attention of John Lennon, and she soon became his personal assistant in 1970. May Pang played a significant role in Lennon's life during a tumultuous period, serving as a trusted confidante and companion during his separation from Yoko Ono, which came to be known as the "Lost Weekend."
During this time, May Pang worked closely with Lennon, organizing his schedule, managing his affairs, and providing creative input. She played a pivotal role in Lennon's music career, helping him to reconnect with his creativity and encouraging him to pursue new projects. Together, they collaborated on albums such as "Walls and Bridges" and "Rock 'n' Roll," which received critical acclaim.
In addition to her role as a personal assistant, May Pang also developed her skills as a photographer. She documented her time with Lennon and captured candid moments of their experiences together. Her photographs have been featured in various publications, and she has held numerous exhibitions showcasing her work.
After Lennon's reunion with Yoko Ono, May Pang continued to pursue her passion for photography and music. She worked with various artists in the music industry, including David Bowie and Mick Jagger, and she also managed her own music production company.
May Pang's contributions to the music industry and her unique role in John Lennon's life have made her a respected figure among fans of The Beatles and music enthusiasts alike. She has also written several books, including her memoir "Loving John," which provides an intimate and insightful account of her time with Lennon.
Throughout her career, May Pang has remained dedicated to her passion for music and photography, and her talent and perseverance have earned her a special place in music history. Her legacy continues to inspire aspiring artists and fans alike, and her story serves as a testament to the power of creativity, resilience, and the enduring impact of music.
Sir George Henry Martin (3 January 1926 – 8 March 2016) was an English record producer, arranger, composer, conductor, audio engineer, and musician. He was referred to as the "Fifth Beatle", including by Paul McCartney, in reference to his extensive involvement on each of the Beatles' original albums. Martin produced 30 number-one hit singles in the United Kingdom and 23 number-one hits in the United States.
