Liverpool legend remembered on anniversary of his birth
 |
| Happy Birthday John Lennon! POST HERE
John Lennon would have turned 75 today.
The Liverpool-born music icon was murdered three decades ago outside his home in New York.
But he packed a lifetime into his 40 years, forming the most famous and successful group the world has ever known, becoming dad to two sons and promoting the idea of world peace.
Here are 75 facts about John to mark his 75th birthday.
1. John Winston Lennon was born at Liverpool Maternity Hospital on October 9, 1940.
2. His father Alfred Lennon was a merchant seaman.
3. Mum Julia was the youngest of five Stanley sisters.
4. As a toddler, John lived with his mother Julia in Newcastle Road, Wavertree.
5. Freddie Lennon took the young John to Blackpool, with the intention of emigrating secretly to New Zealand.
6. From the age of five, John lived with his aunt Mimi and uncle George Smith at Mendips in Menlove Avenue. George reportedly taught him to read using copies of the ECHO, and bought him a mouth organ.
7. The young John attended Dovedale primary school. A fellow classmate was Jimmy Tarbuck.
8. Described as a ‘class clown’ at Quarry Bank High School, John was often given detention - including three in one day.
9. He failed his O levels and was only accepted at Liverpool College of Art after pleas from his headmaster and Aunt Mimi.
10. Lennon first met Yoko Ono when he went to a preview of her exhibition Unfinished Paintings at London’s Indica Gallery in 1966.
11. The first song John ever learned to play was Fats Domino’s Ain’t That a Shame.
12. The Beatles were awarded MBEs in 1965. In 1969, John returned his “as a protest against Britain’s involvement in the Nigeria-Biafra thing, against our support of America in Vietnam and against ‘Cold Turkey’ slipping down the charts.”
13. John and Yoko married in Gibraltar on March 20, 1969
14. The couple spent their honeymoon holding a Bed-In for Peace at the Amsterdam Hilton.
15. John and Yoko moved to New York in August 1971.
16. In summer 1969, John, Yoko, Julian Lennon and Yoko’s daughter Kyoko, were all injured in a car accident while on holiday in Scotland.
17. One of John’s favourite drinks was Brandy Alexander.
18. John’s so-called Lost Weekend lasted for 18 months, from 1973-75. His companion, with whom he shared a home in Los Angeles, was May Pang.
19. John co-wrote David Bowie’s first number one, Fame.
20. His first son Julian was born in April 1963, and his second, Sean, on his 35th birthday - October 9 1975.
21. When Sean was born, John became a stay-at-home dad, baking bread.
22. The last time Paul McCartney saw John was in April 1976 when McCartney visited the Dakota Building apartment, and they watched Saturday Night Live together.
23. John appeared, in his guise as Private Gripweed, on the first ever cover of Rolling Stone magazine.
24. John was 15 when he formed the Quarrymen as a skiffle group.
25. In April 1963, John spent a short holiday in Barcelona with Brian Epstein. A fictionalised account of the trip was the subject of the 1991 film The Hours and the Times, starring Ian Hart.
26. Liverpool’s Ian Hart has played Lennon three times on screen. Other actors who have portrayed him on stage and screen include Mark McGann, Bernard Hill and Christopher Eccleston.
27. John said the lyric he was most proud of was “all you need is love”.
28. There are statues and memorials to John Lennon all over the world, including the Lennon Wall of Peace in Prague, Lennn statue in Lima, Lennon Park in Havana, and Imagine mosaic in Central Park.
29. Speke airport was renamed Liverpool John Lennon in 2001. Its motto is “above us only sky”.
30. Ono bought Mendips at 251 Menlove Avenue and donated it to the National Trust. It opened to the public in 2003.
31. Mum Julia was struck by a car driven by an off duty policeman and killed leaving Mendips in 1958. John was 17.
32. When Lennon was asked by ‘reporters’ in A Hard Day’s Night “how did you find America” he answered: “Turn let at Greenland.”
33. John and Yoko sent acorns to the heads of state of some of the world’s nations, hoping they would plant them as a symbol of peace.
34. John’s close childhood friend was Pete Shotton, who later founded the Fatty Arbuckle chain of restaurants.
35. As a child, John would often play near the Strawberry Field Sally Army children’s home, which he later immortalised in song.
36. The original lyrics of In My Life were based on a bus route he used to take, and included Penny Lane, Church Road, the Docker’s Umbrella and St Columbus.
37. As a young boy, John compiled his own jokes and cartoons in Sport, Speed and Illustrated. Edited and Illustrated by JW Lennon.
38. Schoolboy John sang in the choir at St Peter’s Church in Woolton.
39. Cast and The La’s John Power played the leading role in Lennon at the Royal Court in 2013.
40. In 1965, John bought Aunt Mimi a house on the exclusive Sandbanks peninsula near Poole.
41. John Lennon’s famous white Steinway is on show at The Beatles Story.
42. John penned two books in the 1960s - In His Own Write and A Spaniard in the Works.
43. He wrote about ‘4,000 holes in Blackburn, Lancashire’ in A Day in the Life after reading about the pothole problem in the Daily Mail.
44. There are more than 90 recorded cover versions of the 1971 song Jealous Guy, the most famous by Roxy Music.
45. John shared a flat with art college friend Stuart Sutcliffe in Percy Street and later around the corner in Gambier Terrace.
46; A memorial concert was held at the Pier Head in May 1990 to remember Lennon. The event was hosted by ‘Superman’ Christopher Reeve and among those performing were Lou Reed and Kylie Minogue.
47. 251 Menlove Avenue is grade II listed.
48. When John was at Sunday school at St Peter’s in Woolton, he would often spend his 2d for the collection on bubblegum instead.
49. According to Bill Harry, John’s favourite book was Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
50. A Victorian circus poster John picked up in a Sevenoaks antiques shop inspired him to write Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite.
51. John wrote Strawberry Fields on a Spanish beach during filming for How I Won the War.
52. Speaking to Playboy in 1980, John said: “Imagine, Love and those Plastic Ono Band songs stand up to any song that was written when I was a Beatle. It may take 20 or 30 years to appreciate that.”
53. On April 22, 1969, John formally changed his middle name by deed poll from Winston to Ono in a ceremony on top of the Apple building in Savile Row.
54. In 1966, John said in an interview with the London Evening Standard: “We’re more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first - rock ‘n’ roll or Christianity.
55. John and Cyn’s home Kenwood, in Weybridge, featured a gorilla costume, suit of armour and a full-size crucifix.
56. John was said to be 5ft 10 1/2in tall.
57. It was George Harrison’s dentist who introduced John to LSD after slipping it into the guitarists’ coffee during a night in April 1965.
58. In April 1960, John and Paul made an appearance at The Fox and Hounds in Caversham, billed as The Nerk Twins.
59. In a 1964 magazine interview, John claimed his favourite foods were “curry, jelly and tea”.
60. In the same interview, he was asked about his pet fear. He answered: “Growing old, I hate the thought of that. Who wants to hear a croacking Beatle of 80?”
61. John has three half-sisters, Julia, Jackie and Ingrid (christened Victoria but given up for an adoption).
62. John and the Quarrymen would often rehearse in the bathroom of her mother Julia’s house because the acoustics sounded like a recording studio.
63. Three of John’s records - (Just Like) Starting Over, Imagine and Woman - topped the charts in the two months after his death.
64. Lennon was shot by fan Mark Chapman outside the Dakota Building in New York on Monday, December 8 1980.
65. The final photograph of John was taken by Annie Liebovitz at the Lennons’ New York apartment on the day he died.
66. The Imagine mosaic in the Strawberry Fields garden in Central Park was donated by the city of Naples.
67. John has a planet named after him - 4147 Lennon.
68. Shortsighted John wore trademark circular wire glasses, but could never get on with contact lenses.
69. The European Peace Monument was unveiled in Liverpool by Julian and Cynthia Lennon on what would have been John’s 70th birthday.
70. As a teenager, John would holiday with his cousins Stanley and Leila at a family croft at Durness in Scotland.
71. The Quarrymen took part in a skiffle contest organised by Canadian impresario Carroll Levis, but lost out to a Welsh group, despite John’s protests.
72. John appeared as a Dirty Mac band member in The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus.
73. His criticism of the United States’ foreign policy, particularly the Vietnam War, led to the Nixon administration trying to have him deported from America.
74. He discovered in later life that he was dyslexic.
75. John loved cats and owned a number of them throughout his life. As a boy he had one called Elvis which lived with his mother Julia. They discovered Elvis was a girl after she had a litter of kittens.
|
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario