Linda Louise McCartney (neé Eastman, previously See) (September 24, 1941 – April 17, 1998) was an American photographer, musician, and animal rights activist. Although at first she was best known for her marriage to Sir Paul McCartney, of The Beatles, she was later the author of several vegetarian cookbooks, a business entrepreneur, and professional photographer whose book Linda McCartney's Sixties, written in association with poet and author Steve Turner, contains many of her seminal rock-artist photographs from that era.

Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE (born 18 June 1942) is an Academy Award-winning English singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who first gained worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles. McCartney and John Lennon formed one of the most influential and successful songwriting partnerships and "wrote some of the most popular music in rock and roll history." After leaving The Beatles, McCartney launched a successful solo career and formed the band Wings with his first wife, Linda Eastman McCartney. He has worked on film scores, classical music, and ambient/electronic music; released a large catalogue of songs as a solo artist; and taken part in projects to help international charities.

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 His song "Yesterday" is listed as the most covered song in history and has been played more than 7,000,000 times on American television and radio. 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 [4] (three charity singles have since surpassed it in sales; the first to do so—in 1984—was Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas?", whose participants included McCartney).

His company MPL Communications owns the copyrights to more than three thousand 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. Aside from his musical work, McCartney is an actor, a painter and an advocate for animal rights, vegetarianism, and music education; he is active in campaigns against landmines, seal culls and Third World debt. McCartney was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 1965, and was knighted in 1997.


Heather Louise McCartney (neé See) (born on December 31, 1962), is the biological daughter of Linda McCartney (née Eastman) and Joseph Melville See Jr., an American geologist. McCartney's parents divorced after only eighteen months of marriage, because See had taken off for Africa and expected his wife and daughter to follow. Linda See refused, and sent a letter to her husband stating that she wanted a divorce. After raising her daughter on her own in New York City for several years, Linda McCartney married Paul McCartney of The Beatles in 1969, when her daughter was six years old. That same year, she was formally adopted by Paul McCartney through legal process (and prior consent from See, her biological father) and took the McCartney name. Also in 1969, McCartney appeared in the last Beatles movie, Let It Be. She has stated that although See had a lifelong influence on her, she considers Paul McCartney to be her father.

Mary Anna McCartney-Donald (neé McCartney) (born in London on 28 August 1969) is a photographer. The first child of rock photographer Linda Eastman McCartney and Paul McCartney of The Beatles, Mary was named after her grandmother, Mary McCartney.


Stella McCartney was born in London, the second child of former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney and Linda McCartney. She is named after her maternal great-grandmothers: both of Linda McCartney's grandmothers were named Stella. As a young girl, McCartney travelled the globe with her parents and their pop group Wings, along with her siblings: older half-sister Heather (who was legally adopted by Paul McCartney), older sister Mary, and younger brother James. According to her father, the name of Wings was inspired by Stella's difficult birth. As his daughter was being born by emergency caesarean section, Paul sat outside the operating room and prayed that she be born "on the wings of an angel." Wings toured from shortly after her birth in 1971 until 1980.

Paul McCartney married Heather Mills, a former model and anti-landmines campaigner, in an elaborate ceremony at Castle Leslie in Glaslough, County Monaghan, Ireland, where more than 300 guests were invited and the reception included a vegetarian banquet. In October 2003, Mills McCartney gave birth to a daughter, Beatrice Milly McCartney. The baby was reportedly named after Heather's late mother Beatrice and Paul's Aunt Milly.