First published in the Daily Express, 19 March 2005

WAR OF THE WIDOWS

In the week it's revealed John Lennon's wives are behind conflicting biographies of his life, we profile his first love and his true love - each of whom has different visions of their time with the late Beatle

They were both desperately in love with one of the icons of the 20th century. They both still grieve for him. And now Yoko Ono and Cynthia Lennon are about to renew hostilities that stretch back more than 30 years with their two very different stories of John Lennon.

In the blue corner is first wife Cynthia, now 65. She is writing a book simply called John, promising a full account of their life together in the turbulent fifties and sixties, from their art school meeting, through to the birth of their son, Julian, to the Beatles phenomena, their divorce and the difficult years that followed.

"The time has come," Cynthia says, "when I feel ready to tell the truth about John and me, our years together and the years since his death." That will include her "honest" feelings about the woman who replaced her.

In the red corner is that woman, second wife Yoko, now 72. She is backing a new musical based on Lennon's life that will open on Broadway this year. She had vetted the script and approved the use of post-Beatles, post-Cynthia songs.

In the show, Lennon's first wife has only a fleeting appearance and their son Julian is virtually ignored. Instead, the musical concentrates on the life he led with Yoko rather than the Beatles; it should come to the West End some time next year.

"I suppose they are both at the time in their lives when they will seize any opportunity to set the record straight," says author, Paul Du Noyer who has written on Lennon's life. "They think it's time to give their versions of history."

It's not difficult to see why Yoko and Cynthia both still feel the need to own Lennon's memory. Neither had flash-in-the-pan relationships with the Scouse superstar. Both enjoyed more than a decade with him, both bore him a son - and each fiercely believes that she knew him best.

"In a way they did, because they both know a different John," says Du Noyer. "They each knew him at a different period of his life and they only overlapped for a couple of weeks."

Different times is right. Lennon's two marriages echoed the sharp divide between his life as a working class Liverpool hero beginning to grapple with Beatlemania and his later life as a solo superstar, living a rarefied, arty life in New York.

But, after his brutal murder by obsessed gunman, MC outside the Dakota building in New York in 1980, the division was never as clear-cut for his former wives. The interwoven legacy of his first love and his true love rumbles on, about to be thrown into stark relief by Cynthia's book and the Yoko-approved musical.

Cynthia met John in 1958 when they were students at the Liverpool College of Art. She was dressed in twinset and pearls; he was striking a cocky pose with his hair all over the place.

She didn't approve but was surprised when she felt a stab of jealousy toward another girl who reached up to smooth the soon-to-be legendary mop top.

"Despite myself, I had fallen in love," she said later. "Until that moment I was serious, hard-working Cynthia who wanted to be an art teacher. But from then on things were never normal again."

Although they seemed an unlikely couple - he called her Miss Prim - the attraction was mutual and fierce. Far from being a mousy wife, she drew, painted and shared a love of creative life. She would travel 30 miles from her home in Hoylake to hear him playing in Liverpool and he would love showing off his sexy, Bardot-like girlfriend.

A passionate relationship turned suddenly serious in 1962 when Cynthia broke some shocking news for the time: she was pregnant. John proposed, they hastily married and Julian was born in April, 1963. But, as Beatlemania grew, Lennon was pulled into sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, It didn't suit a young pop star's image to have a wife and baby so Cynthia was kept well out of sight at their Ascot mansion.

"It was a fairly naive marriage of college sweethearts," says rock writer Carol Clerk. "Julian was born just as the Beatles were taking off and it was too much responsibility for John as he was being drawn into a world of hedonism."

Cynthia lived in luxury, but knew she couldn't count on her husband to be faithful. Lennon admitted as much, "I was hysterical," he once said. "That was the trouble. I was jealous of anyone she had anything t do with. I demanded absolute trust from her because I wasn't trustworthy myself."

Cynthia concentrated on Julian and keeping the house, but the marriage ended with a brutal blow. She returned home to find a pair of slippers outside her bedroom and Yoko Ono reclining with John in a robe. There was no attempt to hide what had happened and Cynthia immediately packed and left.

"If it hadn't been her, it would have been someone else," Cynthia said. "I saw it as the finale of his betrayal and felt mortified to the core. It was so cruel. There are ways of having an affair but that was so blatant."

She took Julian and moved out, leaving Lennon free to continue courting his new muse, who could not have been more different from suburban Cynthia.

Born into a wealthy Tokyo family descended from royalty, Yoko went to school with Emperor Akihito. In her youth her family moved between Japan and America and eventually she established herself as an avante-guarde artist in fifties New York.

She had already earned a reputation as a performance artist when Lennon met her at a gallery in 1967. She caused stirs with projects such as Bottoms, a film showing 365 naked behinds, and a show in which members of the audience cut her clothing. At 34, Yoko was seven years older than Lennon and held an intense fascination for him that he never lost, inspiring him to some of his most acclaimed songs, such as Imagine and Woman.

While Cynthia had taken such a backseat role that many fans had been oblivious to her existence, Yoko immediately claimed her place centre stage with her lover.

"Yoko was just someone quite extraordinary coming into his life when he wanted drama and intrigue," says Clerk. "They simply met and fell in love like anyone else."

By then the Beatles were already a cauldron of tensions, with Lennon and Paul McCartney coming increasingly to creative blows and the pressures of being "bigger than Jesus" gradually sowing the seeds of a split.

But it was Yoko's influence - and deeply resented presence at recording sessions - that was seen by many to have caused the break-up of the Beatles in 1970. She was demonised by the press and fans, who both made her a scapegoat for their distress.

Lennon was besotted by his new wife, however, and as a couple they went on to make headlines around the world, chiefly with their calls for peace. They staged a "bed-in" in an Amsterdam hotel room during their honeymoon in 1969.

Apart from a notorious bad patch in 1973 when he had a Yoko-approved affair with his assistant, May Pang, their marriage survived all the pressures and Lennon's solo career flourished.

When they had a son, Sean, in 1975, Lennon seemed completely happy, becoming a househusband and caring for tier child while Yoko ran their business affairs. Even her staunchest critics could not argue with the tenderness and mutual devotion that was clearly displayed whenever they were seen together.

But in 1978 Yoko [sic, should be Cynthia?] caused ructions with her husband when she published her first autobiography, A Twist of Lennon. John tried to prevent the book from being published, but lost a case for libel.

When he was murdered outside his Manhattan apartment building, Yoko witnessed the nightmarish moment her husband slumped dead to the ground, sparking a worldwide outpouring of shock and grief.

Since his death both women have kept their marriages to Lennon in the public eye. Yoko has seen public attitude to her soften as she has grown old and proved herself a staunch guardian of the Lennon legend.

But the fall-out for Cynthia has been more complicated because of the way in which Julian was treated by his father and step-mother.

Lennon had little to do with Julian in his childhood and had just started to make amends by trying to get to know his first son when he was killed.

Yoko added to the bitterness when she refused to give any mementoes of his father to Julian, forcing him to buy keepsakes at auctions. After a lengthy legal battle over John's estate, Julian eventually received a £20 million settlement.

Yoko continues to live and work out of the Dakota building and Cynthia splits her time between Normandy in France and Mallorca with second husband, Noel Charles, a former nightclub owner, and the women have met on only a handful of fraught occasions, such as the funeral of Lennon's beloved Aunt Mimi.

Hunter Davies, the Beatles official biographer, believes there is a simple motivation behind the latest attempts by Yoko and Cynthia to retell their tales of Lennon's life.

"It is true that there are two John Lennon widows, but I honestly think there is no antipathy between them now," he says.

"Cynthia is doing it for the money. Yoko is probably also doing it for the money, but will probably say she's protecting John's legend. The thing about the Beatles is that the farther we get away from them, the bigger they become and the facts are sliced thinner and thinner."

So Cynthia and Yoko Ono are two retirement-age ladies who might never meet again and live on opposite times of the world. But the unalterable fact that the both loved, and were loved by John Lennon will always drive them to guard their memories jealously - and forever tell their stories differently.

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