Linda McCartney, American singer, photographer, and activist (d. 1998)
Linda Louise McCartney, Lady McCartney (née Eastman; September 24, 1941 – April 17, 1998) was an American photographer, musician, animal rights activist, and entrepreneur. She was the keyboardist in the band Wings, which also featured her husband, Paul McCartney, a former member of the Beatles.
Beginning in the mid 1960s, Linda began a career as a photographer, landing with Town & Country, where she soon gained assignments to photograph various musicians and entertainers. By the late 1960s, she was a regular fixture at the Fillmore East, a New York concert venue, where she became the unofficial house photographer, photographing numerous performances at the legendary club, and was the first woman to have a photograph on the cover of the influential music journal Rolling Stone. Her photographs were displayed in galleries and museums such as the Victoria and Albert Museum, and were collected in several books.
Linda had been learning to play keyboards from her husband, and after the 1970 breakup of the Beatles, Paul and Linda recorded the album Ram together, and formed the band Wings in 1971. She continued to play alongside Paul following Wings' breakup in 1981 up until The New World Tour in 1993.
She was a vocal animal rights activist and wrote and published several vegetarian cookbooks. She also founded the vegetarian Linda McCartney Foods company with her husband. In 1995, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and died from the disease three years later at the age of 56.