Played Bass for 'the Beatles' in the 60's. Generally considered the greatest pop composer of all time, along with fellow Beatle composer John Lennon. In the Guinness Book of Word Records for most records sold, most #1's (shared) and largest paid audience for a concert (350,000+ people 1989 in Brazil). After 'the Beatles' formed Wings, one of the most commercially successful groups of the '70's. Solo carreer in post 70's has been sporadic in both commercial and artistic terms. Successes include albums Tug of War and Flowers in the Dirt. Flops include movie Give My Regards to Broadstreet and album Press to Play.

James Paul McCartney was born to working class parents in Liverpool, England on June 18, 1942. His Irish Catholic mother, Mary, was a nurse and midwife, while his British father, Jim, was a cotton salesman and amateur jazz pianist. He had a happy childhood with one younger brother, Michael, until his mother's sudden death from breast cancer when he was 14. Shortly afterward, he wrote his first song, and a few months later he met John Lennon during the latter's performance at a local church fete (festival). McCartney sooned joined Lennon's band, the Quarrymen, and with the eventual addition of George Harrison and Pete Best, the band morphed into the Beatles. After a long stint playing in Hamburg, Germany, the band returned to Liverpool and soon became a top local act. They were approached by Brian Epstein, who became their manager and secured them a record deal with EMI. After replacing drummer Best with Ringo Starr, and under the tutelage of producer George Martin, the Beatles soon became an international hit-making phenomenon, influencing everything from fashion to politics. Yet it wouldn't last: internal strife and disagreement over management issues following Epstein 1968's death tore the band apart. In April 1970, McCartney announced the band's breakup. He was 27 years old. McCartney's first solo album, "McCartney," was a #1 hit and spawned the evergeen ballad "Maybe I'm Amazed", yet critical reaction was mixed. This would be a continuing motif in McCartney's career, as he continued to release music, with new band Wings, that was a hit commercially but ignored by critics (the exemption being "Band on the Run"). In 1980, McCartney was arrested in Tokyo, Japan, for marijuana possession. After a ten-day stint in jail, he was released to a media firestorm. The jail stint aborted his worldwide tour and put the final nail in the coffin of Wings. McCartney retreated into seclusion after the arrest, and had only recently started recording a new album when his ex-bandmate, John Lennon, was shot dead by a crazed fan in New York City on December 8, 1980. After almost a year of absence from the music scene, McCartney returned in 1982 with the album "Tug of War," which enjoyed great critical acclaim. He was a solo artist from then onward, except for occasional collaborations with wife Linda and writers such as Elvis Costello. After two successful world tours and the somewhat disappointing album "Off the Ground" (1992), McCartney concentrated on composing the classical work "The Liverpool Oratorio". In 1995, he was working on a new pop album, "Flaming Pie," when his wife, Linda, was diagnosed with breast cancer. The album was eventually released in 1997 to both critical and commerical success, debuting at #2 on both the UK and US pop charts.

1997 was the also the year McCartney was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II, but caring for his wife during her illness meant only sporadic public appearances during this time. In April 1998, Linda McCartney died of breast cancer, and Paul McCartney spent much of the next year away from the public eye, emerging only to campaign on behalf of his late wife for animal rights and vegetarian causes. He eventually returned to the studio, releasing an album of rock n'roll covers in 1999. "Run Devil Run" made both Entertainment Weekly and USA Today's year-end top ten lists. McCartney also slowly returned to the public spotlight, embarking on a romantic relationship with ex-model and disabled rights activist Heather Mills (who herself lost a leg in a road accident). His new relationship was relfected in the songs on his 2001 album, "Driving Rain," and the couple became engaged that same year. Yet there was also sadness, as George Harrison died of cancer in early December, 2001. 2002, however, brought McCartney an Oscar nomination (for the title song to the movie "Vanilla Sky") and saw him embark on his first tour in ten years.

"The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated."

In 1955, young Paul McCartney joined a music group called The Quarrymen led by a rebellious teen named John Lennon. Paul's friend George Harrison joined as guitarist and the group evolved into The Beatles (named in tribute to Buddy Holly's Crickets), playing in local clubs and gaining notoriety in Hamburg, Germany, for their anti-authority attitudes and hardrocking music. By the time Ringo Starr became the group's permanent drummer, Beatlemania was on the rise in Britain and, eventually, the U.S. The Fab Four went on to change the sound of popular music, and along the way, made some enduring contributions to the movies as well. Their debut film, A Hard Day's Night (1964), was a low-budget project intended to capitalize on the quartet's early fame, nothing more. The final product stunned critics as much as it delighted audiences: a pseudofictional look at a day in the Beatles' lives, which wonderfully captured their irreverent, anarchic energy (thanks to the Beatles' on-camera presence, Alun Owen's Oscar-nominated script, and Richard Lester's direction). Help! (1965, also directed by Lester) was not quite as well received, but was still a madcap, colorful romp. The lads directed and produced their next project, Magical Mystery Tour (1967), a made-for-TV movie that was mostly improvised-and savaged by critics. Their next "appearance" was much more successful, in the imaginative, psychedelically designed ani mated feature Yellow Submarine (1968). (The Beatles did not participate in the film's production-except for an appearance at the end-and the voices for their animated characters were spoken by actors.) Their last film together was the documentary Let It Be (1970), a painful look at the group's disintegration as they worked in the studio; the film's music won an Oscar for Original Song Score.

Individually, the Beatles pursued widely varying careers. Lennon was the first to appear in a movie without the other three-in Richard Lester's dark comedy How I Won the War (1967). He and wife Yoko Ono worked together on many experimental films including Bottoms (1967, a pastiche of various human derrieres), Number 5 (1968, a slow-motion record of Lennon's facial expressions), and Fly (1971, an examination of a nude woman from a fly's point of view). Ono later provided some of this material for inclusion in the documentary Imagine: John Lennon (1988).

Ringo, hailed as the "natural" of the group, enjoyed some fame as an actor, with appearances in Candy (1968), The Magic Christian (1969), 200 Motels (1971), Son of Dracula (1974), Ken Russell's Lisztomania (1975, as the Pope), and proved himself an engaging leading man in the prehistoric comedy Caveman (1981).

Paul McCartney scored The Family Way (1966), earned an Oscar nomination (with wife Linda) for writing the title song of the James Bond movie Live and Let Die (1973), which they performed on the soundtrack, and starred in Give My Regards to Broad Street (1984), an excuse to showcase a series of musical numbers and some Beatles songs. In 1991 he asked director Richard Lester to direct a documentary of his current group's tour, which was released as Get Back

Surprisingly, it was George Harrison, the "quiet" Beatle, who made the biggest splash in the film world. His production company, HandMade Films, was originally founded to enable the Monty Python movie Life of Brian (1979) to secure a release. Since then, Harrison has served as executive producer, along with partner Denis O'Brien, on a number of unusual and eclectic films, including Time Bandits (1981), The Missionary (1982), A Private Function (1985), Mona Lisa and Shanghai Surprise (both 1986), Withnail & I (1987), How to Get Ahead in Advertising and Track 29 (both 1988). He has also made cameos in some of the aforementioned films and contributed songs to their soundtracks. In 1978 Harrison made a cameo appearance in the uproarious madefor-TV satire The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash proving that his sense of humor extended to the subject of The Beatles.

Copyright ©1994 Leonard Maltin, used by arrangement with Signet, a division of Penguin Putnam, Inc.