Twiggy

From Wikipedia:

Dame Lesley Lawson DBE (née Hornby; born 19 September 1949) is an English model, actress, and singer, widely known by the nickname Twiggy. She was a British cultural icon and a prominent teenaged model during the swinging ’60s in London.

Twiggy was initially known for her thin build and the androgynous appearance considered to result from her big eyes, long eyelashes, and short hair. She was named “The Face of 1966” by the Daily Express and voted British Woman of the Year. By 1967, she had modelled in France, Japan, and the US, and had landed on the covers of Vogue and The Tatler. Her fame had spread worldwide.

After modelling, Twiggy enjoyed a successful career as a screen, stage, and television actress. Her role in The Boy Friend (1971) brought her two Golden Globe Awards. In 1983, she made her Broadway debut in the musical My One and Only, for which she earned a Tony nomination for Best Actress in a Musical. She later hosted her own series, Twiggy’s People, in which she interviewed celebrities; she also appeared as a judge on the reality show America’s Next Top Model. Her 1998 autobiography Twiggy in Black and White entered the best-seller lists. Since 2005, she has modelled for Marks and Spencer, most recently to promote their recent rebranding, appearing in television advertisements and print media, alongside Myleene Klass, Erin O’Connor, Lily Cole, and others. In 2012, she worked alongside Marks & Spencer’s designers to launch an exclusive clothing collection for the M&S Woman range. […]

January 1968 film project

In the latter part of January 1968, the press reported that The Beatles, through their company Apple Films, were in talks to produce and write the music for an upcoming film featuring the model Twiggy. However, the project did not come to fruition.

One of my few friends in the rock ’n’roll world is Paul McCartney, who I met through Ken very early on. Ken always used unusual people in his films, people who weren’t trained actors, like Christopher Gable who was a principal with the Royal Ballet until Ken cast him in Song Of Summer. And he had come up with something he thought he could do with me. It was from a William Faulkner story called The Wishing Tree about a magician and a young girl and he wanted Paul to do the music, so he arranged for us all to meet over lunch. I was completely beside myself. I was still only seventeen and the Beatles were at the height of their fame. They were the biggest thing that had ever happened. Only four years before I’d been one of those screaming girls at Finsbury Park Astoria [The Beatles played there in 1963 and 1964]. […]

So four years later and there I was about to have lunch with my idol. I was so nervous. Working with Avedon was nothing compared with lunch with Paul McCartney. All I kept thinking was I’ve got to behave properly. I can’t go gooey. […] Paul was the same to me that day. So kind. It seems stupid to call someone like Paul McCartney ordinary, but that’s what he is. Ordinary but extraordinary. Shortly after that meeting, the six of us arranged to have dinner. Paul was with Jane Asher in those days. We went to the White Tower, a very smart Greek restaurant, to talk more about the film and he just started thinking up songs while we were sitting there, tapping out tunes with a fork on wine glasses which he’d just filled up to various levels with water.

Twiggy – From “Twiggy in black and white: an autobiography“, 1998

TWIGGY TO STAR IN BEATLES FILM

TWIGGY, already launched as a pop singer, is going to be a film star, too.

The Beatles’ film company, Apple Films, is to produce a picture in which she will star. And the Beatles will write the music for it. Beatle Paul McCartney said last night: “You could say that it will be the showbiz sensation of the year.”

The model girl’s manager, Justin de Villeneuve, said in London: “Twiggy feels quite confident that she has the ability to act.”

The title of the film has not been announced.

From Daily Mirror – January 19, 1968

BEATLES MAY PRODUCE TWIGGY’S FILM DEBUT

THE Beatles have been asked to produce and write the music for model Twiggy’s first film.

Twiggy asked the group if they would be interested in the venture and they are considering the production for their company, Apple Films. Press officer Tony Barrow told the MM: “The boys were asked if they would consider producing Twiggy’s film and doing the music, but nothing has been decided at present.”

Lennon and McCartney have written the theme song for Cilla Black’s new TV series Cilla which starts on BBC-1 next Wednesday (30). The song is titled “Come Inside, Luv” and will probably be recorded as her next single within the next few days. Paul McCartney did most of the writing of the song, although it is published as a Lennon-McCartney song.

First guests on Cilla’s nine-week series are Tom Jones, Roy Castle, Harry H. Corbett and Jimmy Edwards.

From Melody Maker – January 27, 1968

Recording “Revolution 1”

Meeting with Linda Eastman

A few years later, after he’d broken up with Jane, he rang me and said, ‘Listen, I’ve just got back from New York, and I’ve met this wonderful girl, she’s American and she doesn’t know anyone over here. Do you mind meeting up with her and maybe go shopping or something?’ And I said absolutely. And I remember we went shopping in Knightsbridge. Linda had Heather with her, her little girl from her first marriage, who was only six, and then I took them for lunch at San Lorenzo. When Linda first came over the fans and media were horrible to her. They gave her so much stick. It was just sour grapes pure and simple. She’s a really good lady and over the years has been a fantastic friend to me and Carly and later Leigh and Ace. She’s a very special person and we all adore her. Their kids are amazing, very together and very normal and I’ve known them since they were born. The McCartneys are proof that money and fame don’t have to muck people up. It’s all a question of attitude, of family values. I so admire them. They seem to have got things right.

Twiggy – From “Twiggy in black and white: an autobiography“, 1998

Granada TV had agreed to put up the money for a documentary, “Twiggy in Russia”, and we had put together a Romanov-inspired collection: white knee-length boots, Cossack trousers, everything in white. Steve and the crew had gone over in advance for their recce and we were all set to go. Then in early May we got a telegram saying our visas had been refused. We couldn’t understand it. Things seemed to be opening up behind the iron curtain. They were, but too quickly for the Russians, it turned out. In Czechoslovakia the Prague Spring had begun; communism was giving way to ‘socialism with a human face’. That night on the news we heard the Russians had moved their troops to the Czech border. In August they invaded. It would be another twenty years before the iron curtain finally came down. We did the shoot in Sweden instead.

Paul McCartney had agreed to write us a song, but in all the confusion we’d forgotten about it, until one evening a few months later we were all together in Mr Chow’s and we reminded him. To everyone’s amazement Mr McCartney started belting out ‘Back In The USSR’ which later found its way onto the Beatles’ White Album.

Twiggy – From “Twiggy in black and white: an autobiography“, 1998

Paul had always written songs for people other than the Beatles. […] Soon after I met him, when he was still with Jane Asher, we had gone up to Liverpool to stay with Paul’s father and stepmother in the house Paul had bought for them in Heswall, on the Cheshire side of the Mersey. Over supper he told us he was on the look out for new singers. ‘Did you see last week’s Opportunity Knocks?’ I asked. Opportunity Knocks was the talent show hosted by the late Hughie Green. I’d been watching a few days before and had seen this young girl who sang like an angel, called Mary Hopkins. Paul hadn’t seen her. And if she didn’t win the viewers’ vote, he wouldn’t. So we all sat round the dinner table that night and wrote postcards voting for Mary Hopkins. In the end we must have done over a hundred. Very naughty. Then we had a week to wait. It was all so exciting. She won, of course — not that it had anything to do with our cards. It was a landslide. Immediately after the show Paul called and said he thought she was brilliant. The next day he sent a car down to Wales to fetch her. He found her a song called ‘Those Were the Days’ which he produced. And it went straight to Number One.

Twiggy – From “Twiggy in black and white: an autobiography“, 1998

Linda McCartney had become a really good friend. And that year she suggested we join them in Liverpool for New Year’s Eve. They always went to Paul’s Uncle Joe’s house for New Year, she said.

‘All the McCartneys will be there and all the relatives. Do come. It’ll be really good fun.’

We arrived in good time and after supper Paul disappeared upstairs.

‘Come up and look what I’ve found,’ he called.

It was a box of old exercise books he’d had at school. The four of us sat on his bed laughing looking at all this old stuff. Nostalgia was in the air.

‘And this is my first guitar.’

Like a proud kid he got this guitar down from the top of the wardrobe where it had been shoved and showed us how the guitar man at the shop had had to re-string it for him because it was a right-handed guitar and Paul is left handed. So sweet. No sense of showing off. Of all the people who’ve stayed normal Paul gets the gold star.

This trip down memory lane meant we were running late. By the time we piled into the Range Rover it must have been nearly nine o’clock, the time we were expected at Uncle Joe’s. It was quite squashy, Paul driving, Linda beside him in the front; Michael, me and the kids behind; and right in the back baby James in his carry-cot. Stella and Mary would have been quite little; Heather, Linda’s daughter by her first marriage, about thirteen.

Problems started as soon as we tried to cross the Mersey. The usual tunnel was closed, but Paul said he thought there was a new one. We came out the other side locked into a one-way system and Paul, having no idea where we were, was desperately looking for landmarks. Suddenly he saw his old school. ‘Look,’ he said pointing into the night, ‘that’s where me and John smoked behind the bicycle sheds.’ And like a tap that’s turned on, out came all these reminiscences. It was just luck that he happened to pass his old school and, because it was New Year, he was already feeling nostalgic. Next he took us to Strawberry Fields. I don’t know what it’s like now but then it was an open space, a wildish park thing but with railings and a gateway. Then we went down Penny Lane and past the barber’s shop and he got hysterical because the barber’s had gone unisex. He was on a jag and obviously loving it. And there was Linda saying, ‘Come on, Paul, or we’re going to be late.’ She was thinking of Uncle Joe, and unlike Michael and me, had heard it all before. It was a magical night, truly truly magical. He was obviously just enjoying being back and driving around his old life.

By now we’re seriously late. We’re all laughing: Paul McCartney lost in Liverpool. Outside a pub we see a group of lads. Paul winds down the window. ‘I’m going to have to ask the way.’

One of them staggers towards us. Paul smiles that inimitable smile.

‘Hello, mate. Do you know the way to Such ’n’ such street?’

What’s wonderful about Paul, like Dustin Hoffman and a few other famous friends, is that they don’t have this thing about ‘I’m a celebrity. I can’t go out.’ […] Paul is like Dustin. He’s always gone out to restaurants. Yes, people recognise him, but he has decided that he’s not going to let fame ruin his life. […] This young lad outside the pub looks at Paul, does a double take, looks again, finally twigs (excuse the pun) and backs off, first talking under his breath then shouting and gesturing to his mates, ‘It’s Paul McCartney, it’s fucking Paul McCartney.’ Inside the Range Rover we’re hysterical with laughter. By this time the guy is standing in the headlights, rocking on his feet and screaming at the top of his voice and everyone seems to be pouring out into the street, so we move off, Paul driving very carefully around the drunken youth, who shows no signs of moving, with a cheery, ‘Thanks mate. Happy New Year.’

By now we’re in a very run down area, small factories, warehouses. No shops. No one to ask the way except one middle-aged lady walking down the street, bottles under her arm. Paul stops and opens the window.

‘’Scuse me love but I’m lost. I’ve got to get to Such ’n’ such street.’ She looks at him, not a flicker of recognition, and starts to give directions.

‘Tell you what, I’m going that way myself,’ she chirps, ‘so give me a lift and I’ll show you.’

‘Jump in,’ says Paul.

Linda slides across and this woman gets in next to her, puts her bottles down in front of her and rubs her hands.

‘Bloody cold,’ she says and explains that she’s just finished work and is ‘going home to my old man’. Then she says, ‘How’s the new baby then, Paul? You didn’t think I knew who you were, did you? And I know who you are,’ she adds, nudging Linda and laughing. Then turning around to us in the back, ‘And I know who you two are and all. You’re Twiggy and you’re Michael, and you’re Stella and Mary and Heather, and is that James in the back? Is he a good baby?’

It was hysterical. And of course Paul loved her. When we got to her street he offered to take her to her door. But she said no.

‘I can walk that bit.’

As we drove off, I said to Linda, ‘She’ll go in now to the old man and say, ‘you’ll never believe who’s just given me a lift home, Paul and Linda McCartney and Twiggy was in the back.’ And he’ll say, ‘Oh yeah, how much have you been drinking?’ ’ I’d have loved to have been a fly on the wall.

Uncle Joe’s house turns out to be straight out of Coronation Street, two up, two down and packed to the eaves with relatives, uncles and aunts and cousins. All really friendly and welcoming to two total strangers. Very Liverpudlian. As it comes up to midnight everyone makes for the door. It’s what they do every year. The whole street goes out and joins hands to sing Auld Lang Syne, all the doors open, the street alive with people. Televisions down the street are turned up and we hear Big Ben strike twelve. Happy New Year. And everybody kisses everybody else like you do. I kiss Michael, then I kiss Paul, then Linda, then the kids, then Uncle Joe and the other uncles and aunts and the cousins and the friends. It goes on and on, for what seems like forever. Eventually Paul comes and explains what’s happened. The word had gone round the other street that Paul was there and I was there. So they thought they may as well join in. Paul was getting all these girls from all the streets in the area and I was getting all these other fellas — an endless stream of people kissing us. And not one behaving horribly among them, for all the booze. It was so funny. A brilliant end to the most magical New Year’s Eve.

Twiggy – From “Twiggy in black and white: an autobiography“, 1998

Recording sessions Twiggy participated in

Albums, EPs & singles which Twiggy contributed to

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