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July 2003 to September 2003
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July 2003
Paul and Heather were sighted (July 31) in Mid-town Manhattan cruising in a brown British (steering wheel on right) Rolls Royce. Paul was on the passenger side and had on a blue shirt with rolled up sleeves and Heather wore sunglasses and a black sleeveless top.
Rock legend Sir Paul McCartney has given his seal of approval to a Doncaster hotel - for the second time.For a signed copy of the star's latest album has been snapped up by the Regent Hotel to add to its huge collection of Beatles memorabilia. And the former Beatle's autograph will now take pride of place alongside a signature he put in the hotel's guest book more than 40 years ago.
Hotel owner Mike Longworth successfully bid for a signed copy of Macca's "Back In The World" live tour album at a charity auction organized by BBC Radio Sheffield in aid of the Bluebell Wood Children's Hospice Appeal.
Now the CD, which was snapped up for an undisclosed sum, will go into the hotel's Abbey Road restaurant and bar - named in honor of the Fab Four who stopped at the Regent during a Beatles UK tour in 1963.
Longworth said, "It is amazing to see the two signatures side by side - one from the beginning of his career and this one 40 years on. He is still at the top of the tree and the songs on the CD have stood the test of time." (Doncaster Today)
LOVE ME DOUGH
A Beatles demo disc signed by Paul McCartney became the world's most valuable single yesterday. The 1962 copy of "Love Me Do" fetched £13,515 ($21,895) at auction in London. (Daily Record)
McCartney, Ringo: Can't They Work It Out?Ringo Starr brought his lumbering All-Starr Band to Radio City Music Hall last night (July 29). But Paul McCartney, his only remaining colleague from the Beatles, was nowhere to be found.
This was awkward since earlier in the day, McCartney and his pregnant wife, Heather Mills, were spotted by singer John Waite ("Missing You"), a member of Starr's band, walking on West 54th Street near Rockefeller Center. This makes sense since the office of McCartney's brother-in-law and attorney, John Eastman, is in the famous Rockefeller apartments.
It's unlikely that McCartney was unaware of Ringo's presence in New York yesterday. The sylph-like drummer has been doing a lot of publicity to promote the concert tour and his latest album.
At a press conference in the late afternoon at Radio City, Starr told a group of journalists that he invites McCartney every year to join him with the All-Starr Band. "He's just too busy," Ringo said, rather sadly.
This was the 8th year.
(Radio City, by the way, had better get its act together. The place seems very disorganized and not particularly user friendly!)
Last November I reported that Ringo and Paul were barely on speaking terms at the Concert for George, a memorial to their buddy George Harrison at Royal Albert Hall. The pair timed their appearances at the afterparty so they wouldn't have to be photographed together.
Of course McCartney isn't making many friends within his own family either lately. I am told by insiders that the rift between the ex-Beatle and his children has only widened since his marriage to Mills and the impending birth of their baby.
Stella McCartney, Paul's designing daughter, hasn't done anything to squelch rumors of her distaste for Mills. But I am also told that Paul has angered Stella by not giving her access to many of the possessions of her late mother, Linda. Stella has also expressed an interest in helping market Linda's line of frozen vegetarian dishes which was sold to Heinz in 2001. But so far Paul has apparently blocked her participation, much to Stella's chagrin.
The Linda McCartney line, by the way, can be found in health food stores.
As for Mills, she really missed her favorite singer last night at Ringo's show. As she told me a couple of years ago, Heather is a huge fan of Men at Work singer Colin Hay. Well, dear Heather, he performed three of his hits last night and one song only real fanatics would know.
I am sure you would have been swaying to the music. Too bad, a missed chance! (Fox News)
Paul McCartney chatted with staff while enjoying a solo drink at the Monkey Bar in the Elysee Hotel (New York City) on Sunday, July 27. "He talked about his recent visit to Russia and how it was a thrill because the Beatles were banned from performing there in the 1960s," says a spy. (New York Daily News)
The Rolling Stones concert, originally scheduled for 1:30 p.m., now kicks off at noon Wednesday, July 30 to accommodate the 15 performers in the all-day lineup at Downsview Park. (more info on concert)
Promoters also addressed rumors that Christina Aguilera -- performing in Toronto the night before with Timberlake -- and Paul McCartney will make surprise appearances on stage. "We're hearing the same rumors. I have no idea," O'Connor said, who denied he was playing coy. "I've done a lot of concerts in the last 30 years. I've had special guests drop in, just show up on the night of the show while the band's on stage. We've got so much stuff there we can handle anything," he said.
Tickets -- nearly 405,000 have been bought so far -- will not be sold after 6 p.m. on the day of the concert. More than $400,000 has been raised to date for hospitality and health-care workers hard-hit by SARS.Construction at Downsview Park is on schedule and performers are slated to hit the stage Tuesday for sound checks. (Jam)
Sir Paul McCartney, founder of Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts, returned to Liverpool on July 25 to hand out the degrees at the Philharmonic Hall.
Paul said, "I love this day, it's a very special day in my year for many reasons. I know some of the students personally from working with them."Hundreds of LIPA students gathered with their families and friends to get their degree certificate and the famous LIPA badge.
Mark Featherstone-Witty, chief executive of the institute, said, "It is wonderful to see so many graduates here today with their families and friends."Hayley Doyle, aged 22, from Litherland, graduating with an acting degree said, "I'm really proud to be graduating from LIPA - and getting a degree handed to me by Paul McCartney."
Music graduate Ranjit Burman, 34, from Bootle, said LIPA was great for the city. He added, "Paul McCartney is the reason why I went into music. LIPA is setting a precedent, putting out real quality talent into the world."
Paul said, "From those early days, when I was about 11 and this whole speech day process, I can't believe what's happened to me in my life. I feel like I was originally just trying to get out of doing a job, but it turns into something else, something you love, a passion or phenomenon when you meet mates like I met in the Beatles." (Liverpool Echo)
Paul McCartney's daughter is rumored to have ditched plans to marry on the Mull of Kintyre. Rumors are circulating that designer Stella will wed on the Isle of Bute instead. Mount Stewart house - a Victorian mansion on the east of the island - is being touted as the venue for the star- studded bash.Stella, 31, had been expected to marry ex- advertising executive Alasdhair Willis on the coastline immortalized in the ex-Beatle's huge hit. Her late mum Linda called it her favorite place on Earth. Stella grew up there.
But Bute Marketing Group chairman Charles Soane said, "There's a great deal of secrecy here on the island at the moment. All the main hotels have been block booked by Mount Stuart for the end of August. Recently some upmarket people from down south visited us and took photos of the hotel rooms. We have not been told what the bookings are for yet. But if a big celebrity wedding like this came to Bute, it would be absolutely brilliant and boost the island's appeal."
Madonna, Gwyneth Paltrow and partner Chris Martin, of Coldplay, are among the expected guests. Other big names tipped to attend are models Naomi Campbell and Kate Moss and Lord Of The Rings beauty Liv Tyler. Groom Alasdhair, 31, met Stella at a fashion party in June 2001. (Daily Record UK)
Journalist-hating fashion designer Stella McCartney will be fuming now that the press have details of her upcoming wedding plans to fiance Alasdhair Wills. The three-day wedding extravaganza will take place in the last week in August in the rather less than glamorous Mull Of Kintyre location. The Mull, as if you could forget, was made famous by her dad's epic bagpipe-ridden anthem.The guest list will be an impressive array of Stella's friends (i.e. designer clients) and include Madonna (whose own, secret wedding outfit Stella was responsible for), Gwyneth Paltrow and Kate Moss.
Heather Mills' name has not been mentioned on the guest list so far, but Sir Paul has helped out with the arrangements including a completely vegetarian wedding feast which insiders say her mum, Linda, would have wholeheartedly approved of. (People News)
Shoppers in a busy Lake District tourist town were in a spin when they spotted former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney in their midst.
Sir Paul and his wife Heather Mills drew up in their E-type Jaguar outside the Royal Hotel in Bowness-on-Windermere and asked general manager Maria Walker if they could park outside. A stunned Maria told them, "Please leave it there as long as you like." Sir Paul later returned to his car and Maria had her photograph taken with him as a souvenir of his surprise visit.
It is not the first time he has visited the Lake District. Sir Paul actually proposed to his wife during a romantic break during which he visited the Keswick and Ullswater area. And back in 1969, at the height of The Beatles' fame, John Lennon, his Japanese wife Yoko Ono and their children astonished staff and guests at the Waterhead Hotel in Ambleside when they paid an impromptu visit for lunch. They posed for photos and Lennon thrilled hotel workers and guests by staying around to sign dozens of autographs before leaving.
Sir Paul is the latest in a string of celebrities who have chosen the Lake District for holidays and filming engagements. Pop singer Sting bought a house near Grasmere and American movie star Jennifer Love Hewitt stayed in Keswick last year while shooting scenes for a film in Borrowdale. Tom Cruise and ex-wife Nicole Kidman were also once rumored to be looking to buy a house in South Lakes after being spotted in Cockermouth.
The county has become a popular venue for film makers ever since it was popularized by controversial director Ken Russell who once had a home near Keswick and made several films in and around the town and the Borrrowdale valley. (News&Star UK)
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals enlisted the help of Paul McCartney in its campaign against Kentucky Fried Chicken.An open letter from McCartney to David Novak, chairman and chief executive officer of KFC's Louisville-based parent company, Yum! Brands Inc., will appear in a full-page advertisement in Thursday's edition of The Courier-Journal.
McCartney, who is a vegetarian for ethical reasons, insists in the ad that Novak should improve the treatment of 750 million chickens raised annually in "factory farms'' and killed in "frightening ways'' for KFC restaurants, according to PETA.
Jonathan Blum, senior vice president for public affairs for Yum! Brands, said in response, "Paul McCartney is a music legend and he's entitled to his opinion, but we think he's misinformed. KFC is committed to the well-being and humane treatment of chickens. While PETA would prefer a world of vegetarians, most people disagree, so we think PETA should follow one of Sir Paul's songs and just 'Let it Be.'''
The ad is the latest action in a string of efforts by PETA to force KFC to implement new standards for the treatment of its chickens. PETA filed a lawsuit July 7 against KFC Corp. in Los Angeles County Superior Court for misleading the public by denying it mistreats chickens headed for its restaurants. (AP)
AN OPEN LETTER FROM SIR PAUL MCCARTNEY TO KFC CEO DAVID NOVAJuly 24, 2003
Dear Mr. Novak:
I am writing on behalf of my friends at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), as well as compassionate consumers across the globe, to urge KFC to implement PETA's list of eight simple things that need to be done to reduce cruelty to chickens raised and killed for your carry-outs.
For example, I would like to see KFC stop allowing chickens to be bred and drugged so that they become so heavy that they cripple under their own weight, end the starvation of birds who are constantly hungry because they are bred to grow too quickly, stop burning the beaks of parent birds, and make sure slaughter methods do not permit animals to be scalded to death in feather-removal tanks. As you know, full details of PETA's recommendations are available on KFCCruelty.com. They are based on the scientific work of KFC's own animal-welfare advisors and would eliminate only the most horrible abuses of these animals.
If KFC suppliers treated dogs or cats the way they treat chickens, they could be charged with the crime of cruelty to animals. I am a vegetarian because I realize that even little chickens suffer pain and fear, experience a range of feelings and emotions, and are as intelligent as mammals, including dogs, cats, and even some primates. These remarkable animals are deserving of at least a little kindness.Please let PETA know that you will end the most egregious forms of abuse endured by chickens raised and killed for KFC.
Sincerely,
Sir Paul McCartney
Check out Paul's PETA Enchilada recipe:Sir Paul McCartney's "Ob-La-Di" Enchiladas
For the Sauce:
1 cup tomato sauce
1 cup water
1 large onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tsp. chili powder
1/2 tsp. ground cumin
1/2 tsp. oregano
2 Tbsp. cornstarch dissolved in 4 Tbsp. waterFor the Filling:
1 lb. firm tofu, drained and mashed
1 onion, chopped
1/2 tsp. chili powder
1/4 tsp. cumin
1/4 tsp. garlic powder, or 1 tsp. minced fresh garlic
1/4 tsp. black pepper
1 1/3 cups picante sauce
3 cups steamed spinach12 tortillas
Pre-heat the oven to 350°F. Place all the sauce ingredients, except for the cornstarch, in a small pot and cook over low heat, covered, for 20 minutes. Stir in the cornstarch and cook until the sauce thickens.
In the meantime, prepare the filling: Mix the tofu, onion, chili powder, cumin, garlic, pepper, and picante sauce. Put some of the spinach in the middle of each tortilla, then add 3 to 4 heaping teaspoonfuls of the tofu mixture, and roll up the tortillas. Top with vegan sour cream, such as non-dairy Tofutti Sour Supreme, or make your own with the recipe below. Lay the enchiladas in a baking dish, cover with sauce, and bake for 20 to 25 minutes.
Makes 12 enchiladas
Tofu Sour Cream1/2 lb. tofu, patted dry
3 Tbsp. vegetable oil
1 tsp. maple syrup
Juice of 1 lemon
1/2 tsp. salt, or to tasteMix all ingredients in a blender or food processor until smooth.
Makes 1 cup
St. Basil's Cathedral, Russia's most recognizable landmark with its swirling, multicolored onion domes, is on shaky ground.Over the years, the rumble of tanks during Soviet-era military parades, the construction of underground infrastructure and the excess decibels of outdoor rock concerts have taken their toll on the cathedral's foundations. Now, with scaffolding set to come off next month after a three-year restoration of the aboveground part of the cathedral, experts say intensive work to strengthen the foundation may be necessary to keep the building standing.
If nothing is done, "the church will gradually fall into ruin,'' said Natalia Almazova, whose company, Kreal, conducted a comprehensive engineering study of St. Basil's for the government. "It won't fall down tomorrow, but if we don't take these measures, in 100 years we could lose it.''
Nevertheless, Almazova - who calls herself "a doctor who treats buildings'' - was optimistic. "It's deformed, but it has adapted to this deformation.''
Igor Mitichkin, deputy director of the State Historical Museum, of which St. Basil's is a part, said he did not believe the construction work would affect the cathedral.What he is upset about is the recent practice of holding concerts on Vasilyevsky Spusk, the cobblestone slope in back of St. Basil's, and, in some cases, on Red Square itself. Mitichkin says he is certain the vibrations are damaging all the historic buildings on the square, adjacent to the Kremlin.
Adding insult to injury, in his view, organizers of Paul McCartney's May concert on Red Square demanded the scaffolding around St. Basil's come down so that the ex-Beatle could have the famed cathedral as a backdrop. The process of dismantling and rebuilding the scaffolding took two weeks, Mitichkin said. (AP)
HEATHER MILLS CAMPAIGNS FOR ANIMALSHeather Mills has a new cause. Paul McCartney's wife is joining her hubby's crusade for animals' rights. The former lingerie model will put on plastic shoes to be the new poster girl for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals' "Have a look that kills without killing" campaign.
"It's all about looking fabulous without being cruel," says PETA's Dan Mathews.
Mills, who is pregnant, will be on the cover of PETA's consumer catalog and will also promote "cruelty-free" baby products. Could this be an attempt by Mills to ingratiate herself with her fabulously wealthy animal-loving spouse? Says Mathews, "Their activism is a big bond in their marriage and Paul is as lovestruck as ever." (MSNBC)
A long list of top celebrities from the music and fashion worlds will join forces at a concert in aid of The Prince Of Wales' charity. The fashion/concert at the Royal Albert Hall will feature Robbie Williams, Victoria Beckham (Posh Spice) and Sir Elton John, among others. Liz Hurley will host the event, called "Fashion Rocks," on October 15 when 18 of the world's leading fashion houses will work with leading celebrities.
The idea is to fuse catwalk and concert and Williams will be strutting his stuff for the designers as well as performing. Also taking part is Bryan Ferry - and David Bowie will be beamed into the show by satellite.Top designers taking part include Alexander McQueen, Calvin Klein, Chanel, Chloe, Dolce & Gabbana, Gucci, Julien Macdonald, Matthew Williamson, Stella McCartney and Versace. They will showcase catwalk collections accompanied by live music from a star performer.
Sir Tom Shebbeare, chief executive of The Prince's Trust, said, "'Fashion Rocks' is a hugely exciting fundraising event for The Prince's Trust. Music and fashion is a powerful combination and the fantastic support we have received from long-standing Trust supporters like Nicholas Coleridge, managing director of Conde Nast, and icons from the world of showbusiness will help us to give even more young people a second chance in life."
The charity has helped 450,000 young people since it was established in 1976. Tickets for the show are now on sale. (Sky News)
Students from LIPA - Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts - have created an entirely new area due to open to the public at The Beatles Story on Saturday 26 July. "The Solo Years - Paul McCartney," has been designed by Morgan Large, a graduation student, with lighting by Richard Reardon and Sarah Kamender - both on the Theatre and Performance Technology course - and a video by Elisabeth Nord (ex LIPA student).In response to the demand from the fans, The Beatles Story is to extend the period covered by the exhibition from purely The Beatles as a group to include their individual careers after the break-up - hence The Solo Years.
For more info on this exhibit check out Jean Catharell's Beatlescene page.
DEFINING MOMENTS:
A BBC series is asking influential figures around the world about the defining moments in their life. Paul McCartney discusses the influence of Nelson Mandela. McCartney saw Mandela's election triumph in person.
"Nelson Mandela being elected in South Africa. That was something we never thought would happen and it was so great to see it happen. It was such a shot in the arm for civil rights - something we had always been fighting for. It was just so right - it had to happen. But to actually be there when it happened was very joyful and very much a defining moment in my life. "
"Defining Moments" will run until 23 July on BBC World Service's World Today program.
Fashion designer Stella McCartney has saved multi-millionaire dad Sir Paul a few quid - by offering to pay for her own wedding. Instead of the ex-Beatle coughing up for the ceremony as father of the bride, Stella wants fork out for her big day on the Mull of Kintyre later this month.
Other locations have been looked at but Stella still favors Scotland despite her plans being revealed. Her decision over paying for the day, has fueled speculation of a growing rift between Stella and her dad's pregnant wife, Heather. She has also told her dad that most of his friends will not be invited because she wants a private affair on the beach that was her mother Linda's favorite place. But her plans could be upset after a decision by fishermen in Carradale not to ferry guests to Sadell beach on Kintyre for the wedding.
Stella and husband-to-be Alasdair Willis want to use a luxury yacht for guests before the beach ceremony. They need smaller vessels to ferry guests to the beach where Stella's mum Linda used to ride horses. But six fishing boat crews have already said no to the request, saying they can make more money fishing out of Carradale than they would in a single day ferrying guests to the remote beach, where the video for her dad's hit "Mull of Kintyre" was filmed.
One said, "Nothing has been agreed officially. The fishing boats are out and about for days at a time and to break off from that to provide the transport for one day would be daft. If she wants to have a romantic beach wedding she will have to find another way of getting people to the beach from the yacht, because it isn't worth it for fishermen here to offer their services." (Mail on Sunday)
NUPTIALS SNUB FOR SIR PAULThe daughter of former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney has told him she does not want his money or help in organizing her marriage to magazine publisher Alasdhair Willis.
Clothes designer Stella McCartney, 31, has also told her father's closest friends that they will not be invited to the nuptials. Stella, one of three children from Paul's marriage to Linda, who died in 1998, is said to disapprove of her father's second wife, Heather.
McCartney, 61, told a friend this week, "Traditionally, the bride's parents organize the wedding, but Stella is a grown-up with her taste."
A friend said McCartney was hurt by Stella's unwillingness to involve him in her big day. (Herald Sun)
Jane Asher paid a visit to Whipps Cross (UK) this week to open a new hospital garden in memory of a family friend. The flame-haired actress once engaged to Beatle Sir Paul McCartney and also known for her cake-making empire has been a long-time supporter of Arthritis Care and was happy to accept the hospital's invitation to open the Douglas Woolf Garden. The late Dr. Woolf OBE was a consultant rheumatologist who died over three years ago. He was awarded the OBE for services to Arthritis Care, which represents sufferers.Asher said, "This is such a lovely way to remember Douglas and all he did for those with arthritis. As he was a great friend and colleague of my late father, Dr. Richard Asher, I feel especially touched and proud to be able to open the garden in his memory. It's entirely appropriate that people with arthritis will continue to benefit from his life-long work devoted to helping those with this disease." (The Guardian)
Expectant Heather Mills chats away on her mobile - without so much as a pregnant pause.
Heather, 35 - wife of 61-year-old Sir Paul McCartney - made the call while on a lunch trip to a West London restaurant. She is due to give birth in November and proudly showed off her growing bump under a tight vest. Passers-by wondered who she was talking to. But mum's the word. (Sun)
Paul McCartney received an Emmy nomination in the category of "Multicamera Picture Editing for a Miniseries, Movie or a Special."
The Nominees: "75th Annual Academy Awards," (ABC); "AFI's 100 Years ... 100 Passions: America's Greatest Love Stories," (CBS); "Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band," (CBS); "The 25th Annual Kennedy Center Honors," (CBS); "Paul McCartney Back in the U.S.," (ABC).
The 55th Annual Emmy Awards will be aired on September 21 at the Shrine Auditorium (Los Angeles) and will be telecast on Fox (8-11pm ET) Tickets are available. Click here for info.
HEATHER FELT MY STUMP & TOLD ME: YOU'RE RECOVERING SO WELLLaura Range had an emotional meeting with her hero Heather Mills and said, "It's the best moment of my life."
And Heather had moving words of support for the 13- year-old who lost her left leg in a horror accident. She gently touched her wound and said, "The surgeons have done a great job. You're recovering really well."
Laura fought back tears as she replied, "Thank you."
The youngster, whose leg was amputated after she fell under a train six weeks ago, met Heather for the first time after striking up a special friendship - revealed exclusively by The People last week. Sir Paul McCartney's wife - who lost her own left leg in a road accident 10 years ago - invited the teenager to her London home.
Laura, who is still determined to become a dancer, said, "When I first set eyes on her I couldn't believe how beautiful she was - she's gorgeous. She told me all about how she lost her leg and then gave me advice on how to stay healthy and to keep my leg strong. Then we talked about my passion - dancing. Heather suddenly got up and did a little twirl followed by some dance moves. I was amazed. You couldn't tell she had a false leg at all -- she was so elegant and graceful."
Heather, 35, who is expecting a baby in October, then confided in Laura, "I love dancing - I'm always the last one off the dance floor. You and I are very similar."
But the closest moment came when Heather offered to show Laura her own stump by taking off her astonishingly-realistic artificial limb. Then she asked to see Laura's leg. Laura, from Bootle on Merseyside, said, "I was a bit nervous. I don't like looking at it because I think it's ugly but Heather had shown me hers so I didn't feel so bad about showing her mine."
Heather gently ran her fingers over it and said, "That's beautiful." At that point, tears stung Laura's eyes. "I'll never forget now that my leg is beautiful," she said. "I won't be embarrassed or ashamed about it because Heather has made me feel confident. And just because I am different from other people it doesn't mean I am not as capable or beautiful as them. Heather also told me she wants to see me dance one day. Now I'm more determined than ever."
After the hour-long meeting Laura, her mum Karen, 47, and her brothers Lee, 20, and David, 25, enjoyed a fantastic day out in London courtesy of The People. We put the family up in a top hotel, showed them the sights, then took them to the West End musical "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang."
Afterwards Laura said, "I've never seen a musical before so that was a brilliant experience. I wanted to be up there dancing on stage and one day I know that I will."
Heather told the People, "Laura is very courageous. I've promised that when I go up to Liverpool we'll go swimming together. I know that she will go on to inspire many other amputees, especially young girls."
The People has launched an appeal to help buy Laura artificial limbs throughout her life. Please send checks, made out to The Laura Range Appeal, to Laura's Appeal, The People, 1 Canada Square, Canary Wharf, London E14 5AP. (People UK)
Tony Bennett played the Royal Albert Hall on July 4 and met with Paul and Heather backstage before and after the concert. When Bennett sang "Let the Good Times Roll" with BB. King, Paul and actor Kevin Spacey led the crowd in cheering Bennett. Paul also talked to pianist/arranger/producer, John Oddo (worked with Sting, Billy Joel, Rosemary Clooney, Nelson Riddle, Linda Ronstat, Woody Herman) for close to 50 minutes backstage.
Shock-Father of rock Alice Cooper was elected Liverpool's new leader. Cooper entertained (July 6) with a set of classic hits that had fans voting for more. The noisy crowd of headbangers, a mixture of young and old, lapped up a succession of hits from Alice's 70s golden era - and they all stood the test of time.
The nephew of Sir Paul McCartney got the crowd in the mood before Cooper's appearance. Josh McCartney, son of Sir Paul's brother Mike, is the drummer with the support group Liverpool band Trilby. (Liverpool Echo)
Over a cappuccino, Stella McCartney and some of her closest friends are discussing a pressing project. The subject is not her next fashion collection, however, but the arrangements for one of the most important days of her life.
Sitting outside The Store organic restaurant, near her £2.5 million ($4 million) Notting Hill home, McCartney and friends are studying the seating plan for her forthcoming wedding. The fashion designer is due to marry boyfriend Alasdhair Willis on Kintyre - the Scottish peninsula made famous by her father's 1977 chart-topper Mull Of Kintyre. The couple are expected to exchange vows on Saddell Beach - one of Stella's late mother Linda's favorite spots.Like any bride-to-be, she is discovering what a minefield wedding planning can be. Whether her stepmother Heather Mills McCartney - with whom she is said to have a tense relationship - will be on the guest list is still unclear.
Sir Paul McCartney, 60, married 35-year-old Heather last summer and they are expecting their first child this year. (Evening Standard)
The July 15 issue of the Globe features Paul and Heather on page 36 with a photo of Heather in her graduation gown picking up her honorary degree at Open Universary last month and a mention of Paul's surprise birthday party. They are also mentioned in Ivana Trump's "Advice" column.
Pregnant Heather Mills was in full bloom as she hit the shops in London, Tuesday, July 8. The 35-year-old wife of ex-Beatles star Sir Paul McCartney, 61, proudly showed off her bump in a flowery sun dress.
The couple are eagerly awaiting the birth of their first child in October. It is hoped the new arrival - who, if a boy, is expected to be called Joe after Paul's favorite uncle - will heal the rumored rift between Heather and Paul's four grown- up children.
The former model certainly looked lost in thought as she took a cab to Soho and browsed shops for nursery items yesterday. The pregnancy is a dream come true for Heather, who has a false leg after a road accident. She said she feared she would never have a baby following two ectopic pregnancies and treatment for cancer. The baby is believed to have been conceived while the couple were in Mexico. (Daily Record)
SOON I'LL HAVE A NEW LEG LIKE HEATHER MILLS... AND I KNOW I'LL DANCE AGAIN
Brave Laura Range shuffles on to the carpet with her trouser leg flapping behind her and smiles, "You wait, one day I'll have a leg just like Heather Mills."
And that's not all. The determined 13-year-old - who lost her limb in a train accident - vows she will still be a dancer. She says, "Just because I have one leg doesn't mean I can't dance. If Heather can do it then so can I."
Laura has been inspired by Sir Paul McCartney's wife - who lost a leg 10 years ago - and the pair have formed an amazing bond. Heather, 35, said last night, "Laura is a very positive girl and I'm sure that with the right encouragement she will achieve her ambition to be a dancer."
Laura gave her heart-warming interview to "The People" just six weeks after her left leg was amputated below the knee when she fell into the path of a train. Showing incredible courage, she says, "I know that I could be dead right now so I don't feel sorry for myself."
Next week the teenager has her first measurement for a prosthetic limb. "I can't wait," she says excitedly. "As soon as I've got my leg I'm going back to dance classes. Nothing will keep me away."
After hearing of the accident, pregnant Heather, 34, sent Laura a personally-inscribed copy of her auto-biography "A Single Step." She wrote, "Stay strong and brave and most of all remember all will be well. With determination you will achieve all your dreams and more."
Laura - who keeps by her bed a favorite picture of Heather rollerblading - plans to meet her idol soon. She was still in intensive care when Heather visited her family shortly after the tragedy. The youngster says, "I've got so many questions for Heather. I think we're similar because we both lost our left legs, which were even amputated at the same point. I just want to say thank you because her words are with me all the time. I want to be like her, an inspiration to others."
Laura recalls the night when she fell into the path of a train. She was waiting on Sandhills station to catch a train for the six-minute journey to Bootle, Liverpool, when a girlfriend got into a scuffle with a boy. Laura tried to intervene but she fell on to the track as the train pulled in. She was dragged 30 yards before the engine stopped and doctors were forced to amputate the leg at the scene while Laura was conscious. She says, "I was in shock and screaming. I remember somersaulting on to the tracks, hitting my head and seeing the train coming towards me. The next thing I knew I was lying in the sidings and looked down to see my leg split in two."
Engineers lifted the front carriage of the train to free Laura while doctors spent two and a half hours amputating the leg. Mum Karen, 47, had to wait nearby away from the scene and then followed the ambulance to Alder Hey Children's Hospital, Liverpool. Karen, who praised her daughter's courage, says, "I felt so helpless. I was right there but they wouldn't let me see her. When I got to the hospital a paramedic told me about the amputation. I was devastated. It was the worst day of my life and I just sobbed and sobbed. But then he told me it was a miracle Laura was alive at all and I realized how lucky she'd been."
For the next five days, her three elder brothers joined Karen and dad Keith, 46, in a bedside vigil as Laura battled to survive. She says she only realized the horror of what had happened after waking - drowsy from pain-killing morphine. Laura, whose cousin is Sugababe Heidi Range, says, "When I looked down and saw that half my leg wasn't there, I thought it had gone through the bed and got stuck. Finally, I managed to lift up the top of the bed clothes and when I saw nothing was at the bottom I started screaming. The nurses calmed me down and told me what had happened. I was so sad. I thought I'd be in a wheelchair for the rest of my life and that I'd never dance again."
Laura's high fitness levels from regular jazz dance classes meant she made a quick recovery. She was home within two weeks and learning to use her crutches. But like any adult would, let alone a 13 year old, Laura admits she has her dark moments. She says,"I'm more scared now than I was. I get scared in cars and I don't like the dark. I try to block the accident out of my mind by drawing or listening to music but sometimes I have nightmares. I don't like looking at the stump - I think it looks horrible but I hope that gets better as it heals. Also, looking at it makes me feel angry and frustrated. I try not to let it get me down. People give me half-smiles of sympathy but I don't want that. I don't want pity. I'm going to prove to everyone that I can do all the things other people can do."
Heather is certain she will. She added, "I hope in a very short time to see her dance." (Sunday People)
Fashion designer Stella McCartney has received an honorary degree from Dundee University for her "innovative and inspirational work".
She was handed the Doctor of Laws (LLD) on Tuesday during a ceremony at Sadler's Wells in Islington, north London. The 31-year-old said, "I am very very proud. I wouldn't have thought it. It's the sort of thing you don't imagine when you are a kid in college."
The acclaimed designer chose to wear a tailored black trouser suit and white shirt, with her hair swept back, to collect the doctorate from the University Chancellor Sir James Black. She also met students from the university's Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design and previewed some of their work.
A university spokeswoman said she had been given the honorary degree "for her services to design and to honor her innovative design" and called her "an inspiration to students."Miss McCartney said, "It's a massive honor to be an inspiration to anyone. It was wonderful looking at their work. I am looking forward to seeing more."
The daughter of former Beatle Paul McCartney worked with Christian Lacroix on his first couture collection at the age of 15. She later studied fashion design at London's St Martin's College of Art and Design. But it was her graduation show that included supermodel friends Naomi Campbell and Kate Moss on the catwalk, and her proud parents watching from the front row, that made the front pages of the national press.
She was appointed chief designer at French couture house Chloe in 1997 but left in 2001 to join the Gucci Group where she developed her own label under her name. Miss McCartney, who is due to marry former magazine publisher Alasdhair Willis in the Argyllshire peninsula, Scotland, this month, recently opened her first stores in New York and London and launched her own perfume. (BBC News)
Heather Mills-McCartney was the keynote speaker on July 5 at the Amputee Coalition of America (ACA) 13th Annual Educational Conference and Exposition at the Boston Westin Copley Place hotel.
Paul was not with her, he was at the Yankee/Red Sox baseball game at Yankee Stadium in New York.
Heather signed autographs and for one couple who produced Paul's Isle Of Man (order here) postage stamps ( Adopt-A-Minefield benefits from stamp sales), Heather kissed Paul's photo on the cover before she signed and said, "I'm sorry I HAVE to kiss this!"
DID McCARTNEY'S "YESTERDAY" GET A NUDGE FROM NAT?Music experts say Sir Paul McCartney subconsciously borrowed the melody of his classic ballad "Yesterday" from a Nat King Cole record.
The origins of "Yesterday," which has been recorded by more than 2,000 artists and played on the radio more than six million times, has always been a mystery -- not least to McCartney himself.
He woke up in his flat in London in May 1965 with the song in his head. He realized that he might have borrowed the arrangement from another song and asked friends if they could suggest any similar tunes. They convinced him it was his and that it had come to him in a dream.
Now musicologists have identified echoes of "Answer Me," the 1953 U.K. hit for both Frankie Laine and David Whitfield, which was later covered by Cole. They say the melodies, the rhythmic phrasing, the musical cadences and even the words strongly resemble each other. The experts believe that McCartney, aged 11, heard Cole's version and retained it in his subconscious until he came to write the music for Yesterday 11 years later.
The lyrics were written later on a drive from Lisbon to the Algarve with his then girlfriend, Jane Asher, the actress. They include: "Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away, now it looks as though they're here to stay." "Answer Me" has the lines: "Yesterday I believed that love was here to stay, won't you tell me where I've gone astray."
The similarity was spotted by Spencer Leigh, a pop historian who has interviewed McCartney on a program that he hosts on Radio Merseyside. Leigh explored the links between the songs for a book about the Beatles called "The Walrus was Ringo." He said, "McCartney was working with this melody in his head which he realized was a cracking tune. He was playing it to people saying, 'Don't you recognize this?' "I wonder what might have happened if somebody had said, 'Isn't it like Answer Me?' He might have forgotten "Yesterday" and we would have lost one of the world's great songs."
Leigh's co-author, Alan Clayson, who has written separate biographies of the Beatles, said, "It is not plagiarism. He was worried that he had subconsciously lifted it."
Dominic Pedler, who deconstructs songs to show how musicians came to write them, supports the "Answer Me" theory in his forthcoming book, "The Songwriting Secrets" of the Beatles. "There are some uncanny similarities: the overlap of lyrics, the multiple rhyming emphasis on words ending with 'ay,' the similar scan of the songs," he said. "McCartney didn't hijack the song, but he must have been inspired by it."
None of the other Beatles played during the song and would leave McCartney to perform it alone on stage. Released as a single in the United States it immediately went to number one.
Hunter Davies, the Beatles' official biographer, said, "Paul will remember "Answer Me." It was a popular ballad before rock 'n' roll came along. I have never thought it was similar to "Yesterday," but I can vaguely see it now."
However, Geoff Baker, McCartney's spokesman, said, "To me the two songs are about as similar as 'Get Back' and 'God Save the Queen.'" (Sunday Times) (hear a comparison of both songs on the NPR site)
Here's what the 'subscribers only' cover of the July 7th Forbes magazine looks like. Two covers were made. The one that is on newsstands is of Jennifer Anistan who ranked number 1 in their "Top 100 Celebrity List."
Paul McCartney places 6th in Forbes "Top 100 Celebrity List." The list takes into consideration earnings, press clippings, radio, TV coverage and web hits. Paul placed behind: 1.) Jennifer Aniston 2.) Eminem and Dr. Dre 3.) Tiger Woods 4.) Steven Spielberg 5.) Jennifer Lopez (Yahoo News)
Stella McCartney grew up thinking that everybody she met hated her, because of her famous father. The 31-year-old designer, who is shortly expected to marry her publisher boyfriend, Alasdhair Willis, admitted on a BBC 1 documentary that fame made her paranoid as a child. "You think everybody hates you," she said.
Now well known in her own right, Stella does not consider herself in any way worthy of the "mega superstar" fame that her father, Paul, has enjoyed for so many years. In fact, it was his level of fame that made her angry in the past, as she was constantly bothered by strangers asking, "how's your dad?" "People don't generally go up to people and go 'Hi, how's your dad?'" she said. "And that can get quite irritating after a while. So you're like, 'Yeah, he's fine - how's your dad?' You can get quite aggressive. I'm not as bad now because hopefully people judge me on what I do for a living."
Featuring affectionate input from Gucci creative director Tom Ford, Anna Wintour, editor of US Vogue, (who credited Stella with being the first designer to "put girls on the runway in sexy blouses and tight pants"), and Gwyneth Paltrow, plus a seriously sexy flash of Stella dancing around her sitting room with Liv Tyler and Kate Moss, "Imagine - Stella's Story" failed to touch on either of the controversial relationships in her life - with Phoebe Philo or her stepmother Heather Mills.
Documenting her impressive rise through the international fashion ranks, it was in part a tribute to her mother Linda, who died of breast cancer in 1998, and whom Stella credits as being the biggest influence on her life. "Everybody always says that about their mums," she said. "Except my mum was just the best, that's all. It wasn't only her clothes and style, but it was her personality, which was natural and real."(For an in-depth article on Stella click here)
Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt are the world's most attractive celebrity couple, according to a poll. The pair got nearly twice as many votes as their nearest rivals, David and Victoria Beckham. Hollywood's golden couple came out on top in the survey commissioned by Sky One.
But when it came to voting for the world's most romantic couple, Posh and Becks won hands down. Aniston and Pitt came second, followed by wife Neil and Christine Hamilton. Sir Paul McCartney and Heather Mills, who are expecting their first baby, also scored highly in the romance stakes, as did Catherine Zeta Jones and Michael Douglas. The survey was commissioned to coincide with Sky One's new series, "When Celebrities Attract" which is on tomorrow in the UK at 9pm GMT. (Ananova)
Paul and Heather were spotted Friday, July 4 watching Andy Roddick of the U.S., play against Switzerland's Roger Federer, during the Men's Singles tennis semifinal match at Wimbledon.
Paul McCartney has agreed to play the Glastonbury Festival next June.
There being a mere year left to arrange the next weekend, organizer Michael Eavis has already been working on the line-up for Glasto 2004."I've got three headliners for next year," said Eavis. The main acts are to be the two giants responsible for making doves cry and frogs chorus: Prince and Paul McCartney, with either Oasis or Coldplay. (Pop Bites)
August 2003
August 31, 2003 -- AP
Celebrities including Madonna, Chrissie Hynde and Sharleen Spiteri remained tightlipped about the apparent wedding of designer Stella McCartney and publisher Alasdhair Willis as they left this remote Scottish island Sunday.
Pretenders singer Hynde would only say that the 31-year-old daughter of former Beatle Paul McCartney looked "beautiful'' when asked about the ceremony.
"It was good. It has been a lovely week,'' said Spiteri of the rock band Texas, as she boarded a coach to leave the island.
Hordes of reporters, who have spent days trying to glean information about the closely guarded wedding, were left disappointed when both singers declined to comment on McCartney's dress.Madonna remained in a Range Rover with blacked out windows during the ferry crossing back to the mainland, while her husband Guy Ritchie strolled around on deck.
Gavin Nielson, 18, said the celebrity couple said nothing about the wedding when he was briefly introduced to them by his father, who is the local harbor master. "They looked a bit tired. Madonna was wearing a knitted jumper and a black beret tilted to one side, and she smiled at me,'' he said. "She didn't say anything about the wedding. I suppose I was a little bit star-struck.''
August 31, 2003 -- Sunday Mirror
She's one of Europe's most in-demand fashion designers and her clothes are the definition of expensive cool. So what did veggie Stella McCartney serve up for her wedding feast yesterday but that 70s favorite...the mushroom vol-au-vent.OK, so her celebrity caterers described them as "organic puff pastry filled with wild mushrooms" but there was no getting away from the truth. And so it was that the showbiz circus rolled on to Scotland's sleepy Isle of Bute yesterday for the wedding of Stella and magazine magnate Alasdhair Willis.
But behind the happy families act, there were fears that the vol-au-vents could start flying if Stella, 31, and her new stepmum Heather Mills crossed each other. It's said Stella doesn't see eye-to-eye with pregnant Heather, the young second wife of her Beatles legend father Sir Paul.
An American guest said of the relationship between her and pregnant Heather: "I am told it's gotten worse recently. All eyes will be on her and Heather hoping that the pair get on. I just hope it doesn't turn out to be a tense occasion."
Meanwhile ex-SAS security guards lurked in the undergrowth surrounding Mount Stuart House, where the Stella tied the knot with groom Alasdhair Willis yesterday at 4pm. Cheers were heard from inside the house shortly before 5pm, suggesting they had finally been pronounced man and wife.
Nothing was left to chance at the immaculate stately home owned by Jonny Dumfries, the Marquis of Bute and a close family friend of the McCartneys. Trip wires were placed in the undergrowth, roadblocks were set up and 100 security guards roamed the area. Locals whose homes are on the Mount Stuart estate were given special ID tags - without which they couldn't pass through. Workers involved in the bash - from cleaners to waitresses to bar staff - were ordered to sign confidentiality agreements and employees at hotels block-booked by the wedding party were also required to sign pledges not to speak about their guests.
Celebrities such as Madonna and film director husband Guy Ritchie arrived at the house shielded from view in a fleet of Range Rovers with blacked-out windows. But mystified tourists and locals were last night asking whether the £100,000 ($158,000)security operation was really necessary.
American tourist Sheila Smith, 61, from North Carolina, said she was disappointed the big names didn't show their faces. She said, "It's a shame that they've been so secretive about it all. Everyone knows they are here and we are all really keen to see them."
The final straw for many came on Friday night when locals in Kingarth were turned away from the village pub to make way for Stella's hen-night. Yesterday morning a dozen horses arrived in to ferry the bridal party by cart through the 300-acre estate, which boasts a racing track, beach and private moorings.
Sir Paul, who footed the bill for the extravaganza, arrived on Friday with Heather. They flew from London to Glasgow Prestwick by private jet before continuing to Bute by helicopter.
Other guests including supermodel Moss flew to Glasgow International and took the ferry from Wemyss Bay.
Stella and Alasdhair married in Mount Stuart Chapel - decked out in carrerra marble which turns blood red when sunlight hits the walls. After the ceremony the guests poured into the Grand Hall where they were met by the pipe band.
Stella had commissioned designers to transform the marble hall with exotic lime incense candles and heather thistle table decorations - her late mother Linda's favorite scent and flowers.
But celebrity chef Jean-Christophe Novelli, wasn't impressed with the food provided by London firm Rhubarb. He said, "I would never have cooked this menu, but she was probably trying to keep all her friends on strict diets happy." He said the mushroom vol-au-vents needed "some meat or fish" to liven them up. "Prawns or seabass would have been good."
THE GUESTS
FAMILY: Paul McCartney and his wife Heather, sisters Mary and Heather and brother James, uncle Mike McGear and his wife Rowena, Alasdhair's parents Robert and Olwyn.
FRIENDS: Madonna and husband Guy Ritchie with daughter Lourdes and son Rocco, Kate Moss and boyfriend Jefferson Hack, Liv Tyler and her husband Royston Langdon, Gwyneth Paltrow and boyfriend Chris Martin, George Martin and wife Judy, Gucci boss Tom Ford with his partner Richard Buckley, Hugh Grant, Chrissie Hynde, Sharleen Spiteri, Ringo Starr's daughter Lee Starkey and Pierce Brosnan.
THE WEDDING MENU
Dozens of chefs from top London based catering firm Rhubarb were drafted in to provide the food for Stella's wedding.
The wedding reception dinner was a strictly vegetarian affair in accordance with Stella's beliefs.
Starter
Artichoke souffle with artichoke puree with bay leaves and truffle buerre blanc.
Main
Organic puff pastry filled with wild mushrooms and truffle cream with beans and parmesan mash
Dessert
Wild strawberries and berries with cream
August 31, 2003 -- Sunday Times
Sir Paul McCartney paid £2 million ($3.1 million) to keep the marriage yesterday of his fashion designer daughter Stella a closely guarded affair.Celebrity magazines such as Hello! and OK! were given short shrift as the McCartneys threw the biggest showbiz wedding party since Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones married in New York nearly three years ago.
Mindful of the spat and courtroom battle that followed that ceremony, the family would have nothing to do with bids of up to £1million($1.5 million) to help stage the wedding.
A friend of McCartney said, "Paul is paying for it. We wouldn't do anything with the celebrity magazines. That would be Stella's shout but she wouldn't do that in a month of Sundays."
Stella, 31, married the publisher Alasdhair Willis, also 31, on a Scottish estate. Sir Paul, 61, who was accompanied by his pregnant wife Heather, 35, gave his daughter away in a private chapel.
A star-studded reception was then held at the adjoining Mount Stuart house on the Isle of Bute, ancestral home of the seventh Marquis of Bute Johnny Dumfries, the former Formula One driver who is a close family friend.
Among those waiting to congratulate the couple in the Great Hall were Madonna and her film director husband Guy Ritchie; Gywneth Paltrow, the star of Shakespeare in Love, and her boyfriend Chris Martin, lead singer with Coldplay; Liv Tyler, the Lord of the Rings actress; and the 007 star Pierce Brosnan.
Those from the world of music included Chrissie Hynde, vocalist with the Pretenders, and Sharleen Spiteri, singer with Texas. From fashion came the supermodel Kate Moss and Stella's boss at Gucci, Tom Ford, who helped her design her wedding dress.
The flowers alone, flown in specially like most of the guests cost an estimated £100,000 ($158,000). A 50-strong army of security guards cost another £100,000.
The groom had spent the wedding eve sailing around Bute in the £6m ($9.5 million) yacht Drum. The boat was previously owned by Simon Le Bon, the Duran Duran singer who nearly drowned after it overturned in storms off Cornwall in 1985.
When it set sail again at lunchtime yesterday observers believed it was carrying the bride and groom to a beach ceremony on the Mull of Kintyre, a favorite spot of Stella's mother, Linda McCartney, who died of breast cancer five years ago. The location also provided the inspiration for McCartney's 1977 number one hit of the same name.
Instead Clydesdale horses were hitched to rustic open-top carriages to carry the bridal party to the gothic-style house where the couple were married in a marble-walled chapel. Later a pipe band played as they mixed with guests on the lawns outside before eating a vegetarian meal.
Visit Scotland took advantage of the nuptials to drum up more wedding business, pointing out that 30% of the 30,000 marriages that take place there each year are between couples who live outside Scotland. The trend was started by Madonna and Ritchie at their wedding at Skibo Castle in 2000.
August 31, 2003 -- Sky NewsStella McCartney has married fiance Alasdhair Willis in a dress similar to that which her mother wore when she wed Beatle Sir Paul.
Tight security surrounded the lavish reception on the Scottish island of Bute, attended by showbiz celebrities such as Madonna and Coldplay's Chris Martin.
The bride's outfit was said to be like the fawn dress and yellow coat worn by her late mother, Linda, when she married Sir Paul at a London registry office in 1969.
Fashion queen Stella was said to have paid an emotional tribute to her mother, who died of cancer five years ago. Sir Paul was said to have entertained guests with a five-minute set dedicated to the happy couple, both aged 31.
Locals were said to have been bemused by the influx of stars. Kate Moss was said to have been spotted downing gin and tonics at a local watering hole while eating crisps.
Sir Paul was said to have cheekily nicked a chip from a 12-year-old girl's plate at a pub while having a quick pint with Chris Martin.
August 30, 2003 -- News of the WorldMushroom pie, veggie sausages and cheesy mash were the centerpiece of the meat-free feast following Stella's McCartney's wedding to publisher Alasdhair Willis.
Stella's dad Sir Paul McCartney, who stumped up £2million ($3.1 million) for the three-day event surrounding the wedding, and his wife Heather Mills were among 150 guests watching the couple tie the knot on Scotland's Isle Of Bute.
Guests were taken to and from the estate's historic chapel by horse and carriage and were handed a glass of mead wine as they arrived for the 3pm ceremony.
Macca is thought to have entertained guests with a five-minute musical set dedicated to his daughter and the groom, who are both 31.
Stella and Heather, who can't stand each other, kept the peace for the day although the designer paid an emotional tribute to her beloved mum Linda, who died of cancer five years ago.
After the ceremony, guests drank champagne on the lawn before dinner in the Great Hall. It was decorated with simple white flowers which were later used to form the initials S and A outside the chapel entrance. A lone piper played on the roof of the entrance as guests filed out.
August 30, 2003 -- The ScotsmanThe Isle of Bute had not witnessed an invasion like it since the Viking hordes pillaged Rothesay in the 15th century.
A constellation of stars from the worlds of fashion, music and drama descended on the small island in the Firth of Clyde for the wedding of Stella McCartney - daughter of former Beatle Sir Paul - and her 31-year-old fiance, Alasdhair Willis.
But while the Norse invaders were intent on grabbing as much booty as possible, it was hardly a concern for the super-rich glitterati, whose number included Madonna and the supermodel Kate Moss. The endless procession of catering trucks thundering up and down the island suggested that the celebrity visitors would want for nothing and be lavishly wined and dined.
More than 100 guests were bussed into historic Mount Stuart House, owned by the Marquess of Bute. The wedding was held in the Gothic chapel which is attached to the elegant stately home, set in 300 acres of land.
Hollywood actress Liv Tyler was on board one of the coaches and smiled for photographers who had been waiting since early morning. Three coaches arrived and four blacked-out Range Rovers drove into Mount Stuart shortly after 3pm as helicopters hovered in the cloudy skies above.
The Marquess - who is better known as the former Formula One racing driver Johnny Dumfries - and his wife Serena are close personal friends of the McCartneys.
For more than a month, employees at the stately home had denied all knowledge of an impending wedding, rubbishing local rumours that the island would host the occasion.
A farcical game of cat and mouse continued right up until Friday, with the swarthy, gum-chewing security guards manning Mount Stuart's perimeter insisting that a "gas conference" was the only event booked for the weekend.
The Marquess was under strict instructions from the McCartneys to divert media attention from the event, but the small island community of about 6,000 inhabitants were not fooled. Hotels were block-booked weeks in advance, and Rothesay's pipe band were asked to play at the wedding reception. Alas, one of the band members bragged publicly about the impending celebrity engagement, and a furious Marquess cancelled the gig. Instead, the Campbeltown Pipe Band were asked to provide the entertainment, Sir Paul having famously used the band 25 years ago on 'Mull of Kintyre'.
By the middle of last week, it was clear that something out of the ordinary was afoot, but Mount Stuart's press office continued to insist that they were merely gearing up for a gas conference. A heightened police presence in Rothesay's town centre and increased activity around the island's small airport - basically a runway and shed - suggested that something rather more opulent was about to take place.
Dag Crawford, owner of the Port Royal Hotel, said: "My place was suddenly full of people scribbling into notepads and ordering large vodkas well into the night. It could only mean one thing... the press were in town."
Locals flocked to the Calmac Ferry terminal on Friday and yesterday as some of the entertainment world's most illustrious names arrived in town. Pop chanteuse and actress Madonna - who also famously married in Scotland - was spotted in her jeep disembarking from the 7pm sailing from Wemyss Bay, closely followed by a procession of luvvies that included Pierce Brosnan, Liv Tyler and Gwyneth Paltrow.
"I couldn't believe it, Rod Stewart got out of a silver Jag and hid himself in the boot (trunk) of the car to avoid the crowds," said one celebrity spotter.
Meanwhile, regulars at Wemyss Bay's Station Bar - an earthy, drinking man's shop - spluttered into pints of heavy as supermodel Kate Moss swanned up to the counter and ordered a drink. There was another surreal spectacle in Rothesay on Friday night when opera doyen Luciano Pavarotti allegedly ordered a fish supper from Zavaroni's seafront cafe.
Zavaroni's, owned by relatives of the late singer and child star Lena, is just one of the many places on the island associated with the entertainment business. Lord (Richard) Attenborough owns a house and a large acreage of land at Rhubodach, and veteran Scottish comedian Johnny Beattie moved there from the mainland a few years ago. Rather less impressively, the brother of one of the Krankies runs a sub post office in Ardbeg.
But not everyone was happy with the intrusion. A young couple, the Perrys, married on the island on Friday and held their reception at St Blane's Hotel in picturesque Kilchattan Bay.
Unaware of the more famous betrothal due to take place a mile or two up the road, they had chosen the location for its tranquility and serene surroundings. Alas, a posse of reporters doorstepped St Blane's Hotel with an armoury of cameras, tape recorders and notepads.
The poor couple were pestered with requests for interviews on their big day, and seemed rather put out by the evolving media scrum.
Half a mile up the road in Kingarth, staff at the local hotel poo-pooed all knowledge of the McCartney wedding. The Marquess had booked guests into hotels all over the island, but owners had been warned not to divulge names of their guests to the public or press.
In the Kingarth Hotel's public bar on Friday afternoon, and in an amazing coincidence, visitors heard one of Sir Paul's ditties from the 1970s - 'Maybe I'm Amazed' - blaring out of the CD player. Alas, staff denied that any celebrity guests were lodging at the hotel, and promptly shut up shop at 6pm.
Security around Mount Stuart yesterday was tightened after rumours began spreading that a television cameraman and several paparazzi had breached the grounds to get closer to the action. Guards camped out all night at every entrance to the estate to send off would-be gatecrashers.
"It would be easier getting into Fort Knox," said one exasperated journalist. Another lamented the lack of information about the wedding being relayed by Mount Stuart employees, "It's like trying to get blood out of a stone."
Indeed, the occasion was cloaked in such secrecy that rumours abounded to the effect that the couple had actually tied the knot in Mull of Kintyre earlier in the day, before helicoptering over to Bute for the post-marital shindig.
In the end, it didn't really matter, because islanders had already enjoyed their brief and unlikely moment in the headlines. And it didn't rain, either.
August 30, 2003 -- Sunday MailScotland's most famous horses were the star guests at the A-list wedding of fashion designer Stella McCartney. The daughter of Sir Paul chose four giant Clydesdales to carry her and groom Alasdhair Willis to the altar. The pair married inside a chapel in the stunning Mount Stuart stately home on the Isle of Bute yesterday afternoon.
Scores of friends and relatives joined the happy couple to celebrate their big day - including some of the world's best-known names and her dad's favourite pipe band. Guests included Stella's best pal Kate Moss, Madonna and her husband Guy Ritchie, Gwyneth Paltrow and her lover Coldplay pop star Chris Martin, actress Liv Tyler, Sting and rock singer Chrissie Hynde.
Stella, 31, wed former magazine publisher Alasdhair, also 31, in a romantic ceremony at the home of former racing driver Johnny Dumfries, the Marquis of Bute.
Before arriving for the ceremony, the bride and groom toured the Mount Stuart estate in individual carriages drawn by Clydesdales.
Wearing an antique lace gown, designed by herself and her Gucci boss Tom Ford, Stella made her way down the aisle on the arm of her dad, Sir Paul. Groom Alasdhair was in full Highland dress. After a 20-minute service, the couple exchanged vows that they had written themselves. Guests were then transported by horse-drawn carts to a reception marquee on Mount Stuart's lawn. The four traditional carts, each pulled by two Clydesdale horses, were loaned to the couple by farmer John McMillan, who also acted as the newlywed's coachman.
Last night, John's wife, Catherine said, "Up until the last minute we didn't know if Mount Stuart management wanted the horses for the wedding. They were still telling us this weekend they were hosting a gas conference."
Around 40 of Stella's closest friends and family stayed at Mount Stuart the night before but two coaches full of guests, who had stayed in hotels in nearby Rothesay, swept through the gates around 3.30pm. Guests sat down to a three-course meal prepared by top London caterers. It consisted of asparagus tips followed by vegetarian bangers 'n' mash and a chocolate souffle.
The Sunday Mail first revealed Stella's plans to wed in Scotland in tribute to her late mother Linda, who loved the family's farm on the Mull of Kintyre. Stella was expected to get a helicopter to her mum's beloved Saddell Beach for a brief private visit during her stay in Scotland. It was where her dad filmed the famous video for his hit song Mull of Kintyre.
The Campbeltown Pipe Band, who played on the famous 1977 chart-topping single, also entertained the happy couple yesterday. They were rushed to Mount Stuart after appearing at the Cowal Games in Dunoon.
James Bond star Pierce Brosnan and Texas frontwoman Sharleen Spiteri were earlier spotted having a coffee at St Blane's Hotel in the small village of Kilchattan Bay. And Stella's stepmum Heather Mills-McCartney strolled around the seaside shops. The seven-months-pregnant ex-model, accompanied by her sister-in-law, Rowena (Mike McCartney's wife), stepped out of a blacked-out Range Rover and nipped into a local chemist (drug store).
Heather, who is said not to get on with her new stepdaughter, told the Sunday Mail that she was looking forward to the wedding. She said, "Don't ask me any details. I'm not going to be the one who gets into trouble for telling you anything. But you can say I love being back in Scotland. I come here often, because I'm half Scottish. I'm really looking forward to this." Heather said she and Paul were looking forward to the birth of their first baby, adding, "Everything is fine. I'm feeling great."
Security was tight at Mount Stuart, with guards and local police drafted in. A police source said, "We weren't told about this until late last week. Now we've all been called off leave and every officer in the island is here. Mount Stuart is making sure security is extra tight."
Local woman Bridget Crowhurste met Sir Paul McCartney as he, Chris Martin and 20 other wedding guests enjoyed a drink before the ceremony at the Kingarth Hotel.
Bridget said, "He said hello to everyone. We talked to him for a couple of minutes. He was exceptionally polite and looked very relaxed and happy."
Stella had enjoyed a hen party in the same hotel - under tight security. One local said, "The road was closed to let all the girls in. I heard they had a great time."
August 30, 2003 -- Irish Examiner
Two hours before his daughter was due to get married, Paul McCartney and Coldplay's Chris Martin were in a pub in Kingarth with a group of other men.
Bridget Crowhurst, a classroom assistant, went into the pub along with her 10-year-old daughter Lauren and a number of other schoolgirls who had been on a riding lesson. She said, "I said to Sir Paul that I believed his daughter had been out riding yesterday. Sir Paul said to me 'Yes, she had a long ride thank you very much.' I said to him that I hoped he had a nice day and he thanked me once again."
Crowhurst, who lives on the island, said the former Beatle was chatting to Martin. She said, "He looked very happy and well. He seemed very relaxed and in fact he looked a lot younger than I thought he would. He was very pleasant and very polite."
After finishing his meal McCartney and Martin left the pub but the ex-Beatle pinched a chip from the plate of another of the schoolgirls, 12-year-old Jennifer Dougal. She said, "There were some chips in some tinfoil on the table and he nicked one of them and as he was leaving he said, 'See you later, gang'."
Meanwhile, outside the main entrance to Mount Stuart two locals later claimed that they had breached the tight security and had wandered around only 100 yards from the house. Stuart Reynolds, a 35-year-old electrician from Rothesay, said he and his friend Robert Charker, 28, had not been challenged as they strolled through sculpted gardens next to the house. They claimed they took pictures of wedding guests and that they saw a number of people drinking champagne on the lawn.
Reynolds said, "We had heard that there was all this tight security and I suppose we just dared ourselves to go in. We could see a marquee (tent) and men dressed in kilts and they all seemed to be enjoying themselves. We also heard what sounded like a pipe band playing in the background." He said that he was not sure if he saw the bride or the groom but that he had seen a woman dressed in cream with lots of people surrounding her. He claimed that they left after taking the photographs.
August 30, 2003 -- Daily Record UK
Stella McCartney flew into Scotland yesterday (Friday August 29) for the society wedding of the year - with her proud dad at her side. There was no expense spared on security and dad Sir Paul chartered a private jet to take him, his daughter and his pregnant wife Heather to Prestwick Airport.
Paul was first to emerge from the jet and braved the sudden downpour at Prestwick Airport. He stood on the tarmac waiting for designer Stella and Heather. Any signs of a reported rift between Stella and her stepmother were absent as the two came off the aircraft and handed their luggage to ground staff. Within five minutes, they were whisked by choppers to the Isle of Bute where Stella will marry sweetheart Alasdhair Willis today.
And Rothesay became Scotland's very own Cannes as a galaxy of stars followed in their wake. Among them was pop queen Madonna, who travelled by ferry, but did not emerge from her car, which had tinted windows, for the short trip.
The McCartneys went to extra- ordinary lengths to hide from the eyes of the world as they prepared for the wedding. Their helicopter arrived on Bute within 20 minutes, landing at a tiny airfield minutes from the location of the wedding. A Jeep carrying two of Rock Steady security's biggest bodyguards, and a top of the range LandRover with blacked out windows, sped down the quiet country road towards the airfield as the helicopter landed.
Within a few minutes, Stella, Paul and Heather disappeared into the 300- acre grounds of Mount Stuart Estate, where they will hold the reception tonight. Shortly after they arrived, a galaxy of stars including Coldplay frontman Chris Martin, singer Chrissie Hynde and supermodel Kate Moss all arrived at Glasgow Airport from London. They were whisked off from the airport by coach and driven to Weymss Bay for the short ferry trip to the island. Hollywood babe Liv Tyler, who has modelled Stella's creations, arrived by chauffeur-driven Jaguar and was keen to take the sea air on the ferry.
Stella's close working companion, Gucci designer Tom Ford, had his own private jet and looked relaxed as he arrived at Prestwick.
Stella, 31, deliberately chose Mount Stuart Estate for its seclusion. Her family are close friends of estate owner the Marquis of Bute, the former racing driver, Johnny Dumfries. Insiders say he has gone out of his way to help Stella and has promised nothing will spoil her big day.
Over the past few months the McCartneys have gone to amazing lengths to keep Stella's wedding under wraps but now the well- kept secret is finally out. The couple are expected to say their marriage vows on a secluded beach around lunchtime, as their guests share the special moment from the beautiful shore and from luxury yachts which will be around the bay.
August 30, 2003 -- BBC News
Celebrities have been flocking to a Scottish island which is expected to host designer Stella McCartney's wedding celebration. The daughter of the former Beatle, Sir Paul, is widely predicted to be marrying publisher Alasdhair Willis on Bute.
More than 100 guests were bussed into a stately home amid tight security on the island on Saturday afternoon. Actress Liv Tyler was seen smiling for photographers on board one of three coaches which arrived at Mount Stuart shortly after 1500 BST (10am ET). It will be Scotland's biggest celebrity wedding since the marriage of Madonna and Guy Ritchie in the Highlands in 2000.On that occasion McCartney was the designer of the pop star's wedding dress. She has remained tight-lipped about when and where she will marry Willis. However, on Friday a stream of celebrities made the journey to the west coast island on the ferry from Wemyss Bay. They included Madonna and her film director husband.
Kate Moss, former Pretenders star Chrissie Hynde and Coldplay's Chris Martin were also aboard the Caledonian MacBrayne ferry to Rothsay. Some of the stars joined locals for a drink in the Station Bar at Wemyss Bay before making the journey.
Guy Ritchie and son Rocco Guy Ritchie arrived with his son Rocco. Those seen on Rothesay on Saturday included James Bond star Pierce Brosnan, Texas singer Sharleen Spiteri and Heather Mills-McCartney, who arrived at Prestwick Airport on Friday with her husband, Sir Paul.
Mount Stuart is a Victorian Gothic stately home set amid 300 acres of landscaped gardens. It is owned by former Formula 1 racing driver Johnny Dumfries, the seventh Marquis of Bute. There have been reports that the couple, both aged 31, were to be married in a Gothic chapel attached to the home. Officials had said that the house was hosting nothing more than a conference this weekend. However, there are security guards at every entrance and cars with blacked out windows have been seen coming in and out.
The chief executive of the area's tourist board, James Fraser, said the wedding would generate a huge amount of interest. "We are thrilled Stella McCartney and Alasdhair Willis have decided to get married in the area," he said. "The McCartney family has strong links with the region and have spent a great deal of time in Kintyre over the years. There is no doubt that Paul McCartney helped put the area on the international tourist map and we are sure this wedding will also boost visitor numbers - and even encourage more people to get hitched here." (Photos)
August 30, 2003 -- Sun Herald (Australia)Stella McCartney, fashion designer and daughter of Sir Paul McCartney, is to marry Alasdhair Willis in a star-studded ceremony at one of Scotland's grandest stately homes on the small Isle of Bute.
The main venue for the wedding is Mount Stuart House, the Victorian Gothic family home of the seventh Marquess of Bute, former racing driver Johnny Dumfries. The house, set in 120 lush hectares overlooking the Firth of Clyde, near the Mull of Kintyre, has a large private chapel, the first heated indoor swimming pool built in Britain and a dining room hung with paintings by Reynolds and Gainsborough. A large marquee was erected on the lawn for the wedding.
Throughout Friday, a fleet of Range Rovers with blacked-out windows made trips to and from the harbor to collect guests. Sir Paul, 61, and his wife, Heather Mills-McCartney, 34, flew in by helicopter on Thursday.
Miss McCartney, 31, was said to be having a hen party on the island on Friday night, while her husband-to-be, also 31, was seen joining friends for a picnic lunch on a private cruise around the island.
August 30, 2003 -- The Scotsman
Stella McCartney has won a special dispensation from the Registrar General for Scotland to marry in a secret beach ceremony on or near her family's beloved Scottish estate.The rare permit has allowed McCartney, the daughter of Sir Paul McCartney, to avoid publishing details of her nuptials at a Register Office.
But if the fashion designer hoped to keep the world guessing about her marriage to Alasdhair Willis, the game appeared to be up yesterday, as the rich and famous descended on Bute.
It is expected that Ms McCartney, 31, will marry today in a ceremony, possibly on Saddell beach, at her father's estate on the Mull of Kintyre. The wedding party is then expected to travel to the Mount Stuart stately home, where staff are preparing a reception for 200. It is believed Ms. McCartney will be given away by her father.
August 29, 2003 -- The Sun
Stella McCartney has stunned her super-rich wedding guests - by asking them to fork out on gifts from a list of trees. Stella and groom Alasdhair Willis - who marry on Saturday (August 30) on Scotland's Isle of Bute - want to build their own forest.
Around 200 guests including Madonna, Kate Moss, Gwyneth Paltrow and ex-Beatle dad Sir Paul McCartney chose from 324 trees made up of 75 varieties. The saplings will cost from £40 ($63) to £300 ($475) each and the whole bill will hit £60,000 ($94,800).
The newlyweds, both 31, will put each of the bizarre presents in the grounds of their £1.3 million ($2.1 million) Worcestershire country home with a plaque bearing the name of the guest who gave it to them.
And on Friday night The Sun gave the happy couple the wedding gift of their dreams - a pine tree. The £49 ($75) Pinus Nigra sapling even came with its own Sun label - to remind them of our gift.
Meanwhile, guests including Sir Paul, 61, and his wife Heather, 35, were gearing up for the star-studded wedding on Friday as they landed on the island. Famously camera-shy Stella has splashed out more than £100,000 ($158,000) on security to ensure the day remains strictly private. Locals in the tiny fishing community have been given special passes to stop strangers from entering the estate where the reception is expected to be held. And teams of ex-SAS soldiers are guarding check points to stop tourists getting near the 300-acre shore-side grounds of Mount Stuart House.
The guests will be able to see their trees when the couple unveil the forest - which they will call Wedding Wood - to friends and family in the autumn. We have printed a the list of exotic trees the guests are choosing from. The couple even paid tribute to Stella's famous dad by requesting two Scarlet Paul trees. They also wanted 60 Horse Chesnut trees at £175 ($277) each - to line their avenue.LIST OF TREES:
£40 ($63) Himalayan birch, Cedar of Lebanon, Giant Dogwood, Turkish Hazel, Paul's Scarlet Hawthorn, Rosea Flore Pleno Thorn, Handkerchief, Maidenhair, Black Walnut, Sweet Gum, Tulip, Star Magnolia, Crab Apple, Antarctic Beech, Tupelo, Lime, Maple, Hornbeam, Ash, Japanese Apricot, Deodar Evergreen, Grand Fir, Atlantic Cedar, Japonica.
PLUS 8 varieties of Oak: Turkey, Scarlet, Hungarian, Holm, Pin, Red, Turner's, and Pendunculate.
PLUS 6 varieties of Cherry: Sargents, Black, Wild, Tibetan, Winter, and Pink.
£200 ($316) Beech, Honey Locust, Charles Raffill, Bull Bay, Leonard Messel, London Plane, Apple, Weeping Willow, Lilac, Forest Pansy, Acacia, Birch.
£300 ($475) Chestnut, Elder, Ash, Redwood, Golden Meta, Monkey Puzzle, Poplar, Fig, Wych Elm, Birch.
August 29, 2003 -- ITV
The arrival of Madonna on the Scottish island of Bute has pretty much confirmed that the wedding of designer Stella McCartney is taking place this weekend. The superstar singer was one of host of celebrities ferried onto the island for what is thought to be one of the biggest celebrity weddings of the year.
Madonna, husband Guy Ritchie and both of their children, as well as model Kate Moss, Chrissie Hynde, and Coldplay's Chris Martin arrived aboard a ferry at Rothesay harbor. The stars were then driven in two blacked-out Range Rovers to nearby Mount Stuart where it is understood Miss McCartney will celebrate her wedding.
However, it is still unclear where the wedding service itself will be held or whether Miss McCartney, 31, is on the island. It is thought she may be married to husband-to-be Alasdhair Willis on the Mull of Kintyre, a favorite haunt of her father Sir Paul and her mother the late Linda McCartney, then flown on to Mount Stuart for the reception.
Earlier, Hollywood actress Liv Tyler arrived in a chauffeur-driven Jaguar. Before boarding the ferry, Kate Moss, Chrissie Hynde and Chris Martin were reported to have joined locals for a drink in the Station Bar at Wemyss Bay on the mainland.
Willis, also 31, was spotted on Thursday on board the yacht Drum at Rothesay Pier on Bute. Former Formula 1 racing driver Johnny Dumfries, the seventh Marquis of Bute and owner of Mount Stuart was at the quayside when the stars arrived. It is thought that he offered Mount Stuart to Miss McCartney, a close friend of his wife, as it was only a short helicopter flight from the Mull of Kintyre.
Mount Stuart, a Victorian Gothic stately home and popular tourist attraction, has closed one month early. Security guards have been posted at every entrance and residents who live on the land owned by the Marquis were issued with a pass to allow them into their homes.
A fleet of blacked-out Range Rovers have been traveling to the mainland to pick up guests. It is also thought that Gucci boss Tom Ford, as well as Paul McCartney's brother Mike arrived in another of the Range Rovers.
Miss McCartney joined Gucci as a designer after leaving fashion house Chloe however no one from the company was available for comment.
August 29, 2003 -- The Sun
These were the amazingly tender scenes yesterday (August 28) as Sir Paul McCartney and wife Heather walked home after a hospital check-up on their unborn baby.
The couple, both in jeans, strolled affectionately arm-in-arm along the road back to their home in North London.
Then 61-year-old Macca lovingly put his ear to his wife's tum to try to hear the tot inside. Oblivious to passers-by, he spent several seconds listening intently with his arm around Heather's waist.
An eyewitness said, "It was an incredibly tender scene.
"They were in the middle of a public street and neither seemed to have a care in the world because they both looked so happy. Paul seemed intent on trying to sense if the baby was moving around and kicking.
He is obviously delighted at becoming a dad again.
"Even though Heather was wearing a baggy top the bulge was very apparent. It was wonderful to see one of the most famous men in the world acting like an ordinary, excited dad-to-be."
The baby, which is due in November, will be 35-year-old Heather's first. The check-up was routine.
Paul, who married the former model in June last year at a castle in Ireland, has three children by his first wife Linda, who died in 1998.
August 29, 2003 -- This is London STELLA'S WEDDING DAYAlasdhair Willis cruises around the west coast of Scotland on the eve of his wedding to Stella McCartney ... and is probably hoping the £6 million yacht will bring him better fortune than it did to a previous owner, Simon Le Bon.
Le Bon nearly drowned on The Drum in 1985 when it overturned in storms off Cornwall during the Fastnet race. He and five others were trapped below deck in a pocket of air before being dramatically rescued.
The seas were a lot calmer for Willis as he cruised in the yacht, now owned by Scottish car dealer Arnold Clark, around the Isle of Bute and berthed at Mount Stuart House where the couple's three-day wedding reception is set to take place this weekend.
Preparations have been under way for weeks. Miss McCartney's father Sir Paul and his wife Heather, Madonna, Guy Ritchie, Gwyneth Paltrow, Chris Martin, Kate Moss and Sadie Frost are on the guest list.
The pair will marry on Saddell Beach on Kintyre on the west coast of Scotland and then they and 200 guests will sail to Bute.
Islanders reported today that the event had already hit a setback as a fire broke out at Mount Stuart House. Details remain sketchy, though it is thought it might have been started off as wedding food was prepared.
Families who live in cottages on the grounds of the 300-acre estate are said to have been told by management not to leave their houses during the weekend and some have even been asked to vacate their homes to make room for the wedding entourage.
One said, "We're very put out. I'm sure Stella is a lovely girl, but she can't come up here with her showbiz friends and turf us out of our houses. The least you'd expect is an invite."
Security for the wedding was stepped up last night, with forty security men working in shifts.
To evade the growing numbers of waiting press, the convoys landing on the island today are taking the backroads to the estate.
MORE -- The SunStella McCartney will pay tribute to her late mother Linda by copying her wedding dress when she marries tomorrow (August 30). The fashion designer daughter of Sir Paul McCartney has studied black and white photos of her parents' big day and come up with a new version of her mum's outfit.
Linda, who died of breast cancer five years ago (April 1998), wore a stylish fawn dress and bright yellow coat when she married Paul at Marylebone Register office in London on March 12, 1969. Paul was in a black suit with a bright yellow tie and flowery shirt. The couple posed on the steps after the ceremony and were mobbed by crying Beatles' fans devastated that Paul was no longer a bachelor.
A friend of Stella told me, "A few months ago Stella was at Kate Moss's house showing her photos of her mum and dad's wedding day. She had drawn her own sketches of various ideas she had for updating the look of Linda's outfit because she reckons her mother was a style icon. Stella has never come to terms with her mother's death and she is distraught at the thought that Linda won't be there to see her marry. That's why she wants to pay this tribute to her."
Stella will marry former advertising executive Alasdhair Willis on the remote Isle of Bute, off Scotland's West Coast. The pair have chosen Mount Stuart House for the lavish reception where guests will include Kate, Hollywood actress Gwyneth Paltrow and her boyfriend, Coldplay frontman Chris Martin and Sadie Frost. Sir Paul, who is giving his daughter away, jetted to London from a holiday in New York with wife Heather on Wednesday. They are planning to fly to Glasgow today then on to Bute to help prepare for the big day. Stella is already on the island. The rest of her family, including sisters, Heather and Mary and brother James, are following today.The venue is a spectacular Victorian home set in 300 acres. Security is watertight. All the hotels in Bute, which has a population of just 6,500, have been block-booked to stop fans getting close to the celebrations. Some guests are being picked up by coach today in Teesside. They will then travel north, catch a ferry to Bute and stay in a local hotel.
A source said, "Many of the celebrities are flying by private jet to Glasgow. But they will have to get a ferry to Bute. The locals are very excited about seeing big stars getting on to the ferries in their limousines. They won't see everyone, though. Some guests are flying in by helicopter which will land on a pad that has been built for the occasion. Stella is really excited but a little nervous."
It seems the bride-to-be has left little to chance. My source added, "She has even been taking dancing lessons from a professional choreographer so that when she and Alasdhair have their first dance as newlyweds they can impress their friends." (Photos)
Paul McCartney will begin recording his new studio album September 1 in England.
August 28, 2003 -- NY Post
Life just keeps getting better for ex-Beatle Paul McCartney, here exiting London's Heathrow Airport yesterday (Wednesday, August 27) with his beautiful and pregnant wife, Heather Mills. She's due to deliver the couple's first child in November.
August 28, 2003 -- Hello Magazine
As a helicopter pad is marked out and hotels on the Scottish island of Bute reveal they are block booked, speculation soars over the possibility that Stella McCartney will tie the knot with her fiancé Alasdhair Willis this weekend.Whether Mount Stuart House, a Victorian mansion on the 300-acre estate, will be the venue for the nuptials themselves or just the reception is not known. The estate has confirmed Stella is due to visit, but nothing more. "She is simply a friend of Lord Bute's wife Serena, whom she knows through the fashion world. It was not to do with a wedding," said a member of staff.
Meanwhile, the bride-to-be's father jetted back into the UK with his pregnant wife Heather following a shopping trip to New York. Dressed casually in low-slung trousers and a sheer polka-dot blouse, the former model was proudly showing off her bump. The couple are expecting their first child together in October.
Although relations between the former Beatle's wife and Stella are believed to be strained, it is understood that Heather will attend the ceremony. Much has been made of the possibility that Stella and Alasdhair might wed on the Mull of Kintyre, which was made famous by Sir Paul's 1977 hit and was a favorite getaway for the veteran rocker and his late wife Linda. There have been no signs of preparations for a big event in Kintyre, however.
Sir Paul McCartney now holds the world record for holding the highest number of world records. The ex-Beatle is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records 26 times.(IC Wales)Even if it weren't for a good cause, this limited-edition piece, a white Danskin three-quarter-sleeve T-shirt, festooned with an exclusive Stella McCartney design-would be a bargain at less than $30. But here's the clincher: The top is a fundraiser for Saks Fifth Avenue's new Key to the Cure initiative, whose proceeds go to more than 60 charitable programs that research cancer in women. (Nicole Kidman, no less, is doing the TV commercial.)
Still not sold? Only 12,000 have been made, and the saks.com waiting list is already into four figures.Key to the Cure T-shirt, $29, can be pre-ordered at saks.com and will be on sale at all Saks Fifth Avenue stores starting September 1.
August 25, 2003 -- Fox News
Paul and Heather Avoid Paparazzi PiratesPaul McCartney and pregnant wife Heather Mills narrowly avoided a paparazzi stampede on Saturday night in East Hampton. The pair came to the main movie theater in town to catch a showing of Disney's "Pirates of the Caribbean." By accident they wound up in the middle of a premiere of Peter Hedges' new United Artists film, "Pieces of April."
The McCartneys sneaked in and past the "April" crowd and headed into the theater showing "Pirates." I shook hands with Paul and Heather said hello, but they were trying to keep a low profile. Somehow they'd evaded the photographers out front who'd come to cover the "April" screening.
But when "April" let out, we noticed the gang of photographers and a crew from Long Island's local television channel stationed outside the door to the other movie showing in the complex, "Freaky Friday."
They were determined to "get" the McCartneys and thought they might be in that screening. When "Friday" let out, the whole group moved en masse to the door of "Pirates" and began their stakeout. Luckily, theater manager Lisa Albert discovered what was going on and tossed them all out.
"I didn't want them to be ambushed," she said of the McCartneys. "They come here all the time. Lots of celebrities do. But photographers are not allowed inside the building."
Lee Eastman II, (Linda McCartney's nephew), and Vanessa Brooker married July 29, in Chicago. Paul did not attend. (New York Times)
August 22, 2003 -- New York Post
Those of you who know Simon Steadman, raise your hands.Okay, so maybe you haven't heard of Steadman, or the Brit-rock band that bears his name - but Paul McCartney has. In fact, the onetime Beatle is a fan - which is a pretty heady thing for this young rocker to grasp."We recorded our album and were doing a warm-up show in Hastings [England], near where Paul lives," Simon told The Post. "A friend of ours knows Paul and gave him a copy of the album. We heard he liked it. The night of the show, he actually showed up at the pub, alone, not even a security guy with him, and he stayed for the whole show."
Post: What was it like playing for Paul McCartney? Did the pressure get to you?
Steadman: If I did, it didn't sink in while I was onstage. I do remember I could hardly look him in the eye. I did see that he was really getting into the music and he was even singing along to some of the songs.
Post: What did he tell you?
Steadman: After the show, he came backstage and we talked a little and he shocked me when he said, "I have an idea for a harmony to one of your songs." He told me to get my guitar and we sang harmony together. It was incredible.
Post: So I guess you feel you can quit right now, while you're ahead.
Steadman: Exactly. It doesn't get any better than that.
This is what Paul and Heather Mills-McCartney will be serving their guests on the "Night of 1000 Dinners" to raise money for Adopt-A-Minefield.Heather & Paul's Night of 1000 Dinners menu November 6, 2003
TAPAS
Glamorgan veggie sausage
cut and crammed full of Chianti red onion jam served on celeriac strawChanna chatt
split mustard seed muffin, served with black sea salt, smashed potato and chickpea salad, layered with fried chatt spice channa poori, coconut mint dressing and tamarind jellyCaesars bunches
Parmesan bouquets tuilles filled with deep fried shallots and capers, stuffed with basil mousse, topped with violets and basil peaky leafPorcini and Thyme Bavarois
sitting on buttered white leek and salsify crustille, topped with crispy rootsPoke mole
sweet potato coriander beignets topped with chilled gazpacho relish, limey avocado and moleSALADS
Roast rock potatoes
steamed then finished in the oven with rock salt, splashed with sour cream, grated fresh horseradish and roast lemonStingo peppers
griddled mixed peppers soaked in sherry balsamic and rosemaryCippollini onions
served with plump semi dry tomatoes, roast smoked garlic, loads of shaved ParmesanBREADS
Yellow raisin and Marsala spinach roti
Lavash tanoor
Kalamata
PUDDINGS
Rusty nail
whiskey syrup pears sitting on hot ginger bread finished with chestnut Drambuie ChantillySweetie sheepy presse
along with cardamom apricot and air dried cherry berries finished with saffron lemon and honey soaked revaniCoco gugelhupf
stuffed with melting truffle served with frosted almond cream
August 21, 2003 -- Liverpool EchoLaura Range, 13, feared she would never walk again after losing part of her leg when she fell in front of a train. But just months after having the limb amputated, the determined youngster was standing on her own again. After having her first prosthetic limb fitted, Laura is now able to walk with the aid of crutches and looking forward to returning to Manor High school in Crosby. And she has got stories to tell.
Last week (Note: The McCartneys were in New York last week) Sir Paul McCartney's wife Heather Mills, also an amputee, took her (Laura) for her first swimming lesson at a pool in Wirral. Laura, who lives in Bootle, said, "It feels so good to be standing again. I have been getting so bored in the house so I am really looking forward to going back to school, although I never thought I'd say that. My biggest fear is that people will tease me but Mum's told me that I have got to be strong and be myself."
Laura, the cousin of Sugarbabes singer Heidi Range, fell in front of a train in Orrell Park station in May. Since Laura's accident, her confidence has been boosted by regular visits from Heidi and Heather. Heather has promised to meet her again before Christmas. Karen added, "Heather is Laura's inspiration. It brought a smile to my face to see them together. They were laughing and joking like sisters."
August 20, 2003 -- USA TODAY Yahoo"First of all, I'd like to say that I'm truly, madly, deeply in love with my wife, Heather."
That's how Paul McCartney welcomed the intimate group of band members, friends and network executives who gathered Monday evening (August 18) at the Ross School (East Hampton, NY) for a sneak preview of Paul McCartney in Red Square. Premiering Sept. 18 on A&E, (9pm ET- encore 12am ET) the concert/documentary traces the former Beatle's first trip to the former Soviet Union last spring.
The McCartneys, who expect their first child in four months, greeted guests among them young children and babies in strollers arm in arm. The slim but visibly pregnant Heather, 35, modeled a "really comfortable" lilac maternity dress.
Red Square showcases McCartney's performance in Moscow, which the singer described at the screening as "the culmination" of his recent Back in the World tour. "I realized that the Beatles had once been banned in Russia, and called a bad influence on the youth," said the singer, 61.
The Fab Four's impact on that youth and its struggle for freedom is explored in interviews with scholars, artists and political figures, among them Russian defense minister and avid Beatles fan Sergei Ivanov.
August 19, 2003 -- Hello MagazineGucci designer Stella McCartney is turning her hand to modelling to promote her new fragrance. The 31-year-old is appearing in ads for the scent, simply entitled Stella, which she says was inspired by her mum Linda.
"The biggest inspiration for the perfume - and my own personal goal - was to create a perfume I would want to wear, " she said. "I wanted a smell that reflected my English side, something very traditional." Based on the fragrance of Bulgarian roses, the new perfume is described as "subtle and elegant" and comes in an Art Deco-style amethyst crystal bottle.
International Beatles Week in Liverpool begins August 21 and continues until August 26. Guests include: Steve Holley, Denny Seiwell, Henry McCullogh, Tony Sheridan and Jackie Lomax.
The September issue of British Elle (with Britney Spears on the cover) has an article about Christy Turlington and the Fall 2003 catalog for her yogawear line Nuala. The catalog will feature photos of inspirational women and part of the proceeds from sales will go to Adopt a Minefield. Heather Mills-McCartney is one of the women featured and the photo of her was taken by Paul.
The September issue of W magazine has an article in the SUZY column, which states that Heather Mills-McCartney has said that she and Paul have not been sent an invitation to attend Stella's upcoming wedding. She wishes the couple well.
In her first year with Gucci, Stella McCartney has lost the company £2.7 million ($4.3 million). The fashion house, which forked out £8 million for McCartney, has been forced to make regular cash donations to its subsidiary, Stella McCartney Ltd. - including one of £4 million ($6.5 million). The figures are detailed in accounts filed at Companies House, which also reveal the company's highest paid director (presumably McCartney) is on a salary of £730,840 ($1,169,344). While Gucci will not have expected a blistering performance from their star player in her first season, they too have reported a fall in profits.'I'm certain that they are disappointed that she is not making them more money,' said an industry insider. 'People that buy designer clothes don't necessarily have their heads turned by celebrity. If the clothes aren't great, people won't buy them.' Vegetarian Stella originally turned down an offer from bosses Tom Ford and Domenico De Sole to head Gucci's women's division because of its reliance on the flesh and fur of dead animals. Instead, having been poached like a free-range egg from rival Chloe, she sold Gucci her name and opened two shops in New York and London, with another planned for Los Angeles. Gucci still expects great things from Stella and judge her achievements in the long run, not off the back of the odd million she loses along the way. (People News)
The legal news website, smokinggun.com, has archived what are reportedly the 1998 documents covering Paul McCartney's attempt to recover original handwritten lyrics for the Beatles' classic song, "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." (see lyrics here)According to the website, "McCartney claims that the original handwritten lyrics to the Beatles's classic 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band' were stolen from his London home 30 years ago. So, when New York memorabilia dealer Gary Zimet recently offered to sell McCartney the lyric sheet for $550,000, the musician headed for court. McCartney filed a lawsuit against Zimet, who claims he was only acting as a broker for another collector who has the lyrics. As a result of the New York State Supreme Court action, Zimet has reportedly given McCartney's attorney, Alan Friedman, the name of the other collector. Presumably, that unnamed party will now be pursued in court by McCartney."
Zimet is the same man who caused an uproar for trying to sell the copy of the album that John Lennon signed for Mark David Chapman just hours before Chapman assassinated Lennon.
All the court documents, including an affidavit from McCartney himself and a copy of the stolen handwritten "Sgt. Pepper" lyrics, can be found in the archive at thesmokinggun.com. (Yahoo Launch)
Paul McCartney was recently criticized in the British press for refusing to sign an autograph for a fan while he was shopping at B & Q in Shoreham, Sussex--a home improvement store in England.
His publicist explained McCartney's autograph policy. "Paul's approach to preserving some moments of privacy in situations like these is, as he has repeatedly said in interviews, 'I explain to the person, 'Sorry, I don't do autographs when I'm in a restaurant or shopping, but I'll say hello, shake your hand and have a chat with you. I just don't always want to do autographs,'" said Geoff Baker. (Mirror)
Hardly anything can divert Buck Showalter's attention from the baseball field when he is managing, but Paul McCartney did. When Showalter saw Sir Paul sitting behind home plate at Yankee Stadium last Wednesday (August 6), he turned from the ultraserious manager to the little boy who idolized the Beatles and played guitar with his tennis racket."That was one of the biggest fights I had with my dad," Showalter said. "Can't you see me with the tennis racket? I remember going to the barber shop and having my father tell them to cut more off. Anyone my age wanted to be just like them."
The 47-year-old Showalter did not attempt to introduce himself to Sir Paul, who arrived after the game had begun. Even a starry-eyed Showalter knew fraternizing during the game would have been misplaced.
"That," said Showalter, who managed the Yankees for four years, "was a big night for me." (Statesman.com)
The most coveted invite in the Hamptons is the 15-year anniversary party for celeb-laden Nick & Toni's restaurant on Aug. 24. Regulars expected to attend include Paul McCartney, Gwyneth Paltrow, Billy Joel, Candice Bergen, Sarah Jessica Parker, Steven Spielberg, Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft. The $100 ticket will benefit several local charities. "People who haven't received invites are starting to call," the restaurant's rep, Steve Haweeli, told The Post's Braden Keil. (NY Post)
Islanders on the Clyde have become divorced from reality over the marriage of the fashion designer Stella McCartney, it emerged yesterday.The rumor mill - which had the daughter of former Beatle Sir Paul marrying in the private chapel at Mount Stuart House, on the Isle of Bute - ground to a halt when a hotel spokesman said there was no such engagement.
Despite confirmation from staff insiders at the Victorian stately home of the former F1 racing driver Johnny Dumfries, the seventh marquis of Bute - who prefers to be known as Johnny Bute - that the wedding was to take place at the end of August, Danny Jamieson, director of commercial operations, said, "I can state categorically Stella McCartney will not be getting married at Mount Stuart.
"We have a business to run here and we've spent too much time on this issue and have no more to say on the matter."
Mount Stuart is to close to the public early this season and over the past few weeks management have block-booked rooms at a number of hotels on Bute - but did not give hoteliers guests' names.
Also, new kilts and jackets were bought by Johnny Bute for the Rothesay Pipe Band, which has been told to "stand by" for a major appearance.
Hopes were further raised when there was a reported sighting of Sir Paul disembarking from a luxury yacht in Rothesay bay.
Jamieson, who returned from holiday to face mounting speculation that the McCartney wedding was to take place on the 300-acre estate, admitted that Ms. McCartney had been on the island recently.
He said, "Stella was at Mount Stuart about two months ago. She is a friend of Serena, wife of Johnny Bute."
The executive added, "It's true we have a big commercial event at the end of this month, but it is nothing to do with Stella McCartney's wedding." (The Herald UK)
Paul McCartney stopped by McKendry's Pub in Amagansett Tuesday (August 5) night and joined the locals at the bar.He not only joined them, he quietly sipped a margarita with salt while taking in the banter and bought a round for the nine regulars at the bar. His tab: $30. Probably one of the best deals in the Hamptons.
After he finished his drink, he took off - without leaving a tip. Yeah, yeah, yeah - Diary knows bartenders are generally not tipped in London. But Sir Paul has a home in Amagansett and is no stranger to the United States.
Although the ex-Beatle was alone during his bar stop, earlier in the day he was spotted biking with wife Heather Mills, who's expecting their first child in November. (New York Post)
Paul and Heather Mills watched a baseball game from box seats August 6 at Yankee Stadium.
Paul who is a big Yankees fans, saw the team play the Rangers.
Macca was observed filling up on beer and enjoying the game. He sang along on "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" and gave the thumbs up when the park played a Beatles song.
Paul chatted with Senator Chris Dodd (D. Connecticut) who was sitting next to him at the game.The couple was also spotted August 1 at Nick and Toni's restaurant on Long Island and on August 2 at the Farmer's Market.
Macca has been seen taking leisurely walks by himself around New York. One person described his casual dress -- cut off jeans, a plaid shirt and sandals.
Sir Paul McCartney not named this year for the Kennedy Center Honors.The Godfather of Soul himself, the ageless James Brown, headlines this year's Kennedy Center Honors class of five. Mr. Brown is joined by director Mike Nichols of "The Graduate" fame, country legend Loretta Lynn, comic actress Carol Burnett and violin virtuoso Itzhak Perlman, the Kennedy Center announced yesterday.
Noticeably absent from the 2003 class is Sir Paul McCartney. The ex-Beatle was to have been an honoree last year, but he pulled out due to a scheduling conflict - a family wedding fell on the weekend of the honors ceremonies. Paul Simon replaced him, with the understanding that McCartney would be tapped the following year.
McCartney's pullout last year marked the first time a performer had refused an honors selection since the awards' 1978 debut, and the Kennedy Center may be having a hard time digesting the perceived slight. The center's powers that be aren't talking. A publicist said simply that McCartney would not be given the honor this year. (Washington Times)
Their lives might sometimes read like soap operas -- now Sir Paul McCartney, Rod Stewart and other music stars have the chance to be in one. The producers of a new Brazilian soap opera "Celebridades" (Celebrities) say they are in contact with agents for the veteran rockers as well as Spanish crooner Alejandro Sanz and jazz singer-pianist Diana Krall, to persuade them to make guest appearances in the show.They would take part as themselves in episodes set in Europe, a Globo spokesperson said on Wednesday.
The show, written by top Brazilian soap writer Gilberto Braga, is due to be launched in October by the media giant Globo.
It features Brazilian actress Malu Mader as a concert promoter and revolves around the ups and downs of the show business life. Scenes have already been filmed in Paris and London, Globo said.
No comment was immediately available from representatives of the possible guest stars. No contracts have been signed, Globo said.
Brazilian soap operas are enormously popular. The filming of a dramatic scene in the current favorite "Mulheres Apaixonadas" (Women in Love) in which the heroine is gunned down in Rio de Janeiro was front-page news in some newspapers on Wednesday.
They are also lucrative for the producers as they are sold to other countries in Latin America, Spain and Portugal. (Reuters)
Paul McCartney, the millionaire rock star from Britain, visited India for the first time in 1968 with other members of the Beatles band and their girlfriends. They came then for a mystic vacation at an ashram in the foothills of the Himalayas. The Fabulous Four's three-month-long experience with transcendental meditation at Rishikesh inspired many of their songs. It was an event that was covered extensively by the world media, ever eager to feed the Beatles-mania sweeping the globe then.
Thirty-four years later, Sir Paul returned, virtually incognito, with a fiancee in his arms, to 'another India' in the south, to what he described later as a most "magical'' trip to "truly, god's own country.''
Kerala's famously alert press, boasting of mass circulation figures, remained clueless about McCartney's tranquil fortnight in the State in January 2002 - until after he had left Thiruvananthapuram, the State's capital, by chartered flight, and his Indian tour agent was stopped on the tarmac of the international airport and asked to explain his presence there. The unenviable task of explaining the "secrecy clause" in a business agreement that promised McCartney a strictly private vacation then fell on his Kerala tour manager, who had signed the lucrative holiday deal with McCartney's international travel agents.
'Hush!' was the operative word for his local tour managers as McCartney led girlfriend and former model Heather Mills to a dream vacation, which he later described on a picture postcard thus:
"Weather is divine, so is food, music, entertainment, sea, train-rides, accommodation. People are warm and friendly. Heather's birthday was on a flower-bedecked houseboat in the middle of a starlit lagoon."
During the idyllic holiday, McCartney relished his daily Ayurvedic massage and the feel of the beach sands, rode the day-train, second-class, with ordinary Malayalees, sauntered into toddy shops, drove around in a Mercedes-Benz (provided for the occasion by the Malayalam film actor Suresh Gopi) "for the real feel of Kerala", chanted "Hare Rama, Hare Krishna" to his heart's content (for fellow Beatle George Harrison, a dedicated Krishna bhakt) along with hundreds of devotees at the Padmanabhaswamy Temple in Thiruvananthapuram, gulped beer at a 'city bar hotel', savoured the Kerala cuisine in exotic resorts, had himself treated to a specially organized temple festival at Marari and relished performances of traditional art forms, especially Kathakali, which to him was a flamenco with costumes that were a "harmony in contrast.".
It was a coup of sorts. Kerala's travel and tourism industry was proving that it could indeed deliver on the fantasies it had helped weave for the world's travellers by means of a ten-year long, professional advertising-promotional-marketing campaign. The State offers a variety of attractions for the discerning international tourist.
In retrospect, the still-a-secret effort that went into the making of the McCartney holiday experience seems exceptional, unique, by the standards of Kerala's tourism industry. Wherever the McCartneys went, an entourage of professionals preceded them, booking whole suites in advance, scrubbing, cleaning, deodorising, just making sure. Water and food were flown in. In addition, chefs went into over-drive preparing a variety of exciting dishes for every meal, of which the couple eventually tasted two or three. After McCartney described the feel of the beach sands under his bare feet as an "exhilarating experience", it was the turn of the tour manager to wake up early every morning and, along with a clutch of his employees, remove any unwelcome material from the sands at the Marari resort, adjoining a fishermen's cove.
A few Mercedes-Benz cars drove along on the nearest parallel road as the train carried the pop icon on his first-ever second-class ride from Kottayam to Thiruvananthapuram, a distance of about 150 km. An adjacent first class compartment was fully booked for the star tourists, and rode empty, except occasionally when McCartney went in there for a glass of water. Over two dozen people worked for a day to decorate the 'birthday-boat' anchored near the Coconut Lagoon resort at Kumarakom. Flowers were brought from all over Kerala and from Tamil Nadu. The remaining marigolds and carnations were strewn on the path leading to the backwaters to form a bed of colors. And to Heather's added delight, the birthday cake arrived by traditional row boat, the tour manager himself masquerading as boatman, with a huge moustache pasted on his otherwise scanty upper-lip. Ethereal music drifted from the flower-bedecked houseboat as the delivery was effected at the appointed hour. Only McCartney knew what was emerging out of the misty blue of the "starlit lagoon".
"Kerala has immense potential to provide such real-life encounters with a make-believe world to discerning visitors," the tour manager, K.C. Chandrahasan, told Frontline. "Standards are high, the tension of managing such events becomes unbearable at times, but money is no constraint. One such client would make a successful year for an agency like ours," he said. Ever since McCartney, Chandrahasan's tour company, which had modest beginnings, has been reaping the benefits. "It is a great reference to have: 'McCartney's travel agent'. Business is booming," he declares. This coming season his company is arranging an exotic 'Smells of Kerala' theme holiday for a group of 40 "high-end" tourists, perfume-makers from Europe. The details are under a veil. After heavy bidding, he has also secured a deal to play host to over 700 foreign delegates to an international conference that is to take place in Kochi, on the eve of a traditional boat race that will coincide with the celebration of the festival of Onam in a couple of months from now. (Kerala Kaleidoscope)
It's been a hard day's night separating fact from fantasy but the sight of Sir Paul McCartney strolling on the beach at Rothesay has hardened convictions that his daughter, Stella, has chosen the Isle of Bute as her wedding venue.Yesterday, all his troubles seemed so far away after Sir Paul came round to his daughter's way of thinking following a rift which saw the fashion designer turn her back on the Mull of Kintyre. The ex-Beatle was seen disembarking from a luxury motor yacht and strolling along Rothesay Bay.
One local, Paul Wilson, said, "He was very casual and nobody realized he was here."
A second pointer to the impending nuptials concerns new mooring buoys, or should that be pagebuoys, which, it is understood, are being laid along the eastern shores of the island opposite the Victorian Mount Stuart House, where it has been speculated the wedding will take place.
The Gothic stately home of Johnny Dumfries, the former Formula 1 racing driver, has its own marble-walled chapel with stained glass windows.
Access to the 300-acre house and gardens via the Firth of Clyde would be made easier if the expected flotilla of luxury yachts had facilities to tie-up.
The wedding of McCartney, 31, to Alasdhair Willis, a 31-year-old former advertising executive, is expected at the end of this month.
Guests are likely to include Madonna and Guy Ritchie, her film director husband, and Gwyneth Paltrow, the actress, and her partner Chris Martin, the Coldplay front man.
It is unclear if Sir Paul's pregnant wife Heather will attend.
Hotels, pubs and tearooms on Bute say they are looking forward to a bumper week in the lead-up to the big day. Alex Gibson, owner of the Ettrick Bay Tearooms on Bute, has promised to bake a wedding cake. He said, "Even if the couple have their own celebrity cook for the day, I'll be serving up my customers and hopefully many of the couple's fans with a slice of commemorative bun."
Management at Mount Stuart have so far declined to confirm that the McCartney wedding would be held there. (The Herald)
MACCA REPORT EXCLUSIVE!!!!
When Paul McCartney was in New York this past week he and pregnant wife, Heather Mills went to dinner with Ringo Starr and wife, Barbara Bach at the Four Seasons hotel (July 28). Paul brought the latest sonograms of the newest member of the Macca family who is expected to arrive in mid-November.
Macca was spotted (photo) walking around London by himself talking on his mobile phone. (photos)
We all know that fashion designer Stella McCartney is cute - but hirsute? Rumor has it that certain nasties refer to Paul McCartney's lovely daughter as "Wookie" behind her back, supposedly because of a light carpet of down covering her face. The best-known Wookie, as "Star Wars" fans will eagerly tell you, is Chewbacca, the 7-foot-tall, hairy space animal sidekick of Han Solo.
When we called McCartney's rep for comment, she assured us, "I've seen Stella up close and there is no hair on her face. I don't know where this is coming from." (New York Post)
The highs and lows of Sir Paul McCartney's solo career are the focus of a new exhibition at the Beatles Story museum. Students from the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts have transformed a room at the city's Albert Dock into a miniature version of the musician's world.
White, fluffy clouds float above a floor map of significant places in Sir Paul's life. Based on one of his paintings, it refers to his songs and albums such as "Rose Speedway," "Standing Stone" and "Give my Regards to Broad Street."
Wooden buildings stand against the walls of the room marking important moments in the former Beatle's life. They include his family home in Forthlin Road, Allerton, the skyline of Liverpool, the Mull of Kintyre, London Bridge and Liverpool Cathedral, where his "Liverpool Oratorio" was first performed.
The exhibition was designed by final year LIPA student, Morgan Large who said, "There are many references to flight in his songs which is why I used clouds. I wanted people to feel they were looking down from above on his world. I am thrilled that my design has been accepted for this exhibition. To be a student at the Institute which Sir Paul McCartney is linked to, and then to create a design for The Beatles Story, it's a dream come true."
As the Liverpool skyline fades, lights appear in the buildings. A model of the Paul McCartney Auditorium at LIPA opens its front doors and a video documents the song writer's solo career, including his involvement with the Institute.
Jerry Goldman, Beatles Story director, said, "I was recently made very aware, in addition to everything that Paul has achieved in his career, of his influence on the new generation."
Sir Paul became involved in setting up LIPA when the organization's principal Mark Featherstone-Witty was introduced to him by the Beatles' producer Sir George Martin. He has maintained a close relationship with the Institute, based in the Hope Street building that housed his secondary school.
Theatre and performance technology students Richard Reardon and Sarah Kamender designed the lighting for the exhibition and the video was by LIPA graduate Elisabeth Nord. (Daily Post)
September 2003
September 30, 2003 -- USA Today
Tucked away from the world in a secluded garden terrace, several hundred very well-dressed guests sipped martinis Sunday evening as scenes from "A Streetcar Named Desire" flickered on a tree-framed screen above their heads. But the silent screening had nothing to do with the death of the film's 94-year-old director, Elia Kazan, earlier that day. Rather, it was a somewhat esoteric reference to the film's heroine.
"Brando yells 'Stelllaaaa' in this film, doesn't he?" asked Ashton Kutcher, one of the few stars to piece together the appropriateness of the 1951 classic playing at the grand opening of The Stella McCartney Store on Beverly Boulevard.
As he sipped his beer at the bar, lady friend Demi Moore drank her standard Red Bull and smoked a cigarette while offering praise for their hostess. "It's a beautiful location," said Moore. "You can see the quality of her detail in everything. I'm in Stella now - or Stella's on me."
Moore was among the dozen celebs invited to McCartney's store a few days earlier to be fitted for complimentary frocks created by the 31-year-old daughter of Paul McCartney and his late wife, Linda.
Stella McCartney flew in from London Saturday night. (Her new husband, publisher Alasdhair Willis, stayed behind.) She said she had labored to give her newest store a vintage, homemade feel. "I think a lot of stores have lost the human touch. I used to get really scared walking into shops, so I tell everyone who works for me, 'You have to be nice to everyone.' "
Actress Debi Mazar has been part of McCartney's tight circle of friends since the two met nearly three years ago at Madonna's Scotland wedding. "Stella's completely unscathed by growing up in a famous household," said Mazar, wearing a McCartney gown flown in for her from Paris. "She's always been very kind to me."
Having recently visited McCartney's London shop (there's a third in New York), Ally McBeal alum Portia de Rossi noted, "The London store is more grandiose, with high ceilings and a spiral staircase, as opposed to this, which is very sleek and clean and modern. Very L.A." Though she admitted to getting a discount, de Rossi was less impressed by the prices ($625 satin pants, $900 blouses and $1,745 jackets). "In London I nearly went broke."
Cate Blanchett had her own reasons for appreciating McCartney's fluid designs. "She's updated the concept of being womanly," said Blanchett, who had struggled to squeeze into the snug jeans she wore under her McCartney blouse. "I'm three months pregnant, so she fits women of all shapes and sizes."
The evening was extra special for Hilary Duff, celebrating her 16th birthday with sister Haylie, 18, both dressed in identical McCartney floral prints.
Duff said she had been celebrating her birthday all week. Her best gift? The Range Rover from her record label. "I love it," she said, "but I can't drive it until I get my license in November."
MORE -- Style.com
Stella McCartney's L.A. boutique opening got off to a superb start by current Hollywood standards: Ashton and Demi showed up. While guests gaped, Moore easily slipped into the role of fashion critic, "Everything here is very much a personal reflection of Stella," she said. "And most importantly, her clothes are extremely wearable." An antiques-filled, ivy-covered 1920s cottage, the West Hollywood store incorporates the entire McCartney range, from ready-to-wear to lingerie to fragrance. "I love the cute flowers outside," gushed tween queen Hilary Duff. "And I am obsessed with her shoes!"
Attendees including Cate Blanchett, Shiva Rose McDermott, Anthony Kiedis, Peggy Moffitt, and Elisha Cuthbert nibbled on a menu that mixed pure Americana (veggie hot dogs, popcorn, cotton candy, and pizza) with classic Britannia (scones with strawberry jam, fries with salt and vinegar). McCartney arrived halfway through the evening; after greeting Debi Mazar's baby and petting a guest's dog, she made her way through the crowd to celebrate. "I can't believe anyone even knows who I am over here," she marveled. "Hollywood is important, but it's not the most important thing. My biggest compliment is when I see someone in the street wearing my designs."
September 30, 2003 -- Daily Mail
Stella McCartney has insisted loud and long that her success in the world of fashion is nothing to do with her name.But rival designer Jeff Banks voiced the opinion of many yesterday when he claimed she would have got nowhere without being the daughter of Sir Paul.
"Stella's clothes are very amateurish, but then because of who her old man is, it doesn't seem to matter," said Banks, who has twice been named British Designer of the Year and presented the BBC's The Clothes Show.
"She is successful anyway, not necessarily because of her aptitude as a designer. She's still very young and has been lucky enough to land a few plum jobs, but is she one of Britain's great designers?"
Banks, who designs for Sainsbury's and the High Street fashion shop Warehouse, added, "Had it not been for having a very rich father, would she be getting all this praise? I very much doubt it."
Miss McCartney, 31, who recently married magazine publisher Alasdhair Willis, has been consistently accused of trading on her father's name ever since she was a student at St. Martin's College of Art and Design in London.
Rumors of nepotism began in earnest after her graduate fashion show in 1995, for which she persuaded family friends
Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell to model. Critics said she would never have subsequently landed a job at the French fashion house Chloe if it were not for her famous surname.
At the time, her predecessor at Chloe, Karl Lagerfeld, remarked, "I think they should have taken a big name. They did - but in music, not fashion."
It seems, however, that McCartney might no longer be able to count on such strong family support.
Sir Paul failed to attend the opening of her first Los Angeles boutique on Sunday night (September 28), even though he and his pregnant wife Heather had just paid a visit to the city. They flew out 24 hours before the opening after attending a memorial concert for George Harrison.
When asked if her family would be attending Miss McCartney snapped, 'Well, what do you think? It doesn't look like it does it?"
Wearing a plunging black silk top and matching cropped trousers and jacket of her own design, she added, "This shop is a dream come true. Los Angeles is such a buzzing, young, trendy place and it seemed like the next obvious step. I can't tell you why I have been a success but maybe I just got lucky."
Celebrities who did attend the party included Pamela Anderson, Cate Blanchett, Demi Moore and her toyboy Ashton Kutcher.
Back in Britain, a friend of Stella said last night, "All this talk of nepotism is really not fair. She has worked really hard for the past eight years and her clothes have been worn by some of the most beautiful women in the world. Madonna even asked her to design her wedding dress when she married Guy Ritchie. Her success should speak for itself - I doubt a fashion house aa prestigious as Gucci would have taken her on board if she was anything but an excellent designer."
September 29, 2003
Stella McCartney opened her new store in West Hollywood on Sunday September, 28. At the star-studded reception were Pamela Anderson, Demi Moore, Ashton Kutcher, Quincy Jones and Cate Blanchette.
The designer had flowers flown in to build an English Rose Garden for the event.
September 28, 2003 -- The Scotsman
Mark Hamilton may have started out driving fruit lorries, but these days he's more likely to be found at the side of the planet's biggest music stars.To say that Paul McCartney puts his life in Mark Hamilton's hands almost every time he goes on stage or takes to the road is no exaggeration. As Sir Paul's security director, Hamilton tours the world with him.
This week Hamilton stopped the world long enough to get off and grab a few days at home in Musselburgh with his family.
Normally a break for rest and rehabilitation - completely away from jetting, hotels and stadium concerts - means relaxation with his wife and daughters. This time, though, he has a lot on his mind. As boss of Leith-based security specialists Rock Steady, he is considering the implications of legislation to be introduced in England and Wales next year, with the Scottish Executive expected to follow suit in 2005.
Says Hamilton, "They're calling it Regulation of the Private Security Industry and to ensure that it will work there'll be a Security Inspectorate Authority to tackle infiltration by criminal organizations muscling in on the business. Big changes are afoot, the biggest upheaval I've known since I formed Rock Steady 24 years ago. I welcome them, I must say."
His latest tour with McCartney started in February last year and finished in May this year. "The highlights for me were playing Moscow's Red Square, Rome's Coliseum to an audience of half a million, New Orleans' Superbowl and the Oscars.
"Red Square especially. Mr Putin, who's a huge Beatles fan, personally showed us - Paul, Heather and myself - round the Kremlin. Gorbachev was there, too, and Moscow's mayor. To see these guys, world figures, hanging about backstage at a McCartney gig, it fascinated me. Probably Paul too. I suppose I'm still something of a groupie myself, even at my age."
He is 47. A Gorgie-bred man, he was still at Forrester High School when he dabbled in security work for Mecca at the Empire (Festival Theatre) and East Fountainbridge (Palais de Danse) bingo halls. For a living he was driving lorries delivering fruit around Edinburgh and it was only when local promoters Pete Irvine and Barry Wright, for whom he'd done freelance security work, advised him to develop it as a full-time business that he created Rock Steady at the age of 19.
"That was the 70s. I'd already been using Rock Steady as a brand name. Once I had it registered in 1980 I reckon I must have been wildly ambitious, although little dreaming of where I've taken the company today.
"A lot of it, of course, is down to connections, the people you know. With regard to Paul, I first met him when he brought Wings here to the Odeon, when that cinema was the venue for big name gigs. I've never known him anything other than approachable. I got him to sign my business card backstage that night and I was over the moon when he sent me a thank-you note and I got a "thanks to Mark Hamilton" mention on the sleeve of the Beatles Anthology.
"He's a very decent person to work for. He's fair. He'll do a world tour next year on the back of his next album, so for me that'll be passport at the ready again. The adrenalin is still there."
He adds, "Make no mistake though, there's a helluva lot of responsibility in my job. Lennon and what happened to him often crosses my mind. There are nutters everywhere and we are confronted by disturbed people."
There's considerably more to Rock Steady than McCartney. The firm provides security for 17 football clubs, all but three in Scotland. Hibs since 1990, Hearts again. The Jambos had employed Rock Steady for ten years before a brief stint with an English company before the association was resumed. "We've always worked sympathetically with the clubs. We have to appreciate that they're cash-strapped. We can't just walk away from their predicament."
Hamilton, barely concealing a smile, denies bias when asked for an honest comparison in terms of personal taste in music in his adolescence - the Beatles or the Stones? "I was never enough of a Stones fan to buy their records. On stage, though, they're phenomenal. I've seen them every time they've toured in the last 30 years. But when it come to value for money in a live show - and now I'm talking today - McCartney's way ahead. Paul does 36 songs in his show. From the Stones, in my experience, you'll get 21.
"My favorite band right now? While I'm not on the road with McCartney I'd nominate Queens of the Stone Age. The name isn't on everybody's lips. I suppose you could call them trash metal."
With a staff of 2634 (40 % female), Rock Steady is bracing itself for the forthcoming "revolutionizing" of the industry. "Everyone will have to apply for a license. To run T in the Park, for example, the vast majority of staff will need to be licensed. The average wage for security staff currently is £5 ($8.25) to £7 ($11.55) an hour. I reckon that will go up to between £11 ($ 8.15) and £14 ($23.10) an hour and, yes, that inevitably will be reflected in the ticket price," Hamilton says.
Still headquartered in a former distillery in Leith's Constitution Street, Rock Steady looks set to survive with the former delivery man at the helm, buoyed by his financial director - his Leither wife Sylvia.
Looming on their calendar, the MTV Awards on their doorstep in November. "A London company has been hired to handle security but we may end up working with them," Hamilton adds.
More to the point, can he fix it that Sir Paul includes Edinburgh on the next tour? "You know, we did look at Murrayfield for the band's only Scottish gig last time. That was our first choice and we finished up settling for Celtic Park - and that had to be canceled."
Doesn't he still feel obliged, out of embarrassment if nothing else, to use his clout and get Edinburgh on the itnerary on the world tour next year?
"I'll ensure Paul gives it proper consideration. Promise."
September 27, 2003 -- The Sun
Sir Paul McCartney enjoys a bump and grind with his own gorgeous belly dancer - pregnant wife Heather Mills.
Macca, 61, took off his shirt as the sun Beatled down in London's Regents Park. Then he and Heather, 35, appeared to do a jig - with their dog skipping alongside.
The lovebirds also relaxed and threw bread to the ducks. Heather is due to give birth in November - and is clearly having a swell time judging from her lark in the park.September 27, 2003 -- The Mirror
SIR Paul McCartney stripped off his shirt to put his love for pregnant wife Heather Mills on very public display.
The couple appeared not to have a care in the world as they danced, hugged and kissed in Regent's Park, London.
Even a slight chill in the air couldn't dampen Sir Paul's spirits - maybe the thought of becoming a dad again has given the 61-year-old a warm feeling.
The former Beatle took off his top as he strolled with Heather, 35, and their dog.
Wearing just his jeans and a pair of sandals, he paused to give his wife a big hug and a kiss. He then took Heather in his arms and the two waltzed together as he sang gently to her.
She was almost as skimpily dressed as her husband - and looked radiant in a floaty white skirt and white top.
The couple then fed the ducks before strolling off hand-in-hand together in the September sunshine.
An onlooker said, "They looked so happy, it was a real tonic just to see them.
"I must say though, I was surprised at how little they seemed to feel the cold. Maybe that's why they were clinging so tightly to each other."
September 27, 2003 -- The TelegraphThe British gap-year student who survived 12 days in the Colombian jungle returned home to his family yesterday and said he felt he was "walking on air."
Matthew Scott, 19, who escaped after he was kidnapped by anti-government guerrillas more than two weeks ago, added, "I don't think I'm going to sleep for a month. I'm going to lie in my hammock and listen to some music."
Matthew, whose British Airways flight from Bogota arrived at Heathrow at 2pm, looked dazed and tired as he delivered a short statement to the world's press. "I'm going to be just fine," he said. "Life is looking pretty good."
Matthew flew home first class. The VIP treatment led to a chance encounter with Sir Paul McCartney, who had just landed from Los Angeles (September 25).
September 26, 2003 -- PA News
Stella McCartney attended the British Style Awards in London at Old Billingsgate Fishmarket on September 25. The British Style Awards mark the end of London Fashion Week and are seen by many as the Oscars of the British fashion industry.
Former Baywatch star Pamela Anderson was host and arrived dressed in a cream trouser suit and matching waistcoat by Stella McCartney. Anderson, an ambassador for animal rights charity PETA, chose to wear McCartney's creations because the designer is fiercely opposed to the use of fur in fashion.
Speaking to PA News the actress said, "I chose Stella because she's cruelty-free. This suit is a classic. I wear it a lot."
September 26, 2003 -- Daily MailWhat's eating you Macca?
In a letter to the rock veteran, Philip Norman charts the highs and lows of Paul McCartney's popularity.
Dear Macca,
The millions of people who regard you as pop music's patron saint will have been shocked and disillusioned by your recent behavior - though, as The Beatles' biographer and a long-time observer of your remarkable solo career, it comes as somewhat less of a surprise to me.Last week, you unleashed a stream of foulmouthed abuse at a photographer who had the temerity to try to take your picture during a late-night visit to London's Tower Bridge, where the illusionist David Blaine is suspended aloft in his plexiglass prison cell.
According to the photographer, two of your companions, who strongly resembled 'minders', tried to intimidate him when he refused to hand over his film.
Not content with that, you were blisteringly rude to a bystander who asked if he could shake your hand. Even David Blaine came in for a bashing when you loudly referred to him as a 'stupid c***'.
Later, in more familiar McCartney style, you tried to smile away the episode as 'a boys' night-out' and protested that you hadn't really meant publicly to fire your PR man for having apparently set up the media ambush.
But all your formidable spin-doctoring gifts could not undo the ugly, unnecessary scene.
Like many others in your superstar firmament, you have the ability to shrug off uncomfortable truths, abetted by the legions of yes-men with whom you surround yourself and whose sole function is to tell you that you are infallibly wonderful every day of your life.
But I wonder whether the David Blaine incident may have led even you to ponder on the decline in your reputation over these past few years - and ponder, too, the extent to which you may be almost deliberately unravelling one of the most carefully tended images in showbusiness history.
As a Beatle, you seemed as close to perfection as a young man could be. A brilliant songwriter, a uniquely poignant vocalist, cherubically goodlooking, funny, charming, polite, wellspoken and considerate to fans, you seemed to have everything.
You were a secular Saint Paul, and the world and the world's media ate out of your hand. Well, what a difference 35 years and £1billion ($1.6 million) make. In those days, it was hard to find a McCartney headline that didn't sing your praises even more lyrically than you sang them yourself. Today, it's hard to find one that doesn't portray you as egotistical, grasping, small-minded, self-deluding, more than slightly absurd - and now, to cap it all, as moody, rude and foul-mouthed as any delinquent from pop's kindergarten.
Consider the awful Press you were already getting when you decided to take that ill-advised 'boys' night-out'. Even your old friend and rival, Sir Mick Jagger, with his wrinkly stage antics and puerile pursuit of women a third his age, could hardly match it.
On your recent American tour, you were reported to be behaving like the worst rock megalomaniacs of the Led Zeppelin era. A special request added to your backstage requirements issued to promoters forbade meat to be served to you - or eaten by anyone in the road crew.
Above all, you portrayed yourself as just an ordinary musician on the road, who would pile aboard the tour bus with the rest of your band. However, I'm told that as you came offstage each night, the band were expected to line up and give you a 'spontaneous' ovation.
The fact is that, where you're concerned, we have all swallowed an illusion as skillful as any ever created by David Blaine. All that's happening now is that the mask is being allowed to slip.
For, even in those magic, innocent early Beatle times, you were never remotely like the smiling boy-angel the world took you for. You had just the same young man's foibles as John, George and Ringo, as well as a good few peculiar to yourself.
The melting moon-face and sad puppy-dog eyes already masked a ruthless ambition to make it, with or without the other three. Remember how, even in the band's earliest days of playing gigs for ha'pence on Merseyside and the Cheshire Wirral, you were always known by the others as 'the Star'?
The niceness for which you became famous was not wholly illusory. All four of you Beatles were indeed incredibly nice and, more incredibly, managed to remain so, even after being penned in a goldfish bowl far worse than anything David Blaine could contrive.
The difference was that, while the others often gave way to understandable temper or frustration, you could never bear to drop that honeyed manner, whatever your true feelings.
Amid the trauma of The Beatles' break-up, your wisest move - though few at the time recognized it as such - was to wed American photographer Linda Eastman.
The marriage proved a spectacular success, allowing you to combine your globally successful post-Beatles band Wings, featuring Linda on keyboards, with a stable home life known to few others in that echelon of the music business.
Together you raised four children to be civilized human beings rather than over-indulged rock-brats. With shy, dignified Linda around - apart from a few aberrant drugs-busts, one of which got you briefly locked up in Tokyo in 1980 - your public profile was irreproachable.
The problem was that, jointly directing your band and your profit-rich publishing company MPL, you became ever more of a ruthless perfectionist and autocrat, elbowing aside anyone who threatened to steal even a molecule of your limelight.
Have you ever paused to wonder, for instance, why your feature film "Give My Regards To Broad Street" proved to be such a turkey? Quite simply, it was because, regardless of either the plot or the quality of screen actors you hired, you insisted on making yourself the soft focus centre of virtually every shot.
Yet, despite all these rumors and rumblings, your image endured - that of cheerful, cheeky 'Mister Thumbs-Up', an unspoiled boynext-door who still greeted each day with a Beatley cry of 'Great!'
Linda's death from cancer in 1998 and your obvious devastation unleashed a fresh tide of love and goodwill which diminished when you met and proposed to former topless model Heather Mills, a woman young enough to be your daughter.
It is obviously unfair to compare your new wife with Linda, even though both experienced exactly the same backlash for daring to marry a man whom a large part of the world's womanhood regard as their personal property.
Much of Heather's unpopularity may well be undeserved - but she does have an unfortunate knack of compounding it almost every time she opens her mouth.
Heather has received much of the blame for the new, abrasive Macca we're seeing, and certainly the symptoms are those which often tend to occur in a 61-year-old man with a much younger wife. Where once you carefully limited your public appearances, you'll now willingly escort Heather to the opening of an envelope.
Your hair-dye is so obvious that, when you last played at the Oscars, it received an unofficial award as the evening's best special effect.
Swearing at a photographer may also strike you as youthful and macho, though I suspect you'd be far more upset if photographers began to ignore you.
So determined are you for Heather to be accepted that you even let her give you critiques of your night's performance, a privilege you seldom gave to your fellow Beatles - and one which I doubt Linda ever exercised.
Recently, you refused a music industry lifetime achievement award because you said it implied your career was over and you had nothing left to give to music.
But hanging onto youth is only part of the reason why, despite all your colossal achievements, you continued to push yourself to such an extent, touring for months on end and pumping out records as well as writing classical symphonies, exhibiting your (not very good) paintings and publishing your (at best mediocre) poetry.
It seems you cannot rest until you've persuaded us that our typecasting of The Beatles all those years ago was so completely wrong; that you weren't just the 'nice' one while John Lennon was the arty and edgy one; that you can do anything John ever did, and still more.
That said, it's almost some comfort to us lesser beings that, even if you are Sir Paul McCartney, with that vast pile-up of achievement and honors behind you, you can still be insecure enough to wake in the night, sweating and fuming over the running-order of a credit on a record made almost 40 years ago.
In other words, Sir Paul, you're only human. And that's what you're belatedly starting to show us.
Yours,
Philip Norman(NOTE: If you would like to send your comments on above article to the Daily Mail, here is the email address feedback@femail.co.uk
September 26, 2003 -- The HeraldStella McCartney showed a nice line of irony when she booked Scottish folk band the Whistlebinkies to play at her wedding on Bute. Stella chose three pieces from their CD, "Timber Timbre," to play when she was being led by dad, Paul, up the aisle, when the couple were signing the register, and when the guests were leaving the church. And the third piece they played after the marriage was completed -- "My Wife's A Drunkard," which, presumably, Stella chose just to keep hubby on his toes.
September 25, 2003
"Entertainment Tonight" showed Paul and Ringo mingling at the "Concert For George" movie premiere. They said that Paul and Ringo arrived in the same limo. The show also featured a segment on the famous children of the Beatles, Stella, Mary, Heather, Sean, Julian, Zak, Dhani and mention the others. Dhani was interviewed at the movie premiere.
September 25, 2003
(pictured) Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr react after they both said the same thing at the same time at a private screening of the film "Concert for George," Wednesday night, Sept. 24, at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, CA.
Also at the premiere were Heather Mills, Barbara Bach, Dhani Harrison, Olivia Harrison and Mark Hudson, Jackson Browne, James Taylor, Tom Petty and Yoko Ono. (PHOTOS) (More Photos)
BBC NEWS -- Sir Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr joined Harrison's widow Olivia at the event in California. The screening was of a documentary filmed at a star-studded tribute concert held in London last year.
Also at the movie premiere was John Lennon's widow Yoko Ono, Eric Clapton and Sir Paul's wife Heather Mills. The tribute concert at London's Royal Albert Hall included performances by Sir Paul and Starr as well as by Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne, Billy Preston and members of Monty Python.
George Harrison Harrison died in November 2001 Guitarist Clapton was the musical director of Concert for George, which was attended by 5,000 people, while Harrison's friend Ravi Shankar also composed part of the show. Harrison died in Los Angeles in 2001 after losing his fight against cancer.
"Concert for George," which is being released on DVD in November, is being shown at selected US cinemas in October. Harrison's son Dhani and widow Olivia are donating the film's takings to the Material World Charitable Foundation, established by the guitarist in 1973. (Photos on the Beatles news page)
September 25, 2003 -- Evening Standard
Stella McCartney made £6 million ($9.6 million) when she first sold her name to Gucci, it was revealed for the first time today.Details of the deal, never before disclosed, have been revealed in the 2001 accounts of her private company Stella McCartney Ltd, filed today at Companies House.
McCartney became one of Gucci's highest paid designers when the Italian luxury goods group bought a 50 per cent stake in her company in 2001. The accounts show that on 1 April, 2001, Gucci Group bought shares in Stella McCartney Ltd for £6 million "to purchase from Stella McCartney, the right, title and interest in the McCartney name."
It means she is on the way to emulating the fortune made by her father Sir Paul during his 40-year career in music. She is already thought to be worth £16 million ($25.6 million), and the accounts state the unnamed highest paid director at Stella McCartney Ltd., assumed to be her, was paid a £730,840 ($1.2 million) salary in 2001.
Meanwhile, separate accounts show Gucci paid even more, around £13.5 million ($21.6 million), to buy a 51 per cent stake in designer Alexander McQueen's company Birdswan Solutions, in July 2001. The two British designers were bought into the fold as part of a huge expansion at Gucci. They are now regarded as two of the jewels in its crown, although they are still struggling to break into profit.
This summer - during which she married - McCartney appeared to be having teething troubles. First-year accounts at Companies House show losses at Stella McCartney Ltd of £2.7million ($4.3 million). Gucci had made several cash injections, including one of £4 million ($6.4 million).
Gucci said it had not expected her to do well in her first year. But one fashion insider said: "Gucci have poured millions into Stella's company so I'm certain they are disappointed.'
McCartney, 32, joined Gucci in a blaze of publicity in 2001. She first came to notice in 1995 when her St Martin's catwalk show was modelled by Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell.
September 25, 2003 -- The Scotsman
HEY, PAUL DON,T MAKE IT BADPaul McCartney should be absolutely beloved by Britain: adored and worshipped for putting our music on the map all over the world, for being a genius ("Frog Chorus" excepted); flying the flag, never moving overseas and dodging his taxes; staying faithful to his wife to the day she died; holidaying in Scotland; looking after all the fluffy little animals and sending his (successful and unmessed-up) kids to comprehensive school... You'd think people would fall on the ground and worship him every time he leaves the house.
But Sir Paul just seems to be one of those people who get up other people's noses, like Vanessa Feltz and Cliff Richard, neither of whom have ever added a penny to the sum of human art or happiness in the way he has.
The Macca Fracas, which sounds like one of those headlines that newspapers have been waiting to use for years - like 'Queen Prince' if a member of the royal family was ever discovered to be homosexual (which of course could never happen) - took place last week when he threatened photographers and told everyone to eff off on a trip to see David Blaine.
He should have thought that one through. After all, it's not like the David Blaine box is somewhere likely to be free of cameras, people or publicity. (In fact, nicest news of the week is that the David Blaine phenomenon has now got so enormous that Legoland, in Windsor, has made a tiny David in a box out of Lego to hang next to their reproduction of Tower Bridge.)
Anyway, the press has since been dumping on Paul from a great height, insisting that he's always been a tightwad paranoid control freak.
I mean, I can see his down points. No wonder Stella always has that slapped-arse look on her face after the years of no bacon, smelly plastic shoes and having to holiday on the Mull of Kintyre all the time - which, yes, OK, is beautiful but it's chucking it down, and Mick Jagger's kids are all off to a private island in the Caribbean.
My favorite ever letter in Viz said "Dear Linda McCartney - if you stop playing Minimoog and pretending to sing, thus ruining all of Paul's records, me and five of my mates will stop eating meat forever thus saving the lives of countless innocent animals." She never did, you know.
Subsequently marrying that woman with a reputation for being somewhat economical with the truth didn't help, especially when she said, in her own defence, "If I was marrying Paul for his money, I'd marry someone a lot richer." (Aha! So you've thought about it.) Heather professes not to miss eating meat at all, although she's certainly making him dye his hair that weird orange color in return for something.
But so what. Stacked against his stunning achievements (OK, forgetting perhaps the godawful paintings, poetry, symphonies and films for a second) he still comes out ahead, good taste in women or not.
The excellent book "Revolution in the Head," by Ian MacDonald, who died at a very young age last week, shows very clearly that actually Paul wrote all the best songs and John, far from being the creative genius, was actually an annoying selfish ponce who sang drippily about imagining no possessions from his gigantic all-white mansion with a fur locker and imagining a brotherhood of man while ignoring his own son so badly McCartney had to write the staggering "Hey Jude" about it.
But then Paul goes and messes it all up for himself, again, by insisting on changing Lennon/McCartney to McCartney/Lennon. Stop it.
Every time he does something great, he goes and makes a record like "The Girl is Mine," which saw Paul and Michael Jackson spar over the same woman (what on earth must she have looked like? A blonde stringy-haired small boy monkey?). He seems to have a likeability self-destruct button that he presses every time he thinks he's getting on with the rest of us too well.
But at the end of the day, this is still the man who wrote "Maybe I'm Amazed," the greatest love song of all time. And for that alone, he's entitled to tell the world to go f*** themselves whenever he feels like it.
September 24, 2003
Stella McCartney's third international location will arrive on the Avenues of Art & Design September 28. McCartney, who is backed by the Gucci Group, will transform a previous upscale antiques showroom into the newest Stella McCartney store on Beverly Boulevard. The designer had flowers flown in to build an English Rose Garden for the event. It is not known whether her father and stepmother will attend.
September 24, 2003
On Access Hollywood Pat O'Brien asked Paul about the David Blaine incident and whether he shoved a photographer. Paul said, "The British newspapers tended to overblow this thing. I was just out one evening with some guys and the press started following me and I said I would rather not do that and I got into a car and went home. You know me man, I don't do that."
September 24, 2003 --- MACCA REPORT EXCLUSIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Here's the latest scoop from the "Adopt-A-Minefield" benefit!!!
At 1:30 p.m. Paul and the band (Brian, Rusty, Wix, and Abe) were already soundchecking in the International Ballroom of the Beverly Hilton. Ten songs were played at the soundcheck including two new ones! Here are some: "I've Just Seen A Face," "Calico Skies," "Michelle," "Great Day," "Two of Us," "Let It Be," "Lady Madonna," "Hope of Deliverance," and "Comfort of Love." The psychedelic piano was spotted in the room.
Paul was seen wearing a horizontal striped, multicolored sweater. Macca Reporters saw a pizza delivery of four cheese and two veggie pizza's requested by a hungry Macca.Paul and Heather honored Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones for their work in raising $500,000 to enable the clearing of 1,800,000 square feet of land filled with landmines in Afghanistan. Douglas was appointed the new UN ambassor for peace.
Nine high school students were recognized by Paul for raising $145,000 since 1996 for the charity.
Guests were served an all vegetarian meal of tomato soup, corn bread, ravioli with spinach and cheese, rasted veggetables, potato, and cheesecake with berries.There was an auction with one of Paul's paintings going for $25,000 and a second one for $22,000. A signed placecard by Paul was auctioned for $12,000! The pen he used to sign the card went for $5,000.
Paul performed after James Taylor (who performed seven songs) around 10:45pm. Songs performed were: "I've Just Seen A Face," "Things We Said Today," "Calico Skies," "Blackbird," "We Can Work It Out," "Great Day" (Paul said this was the first time they ever performed this song from "Flaming Pie"), "Eleanor Rigby," "Michelle" (prefaced by Paul's story from the tour), "Two Of Us" (Paul was joined by James Taylor - Macca mentioned that he had not played with Taylor since 1968 and Taylor said let's do it again in 35 years!), "Let It Be" (last song).
During the set Paul took off his jacket and the crowd went wild. He did an acoustic set also, by himself onstage.
Throughout the evening three body guards circled Paul's table to keep guests at bay.Spotted in the audience were Brian Wilson, David Hasselhoff, Barbara Streisand, Eric Clapton, Roseanna Arquette, Sheryl Crow, Cameron Crowe, Nancy Wilson and Geena Davis, Leonard Nimoy and Mickey Rooney.
All guests were given a "goodie bag" filled with stuff from Target including a fanny pack, a James Taylor CD and a "Back in the US" CD.
September 23, 2003 -- Transcript
Talking to Larry King (Monday September 22), Heather Mills McCartney said that on November 14th she will have her baby by caesarian section. She would not divulge the sex of the child which is rumored to be a boy.
She explained that when Paul went to see the David Blaine stunt in London he was chased by the paparazzi who were tipped off "stupidly" by Geoff Baker. Paul didn't punch anyone but his handlers restrained some of the photographers as Paul escaped in his car.
(pictured) Heather Mills McCartney, who is seven months pregnant, explains that the 'Thank You' on her blouse is to publicly acknowledge the $10 million in contributions donated to the United Nations Foundation's Adopt-a-Minefield program, as she is interviewed by talk show host Larry King during a taping of the CNN program 'Larry King Live' in Los Angeles, Sept. 22.
September 23, 2003 -- BBC NewsMILLS ATTACKS 'STALKER-AZZI PRESS
Heather Mills McCartney has hit out at the media, saying pedophiles "get more protection" than celebrities. She dubbed the press "the stalker-azzi" for hounding stars like her husband Sir Paul McCartney and Jennifer Lopez.
Defending Sir Paul in the wake of an alleged scuffle at the site of David Blaine's London stunt, she said the media "made this whole story up". And she told CNN interviewer Larry King that doing magazine deals would be like "dealing with the devil."
She did the TV interview to promote her charity, Adopt-a-Minefield, and a fundraising dinner in Los Angeles on Tuesday.
Telling King that Sir Paul went see Blaine during a "boys' night out", she said he had to run to his car to escape photographers - but it was reported as a "punch-up."
Sir Paul and friends were standing "miles away" from Blaine's box near Tower Bridge when his press officer told photographers that he was there, she said. "So he ran off to the car and the paparazzi were chasing after him. The last thing he wanted on his night out was to have any press around," she said. "He just said, 'No I don't have anything to say', so the next day it was all 'Paul Macca fracas punch up drama'. His people tried to stop the paparazzi but Paul just got into his car and went," she said. "It was front page headlines two days later. What does that say about the state of the world, with all the wars and all the terror that's going on?"
When asked about Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck's apparent split, she said, "I think it's disgusting that the stalker-azzi have done everything possible to try and ruin their relationship. Everyone knows in life that a relationship is hard enough. Could you imagine paparazzi having photographers through your shower room? Pedophiles get more protection."
Mills McCartney is due to give birth to the couple's first child in November and revealed that they know the sex and name of the baby but were keeping it a secret. She said she did not want to keep calling the baby "it." She said, "It's our one little secret. We both know and we know the name and everything."
She said the press were bound to find out where she was giving birth, but the couple were "still discussing" whether to allow a photograph of the child. She never wanted to make press appearances when making personal announcements, but "Paul is more clever and more knowledgeable in that area," she said. "He always will do one picture and one announcement and will go away. And it tends to work," she said.
It will be the former model's first child, while Sir Paul has three grown-up children from his marriage to the late Linda McCartney.
September 22, 2003Macca's day from hell
It was the day from hell for Paul McCartney. The former Beatle became involved in a heated fracas with a newspaper photographer and he copped a ticket from a parking inspector who most certainly was not lovely Rita, meter maid.
Sir Paul's woes began during a late-night visit to London's Tower Bridge to see American magician David Blaine, who has suspended himself in a glass box over the River Thames. Police said that both the photographer, from London's Evening Standard newspaper, and one of McCartney's "friends" more likely a minder had filed complaints of common assault.
The newspaper reported that McCartney, 61, and a small group arrived at the Tower Bridge at 1am on Friday to look at Blaine, who is trying to go 44 days without food while living in the box. Photographer Kevin Wheal said the ex-Beatle was with his publicist, Geoff Baker, and three or four others when Wheal approached to get a picture. He said McCartney said to him, "F--- off. It's a private visit. I've come to see this stupid c---", meaning Blaine. Wheal said McCartney then pushed him with an open palm.
The Standard also said McCartney had sworn at its reporter, Abul Taher. "F--- off. I am a pedestrian on a private visit," he is alleged to have said. A member of the public who asked for a handshake was told, "F--- off. I am not shaking your hand. I am a pedestrian on a private visit." Wheal said his camera was damaged by one of McCartney's minders and he was further assaulted.
The newspaper reported McCartney shouted as his publicist, "You're bang out of order. You're fired now!" He apparently believed Baker had set up the photo shoot. Police said their investigations were continuing.
Billionaire McCartney was also spotted trying to talk his way out of a $120 parking ticket. Neighbors were astonished to see McCartney and his wife Heather Mills plead with a parking officer to let them off the fine after he spotted their Mercedes in a residents-only bay while visiting his daughter Stella in London. Pointing out their disabled parking stickers their entitlement because of 35-year-old Mills's prosthetic leg the former Beatle argued furiously to have the ticket torn up.
An onlooker last week said, "It was hilarious. One of the richest men in Britain was desperately trying to worm out of a parking fine. But the attendant, who clearly had no idea who he was, stood his ground and wasn't having any of it."
A Westminster Council spokesman said later: "Disabled blue badge holders can park in special bays and get extra time at meters. But they do not have the right to park in residents' bays." McCartney has two weeks to pay the fine.
September 21, 2003
The British Polio Fellowship is currently holding a charity celebrity hankie auction on ebay. Paul and Heather donated a handkerchief with their signature and hand-drawn self-portraits. The charity raises money for those suffering from the effects of polio. If you would like to place your bid, here is the link. Hurry because the auction ends on September 26!
September 21, 2003 -- Sunday MailCOPS TO QUIZ McCARTNEY
Sir Paul McCartney is to be questioned by police over claims he assaulted a photographer. The ex-Beatle was involved in a scuffle with photographer Kevin Wheal as he visited David Blaine's perspex box hanging beside the Thames.Wheal claims McCartney, 61, pushed him in the chest when he tried to take his picture. McCartney's publicist said, "Reports this was a fracas are highly exaggerated.''
Scotland Yard yesterday confirmed they are investigating two complaints of assault.
September 21, 2003 -- Daily MailPaul gets a parking ticket
Ex-Beatle Paul McCartney, one of the richest men in Britain, has filed a complaint about a £70 ($100) parking fine, according to the Daily Mail on Saturday.
McCartney, according to the report, was delivering a wedding gift to his daughter Stella in her luxury London residence in Notting Hill when a parking officer slapped the ticket on his windshield.
The guard apparently did not see the disability sticker on display for McCartney's wife Heather Mills, an amputee.
However, McCartney's written complaint to the city administration responsible was refused because the parking area was reserved for residents only, the report said.
September 20, 2003 -- The Mirror
ANGRY PAUL ROWS WITH SNAPPER AND FAN
A photographer claimed yesterday he was furiously abused by Paul McCartney then dragged away by "minders." But Sir Paul, who briefly sacked his PR in the extraordinary early morning fracas, insisted, "It was just a boys' night out. It was all a joke."Kevin Wheal was trying to take a picture of the 61-year-old star after he arrived in the early hours to look at illusionist David Blaine suspended in his glass box by Tower Bridge, London.
"Incandescent" with rage - and said by a policeman to be "rather drunk" - McCartney rounded on Wheal, declaring, "Listen mate, I've come to see this stupid c*** and you're not going to take a picture of me tonight."
Turning to a reporter with the cameraman, he added: "F*** off, I'm a pedestrian on a private visit." Wheal said Sir Paul pushed him in the chest. He said, "Then his friends, more like minders, grabbed me and pushed my camera towards the ground.
"One told me 'There's no f***ing way you're going to take a picture', mate."
Macca's fury allegedly increased when passer-by Vaseem Adnan, 32, spotted his hero and came forward to say, "I'm a member of the public. Can I shake your hand?" The answer was emphatic. "F*** off," snapped Macca. I'm not shaking your hand."
Turning to his publicist Geoff Baker, who he suspected of alerting the press about the visit, he raged, "You're bang out of order. You're fired." However by 11am his anger had subsided enough to rehire Baker.
As he walked his dog near his home in St John's Wood, North London, he said, "The paparazzi were harassing me as usual. I did f*** all. All I did was get into a car and drive off. That's all I have to say."
Later, he appeared outside his house in more jovial mood. This time, striking a playful pose with fist raised, he announced, "What's this about a punch-up? It was a boys' night out. I haven't fired Geoff - it was a joke."
He then added "Please don't hang about--pregnant wife. Thanks a lot," before jumping into a black Mercedes. Wife Heather Mills, 35, is due to give birth in November.
Sir Paul, Baker and two friends went to Tower Bridge in high spirits at 1am yesterday after an evening meal. A police officer patrolling the site of Blaine's stunt said, "Mr. McCartney came down here rather drunk. He was swamped by the public and a photographer taking pictures of him. He was very abusive. There was a dispute between him and the photographer, who had to be dragged away."
Scotland Yard said, "We've received two counter allegations of common assault. A group of friends allege they were assaulted by a man during an argument. He alleges they assaulted him. Statements were taken at the scene and inquiries continue."
Filled with remorse, Baker admitted he had indeed tipped off the press and said he had acted "stupidly." Speaking at his home near Devizes, Wilts, the father of six told the Mirror, "Paul was joking when he said I was fired. I thought he was serious, but he wasn't. We do pull each other's leg but he's never sacked me before. Paul phoned me this morning and he's fine. I don't want to drum this up. It's going to blow it out of all proportion."
Baker said he did not bear any grudges against his boss for erupting. He said, "Paul is a great bloke. He's a good laugh and just one of the lads. He's a great guy to work for."
Baker also issued a statement saying the whole thing was a misunderstanding.
It said, "One of the lads tipped off the press, who were watching a man in a sleeping bag in a box, that Paul was passing. Paul continued to joke by telling his mate, who is his publicist, that he was fired. He then got into a car and went home. Reports this was a fracas or anything other than a group of friends on a night out are heavily exaggerated."
Sir Paul, who has a £713 million ($1.1 billion) fortune, has never lost his rag in public before. But he has been known to lash out in private.
One friend said, "He's not always the sweet, thumbs-up Liverpool lad you know. I've seen him throw amazing strops. Paul didn't get where he is without shouting at a few people."
Former Fleet Street journalist Baker became an adviser to McCartney in 1989. High-profile events he has had to handle include the death of Sir Paul's wife Linda in 1997, rows with Yoko Ono and Macca's marriage to Heather.
September 19, 2003 -- Ananova
Scuffle as McCartney visits Blaine stuntPolice are investigating an alleged scuffle involving friends of Sir Paul McCartney after the music star visited David Blaine's starvation stunt.
A photographer for London newspaper the Evening Standard claimed he was hit after he tried to take a snap of the star. But Sir Paul's aides have told police that they were assaulted during the incident.
The former Beatles star had joined onlookers on the banks of the River Thames, near Tower Bridge, in London to take a look at the illusionist. He is attempting to spend 44 days without food in a clear plastic box, suspended from a crane. But Sir Paul reportedly wanted to keep his visit low-key by avoiding having his photograph taken.
Photographer Kevin Wheal told the Standard he approached the star with his camera "Then his friends - who seemed more like minders to me - grabbed hold of me and pushed my camera towards the ground. One of them said 'There's no f***ing way you're going to take a picture mate'."
Wheal claimed Sir Paul pushed him in the chest with his open palm, swore at him and said, "It's a private visit."
A Scotland Yard spokesman said, "Shortly before 1am today (Friday, September 19) officers near the David Blaine stunt show in SE1 became aware of a dispute between a group of friends, a photographer and other members of the public. Following the altercation we have received two counter allegations of common assault. The group of friends have alleged that they were assaulted by a man during the argument. He alleges that they assaulted him. Statements were taken at the scene. Walworth police are investigating and inquiries continue."MORE -- This is London
I'm so sorry, says McCartney aide
Sir Paul McCartney's publicist today spoke of his deep regret at the incident. Geoff Baker took the blame for alerting our photographers to Sir Paul's presence at the Blaine stunt after the former Beatle and a group of friends had decided to visit the site.
Baker said, "It was a mistake and I am very sorry today. We went out for a meal in Soho - a whole bunch of friends. At the end we decided to go and see the David Blaine thing. Paul was standing there watching it. Then I, very stupidly, walked up to a paparazzi photographer and mentioned that Macca was around. I tipped the guy off and said to him to be very subtle about photographing him. Unfortunately, the guy started rattling off a load of photographs. Paul was quite rightly upset. There was shouting and at one point Paul and his mates were standing up against the photographers. Then when he discovered what I had done, Paul said to the photographers, 'It's not your fault, it's our publicity guy's fault.' That was about 1am. I haven't spoken to Paul since. It's now up to him as to whether I am still working for him. Last thing he shouted at me was that I was fired. There was a lot of swearing going on. Paul was very angry. He hadn't actually been drinking - but I had. I have been working for Paul for 14 years. I have no idea what I am going to do now. He certainly has never said I was fired before."
MORE -- People News
Police who broke up a scuffle beneath the Blaine box in the early hours of this morning were astonished to find an ex-Beatle at its center. The tussle, involving a photographer, members of the public, Paul McCartney and a group of his 'friends,' kicked off at 1am, when snap-happy Kevin Wheal spotted Macca paying his respects to everyone's favorite faster and moved in for the kill. "Then his friends - who seemed more like minders to me - grabbed hold of me and pushed my camera towards the ground," recalled Kev. One of the singer's chums then pointed out helpfully, "There's no f***ing way you're going to take a picture, mate." Which proved to be true, especially when this assertion was backed up with some kung fu by none other than Macca himself. His "Pipes of Peace" days evidently well behind him, Kev claims Sir Paul applied an open palm to his chest, exerted force and swore at him, saying, 'It's a private visit.' The singer's publicist of 14 years, Geoff Baker, has since been sacked for tipping off the photographer Sadly, the man (Davie Blaine) with a perfect view of the fracas will not be available for police questioning until October 19.
MORE -- Evening Standard
Sir Paul McCartney sacked one of his closest aides today after a row erupted when he visited the scene of illusionist David Blaine's stunt. Look here too! Sir Paul flew into a rage as a photographer tried to grab a picture of him at the site of Blaine's starvation challenge. And he dismissed his long-standing publicist Geoff Baker on the spot during the early hours visit - then later said the sacking was a joke.
Baker, who has worked with the former Beatle for more than a decade, was axed after he admitted mentioning to the photographer that Sir Paul was present at the scene. Then a row blew up between the photographer, Kevin Wheal, and Sir Paul's companions, with police intervening at around 1am. Baker said, "We went for a meal in Soho with some of Paul's roadies and afterwards someone suggested we went down to see David Blaine. No one knew he was there because it was dark, and for some reason - probably known only to my mental hospital - I decided to tell a photographer to come over. Paul didn't want to be photographed and two of his mates said he didn't want any photography. Then Paul got cross with me and told me I was fired. He was incandescent."
Several celebrities have been to the scene, where the US magician is hoping to live in a box for 44 days without food. Gloria Estefan was there a week ago. Wheal, who was working for London's Evening Standard newspaper, said he approached the star with his camera. But Sir Paul had wanted his visit to remain low key and did not want any pictures to be taken.
Wheal told the Evening Standard, "Then his friends - who seemed more like minders to me - grabbed hold of me and pushed my camera towards the ground. One of them said 'There's no f***ing way you're going to take a picture, mate'."
Wheal claimed he was hit during the incident. But Baker said, "There was pushing and shoving but there were certainly no punches thrown."
Baker is a former Fleet Street journalist who became an adviser to Sir Paul in the early Nineties. Among the high-profile events he has had to deal with recent years have been the death of the chart star's wife Linda in 1998, rows with Yoko Ono, his marriage to Heather Mills in 2002 and a recent world tour.
Speaking about his new jobless status, Baker said today, "I'm available for parties ... and poledancing."MORE -- BBC NEWS
Sir Paul McCartney has told his publicist he was "joking" about sacking him after a row broke out at a visit to the David Blaine stunt. Police are investigating an alleged fracas between Sir Paul and a photographer during the visit at 1am on Friday, September 19.
His publicist, Geoff Baker, admitted he had "stupidly" tipped off the photographer about the visit - and that Sir Paul had sacked him on the spot.
Baker released a statement on behalf of Sir Paul on Friday afternoon saying, "We were out to dinner with a few friends walking along the Embankment. One of the lads tipped off the press, who were watching a man in a sleeping bag in a box, that Paul was passing. Paul then continued to joke by telling his mate, who is his publicist, that he was fired. Paul then got into a car and went home. Reports that this was a fracas or anything other than a group of friends on a night out are heavily exaggerated."
Sir Paul came down to the stunt - where illusionist David Blaine is trying to spend 44 days without food suspended in a Perspex box - after dining with friends in central London. Mr. Baker, Sir Paul's PR representative for 14 years, told London's Evening Standard newspaper Sir Paul did not want to have his photo taken as it was a "private visit". But Baker tipped off Standard photographer Kevin Wheal, who came down to the site of the stunt, on London's South Bank. Wheal said he approached the star with his camera.
"Then his friends - who seemed more like minders to me - grabbed hold of me and pushed my camera towards the ground," Wheal said. The photographer also said Sir Paul swore at him and pushed him to the ground.
Police are investigating allegations of common assault form both parties. "Shortly before 1am today officers near the David Blaine stunt show became aware of a dispute between a group of friends, a photographer and other members of the public," a Scotland Yard spokesman said.
"Following the altercation we have received two counter allegations of common assault. "The group of friends have alleged that they were assaulted by a man during the argument. He alleges that they assaulted him. Statements were taken at the scene. Walworth police are investigating and inquiries continue."
Earlier in the day a distraught Baker said the star was "very angry" with him after he learned the publicist had tipped Wheal off, though he said no punches were thrown during the incident. Baker, a former newspaper reporter, is one of the former Beatle's closest aides. He helped Sir Paul through the death of his wife Linda McCartney, as well as dealing with his music releases and Beatles developments.
September 18, 2003
Highlights from Paul McCartney's MSN LIVE CHAT
Paul mentioned that he is taking his time to work on the new album which won't be finished until next year. He also said that there's a possibility that the A & E special "PAUL MCCARTNEY IN RED SQUARE" will become a DVD next year with added extras.
About touring, he says he hasn't planned any concerts before the end of next year but he'd love to tour again and go on the road with the new album. He also talked about a new book in the works about his 2002-03 world tour but did not mention a release date.
For the full transcript click here.
Pictured: Paul and Heather strolling down a London street after a recent recording session, September 17.
The annual "Adopt-A-Minefield" benefit in Los Angeles will be September 23 at the Beverly Hilton. Paul McCartney will perform as well as James Taylor. Jay Leno once again will be the master of ceremonies. Honorees include Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Tickets are $500 each.To order tickets call: Levi, Pazanti & Associates at (310) 201-5033
An Australian documentary has been selected by Heather Mills-McCartney to be shown at the fundraising event. "Dogs of Peace," made by South Perth's Storyteller Productions, is a documentary about dogs that sniff out land mines.The film was shot by director Mike Searle and cameraman Steve Saunders both from Perth in Afghanistan last year.
Mills-McCartney presents and narrates the documentary and will use it at the Los Angeles soiree to raise money for her charity Adopt-a-Minefield.
Serle, the CEO of Storyteller, said he was excited about the success of the documentary. "Heather is an amazing woman and we are very pleased to be part of her battle against landmines," he said. "It is an honor that she wants to use this program in September to raise money at the major fund-raising event at which she says there will be a large number of A-list celebrities. "I am really looking forward to going." (Sunday Times)
September 18, 2003 -- Press Release (Apple Corps)
AT LAST AS NATURE INTENDEDTHE BEATLES LET IT BE...NAKED
At last revealed - The Beatles album that has taken more than 30 years to finish, "Let It Be...Naked," just the bare sound of the band inside The Beatles."Let It Be...Naked" is the no frills, back-to-basics album that The Beatles first set out to make back in 1969 - but which was never released as they intended, the band back to the bone.
Now, through the smart digital technology of Abbey Road studios, the never-heard band's take of the original sessions will be finally released worldwide by EMI Records in November.
Naked is "Let It Be" brought right up to now for the "1 Generation," de-mixed and re-mixed, un-dubbed of orchestration, choirs and effects and stripped-back to the raw to reveal The Beatles simply as what they were very best at being just a great band.
"If we'd have had today's technology back then, it would sound like this because this is the noise we made in the studio," said Paul McCartney "It's all exactly as it was in the room. You're right there now."
"When I first heard it, it was really uplifting. It took you back again to the times when we were this band, the Beatle band," said Ringo Starr.
When The Beatles first set out to make the album in 1969, they intended to record an album that would be a return to live performance of just the bare necessities of the band, no studio effects or overdubbing of voices or instruments would be allowed. However, caught in the turmoil of the break-up of the band, the album was re-produced by Phil Spector and never released as The Beatles had originally meant it to sound. Until now."Let It Be...Naked's" track listing differs from the 1970 release; background dialogue, "Dig It" and "Maggie Mae" have been taken off the album and "Don't Let Me Down" has been added to the running order, which now is as follows: "Get Back," "Dig A Pony," "For You Blue," "The Long And Winding Road," "Two Of Us," "I've Got A Feeling," "One After 909," "Don't Let Me Down," "I Me Mine," "Across The Universe," "Let It Be."
"Let It Be...Naked" will be issued together with a bonus fly-on-the-wall disc that features extracts from tapes of The Beatles at the time of first making the "Let It Be" album and movie in the Sixties.
The 20-minute bonus disc is a unique insight into of The Beatles at work in rehearsal and in the studios in January 1969.
"Let It Be...Naked" will also come with a booklet that features historic photography of the recording sessions and extracts of band dialogue from the original booklet that first accompanied early copies of the 1970 album.
Released worldwide from November 17th, (November 18th in the US) "Let It Be...Naked" is the sound of The Beatles as nature intended; raw and rocking.
"The music always surpassed any bulls*t we were going through; once the count-in happened we turned back into those brothers and musicians." -- RINGO STARR
"It's just us playing, in our best voices, it's very honest." -- GEORGE HARRISON"For all our success The Beatles were always a great little band. When we sat down to play, we played good." -- PAUL McCARTNEY
"In spite of all things, The Beatles could really play music together." -- JOHN LENNON
September 18, 2003 -- New York Times
When Paul McCartney went to Russia in May for his first concert there in a four-decade career, he already knew that the Beatles had had an underground following in the Soviet Union during the dark days of repression in the 1960's.But he said what he saw and heard when he arrived there, accompanied by a camera crew filming a television special for A&E, astonished him.
Advertisement"I wasn't prepared for the depth of feeling that the people had for the Beatles," Sir Paul said in a telephone interview from London. "They were copying our records on old X-rays! That was pretty amazing. I think it's a great idea. Maybe I should do more of that, combining my music and my medical records."
As the hybrid special - one part documentary, one part concert movie - points out, young Russians really did resort to desperate inventions like X-ray film to fashion bootleg copies of Beatles records circa 1964, when originals cost about a month's wages in Moscow. That is, when they could be had at all, because Russians literally risked arrest to listen to the Beatles.
In a series of interviews for the special, "Paul McCartney in Red Square," on A&E tonight, 40-ish and 50-ish Russians who grew up in that era - including playwrights, musicians, cultural commentators and government officials - recall an idolatry for a British rock band that truly amounted to cultural revolution.
At one point one of them flashes a small early picture of the Beatles, apparently torn from a fan magazine of the era. He stunned Sir Paul by confessing that neither he nor any of his friends knew at the time which one was Lennon and which McCartney.
The trip began with a stop in St. Petersburg, and Sir Paul said he had insisted on two things: a trip to the Hermitage and some free time to bicycle around the city with his wife, Heather.
And so one of the most famous people in the world climbed on a bike and pedaled around St. Petersburg, through a park, across a bridge, totally undisturbed. "We were less recognized there," he said. "But then, people don't really look that closely at you if you're cycling by. And even if they did recognize us, they probably said to themselves: 'No, that can't be them, bicycling through a local park.' "
Fans did appear of course. Among them: Mikhail S. Gorbachev and President Vladimir V. Putin. The meeting with the Russian president was rather formal, Sir Paul said, until Mr. Putin dismissed his entourage and invited the McCartneys into his inner sanctum, accompanied only by his interpreter.
"The four of us then had a talk," Sir Paul said. "He was fun. He said, 'I really know your music.' He agreed the Beatles had been a force for freedom."
Much of this Mr. Putin said in English, Sir Paul said, to the point that he eventually dismissed his interpreter. Hearing Russians speaking English did not come as much of a surprise, Sir Paul said, because he heard from Russians, including some teachers, who told him they often used Beatles lyrics to teach children English. "It's an easy way to get them interested when they're starting out," he said.
He said he had even witnessed some of the results in person, which he replicated in an accent worthy of Boris Badenov of "Bullwinkle" fame. "I had some Russians come up to me and say: 'You say yes; I say no. Hello, goodbye. I am real nowhere man.' "
When Mr. Putin said he regretted that the press of business would prevent him from attending the McCartney concert in Red Square, Sir Paul noticed a grand piano in the corner of Mr. Putin's ornate private office. "So I sat down and played 'Let It Be' for him," he said. "It's a lot easier to entertain 100,000 people than Mr. President of Russia."
As it turned out Mr. Putin did show up halfway through the concert, trying to sneak in unobtrusively. But his arrival caused a commotion, which Sir Paul noticed. As it happened he had already played the one song many in the crowd most wanted to hear. So he made a command decision onstage.
"I said there had been a request. It's an old trick, really." And he revved his band into another version of "Back in the U.S.S.R."
One thing A&E executives demanded - a full roster of Beatles songs, to fill every segment of the special - Sir Paul delivered, from the 40-year-old rocker "I Saw her Standing There" (which he recorded with the Beatles in February 1963) through "We Can Work It Out," "Getting Better" and "Hey Jude."
He is behind a microphone now in a London studio, laying down the first tracks of a new album. "It's going nice," he said. "I'm enjoying it." He said he planned to work a few more weeks, "then I'm off on maternity leave." Heather is expected to give birth to their first child in November.
"I'll take it easy," he said. "I'll have a lot of time to write songs. I want to make a great record."
They mainly come on CD's now of course, not X-rays. But Sir Paul took away another special souvenir from his visit to remind him of the musical impact that he has had in Russia. He was awarded an honorary doctorate from the St. Petersburg Conservatory of Music of Music in St. Petersburg.
"I felt very grateful getting a doctorate there, walking the steps that Tchaikovsky walked," he said. "Quite a thing for a guy who still thinks of himself as a poor kid from Liverpool. Roll over Beethoven and tell Tchaikovsky the news."
September 17, 2003 -- Press Release
Guitarist Rusty Anderson is happy to be in England and working on Paul McCartney's new album."We're just beginning the process and so far, so great," said Rusty. "Interacting with him and the band in the studio has been a real gas. Paul's talents are always inspirational. The tours, the CDs and the DVD were good fun, and I'm honored to continue working with him on this next bit."
Rusty is looking forward to playing with Paul and the band at the third annual Adopt-A-Minefield Benefit Gala on September 23 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, which will be emceed by Jay Leno and features a set by James Taylor as well.
"It's an important charity and it feels great to be part of it," he said. "They're removing landmines and helping the victims put their lives back together. Seeing all the fans with their 'Adopt a Landmine' shirts in the crowd on the last tour was great. It's going to primarily be an acoustic show...should be good fun."
And what did Rusty do this summer? Aside from guitar-slutting around with other artists, he was putting the finishing touches on his upcoming solo CD "Undressing Underwater." The album, which features Paul, Brian, Abe and Wix assisting Rusty on "Hurt Myself," along with guests such as Stewart Copeland, should be at the top of every Christmas list!"
September 17, 2003 -- MPL Communications
The new "Jane Goodall's Wild Chimpazees" soundtrack / compilation CD includes the gorgeous score by Amin Bhatia from the new IMAX film featuring songs and performances by South African legend Johnny Clegg with additional songs by Bonnie Raitt, Bruce Cockburn, Samite and Paul McCartney ("Wildlife").Musicians from all over the world have been brought together to make joyous music in support of the work of Dr. Goodall. Each CD sold generates proceeds to benefit the work of the Jane Goodall Institute.
For more information visit www.bigscreenmusic.com or www.chimpcd.com
September 16, 2003 -- Western Morning NewsA Westcountry veteran of the "forgotten" Suez Canal conflict has been invited to meet the Queen at a reception at Buckingham Palace.
Mike Hardy of Crediton, near Exeter, has spent nearly ten years campaigning for the men of the 1950s Suez Canal campaign to be recognized. And now his hard work will be honored at a palace reception hosted by the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh on October 13.The theme of the evening is "pioneers to the life of the nation" and a selected 500 people who have contributed to society on a national or local level have been invited.
Celebrities such as Sir Paul McCartney, Sir Cliff Richard, Jamie Oliver and sporting legend Sir Steve Redgrave are also among the names on the guest list.
A Buckingham Palace spokesman said, "All the people invited have all contributed something to society whether it's nationally or locally. The vast majority of people will be those who have contributed to their local communities. National figures such as Sir Paul McCartney and Sir Cliff Richard have been invited but we haven't received replies yet."
The Suez crisis was the only one of 19 British military actions since the Second World War - apart from very recent operations - not to have a campaign medal produced for those who took part.
Campaign medals are not normally awarded more than five years after a conflict, but ministers acknowledged the "special features" of the case. But it is still not clear why the veterans did not receive a medal in the first place.
September 16, 2003 -- Press ReleasePAUL McCARTNEY & HEATHER MILLS McCARTNEY TO HOST 3RD ANNUAL ADOPT-A-MINEFIELD L.A. GALA
Adopt-A-Minefield Benefit Gala Will Roll Out Annual Night of a Thousand Dinners.
Paul McCartney and James Taylor to Perform Jay Leno to Emcee Honorees Include Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones.
Goodwill Ambassadors Paul McCartney and Heather Mills McCartney will host the third annual Adopt-A-Minefield® Benefit Gala at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills on Tuesday, September 23, 2003.
This must-attend gala, now in its third year and a highlight of the fall season, was started by McCartney and Mills to raise awareness of the global landmine crisis and to motivate people around the world to join forces to eradicate the problem. Adopt-A-Minefield (AAM) raises private funds to clear minefields and provides aid to people injured by landmines. Over one-third of the world's nations are affected by landmines.
One of the most exciting highlights of the event is the special performance by McCartney and a fellow musical giant. This year, pioneering singer-songwriter James Taylor will join McCartney to raise his voice in support of AAM's mission to save lives, clear minefields and help mine-affected communities begin the long-awaited reconstruction process. Last year McCartney was joined by Brian Williams of the Beach Boys and, the year before, by Paul Simon. Stephen Stills has also made a special appearance. Jay Leno will once again emcee the event. Among those who attended earlier dinners were Pierce Brosnan, Owen Wilson, Julia Louis Dreyfus, Whoopi Goldberg, David Spade, Rob Reiner, Julia Ormond and others.
The annual event has also provided AAM with an opportunity to honor individuals who have made a significant contribution to eradicating the landmine problem. This year's honorees include Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones, who not only donated funds to clear a minefield in Cambodia, but who also raised nearly $450,000 to support emergency demining in Afghanistan. As a result of their extraordinary efforts, over 600,000 square meters of land have been cleared and returned to productive use. Other honorees include Bobby Muller, president of the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation, who has been at the forefront of the movement to ban landmines around the world and the International Baccalaureate Students, who raised over $140,000 in the past two years to clear two minefields in Cambodia and support survivor assistance programs. The honorees will receive an award specially designed by Sir McCartney.
In regard to the event, Paul McCartney and Heather Mills McCartney said, "The momentum we've seen in such a short time to rid the world of these insidious weapons of war has been extraordinary as well as gratifying. Adopt-A-Minefield has become a model for how people can work together to educate and make a difference. Each year, support for AAM grows and, more importantly, awareness of this world-wide crisis grows. Out of this growth we hope to eliminate a tragic, man-made epidemic."
Earlier galas not only have contributed greatly to AAM's outreach and education program, but in addition, contributions from those events have helped AAM clear over 200,000 square meters of land and provide survivor assistance in the Campaign's program countries: Afghanistan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cambodia, Croatia, Mozambique and Vietnam. The six countries are among the most heavily mined in the world.
This year's gala will mark the official rollout of the Campaign's annual Night of a Thousand Dinners™ (N1KD) initiative, which will be held on November 6, 2003. "Just as with the L.A. event, the Night of a Thousand Dinners has become an annual celebration of how people can work together to increase the awareness of a problem with the ultimate goal of solving it," AAM's Executive Director Nahela Hadi said. "On this one night, across the country and around the world, people of all backgrounds will break bread together to help create a landmine-free world."
The Night of a Thousand Dinners is an international event that brings awareness to the global landmine crisis and raises funds for Adopt-A-Minefield. On this special evening, tens of thousands of individuals around the world will join their friends, family, neighbors and colleagues in their homes, restaurants, community centers or other venues to have dinner and raise funds for mine clearance and survivor assistance. Launched in 2001, N1KD events have been held in over 50 countries with tens of thousands of participants raising over $2.3 million for mine action.
For tickets, table packages and more information about the Third Annual Benefit Gala, please contact Levy, Pazanti & Associates at 310.201.5033.
Click here for more information about Night of a Thousand Dinners, or contact us at info@1000dinners.com or 212.907.1307.
For media inquiries, please contact Eddie Michaels & Associates at 310.777.1150.
For photos and information about last year's benefit dinner, please visit our Special Events page.Did you know that you can donate as much or as little as you want ($5, $25, $1000) or you can adopt an entire minefield for $25,000 or more?
September 15, 2003 -- Newsweek
Now 61, Sir Paul is enjoying something of a renaissance. His latest tour drew 500,000 outside the Colosseum in Rome and grossed $126 million worldwide, the biggest since the Beatles. In November, McCartney will release a cleaned-up version of "Let It Be" called "Let It Be...Naked."
NEWSWEEK's Jonathan Alter interviewed McCartney on September 12 in a London studio where he is completing work on a new album, his 20th since the Beatles broke up in 1970.Why do you think the tour was so big?
Paul McCartney: For some, nostalgia. These are songs you can sing to. The kids don't care when they were recorded. To them, all of the psychedelic clothing is the future, not the past. And there's something appealing about it in the same way I love Fred Astaire. It's classic, and structured very well. It's the same for kids and the Beatles. There's just something there that's timeless.Did you know during the 1960s that you had this great appeal in Russia?
We heard about it. When we heard that it was blue jeans and the Beatles that they smuggled in, we loved that.It was strong, liberating music that we delighted in, and they got that. How did Elvis reach me? It was this delight-it wasn't an intellectual thing.Why was this the first time you went there?
There were always rumors that we could do a concert in Red Square, but it always fell through. The timing wasn't right or the regime wasn't readyWhen I went [in May], the one question they wanted me to answer over and over was: Did you come in the '60s and give a concert at the airport? The burning rumor was that we had played a show [that had been kept from them.] We didn't.Why do you think the Beatles had such an effect on Russians trying to resist the strength of the Soviet government?
I'm not sure but maybe when someone comes up with an idea that's a little looser, that's powerful. They [the Russian people] are thinking, 'If only.if only' and that starts to spread. Under any of these tough regimes, they're cowering. But in their own rooms, no one can control them and they're saying, 'This is a real pisser! Don't you hate this?' You can't stop them saying that. It's like with a lot of big-headed stars. The star's going, [big gruff authoritarian voice] 'If you don't do that, I'm gonna kill you.' And he walks out of the room and all the grips and people who do the work for him say, 'What a tosser [jerk.]' You can't stop that. You can stop just about anything else, but there is a certain grassroots thing that stays.They kept sepia-tinted pictures of you in Russia almost as icons, like you were dead. That gives me an excuse to ask you about the whole 'Paul is dead' thing.
Am I dead? It was a warm day [when the Beatles shot the Abbey Road cover in 1969]. I had on sandals. We went to the photo shoot, kicked them off-took a couple of shots. An American DJ picked up the story that being barefoot was a mafia sign of being dead. There was a Volkswagen beetle car with the license '28IF' [which conspiracy theorists saw as a sign that McCartney wouldn't reach age 28.]' Now that's kind of a tenuous thing, but they stretched that and that car has sold for a lot of money. So it's madness, really. I knew I wasn't dead, but I knew everyone else thought I was. So people were looking at me as if I wasn't me.In the film, some of the Russians put you in the canon, comparing you to Tchaikovsky.
That's a bit scary. I'm very proud of my achievements but I don't think of myself like that. People say I can't go to the cinema [undisturbed]. And I say, 'you wanna bet?' I go to the shops every morning-get my fruit and bagels at the supermarket. I'm still this guy who does all these ordinary things. So when people lionize me a little bit-or a lotta bit like the Russians, it makes me think, 'God, you are that guy!' Stella [his daughter] had never seen much television when she was a little kid and we were living in Scotland and she was watching and turned to me and said, 'Daddy, are you Paul McCartney?' There's a lot of that for me, too. I try to liken it [all of the adulation] to getting an honorary degree or something, not so uncommon for lots of other people. It is great, though, so I never get too freaked out.Your legacy is so secure. Why the fight [with Yoko Ono over reversing the credits from "by John Lennon and Paul McCartney" to "by Paul McCartney and John Lennon"]? Why would you care about the credit?
Why do I care? I dunno. I'm human. I've given up-I'm not going to bother with it. It's very unseemly for me to care because John's not here and it's like walking on a dead man's grave. I was talking about him as if he were here and he's not, which is very unseemly. [It started when] I asked for a favor. I had just performed 'Yesterday.'This was originally about 'Yesterday' [which McCartney composed and sang alone]? That didn't come through [in the coverage.]
No, it never comes through, and that's why I'm backing off. [Echoing the critics] 'Oh, there he goes again! Jesus Christ, isn't he happy with what he's got?' And I got a lot of mail-'Don't go there.' So I am dropping it and I will not ask for it ever again. It's like Gilbert and Sulllivan-they both get enough credit.Do you think if John Lennon hadn't been killed [in 1980] that-like a lot of bands that broke up and got back together much later-the Beatles would have reunited?
I think we might have. The dust would have settled. We [he and Lennon] were talking a lot more just before [his death], about his new son and all kinds of other things. But we'll never know, will we?What do you think of George W. Bush?
There's a certain disenchantment from what I see, particularly with young people. But he did a good job post-9/11. I was there [in the United States]. I can remember the week after, some American saying, 'And we've got this banana-head as president.' And I said, 'Stop right there. You've got a president. Right now, don't do that, don't go there. He's on our side. We love him. He's going to lead us.' I wonder if we're past that now. I do see funny signs like you'd see in the '60s: 'Screw Nixon.' Now I'm seeing similar things about Bush.What do you think of hip-hop?
Some of it I like and some of it I don't. I like Eminem and found [his film] "8 Mile" quite interesting. It's a little out of date, but one of my kids introduced me to [rap group] Cypress Hill. [Overall], like any parent, I'm not keen on the 'slapping bitches' aspect of it. But my kids tell me it's just swearing. Parents never get it, which is part of the whole thing. My father's father once called Sinatra's music 'tin can' music.Is there anyone you haven't teamed up with yet that you would like to?
I can't think of anyone. Nelson Mandela, maybe?
September 15 -- Daily Post
WHY PAUL McCARTNEY IS STILL MY HEROHe was the son of a bare-knuckle fighter, whose own ready fists and cold stare led him deep into the smoky, bluesy night spots, where wide boys in slick suits and jewellery ran the drug trade, peddling purple hearts to the all-night crowd. In these dens, he took some hammerings and won some victories before a fatal stabbing during one gang battle led to him being sent to prison, where he vowed to mend his bad ways.
On his release, Michael Francis, a little wiser but still as hard as a bottle in an alley, began a rise which would take him into the company of some of the brightest stars on Earth. Their names roll of his tongue like a bill of fame - Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Paul McCartney, Michael Jackson, George Michael, Cher, Jon Bon Jovi.
Meantime, his old dad George, the bruiser from Camden Town, who could tame a Gipsy king, had been recognized for his true talent as a boxing coach. He was to train some great champions including Kirkby-born John Conteh. But it was during a training session for Conteh at George's gym in 1974 that Michael's life was to change forever.
So there he was at the gym with his father and Conteh, who had recently beaten Jorge Ahumada of Argentina to claim the world light heavyweight title. They were chatting away about the respective merits of Liverpool when in walked Paul McCartney in a heavy overcoat over his jeans and T-shirt.
Michael was a Beatles' fan having seen them at the Astoria in Finsbury Park in 1963. But the Beatles had split up and now Paul was the lead man with a new group called Wings.
Conteh was one of the many celebrities, dressed in prison uniforms who featured on their album, "Band On The Run." Since meeting for the photo session, the musician and the fighter had forged a firm friendship.
Michael was really a by-stander at this gathering of three celebrated men and he writes of the occasion with awe in his newly-published autobiography.
Conteh introduced McCartney to George with these words, "This is the man who made me into a world champion." Michael thought about it all, reflecting, "Where Cat Stevens was putting on a show with his white fur coat and a girl on each arm, Paul turns up, alone, without fanfare, and is relaxed and chatty. Paul McCartney is one of the most famous men on the planet. He has no need to draw attention to himself - it just happens wherever he goes."
During the conversation, Michael and John mentioned they were going to a cinema in London's West End to watch the live filming of Muhammad Ali's world title clash with George Foreman in Zaire. To their astonishment, Paul asked if he could join them at the cinema. And you don't shun a former Beatle. Michael immediately volunteered to collect the star from his home in St John's Wood. In the way of a hard man, he felt he should be protective of Paul.
On the way home after the contest, his attention is reciprocated. "I could use a guy like you," says Paul. That night Michael woke his wife June to say, "You'll never guess who my new boss is."
It began a life in the crazy world of rock music for the boy from Camden Town. His father was coaching a Liverpudlian boxing champion, while he was in charge of the safety of one of the richest, yet most vulnerable, men in the world, Paul McCartney.
Michael came to know Paul McCartney as a friend and, of all the big names he worked with, the ex-Beatle emerges with most credit.
"He was a hero before I worked for him and still is," Michael says. That simple statement means a lot. Most stars tarnish under close scrutiny.
"How he conducts himself on or off stage is a credit to anybody," adds Michael. "He's been there, he's done it all but still he's courteous and friendly as he always has been. I feel like I have been on a private jet for 30 years, because there has been one star after the other. But Paul is a pleasure to work with. He is a delight to be with, on or off the stage, and I have real respect for him."
Their relationship was at its closest after Paul was arrested and held in jail for 10 days in Japan for trying to enter the country possessing 219 grams of marijuana. Paul asked Michael to arrange the security for the return to his Sussex home, where he stayed until the hubbub had died down.
Now Michael, the boy who couldn't read, has written his autobiography with the rock journalist Paul Elliott. Negotiations are under way for his story to be told in a TV series, first in the USA and then the UK."Star Man- The Right-hand Man of Rock and Roll," by Michael Francis, is published by Simon and Schuster
September 15, 2003 -- Hello Magazine
Madonna has launched her new book The English Roses with a celebrity tea-party in London. A host of British personalities turned out along with their families as Madge, joined by her own little ones Lourdes and Rocco, read extracts from her first children's tome.Guests at the Kensington bash included Stella McCartney, Kate Moss and EastEnders stars Patsy Palmer and Michelle Collins. The author herself arrived fashionably late, though husband Guy Ritchie was already there, along with three-year-old Rocco.
The book, which was inspired by the esoteric Jewish teachings of Kaballah, tells the story of four 11-year-olds who feel envious of another girl in their neighborhood. And the subject of their jealousy, Binah, was based on the author's own little girl, Lourdes.
Alfred Bestall, who, for 30 years, wrote and illustrated the adventures of Rupert the Bear in the Daily Express is the subject of a new book called "The Life and Works of Alfred Bestall: Illustrator of Rupert Bear."
Bestall died in 1986 and was buried in his beloved North Wales. Among those who sent flowers was Paul McCartney, who owns the film rights to Rupert and once visited him at home in Beddgelert.
McCartney has contributed the foreword to this book. Rupert's attitude, he writes, 'is very much, "It can be done": he's very positive and always has that spark of optimism combined with a certain innocence'.
September 14, 2003 -- The Times-Picayune
McCCARTNEY STAYS ON THE RUN IN RUSSIA
Paul McCartney never had visited Russia before, but he says it felt like home once he got there.The legendary, knighted ex-Beatle made a delayed three-day trip in May, dedicating a St. Petersburg building for the arts, receiving an honorary degree from the Russian Conservatoire and performing a concert in Moscow's Red Square.
The almost 100,000 fans included Russian President Vladimir Putin and former President Mikhail Gorbachev. McCartney's historic and emotional trek is traced in the two-hour A&E Network special "Paul McCartney in Red Square" Thursday.
More than a music special -- although it offers a wealth of songs from "Hey Jude" and "Band on the Run" to (of course) "Back in the USSR" -- the program explains the impact of McCartney and the Beatles on Russia's population.
An opening quote credits Liverpool's "Fab Four" with doing "more for the fall of communism than any other Western institution."
Those interviewed confirm that simply knowing the Beatles existed helped many young Russians find their voices against an oppressive regime.
McCartney says, "We knew that the Beatles were kind of known over there, and that gave us a lot of pleasure, the idea that we were popular there."
Not only could the Beatles be creative in that atmosphere, others could appreciate their creativity, even as KGB officers looked over their shoulders. "I'd meet Russians on the street in New York or in England, and I'd always feel a sort of family bond with them," McCartney reflects. "I don't know why; maybe it had something to do with the wars and that feeling of being allies, but that really made it feel like I was an old friend returning when I went to Russia."
Not surprisingly, "Back in the USSR" got an enormous response when McCartney performed it in Red Square. "For years, I had been itching to do that," he confirms.
McCartney originally intended to go to Russia in 2001, but the terrorist attacks on the United States altered his plans.
His overseas visit was initiated by Anthea Eno, musician Brian Eno's wife, who invited McCartney to teach a master class at her St. Petersburg charity, which benefits musically talented, underprivileged children.
"I really wanted to experience Russia, and it was beautiful. I first got sort of a personal tour, then we got into the charity thing, and then we went to Moscow for the concert. That allowed me to touch Russia, and to let it touch me."
Accompanied by his wife, Heather, who is expecting their first child together, McCartney also appreciated the chance to discuss the international land-mine situation with President Putin.
"Part of me is still a school kid looking at history, but as it unfolds, I'm now a part of it. That's uncanny to me, but it is great to realize that hopefully, I can make some small difference."
IN CONCERT: PAUL MCCARTNEY IN RED SQUARE
Thursday September 18, at 8pm CT-- 9pm ET/PT. Encore at 12am CT/ 1am ET/PT.
September 14, 2003 -- APStella McCartney lives by pretty strict rules: She doesn't eat meat, she won't gossip about her famous friends, who include Madonna and Gwyneth Paltrow, and she won't work with leather or fur -- not an easy feat in the fashion world.
Now that she's launching her own signature fragrance, she has made a few additions to her principled list. Stella, developed with YSL Beaute, is made from only organic active ingredients, it doesn't use genetically modified crop raw materials, and the perfume and accompanying body products were not tested on animals.
McCartney says she's not sure if these rules have helped or hindered her career, but they've made her what she is today. (Considering she has her own designer label within the prestigious Gucci Group by age 31, it's doubtful that her personal ethics have held her back.)
"What I try to do is always in the best interest of my client. If they know what I stand for, I wouldn't want to cheat them by not following through,'' says McCartney, who was recently in New York to promote the fragrance.
Whenever possible, she says, she gets written commitments from her business associates pledging that they, too, are following her ethical guidelines.
But since it's her name sewn into the label of that cashmere coat and etched into the perfume bottle, McCartney says her work is very personal.
"What really inspires me is me,'' she says. "I try to bring out the friction of my sexy feminine side and the masculine powerful side. It's how I try to act and then portray in my work.''
Instead of trading on her famous name -- "McCartney'' as in daughter of Paul and Linda -- and presumably a family fortune to launch a trendy, quick-sell teen line when she felt a calling to fashion, McCartney decided to learn the craft of master tailoring on Savile Row in London while also taking design classes at Central Saint Martins College in the early 1990s.
She moved on to the house of Chloe in 1997, where she earned respect in the fashion world for her feminine clothes. She won the designer of the year trophy at the 2000 VH1 Vogue Fashion Awards and her dad surprised her onstage to hand her the award.
When she struck the Gucci deal in 2001 to do her own name-brand collection, she did it on the condition that she'd have complete creative control. "I don't just want to be the face of a megabrand,'' she says.
A fragrance was sure to follow several seasons of successful ready-to-wear clothes and glitzy, star-studded store openings.
"Part of me didn't want to give up my name'' for the fragrance; "it's more personal since it's just 'Stella,' '' she says, "but it's the honest thing to do.''
She adds, "And Stella is a nice name for a perfume.''
The fragrance is built around a rose -- a very specific rose that McCartney had a photograph of. "It's a rose that is so full it's bursting. Its petals are about to fall off,'' she describes.
Answering some critics who thought she might be in the fashion game for just a few years of glory, McCartney, a newlywed, says she's in for the long haul and she expects her collection to grow. She sees more stores, more styles and maybe more perfumes.
It's the constant evolution of style, both personally and in the whole industry, that keeps her interested in the fashion, she says.
"The main thing that keeps me going is the deeper element of the fashion business: the idea that what you wear is how people read you and to figure out what is the reason you buy something,'' she says. "For me, it's not about the search for a perfect button.''
September 13, 2003 -- Evening MailThe well-heeled can have an extra spring in their step now that a shoe shiner to the stars has opened one of his first businesses outside London.
Keith Stevens, boss of the London Shoeshine Company, has just opened a franchise at Birmingham's NEC and customers are voting with their feet to boast perfectly polished footwear.
Keith is also the personal buffer of the Duchess of York's 3,500 pairs of shoes and visits her London mansion every month to complete the marathon task.
Stars who have fallen under the sparkling spell of Keith's shoe shiners include Sir Paul McCartney, who didn't leave a tip, Ab Fab heroine Joanna Lumley, movie icons Demi Moore, Sylvester Stallone and Kevin Costner.
Keith said, "Fergie inherited a lot of Princess Diana's shoes because they shared the same size. It's a full day's work to clean them all, but she donates the cost to one of her charities.
"One of the greatest gentlemen I've ever polished for was the late comic actor Derek Nimmo whose shoes I always cleaned every Ascot. He always insisted on wearing a pink waistcoat, matching bow tie and socks. He was a real gent."
At the NEC customers can have an express shine for £3 ($4.80)or a military version for £6 ($9.60)
September 13, 2003 -- Biggleswade Today
Darrel performs at McCartney weddingRock'n' roll performer Darrel Higham turned wedding singer at one of the biggest celebrity bashes of the Millennium. Darrel, 33, who is originally from Upper Caldecote, was brought in to sing at Stella McCartney's wedding reception after she had married publisher Alasdair Willis on the Isle of Bute in western Scotland.
Stars from all over the world including Madonna, Pierce Brosnan, Gwyneth Paltrow, Liv Tyler, Kate Moss, Guy Ritchie, Sadie Frost, Sharleen Spiteri and Chris Martin were in attendance.
Rather than asking for lavish wedding gifts the couple had requested guests buy their presents from a list of trees so that they could plant their own forest.
The star-studded event had been veiled in such an air of secrecy that Darrel had to sign a confidentiality clause in his contract.
But speaking to website planetjive.com he said, "It was a great evening for a lovely, down to earth couple who deserve all the happiness in the world. We were treated very well, and although I won't go into any details, everyone seemed to enjoy themselves."
Darrel and The Enforcers performed a one-hour set of rock 'n' roll standards, plus some rockabilly tracks before being joined by Beatle legend Sir Paul McCartney, for impromptu versions of "Sally" and "Honey Hush " accompanied by his brother Mike on backing vocals. During "Honey Hush" Sir Paul made up a humorous verse as a tribute to Stella and Alasdhair.
After the gig Sir Paul chatted at length to The Enforcers about his early days with The Beatles, in particular their meeting with Elvis and gigs backing Gene Vincent. He also revealed to Darrel, who portrayed Eddie Cochran for the revival of Jack Good's "Elvis The Musical" and played with Eddie's original band in the US, that Cochran was his idol.Lead singer with The Pretenders, Chrissie Hynde, had recommended Darrel to Sir Paul for the gig, having worked with him on sessions back in 2001.
Either playing solo or with The Enforcers Darrel has 13 albums to his name as well as appearing on countless albums for other artists in a wide variety of musical roles.
September 13, 2003 -- Daily Record
Stella McCartney only got hitched less than two weeks ago but married life hasn't exactly put a smile on her face. The designer and hubby Alasdhair Willis -- who wed on the Isle of Bute -- looked miserable at director Guy Ritchie's 35th birthday party at a club in London.Maybe the dour pair should take lessons from Guy and Madonna, who giggled like newlyweds.
September 13 2003 -- The Sun
Pregnant Heather Mills, 35, looks swell as she strolls with ex-Beatle Paul McCartney, 61, in North London yesterday September 12. The couple's tot is due mid-November.
September 12, 2003
Paul McCartney has launched the Mobile Music Store on his Web site where you can purchase and download ringtones to the tune of "Band On the Run" and "Live and Let Die." You can also download a Paul McCartney operator logo and a "Back in the World Tour" logo for your mobile phone. These offers are only available for Europe.
The "Secret Web Page" will be updated shortly so make sure you have a copy of the "Back in the US" DVD handy.
September 12, 2003
Paul's publicist Geoff Baker was spotted at Abbey Road Studios where Macca and band are thought to be recording. Macca heads for Los Angeles shortly for the Adopt-A-Minefield benefit on September 23.
Stella McCartney has designed an exclusive t-shirt, which she has donated to Peace One Day to assist in supporting the event and promoting a greater awareness. The t-shirt will be available in Stella McCartney flagship stores in London, New York and Los Angeles and on Peace One Day's website. The shirt sells for £40 ($65) including shipping. Click here to see the shirts.
The September 15 issue of People Magazine (Brooke Shields on the cover) has a story on Stella's wedding (page 66). The day after the wedding Stella gave her dad a thank you note and a case of his favorite wine, Louis Latour 1996 Burgundy.
September 11, 2003 -- Montclair Times Community
Imagine being prohibited from performing your music in a country run by communism, because free will is what your music represents.During the era of communism in the now-defunct Soviet Union, authorities labeled the music a "dangerous Western influence" and banned The Beatles and Paul McCartney's 1970s band, Wings. The Soviet government's communist ideology was meticulously maintained, controlling all areas from economic to cultural, depriving the fans of witnessing firsthand the popular Beatlemania, although Beatles' recordings were smuggled into the nation.
Now, for the first time in his extensive career, former Beatle Paul McCartney was allowed to come to Russia and perform - a momentous show in the history of rock 'n' roll - and Montclair director Mark Haefeli was right there, capturing the magic on film.
The soon-to-be-aired A&E music special "Paul McCartney in Red Square" is something that Haefeli is more proud of than anything he's previously done in his career.
No stranger to producing and directing live concerts, Haefeli has an impressive résumé of handling more than 100 concerts for television including the Rolling Stones, U2, Janet Jackson, Aerosmith and Rod Stewart, as well as commercials for L'Oreal and Tommy Hilfiger. He produced and directed the Emmy-nominated ABC television special "Paul McCartney: Back in the U.S.," which was the largest DVD-seller in the history of Capitol Records.
Haefeli, who has resided in Montclair for the past 13 years, got his foot in the show business door as a child actor. He later became a security guard at CBS News, then an executive producer at CNN, and finally went into business on his own, focusing on rock music.
"I had a good feel for the music scene and pop culture and combined that with journalistic training. I was very fortunate. I worked very hard and one thing led to another up the career path," said Haefeli.
Through the years, Haefeli worked with McCartney and went on his last U.S. tour with him last year.
"He went on tour shortly after 9/11. I think the kind of music he was playing had a very soothing nature during a difficult time in the United States. It was somewhat of a healing process for people who attended. A very special vibe was going on that Paul and I decided to capture. We just started off shooting some of the happenings behind the scenes of the tour. Insight into what goes on backstage as well as the music of Paul and The Beatles. That evolved into a two-hour TV special 'Back in the US.' It sold over 500,000 copies and is still going strong," said Haefeli.
Following the U.S. tour, McCartney went over to Europe to perform at the Red Square.
"We knew it would be very special," said Haefeli. "There have been years of cultural exchanges between the U.S.A. and Russia. The U.S. sent jazz musicians over in the 1950s. But The Beatles were too much of a threat. The Beatles and Paul's music had been banned by the Russian government. Other rock bands had actually performed in Russia, such as Elton John in the late 1970s.
"But Elton John was a performer. The Beatles were a lifestyle. Other bands played rock 'n' roll music. The Beatles started a culture. They influenced fashion, the way we thought. They said things other people didn't dare say. They were truly innovators."
Haefeli and McCartney decided to bring to life the story about why The Beatles were banned.
"We started to research the subject matter," said Haefeli. "We discovered very respected and well-known authors on this subject. How people smuggled in their records. Kids would spend their monthly wage on a black market Beatle record."
With the downfall of the Soviet government, and no longer banned from the country of Russia, McCartney was filmed giving a master class in music at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. "It's the most prestigious classical music school in the world," said Haefeli. "It's where Tchaikovsky went."
The story ends with Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, greeting Paul McCartney, and McCartney playing in Red Square. "The important thing is how significant the film is. It's probably the last great Beatles story. It's a story that's never been told before. It couldn't be told until now. It was only now that Paul was allowed to come to Russia. People in the Soviet Union have only been free for the last 10 to15 years or so.
"This is the story that is being told by the people who lived the story, who lived through communism, the deprivation of cultural awareness, and came out the other side able to tell their story. It really is an amazing story. It's not a story that is being told by journalists or the pop culture theorists."
Of all the different recordings artists Haefeli has worked with, he doesn't think anyone measures up to Paul McCartney. "I don't think there's anyone that comparable in terms of achievement, legitimate genius, versatility, longevity and impact than Paul McCartney. It's an absolute privilege to be part of his legacy."
Haefeli is more proud of this film than anything he's ever done in his career. "To have been there, to have heard Paul singing 'Back in the USSR' in the Red Square was more than just a dream."
"Paul McCartney in Red Square" will be aired on A&E, Thursday, Sept. 18, at 9pm and 1am ET.
September 10, 2003 -- The Andhra Update
Nothing can be more difficult than trying to entertain the world's greatest entertainer. And sure it is a tall task if one has to entertain former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney.After holidaying in the sun-kissed beaches of Kerala's Coconut Lagoon (India) with then fiancée Heather Mills, the two spent two nights in Mumbai.
On January 20, 2002 the two stepped out quietly from their presidential suite at the Taj and went over for a special screening of Vikram Bhatt's Raaz. And that indeed was an experience worth cherishing for Mahesh Bhatt, the man who has been involved in the making of the film.
Raaz, which is being presented by Tips films and Mahesh Bhatt, deals with the paranormal, meant not just to woo the NRI audience. This "supernatural thriller" will be released soon.
While in the city on Wednesday for promo of the film, Bhatt recalled the experience of watching the special screening with McCartney. "I had met Paul once earlier. At 10.30 on Sunday night, we went over to a private theatre in Bandra to watch a special screening of Raaz. And mind you, this was the first Hindi film that Paul was watching till the very end.
Earlier he had just watched snippets on television. The fast paced narrative of Raaz impressed him. Heather was dazzled by the visual sophistication. Unfortunately, we don't have any photographs of him watching the film. Actually, Paul is very shy and secretive," he said.
But how did Sir Paul McCartney respond to a Hindi psycho-thriller? After all, the film doesn't have subtitles. "I was translating and explaining certain portions. Dino was also there. Paul was responding to the film like a child. He could follow the body language and he liked the generous use of English words in the film."
Incidentally, the catchline for Raaz - Do you want to know a secret? - is also taken from a Beatles number. It was penned by John Lennon. But what about the music? Nadeem, specially, was "flabbergasted" when he heard the news that McCartney had liked the music. Bhatt recalled, "I saw him tapping his foot and enjoying the score." Sure Nadeem Shravan wouldn't need any further complements for their score.
And what about Bipasha Basu, the star whom Bhatt describes as a "spectacular talent to walk in to the portals of Hindi cinema"? Bipasha, incidentally, wasn't present during the screening.
"When I called up Bipasha in Goa I asked her to guess who was watching her film. I told her, 'Bipasha it is Paul McCartney, I repeat Sir Paul McCartney, who was at the screening'. Paul even said that Bipasha looks like Sophia Loren!" Is Dino Morea, who plays Bipasha's husband in the film, blushing?
Paul started recording his new studio album in England September 1 with rumored Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich (via Matt Hurwitz). The album will be released next year and McCartney will take the next three months to work on it with his touring band.
Check out Stella McCartney's new "Fall 2003 Read-to-Wear Collection" on Style.com
September 8, 2003 -- The Scotsman
McCARTNEY WEDDING VENUE URGED TO ENTER SECRECY PACT
A director at Mount Stuart, the stately home in which Stella McCartney was married, has told how the fashion designer asked them to lie to the media about her wedding.Danny Jamieson, the director of commercial operations at the estate on Bute, which was the venue for the star-studded event last month, admitted that McCartney had demanded they remain tight-lipped that the service was to take place.
"Our clients were adamant they wanted privacy and we succeeded," he said.
"We had signed and sealed the wedding plan in the early part of the year and discreetly reserved accommodation on the island for the other guests that could not stay at the house."
But when word of the impending wedding leaked out, McCartney, who is known to despise the paparazzi and press, was adamant she would be married without intrusions.
The rumor mill was in full swing and the wedding details had been confirmed by staff insiders, but Mount Stuart's owner and friend of McCartney, the former racing driver Johnny Dumfries, gave the order that the story should be killed.
"We had to do it to ensure the client's privacy and we stated categorically that Stella McCartney would not be getting married at Mount Stuart," said Jamieson. "It's our business and although we were misleading, we will not let anything jeopardise what we are trying to achieve."
Speculation was heightened when Jamieson was forced to admit McCartney had been to the Mount Stuart Estate a few months before. This was disguised as a visit to her friend Serena, Mr. Dumfries's then-wife.
In addition to maintaining their silence, the management also had to accommodate complicated security arrangements to ensure the privacy and safety of the couple's guests, who included Madonna, the model Kate Moss, the actress Liv Tyler and Pretenders singer Chrissie Hynde.
Transported to the island in blacked-out Range Rovers, on arrival at the house, guests were ushered in and out with a complicated system of colour coded tags and passes created by Rock Steady, a security consultancy. However, the security proved not to be impregnable when two locals managed to enter the grounds and took photos of the wedding party.
Jamieson insists the effort involved in arranging the event, which netted the estate £2 million ($3.1 million), had been worth it. He said, "You have to do what is best for your business and the client's privacy was our number one priority. They used their own florists and caterers from London, we brought in extras such as the pipers and essentially, the estate gave the couple the privacy they wanted," said Jamieson. "The feedback from the wedding party was that they were blown away. For us, we had global coverage of the Mount Stuart estate."
September 6, 2003 -- The Sun
Stella McCartney is following up her £2 million ($3.1 million) wedding with a cheap and cheerful honeymoon. The designer and hubby Alasdhair Willis are enjoying a frugal break at The Airds Hotel, in a quiet Scottish fishing village.Rocker Sir Paul McCartney is worth £750million ($1.2 billion). But our picture shows his lass is happy with simple pleasures - like walking with Alasdhair and their dog at Port Appin, Argyll.
September 6, 2003 -- AP
Bruce Springsteen pulled off what Paul McCartney couldn't . Springsteen and the E Street band will play two concerts at Fenway Park home of the Boston Red Sox, September 6 & 7.
In winning permission from the Red Sox' new owners, Springsteen will tread where musicians as illustrious as Sir Paul McCartney and Boston Symphony Orchestra legend Seiji Ozawa have tried but failed to go - McCartney because the former Red Sox owners denied his request and Ozawa because the BSO determined a Fenway concert would be too expensive.
The last concert at Fenway was 30 years ago, when the Newport Jazz Festival relocated there for a two-day event that drew about 15,000 people. Springsteen's fans snatched up 36,000 tickets for each show in less than an hour.
The Boss ends his 120-date world tour on October 4 at New York's Shea Stadium.
September 6, 2003 -- Media Guardian
Heather Mills McCartney, the wife of former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney, is to cash in on her famous name in America by turning it in to a trademark. The 35-year-old former model turned anti-landmine campaigner has applied to register her married name as a trademark in the US to help promote a range of artificial limbs. But she will also be free to launch a huge range of cosmetic, toiletry and medical goods - from moisturizer and perfume to shampoo and condoms, as well as artificial limbs - if she is granted the mark.
Two trademark applications were filed with the US patent and trademark office on July 14, one filed under her married name and one under her maiden name. The trademarks will give Mills McCartney rights over the Heather Mills McCartney Cosmesis range made by a British company, Dorset Orthopedic. The cosmeses are artificial limbs with covers that fit over existing prosthetics which come in 25 flesh tones. Mills McCartney has campaigned for natural-looking false limbs to be made widely available and famously removed her own skin-colored limb on US TV to show how realistic they can look.
The availability of flesh-toned prosthetic limbs was this week at the center of a storm when it was revealed an NHS hospital refused to fit a black-colored limb for a black woman who was told only white ones existed.
A spokeswoman for Mills McCartney said the campaigner had no plans to launch cosmetics or anything else apart from the artificial limbs and their cosmetic covers, but that she was advised to register the trademark after the decision to market the range in America. "But she already has the deal set up with Dorset Orthopedic and recently it was decided to offer the limbs to people who are unable to travel to Dorset to have them fitted," said the spokeswoman. She added that Mills McCartney does not make any money from the range and Dorset Orthopedic makes a charitable donation from sales.
The spokeswoman also said Mills McCartney hoped that the recent bad publicity that had hampered her charitable work had come to an end. "There was a period she found absolutely devastating, not personally but it damaged her charity work, when people were loth to be associated with her."
In an interview with Michael Parkinson on BBC1 earlier this year, she said bad publicity - centered on her allegedly stormy relationship with Sir Paul's children, particularly fashion designer Stella - hampered plans to launch artificial limbs in the UK. She said, "I'd been trying to make these limbs that I'm always flashing off available to all amputees with the cosmetic covers. The manufacturers actually said, 'we can't make them with Heather Mills because she gets such bad press'."
She has not applied to the UK patent office to register her name as a trademark, and the decision to promote the range in America rather than her home country may reflect the problems over publicity.
Mills McCartney, who lost a leg in a road accident in 1993, removed her prosthetic limb on Larry King's US chat show in November 2002. She told King, "I'm going to try and make them [the artificial limbs] available in America because they look completely real. And that's what gave me the confidence. If you wear short skirts you get your femininity back."
September 5, 2003 -- Chicago Sun-Times
ON FEUD: STELLA, HEATHER DECIDE TO 'LET IT BE'The feud between Stella McCartney and her young stepmother, Heather Mills, have snared headlines since shortly after Mills began dating Stella's father, Paul McCartney.
Rumors flew about Stella feeling Mills was an unworthy successor to her late, beloved mother, Linda. There were stories that Mills had done everything she could to diminish the lingering aura of Linda McCartney from the ex-Beatle's life. More than one sarcastic Stella McCartney comment about Mills made news around the world and clearly helped further widen the gap between the two women. When international fashion designer Stella was asked if she would design the dress Mills would wear to marry her father, McCartney scoffed at the idea -- implying Mills' taste level was more off-the-rack budget than couture.
Now, it's nice to report that McCartney's own wedding last Saturday in Scotland appeared to also mark a new milestone in the Heather-Stella saga. A source who was a guest at the wedding tells this column, ''It is clear Stella and Heather have finally patched things up.'' Apparently the two women took some private time together during all the wedding festivities and went for a long walk together last Friday. They reportedly were seen returning arm-in-arm, and told family members and friends, ''We've worked it all out.''
Stella also told amazed onlookers that she ''can't wait'' to design a special christening gown for her new half-sibling -- reportedly a boy -- when the child is born in the next couple of months.
September 5, 2003 -- World Beatles Forum Fanzine
"The more I know Paul, the more I love him. I've always loved him. I've obviously been a big Beatles fan, but as I see the inner workings of the way things could be and the way they are, I just have so much respect for him.
"All I can say is for anyone who's interested, Paul is a fantastic person. He's a family person. He is a mentor to me, now more as a personality and someone who is truly concerned with other people's well-being and he's a very social, wonderful guy. And yet he's still able to switch into rock star, musician, creator, painter--all of that kind of stuff--artist. He's an artist. He somehow fuses art with social skills and that's an art too. I love him. He's a great guy.
"He's such an incredible singer, obviously. But the thing I've noticed that's weird is that he has a break at G. He can just get a G which is a common break for people. Mine's actually a little lower. But then, after that, he has this whol other range that he shifts into where he has a break at about C which is weird. It's like he has this whole other voice that most people don't have. Once he gets above a G, then G-sharp is easy. It's really weird...He has this freaky instrument. It's like it's alien. And he's always singing. He'll introduce somebody and walk back to the piano. He'll be singing on the way back. We'll be playing some music riffs that are completely instrumental--Band on the Run or something and I'm standing next to him and nd hearing him sing the whole melody along with it.. no microphones by him, but he's just one of thsoe freaky guys who just has this incredibly durable, incredibly wide-ranged, versatile, beautiful instrument of a voice." -- Rusty Anderson
September 4, 2003
Capitol records has a release date of January 27, 2004 penciled in for a compilation of Paul McCartney's greatest loves songs called "McCartney's Love Songs."
September 3, 2003
Paul McCartney's "Paul Is Live in Concert on the New World Tour" DVD distributed by Liberty International Entertainment Inc. has hit Number 6 on Billboard's Music DVD Top Seller charts.
"We are extremely pleased with the sales results for the 'Paul McCartney' DVD. It continues to demonstrate the quality of programming that LIEI is able to acquire and the various distribution outlets available for our acquisitions.
The "Paul McCartney" DVD was released in the United States in August and will be released in Europe starting in September.
September 2, 2003 -- Undercover News
If you get enough drinks in you, you'll have the most ridiculous requests. For Super Furry Animals, a few too many lead to a session with Sir Paul McCartney.This is what happened. "After a few drinks our keyboard player Cian (Ciaran) went up to Sir Paul McCartney and persuaded him to let us remix "The Beatles" SFA frontman Gruff Rhyss tells Undercover News. "He doesn't remember much about it but a few weeks later a few boxes of Beatles masters turned up at out office so we made a 20 minute piece of music. It was released as the 'Liverpool Sound Collage.'"
Gruff doesn't describe himself as a huge Beatle fan. "We are not obsessive. I started getting into The Beatles when John Lennon was shot" he says. "I was a kid and they started showing all The Beatles movies of tele. That is when I got into The Beatles. They were incredible melody makers. We have a shared passion of melodic music".
The SFA / McCartney session happened because of a spur of the moment impulse. "Cian cornered him coming out of the toilet and said, "Let me remix your stuff because it will be the best remix you've ever heard in your life." Cian is usually a quiet guy and doesn't boast like that but Paul McCartney brought the devil out in him. Next thing McCartney is standing around," he says.
Gruff will be able to use this story as a dinner party conversation starter for the rest of his life. "It was one of the most unlikely things to ever happen" he says. "I think the reason to put a band together is to have an adventure and have tall tales to tell people but we never expected anything like that."
After finishing the session for McCartney, Super Furry Animals invited Sir Paul to record for them. "Seeing we had access to Paul McCartney we asked him to return the favor for out last album" he says. "We wanted him to recreate vegetable munching which he did on the song 'Vegetables' by the Beach Boys. We got him in to chew some carrots and some celery. It was on our last album 'Rings Around The World' on the track 'Receptacle for the Respectable'".
On the new Super Furry Animals album Phantom Power there is no sign of McCartney but hey, it's a great old story anyway.
September 1, 2003 -- The Sun
Paul McCartney is to start recording a new album this week - inspired by daughter Stella's wedding to Alasdhair Willis on Saturday and his own baby joy. He will begin work on a follow-up to his last album, 2001's "Driving Rain," at his home studio in East Sussex.A source said, "Paul is always writing songs, he just doesn't always record them. Recent events have given him a lot of inspiration and he wants to save all that happy news on one album."
Macca's second wife, Heather Mills, is expecting their first child - his fourth - in November.September 1, 2003 -- The Sun
Celeb guests at Stella McCartney's wedding bash made it the mother of all parties - by boozing on the beach until 8am yesterday. More than 200 had started the marathon celebration by quaffing champagne in the grounds of a Scottish castle. But as the evening went on, so did they - ending up on a nearby beach to watch a dazzling sunrise. And yesterday afternoon, celebrities looked bleary-eyed as they boarded the ferry home from Isle of Bute.The tired pals included Hollywood beauty Gwyneth Paltrow and her boyfriend, Coldplay singer Chris Martin, and Lord Of The Rings actress Liv Tyler. Fashion designer Stella and hubby Alasdhair Willis, both 31, had ex-SAS men guarding the wedding at the Mount Stuart estate.
One guard said, "Nobody wanted the night to end." Stella's dad Sir Paul McCartney, 61, and wife Heather, 35, watched as the couple had a Roman Catholic ceremony in the castle's own chapel.
The invasion of the island meant Texas singer Sharleen Spiteri and Pretenders star Chrissie Hynde had to stay in a £28-a-night ($44) guest house. Sir Paul and Heather left the island in a helicopter shortly after lunch yesterday. Madonna and husband Guy Ritchie sped off to Prestwick Airport in a chauffeur-driven Range Rover.
September 1, 2003 -- The Daily Post
Ex-Beatle Paul McCartney looked every inch the proud father as he walked his daughter, Stella, down the aisle at her star-studded wedding at the weekend. Sir Paul's brother, Mike, revealed how friends and family looked on as the world-famous pop star gave his fashion-designer daughter away to fiance Alasdhair Willis.The wedding ceremony was held in the chapel of Mount Stuart on the small Scottish island of Bute on the Clyde. Speaking from his home in Heswall, Wirral, last night, photographer Mike, 59, described his niece as "beautiful."
He said, "Stella looked so beautiful, really stunning. The dress was an old-fashioned lace design with a modern twist, she wore a traditional veil and looked very elegant. Her sister, Mary, was one of number of bridesmaids. Before the wedding, Paul and I went for a quick drink at the local pub. He was beaming with pride all day. It was a very happy, personal, wedding."
Guests included Madonna (Matron of Honor), Guy Ritchie, Kate Moss, Pierce Brosnan, Coldplay's Chris Martin, Liv Tyler and head of Gucci Tom Forde, who Stella works for, and Pretenders star Chrissie Hynde.
Hynde described the island of Bute as "gorgeous" and said she wouldn't mind having a holiday home there. She had been there since Friday.
The lavish reception was held at Mount Stuart, a Victorian gothic mansion owned by former racing driver Johnny Dumfries, the seventh Marquis of Bute. Yesterday, leaving the St Blanes Hotel in Kilchattan Bay, Hynde said, "She (Stella) was beautiful." Speaking about the Isle of Bute, she added, "It's gorgeous, some of us are thinking of pulling together and buying a place here."
September 1, 2003 -- Femail
There were tears of joy, an A-list crowd and the party went on until 6am. But not everyone joined in the festivities at Stella McCartney's wedding with the same gusto.While most of the guests, who included Madonna, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Moss and Pierce Brosnan, partied until the early hours of yesterday, the fashion designer's stepmother Heather Mills was in bed before midnight.
The 35-year-old former model, married to Stella's father Sir Paul McCartney, is seven months pregnant and could even claim to be jetlagged from a recent trip to New York. But observers could not help seeing it as a snub. For when Heather married the ex-Beatle in June last year, Miss McCartney and her sister Mary both went to bed early to make the point that they did not approve of the wedding.
"Quite a few people noticed Heather went to bed early," said a wedding insider. "It was no secret throughout the day that there was a real frostiness between her and Stella."
McCartney, 31, is said to have felt obliged to invite her stepmother because she knew her father would be devastated if he felt obliged to chose between his new wife and his daughter on her wedding day.
McCartney's big day came on Saturday as she married magazine publisher Alasdhair Willis at Mount Stuart House on the isolated Isle of Bute, western Scotland. And she wept tears of joy on her wedding night as her father sprang a surprise on his youngest daughter. In a touching tribute to her late mother Linda, Sir Paul had booked the Campbeltown Pipe Band. The band, which played on Sir Paul's 1977 number one hit "Mull of Kintyre" and was a favorite with Linda, performed tunes to guests as they finished their dinner.
The wedding party then filed outside to enjoy fireworks which included pink love-hearts and a display which spelled out "Mr. and Mrs. Willis."
The wedding service itself had been held at the white marble chapel on the 300-acre Mount Stuart estate, the family home of the seventh Marquis of Bute, former racing driver Johnny Dumfries, whose second wife Serena is a friend of Miss McCartney.
Describing the bride's outfit, the insider said, "She wore a strapless, fitted dress in a yellowy, lime color. We heard she had designed it herself, with Gucci boss Tom Ford."
After the ceremony a reception was held in the grounds, then guests moved into the house's dining room for a vegetarian dinner of souffle to start, wild mushroom pie, vegetarian sausages and mash for the main course and a dessert of fruit and white chocolate sauce. Drinks included Veuve Clicquot champagne.
The estate was patrolled all the time by security men, some SAS-trained, to keep out any possible intruders. Because of all the security and transportation, the wedding is believed to have cost £200,000 ($315,000).
Yesterday guests, who also included Madonna's husband Guy Ritchie, Miss Paltrow's rock star boyfriend Chris Martin and Naomi Campbell, began leaving, mostly by ferry to the mainland.Sir Paul, still wearing a buttonhole, and his wife took a helicopter to Prestwick Airport to catch a flight to London.
Middlesbrough- born Mr. Willis, 32, was publisher of the fashionable magazine Wallpaper. He is known as a charmer and is nicknamed Gucci because of his love of designer clothes. He will move into Miss McCartney's flat in Notting Hill, West London, but the couple have told friends they plan to look for a "family home."
They also have a £1.3million ($2 million) mansion in Worcestershire and instead of presents asked each guest to buy them a tree so they can start a forest.
September 1, 2003 -- This is London
Riding in a horsedrawn cart on her wedding day is a romantic dream for many a bride. Even when she's the millionairess fashion designer daughter of one of Britain's richest men and could well afford a whole fleet of limousines. But perhaps for Stella McCartney, the simple rustic charm of a horse and cart seemed more fitting given the location of her wedding - the isolated and beautiful Isle of Bute in Scotland.The 31-year-old daughter of the former Beatle Sir Paul married magazine publisher Alasdhair Willis there yesterday, surrounded by a host of big showbusiness names including Madonna, Pierce Brosnan and Kate Moss.
And in the morning two trucks carrying several Clydesdale horses and an elegant cart arrived on the island by ferry and then drove on to Mount Stuart, the spectacular Victorian Gothic house owned by former Formula 1 driver Johnny Dumfries, the Marquess of Bute.
Stella and Alasdhair were married in the 300-acre estate's chapel at 4.30pm. Guests could be seen gathered outside, a kilted bagpiper was on hand and the happy couple's initials had been laid out on the ground.
The bride wore a wedding dress that she designed with Tom Ford, her boss at fashion house Gucci. The creation was said to be based on the wedding outfit worn by Stella's late mother Linda, which consisted of a stylish fawn dress and bright yellow coat.
After the service the pair stepped into the cart and, pulled by two of the Clydesdales, were taken to the stately home where a lavish reception, believed to have cost £2 million ($3.2 million), was held in a specially erected marquee.
Around 100 guests, including Stella's father and his pregnant wife Heather, tucked into a vegehappytarian dinner of asparagus tips, veggie bangers and mash, and chocolate souffle.
Later, they repaired to the grounds to watch a spectacular fireworks display before dancing to the music of the Rothesay and District Pipe Band.
The Isle of Bute, with its still clear waters, wild heatherscattered mountains and skies where eagles soar is the full Scottish picture postcard.
That Stella had spent many a childhood holiday scrambling-around the beaches and coves of the Mull of Kintyre - an hour's boat trip, or brief helicopter flight west of the Isle - only added to its appeal as a backdrop for her wedding.
There were more people there than the bride might have expected. For the past week the Press pack has been arriving at Rothesay, the Isle's only town and the point where the ferry from the mainland docks.
They were followed by the cream of British and American celebrity: Madonna and Guy Ritchie, Sting and Trudi Styler, Kate Moss, Chrissie Hynde, Liv Tyler, Rod Stewart and Coldplay singer Chris Martin with girlfriend Gwyneth Paltrow. The tiny Rothesay Port had never seen the like.
Nor for that matter had Wemyss Bay, the dot on the mainland map, 40 minutes' drive from Glasgow Airport, where the ferry departs and where the local Station Bar played host to Miss Moss and Co for 45 breathless minutes. They had, in true celebrity form, arrived late and missed their allotted ferry.
Crowds applauded the arrival of each ferry at Rothesay as blackedout, bullet-proof Range Rovers carried the guests straight to Mount Stuart. There was, it seems, no question of Madonna and Guy - once the supposed hard man of British cinema - popping down to Zavaroni's Cafe on the front for a fry-up or cup of builder's.
Rothesay has the highest number of pubs per capita of anywhere in Britain - 36 at the last count on an isle only 15 miles by five and, usually, with a population of 6,500.
But on Saturday night Rothesay was full - 100 per cent booked solid. Journalists slept three to a single room, on floors, in caravans . . . rumours abounded that one enterprising hack had slept upright in a sleeping bag in a cupboard.
But it seemed that only a handful of the assembled Press would get to see what they had been sent there to report on. At Mount Stuart guests were ushered in and out with a complicated system of colour coded tags and passes.
Rock Steady, the security firm more accustomed to manning stadium gigs, sporting events and festivals, had the area 'locked down'.
Guards in dark glasses, black tops and baseball caps - their walkietalkies strapped to their belts like guns, their ear pieces humming and squeaking - stood in rank along the gates of the Marquess of Bute's estate.
There is, however, nothing more certain to pique the interest of Her Majesty's Press than something secret. Every Fleet Street hack loves a challenge.
One photographer armed with a spade, camouflage net and long lens dug himself a fox-hole with a view on the edge of a thin strip of land which was, he was informed, used as an occasional airfield. It was several hours before the bleak reality dawned that he was, in fact, on the edge of a golf course.
In the absence of much genuine information, an atmosphere of paranoia and subterfuge developed. If someone ran, they were followed by a gaggle of reporters uncertain as to who or what they were chasing but determined not to miss a story.
On Friday three reporters risked life and limb, scrambling over the rocks and crags of the Isle's inaccessible coast because somebody had seen somebody who looked a bit like Stella in a dinghy. 'Well it's the sort of thing she'd do isn't it?' they reasoned before setting off. Neither Stella, nor the 'source', was identified.
And so by yesterday afternoon the Press and the stars fell into their distinct groups. At one end of the Isle the macrobiotic, the yoga-practising, the alcohol-free celebrities of the world enjoyed a ride around the Mount Stuart estate in carriages pulled by teams of Clydesdales.
At the other end the burgerchomping, beer-swilling journalists mooched around the front, drank Irn Bru because they felt they ought to being in Scotland and all that, and craned their necks for evidence of the helicopters every hack had boasted he would be in.
But if Stella resented our presence she might console herself with this thought. In one night Rothesay restaurants and bars were left with empty larders and dry cellars.
The food ran out - literally - kegs of beer were drained, bottles of wine which had long languished at the bottom of the list were consumed and by last orders cigarette machines coughed emptily.
Across on the Mull of Kintyre itself, there was not a hotel room or boarding house with a vacancy and the ringing of mobile phones was rivalled only by the ringing of tills.
So while her father has long championed the beauty of this remote stretch of land and water, Stella by 'inviting' the Press to its shores has done more for its ailing economy than Sir Paul ever managed.
September 1, 2003 -- People News
Stella McCartney finally produced a smile as she tied the knot over the weekend. Her wedding to magazine publisher Alasdhair Willis took place on Scotland's Isle of Bute at the 300 acre Mount Stuart estate. It followed months of speculation finally realized on Friday as a steady stream of Hollywood and fashion glitterati arrived to take the ferry from Wemyss Bay over to the island.
The A-List guest list included Madonna and family, Liv Tyler, Kate Moss, Chris Martin and Gwyneth Paltrow.
Dad, Sir Paul, dug deep and paid for the entire event which was rumored to have cost a cool two million pounds. Guests were treated to a veggie meal consisting of artichoke soufflé and homemade wild mushroom pie washed down with bitter cocktails and a bizarre sounding dandelion drink and the bride wore an outfit she designed with her boss, Gucci head honcho Tom Ford.
Lady Heather played down any animosity between her and step-daughter Stelly saying, "There is absolutely no problem between Stella and I, and I wish people would stop insinuating that there is. I wouldn't be here if there was, would I?"
We're not so sure. Some people will do anything for a free meal and the excuse to buy a new hat.
September 1, 2003 -- The Daily Record
Looking like worn-out shells of their usual glitzy selves, celebrity guests made their weary way off the Isle of Bute yesterday after Stella McCartney's wedding. Stars including Madonna, Gwyneth Paltrow and Kate Moss, had joined ex- Beatle Paul McCartney's daughter and new husband Alisdhair Willis for a huge wedding bash at the Mount Stuart stately home on Saturday.The A-list guests partied until 2.30am after the happy couple exchanged vows at the mansion's private chapel. And they must have had quite a night judging by the some of the grey- looking faces on show yesterday.
A worn-out-looking Chrissie Hynde and singer Sharleen Spiteri were the first stars to emerge from their hotels. The pair left at noon and boarded a coach. Chrissie said: "Stella looked beautiful. We had a great time and the island is lovely." Texas star Sharleen, who had baby daughter Misty Kyd in her arms, added, "The wedding was good. It has been a lovely weekend."
The coach took the stars back to Mount Stuart for a slap-up meal to help them recover from the champagne-fuelled night before.
Madonna wasn't looking too hot either, with no make-up on and her hair scraped under a beret as she and her husband Guy Ritchie left Mount Stuart in blacked- out Range Rovers. Security guards claimed the pop star was too tired to sign autographs for a crowd of young fans on the ferry back to the mainland. But the star eventually delighted youngsters by signing a copy of her book from inside the Range Rover. One fan said, "She was very nice and she smiled and thanked me when I said I liked her music."
Actress Gwyneth Paltrow, her boyfriend Chris Martin and "Lord Of The Rings" star Liv Tyler mingled with passengers in the ferry bar. Gwyneth and Coldplay star Chris kissed and hugged during the journey. Gwyneth told one passenger: "We had a lovely time at the wedding." The guests were driven straight to Glasgow Airport.
Paul McCartney and Heather Mills were flown off the island by helicopter, and it was thought Stella and Alasdhair left the island yesterday as well.
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