Francie Schwartz

Francie Schwartz, born in 1944, is an American scriptwriter. In 1968, she engaged in a romantic relationship with Paul McCartney, which resulted in the end of his four-year engagement with Jane Asher.

Known to Paul as “Frannie” or “Clancy,” Francie Schwartz penned an autobiography titled “Bodycount,” released in 1972, chronicling her time with him, among other stories.

In early 1968, intrigued by the Beatles’ formation of Apple Corps, which she had discovered in Rolling Stone magazine, 23-year-old Francie Schwartz travelled to London to pitch a script she believed would appeal to the “non-establishment.” The film script was centred on a street violinist and actor she encountered performing outside Carnegie Hall in New York City. She thought the script would be an ideal fit for Paul if complemented by his music.

Francie arrived in London on April 3, 1968, and entered the Apple Corps office at 95 Wigmore Street shortly thereafter. She found Paul amidst a discussion with business associates and managed to get a private conversation with him. They conversed in Paul’s office, blending business with flirtation.

In April, 1968, the Apple offices were on Wigmore Street in a gray six-or-seven story building. There was a reception room strangely similar to the intake room at Bellevue Mental Hospital, but with nicer carpeting. There was a skinny English receptionist who politely juggled the many freaks, writers, authors, musicians, and con-men who walked in hoping to take something out.

Just my luck: Paul McCartney, M.B.E. was standing there talking to four business-suited VIP’s when I walked in. He was also in the mood to be interrupted by a strange lady with a film property.

I’d never seen him in person before. The impact was surprising. Diffused. Magical. Yes, he’s very pretty. Yes, he’s very charming. But who the hell is he? We talked small talk in that room, and I went away without script, totally Beatlized. […]

Paul McCartney asked me what I wanted to do.

“Be free. Make it better.” I said. He nodded thoughtfully.

Francie Schwartz – From Rolling Stone, November 15, 1969

However, it wasn’t until June 4, 1968, that they met again when she was invited to a Beatles recording session at Abbey Road:

The phone rang, finally. He said hello and I said hello and I thought it was someone else. He said, “No it’s me.” The Great Me. […] “When are you recording?” He excused himself, and as if the other three were sitting there digging the whole conversation, yelled, “Hey fellas, when are we recording?” He came back to the phone, That evening. Eight, Abbey Road, EMI studios. Could I make it? Could I ever. Opening the big double doors to the cavernous studio, I caught a frieze of four Beatles, gathered around a grand piano, four owls, gazing with half-amused looks at me approaching. Paul was wearing his tightest and sexiest dark green pants; no more the baggy businessman, now the rave-up rocker. He seemed taller, ready for the music, and I had to reach up when he asked me to massage his shoulders.

At the beginning, I huddled in a corner, digging Yoko’s sweetness, but by the time the hash and goodies were out, I was dancing to a pulsing “Revolution.” The music filled the flesh, and was alive all by itself, carrying us along into the night. I sang backing with George, smiling and doing a Ray Charles falsetto. There was much laughter and electricity, and a covering cloud of incense.

The chauffeur drove John and Yoko and Paul and me to his house, and they disappeared behind the black gates, Paul still strumming “Wait and see, wait and see.” The chauffeur drove me home.

Francie Schwartz – From “Body Count“, 1972

I entered the double doors to see the four of them at the Steinway about 100 feet away. They were quietly going over the lyrics to “Revolution.” Paul introduced me. Smiles, nods. John, behind those gold rims, gave off the strongest vibes I have ever encountered. Devastatingly brilliant vibes. I sat in a comer against the wall, watching. From that viewpoint I could see the control room, where Handsome George Martin and Geoff the Engineer and his assistant, and Mal Evans, Road Manager, were also watching and waiting.

Mal set up the amps. Paul sat at the piano. Ringo facing him surrounded by baffles. George at a point in between, standing, shuffling in place. John on a chair parallel to Paul on the other side of George.

Francie Schwartz – From Rolling Stone, November 15, 1969

Just prior to this, Paul had travelled to New York to promote Apple Corps, which allowed him to reconnect with Linda Eastman, whom he had met in London a year before (at a club on May 15, 1967, and at the “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” launch party on May 19, 1967) but had not seen since. Linda would later become Mrs. McCartney when they married in March 1969.

Soon after the recording session (in early June 1968), Paul and Francie began a romantic relationship, and he invited her to stay at his Cavendish Avenue home in London while Jane Asher was touring with the Old Vic Theatre Company.

Most of us couldn’t understand the attraction. Francie was an unsophisticated, unspectacular little brunette who seemed to have pushed her way into Paul’s affections despite being out of her depth. In fact she was to be Paul’s secret weapon for avoiding a one-on-one showdown with Jane over Linda Eastman with whom he was falling head over heels in love.

Tony Barrow – From “John, Paul, George, Ringo & me: the real Beatles story“, 2006

Monday morning, in the bathtub, curlers entwined in hair; the doorbell screamed for attention. I ripped the rollers out, powdered my nose, and ran downstairs in my culotte pajamas to let him in. He settled right into a chair, with me on his lap. The eyes were bigger than ever, and the kisses started on the neck and worked their way into more interesting places. The sheepdog followed us into the bedroom to watch.

He was brown from sunning himself up in Wales at his brother’s wedding [on June 8, 1968]. Pink checked, he fell asleep after, and I lay there looking at his face, not sure how to make it seem more real. He hadn’t been terribly good or terribly bad. He seemed to rush into it, as if thinking about it too much would mean he wouldn’t make it.

After breakfast, we visited friends in the country and ran barefoot in the rain. The lady of the house took me aside, and said meaningfully, “Be thankful for whatever time you have.” I looked at her, puzzled, and then understood what she meant. She was probably right, I thought. It might be exhausting, but it would be good. I didn’t expect his goodbye to be qualified, but it was. About eight p.m., the light still pink and fading, his paranoia rising, he said, “Don’t take this seriously,”

“What?”

“This goodbye.”

I didn’t hear from him for eight days. This time he showed up at five o’clock in the morning, I ran down to the door. He needed a shave, and looked forlorn and spaced out of his mind. […] I went to the studio. […] He said we would go to his house after the session. I waited, and soon it was three a.m. and we stumbled out into the dark, past the forlorn and patient groupies. […] I left a note for the maid not to knock, or wake us up, and — we slept till eleven when I performed the daily ritual of making and serving him hot tea in bed. Climbing the stairs with the tea and morning papers, having snatched the bundle through the mail slot past the peeping groupies, I thought maybe this was the beginning.

The sunlight in England is quite different from California. It’s not hard and yellow like New York. It’s very very soft, and drifts over you the way the air in some gardens has a way of doing. I woke in that sunlight, morning after morning, when Paul left one of the heavy velvet curtains open on the wall nearest the bed. The house was immense, but every inch was filled with his insane being, from the elaborately painted door, and rainbow piano in the studio, to the tousled uncut grass in the garden. […]

Francie Schwartz – From “Body Count“, 1972

In her book, Francie Schwartz detailed a lacklustre relationship with Paul, who appeared to be depressed, prone to anger, and excessively drinking at the time. At the time, Francie was also employed by Apple Corps, serving in the press office led by Derek Taylor.

He hadn’t formally dumped Jane and so at first I was a secret. I stayed in the house for weeks, cleaning, reading, calling the dope dealer. I was to score for my old man. You’d think he could have taken care of it, but he didn’t.

When I started to act restless, he noticed, and just at the right moment, sent me to work in his elaborately constructed playhouse called Apple. My boss, the darling slinky Derek [Taylor], was the extra dash of erotic intelligence that I needed to face the confusion I was surrounded by. He was surrounded too, of course. He’d been surrounded since he started with the Beatles almost ten years before.

Francie Schwartz – From “Body Count“, 1972

One day, Paul and Francie were visited and surprised in bed by Jane Asher. Soon after, Jane’s mother came to pick up her stuff. On July 20, 1968, Jane announced on TV that her engagement to Paul McCartney had been called off.

[Paul] was still angry about the day Jane came over. We had been asleep (at least he was) and she walked right in and knocked on the bedroom door. He whispered disdainfully, “Who is it?“

“Jane.”

He was out of bed in a minute, grabbing the midi coat that always hung on the back of the door. He looked like a gay flasher. I could almost hear Jane breathing. I dove under the pillows until the soft talking sounds grew a bit louder. Then I pecked through the second door and saw them walking down the stairs, silent.

Francie Schwartz – From “Body Count“, 1972

Margo Stevens, [one of the fans so-called the Apple Scruffs], was just beginning her second year of standing outside 7 Cavendish Avenue. […] She had been standing there so long, Paul vaguely recognised her now. She knew how to open the security gates by kicking them, and had done so once for him when he could not find his key. Latterly, on the recommendation of his housekeeper, Rosie, he had even trusted her to take Martha the sheepdog for walks on Hampstead Heath.

‘It was a summer day: we were all standing there as usual,’ Margo says. ‘Jane was on tour with a play, and Paul brought home this American girl, Francie Schwartz. He waved to us as they drove in. Later on, another car turned into Cavendish Avenue – it was Jane. She’d come back to London earlier than she was supposed to. We did our best to warn Paul. Someone went to the Entryphone, buzzed it and yelled, “Look out! Jane’s coming!” Paul didn’t believe it. “Ah, pull the other one,” he said.

‘Jane went into the house. A bit later on, she came storming out again and drove away. Later still, a big estate car drew up. It was Jane’s mother. She went inside and started bringing out all kinds of things that were obviously Jane’s – cooking pots and big cushions and pictures.

‘We all thought after that they must have finished with each other for good. But the next day, a whole crowd of us were in Hyde Park. Who did we run into but Paul and Jane. They were walking along, holding hands and eating ice lollies.’

From “Shout!: The True Story of the Beatles” by Philip Norman, 2004

After dinner, the rain came down, Paul was silent, then animated and weird. “You’ll have to go. I’ve got to have this talk with Mrs. Asher.”

The Amazon mother had shown up on two evenings when Paul was at the studio, opening doors with her own keys. She lugged suitcases and boxes full of Jane’s things down the stairs to her station wagon. She oozed hostility. The first time, I sat frozen to the couch in my robe. The second time, I asked her if there was anything I could do, and she must have sensed my apprehension. The mother in her came out and, together, we packed cookbooks and art books. She was very hung up on her terrific daughter in a way that reminded me of how my own mother would have acted.

She wrote Paul a note, and sealed the envelope in front of me. […]

He was sad, but a little proud. He sounded as if he had turned over these words in his head many times before. “l’ve told her that I’ve met a girl who’s offering me something Jane never could, that’s all.” It sounded like enough. It was what I needed, and at that moment I began to trust him.

Francie Schwartz – From “Body Count“, 1972

When we finally made it to his home city, we acted very proper, sleeping in separate rooms. But the first trip was painted black with Jane’s public announcement of their broken engagement. The reporters swarmed the house, and I had to hide while Paul got rid of them. It put him in a poisonous mood, and so did the hundreds of pictures of Jane that were spread all over the dining room table, We hardly spoke. He sang and played for his father, a salty old guy who seemed tremendously sensitive. In the afternoon, Paul would work on “Jude,” making the house ring with melancholy. […] In spite of Paul’s long talk with his father about how he needed a different kind of girl we were like a pair of unmatched shoes. He had wildly fluctuating moods, desperate curiosity. I was bewildered, working overtime at a job I couldn’t even define.

Francie Schwartz – From “Body Count“, 1972

Paul was absolutely devastated. Jane’s departure shattered him. I have never quite been sure if it was because he really loved Jane or because he was so shocked that she had the nerve to turn down Paul McCartney. And let’s not forget, they were engaged by now. She wasn’t just his girlfriend, she was definitely going to be his wife. Afterwards, he had a succession of one-night stands, although often the relationship did not even last that long. […] We spent weeks together after the end of his love affair with Jane. It completely threw him. He pleaded with Jane to forgive him but she was implacable. […] Paul literally cried on my shoulder. We hit the bottle together. Hard. He always seemed to feel lonely at night and the phone would go and Paul would say, ‘Al, get a cab and come on up to Cavendish.’ […]

We would sit up at Cavendish Avenue until 3.00am and he would talk about what a prat he had been. ‘I had everything and I threw it away,’ he would say. ‘Jane wasn’t just my woman, she was my closest friend. I’ve told her everything inside me. She knows what makes me tick down to things that happened as a kid. I went right through all the stuff about my mother dying and how I dealt with that. With Jane, I could just relax completely and be myself and that seemed to be what she wanted. With the other women, I’m a fucking millionaire rock star who just happens to be about as shallow as a puddle.’

Alistair Taylor – From “With The Beatles“, 2011

On July 28, 1968, in the midst of recording the White Album, the Beatles took part in what was later dubbed the “Mad Day Out”, a series of photo shoots at various seemingly random locations across London. Francie Schwartz was responsible for selecting the appropriate photographic sites.

On August 8, leaving the recording studio, Paul and Francie went to the Apple Boutique (which was closed down a couple of weeks before) and painted “Hey Jude” and “Revolution” across its large, whitewashed shop windows.

One evening Paul had suddenly decided to go down to Apple and paint the storefront windows white. Nobody saw us leave but by the time we had fingered Revolution and Hey Jude in wet paint on each of the windows a few reporters had gathered outside, wanting to know who I was and were there any truths to the rumors. Next morning the Daily Sketch ran two half-columns headed “Paul and Francie paint the town white.” Witty. Keen-eyed newsmen much have picked that item up here because when I got home to Newark the phone didn’t stop ringing, with reporters wanting tidbits about Paul, The Beatles, Apple. I wanted the phone cut off but it wasn’t my phone. After a week of telling them there was no story, I just hung up each time.

Francie Schwartz – From “Body Count“, 1972

In August, John Lennon and his new partner, Yoko Ono, came to stay at Cavendish.

In spite of Paul’s long talk with his father about how he needed a different kind of girl, we were like a pair of unmatched shoes. He had wildly fluctuating moods, desperate curiosity. I was bewildered, working overtime at a job I couldn’t even define.

One consolation: Yoko Ono Lennon. She and John moved in with us while their story was still something to hide. As the two of us cooked breakfast for our respective men, she’d rap with a kind of new, feminine wisdom about how hard it was to make them happy. She was fighting her own battle staying sane amidst racist attacks from the Apple cock-and-cunt garden. She was also opening up her wealth of strength and determination to John.

Francie Schwartz – From “Body Count“, 1972

I asked John why Paul didn’t do a solo album. It would’ve seemed the logical outlet for all the ego crap he was laying down at the studio. John half laughed and said, “We thought of it a long time ago. It was going to be called Paul McCartney Goes Too Far. But he wouldn’t do it. He’s too hung up about us bein’ Beatles, y know.”

Francie Schwartz – From “Body Count“, 1972

John obviously loved Paul enough to let him run wild if it would help ease the tension Paul was creating in the studio and at home. Yoko could see it, too. But Paul was treating them like shit too. He even sent them a hate letter once, unsigned, typed. I brought it in with the morning mail, Paul put most of the fan mail in a big basket, and let it sit for weeks, but John and Yoko opened every piece. When they got to the anonymous note, they sat puzzled, looking at each other with genuine pain in their eyes.

“You and your jap tart think you’re hot shit,” it said. John put in on the mantle, and in the afternoon, Paul bopped in, prancing much the same self-conscious way he did when we met.

“Oh I just did that for a lark…” he said, in his most sugar-coated accent. It was embarrassing. The three of us swiveled around, staring at him. You could see the pain in John. Yoko simply rose above it, feeling only empathy for John.

Francie Schwartz – From “Body Count“, 1972

In mid-August 1968, Paul McCartney invited Linda Eastman to come and visit him in London. It was during this period that Paul ended his relationship with Francie Schwartz, who subsequently departed from London to return to the USA.

Inevitably, Jane, returning from an out-of-town theatre date, was devastated to find Francie in residence. Far too well-bred to force a major confrontation, Jane hurried off to her parents’ home, leaving her mother to collect her things later. By September, having served her purpose, Francie was packed off home to New Jersey or wherever and in next to no time Linda [Eastman] filled the vacated place that the in-between girl had kept warm for her.

Tony Barrow – From “John, Paul, George, Ringo & me: the real Beatles story“, 2006

BEATLE BITS

Rule out all those draggy romance rumours which were linking Paul’s name with a temporary Apple employee, an American girl named Francie Schwartz. Francie quit Apple and went home to the USA several weeks ago!

From the Beatles Monthly Book, N°63, October 1968

Recording sessions Francie Schwartz participated in

Albums, EPs & singles which Francie Schwartz contributed to

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