Jane Asher

Jane Asher was Paul McCartney’s girlfriend from 1963 to 1968. She gained early fame as a child actress and has had an extensive career in film and TV.

Jane Asher was born in London and was the middle of three children to Richard and Margaret Asher. Her mother was a professor of the oboe at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Coincidentally, one of her pupils had been The Beatles’ producer George Martin, who studied piano and oboe at the school between 1947 and 1950. Jane’s elder brother is record producer and manager Peter Asher, who started his career as Peter of Peter and Gordon.

Jane Asher started her acting career when she was just five years old, playing the role of Nina in the 1952 film “Mandy.” She went on to appear in several notable films such as “The Quatermass Xperiment” (1955), “The Greengage Summer” (1961), “The Prince and the Pauper” (1962), and “Alfie” (1966). Additionally, she made appearances in various television programmes, including the British series “The Adventures of Robin Hood,” and served as a panellist on the BBC music show “Juke Box Jury.”

On April 18, 1963, 17-year-old Jane Asher met The Beatles at the Royal Albert Hall in London before a performance by The Beatles. The concert was broadcast live by the BBC on the program “Swinging Sound“. In between rehearsals, the group did a photo session for the weekly listings magazine Radio Times.

I met Jane asher when she was sent by the Radio Times to cover a concert we were in at the Royal Albert Hall – we had a photo taken with her for the magazine and we all fancied her. We’d thought she was blonde, because we had only ever seen her on black-and-white telly doing Juke Box Jury, but she turned out to be a redhead. So it was: ‘Wow, you’re a redhead!’ I tried pulling her, succeeded, and we were boyfriend and girlfriend for quite a long time.

Paul McCartney – From “The Beatles Anthology” book, 2000

After that night, Paul escorted her home, and they arranged to meet again. They went on several dates in London, and their romance became public when they were photographed leaving the Prince of Wales Theatre after watching Sumner Arthur Long’s play “Never Too Late.” After that, they became one of the most frequently featured couples in the press.

In December 1963, Paul took up residence at Asher’s family Wimpole Street townhouse and stayed there until the couple moved into Paul’s own home in St John’s Wood in 1966.

[…] when I was about 21, we had come to London. Our manager had gotten the Beatles a flat: Apartment L, 57 Green Street, Mayfair. It was all very exciting; Mayfair is a posh part of London. For some reason I was the last one to go down there and see it, and they’d left me a small room. The others had bagged all the great rooms. They’d left me this crappy little room.

But by then I had a girlfriend, Jane Asher, who was a very classy girl whose father was a Wimpole Street doctor and whose mother was a wonderful lady, a music teacher, called Margaret Asher. So I would go round to their house and visit. I loved it there because it was such a family. Margaret and I got on very well. She sort of mothered me. It was what I’d been used to before my mum died, when I was 14, though I’d never seen a family quite like this. The only people I’d seen were working-class Liverpool. This was classy London; all of them had diaries that stretched from eight in the morning to six or seven at night. Eventually I ended up living with the Ashers. I’d already stayed over quite a bit, but Margaret must have said, “Well, you know, we’ll let you have the attic room.” So I ended up there, and they got a piano up in that room.

When John came to visit, there was a piano in the basement as well — a little music room where I think Margaret took students. So, we would write there in the basement, both on the piano at the same time, or eyeball to eyeball on our guitars.

Paul McCartney – From “The Lyrics” book – From Paul McCartney on his lyrics: ‘Eroticism was a driving force behind everything I wrote’ | Times2 | The Times

Paul wrote several Beatles songs inspired by Jane, including “And I Love Her“, “You Won’t See Me“, “I’m Looking Through You“, “What You’re Doing“, “Things We Said Today” and “For No One“.

It was 1965. Things were not going so smoothly between Jane Asher and me. Everyone has mild arguments where you think, “God, I wish they could understand where I’m coming from” or “I wish they could get it.” They obviously don’t; they think I’m some kind of idiot or tyrant or something. It was just normal boyfriend-girlfriend stuff where she’d want it one way, I’d want it another way and I would try to persuade her, or she would try to persuade me. Most of the time we got on really well, but there would be odd moments where one or other of us would get hurt. Time has told me that millions of people go through these little squabbles all the time and will recognise just how common this is, but this particular song was not like that; it was, “Try to see it my way.” I started writing the song to try to figure my way out of feeling bad after an argument. It was really fresh in my mind. You can’t write this kind of song two weeks later. You have to do it immediately. Writing a song is a good way to get your thoughts out and to allow yourself to say things that you might not say to the other person. I wrote the first couple of verses, and then I wrote out the middle eight with John at his house. When we took it into the studio, George Harrison suggested we try the waltz pattern, with suspended triplets, that ended up giving the song a profound sense of friction and fracture. But the fracture was real, and we did “fall apart before too long”. Sadly, Jane and I did break up. And that meant breaking up with her mother too. Margaret Asher was a real mumsy type and, since I’d lost my mum, she had filled that role for me. Now I’d lost a mother for a second time.

Paul McCartney – From Paul McCartney on his lyrics: ‘Eroticism was a driving force behind everything I wrote’ | Times2 | The Times – From “The Lyrics” book, 2021

On Christmas Day 1967, Paul and Jane announced their engagement to be married to Paul’s family in Liverpool.

In mid-1968, Jane returned to London from an acting assignment in Bristol earlier than expected. She allegedly discovered Paul in bed with Francie Schwartz. A fan who frequently loitered around Paul’s Cavendish Avenue home claims to have witnessed the incident:

Paul brought this American girl home… [and a little while later]… another car turned into Cavendish Avenue—it was Jane. She’d come back… earlier than she was supposed to. Jane went into the house. A bit later on, she came storming out again and drove away.

Shortly afterwards, Margaret Asher drove to Cavendish Avenue to collect her daughter’s things.

On July 20, 1968, Jane Asher was invited to Simon Dee’s BBC Television show “Dee Time“ and publicly announced that her engagement to Paul McCartney had been called off, an announcement that surprised Paul himself.

I haven’t broken it off, but it is broken off, finished. I know it sounds corny, but we still see each other and love each other, but it hasn’t worked out. Perhaps we’ll be childhood sweethearts and meet again and get married when we’re about 70.

Jane Asher, interviewed by Simon Dee, on the BBC Television show Dee Time

Jane Asher and I were together for around five years, so at the back of my mind I expected to marry her, but as the time got closer, I think I also realised it wasn’t right. You can’t ever put your finger on it, but when Linda came along, shortly after Jane and I broke up, I just thought, ‘Oh, I dunno, maybe this is more right.’ And then when Linda and I got to know each other, I felt, ‘This is more me; I’m more her.’ And there were little things with Jane where we just didn’t quite match up. I loved a lot of things about her, and I will always admire a lot of things about her. She’s a wonderful woman, but little bits of the jigsaw weren’t quite fitting.

Paul McCartney – From “The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present“, 2021

I think inevitably when I moved to Cavendish Avenue, I realised that she and I weren’t really going to be the thing we’d always thought we might be. Once or twice we talked about getting married, and plans were afoot but I don’t know, something really made me nervous about the whole thing. It just never settled with me, and as that’s very important for me, things must feel comfortable for me, I think it’s a pretty good gauge if you’re lucky enough. You’re not always lucky enough, but if they can feel comfortable then there’s something very special about that feeling. I hadn’t quite managed to be able to get it with Jane.

Paul McCartney – From “Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now” by Barry Miles, 1997

I always feel very wary including Jane in The Beatles’ history. She’s never gone into print about our relationship, whilst everyone on earth has sold their story. So I’d feel weird being the one to kiss and tell. We had a good relationship. Even with touring there were enough occasions to keep a reasonable relationship going. To tell the truth, the women at that time got sidelined. Now it would be seen as very chauvinist of us. Then it was like: ‘We are four miners who go down the pit. You don’t need women down the pit, do you? We won’t have women down the pit.’ A lot of what we, The Beatles, did was very much in an enclosed scene. Other people found it difficult – even John’s wife, Cynthia, found it very difficult – to penetrate the screen that we had around us. As a kind of safety barrier we had a lot of ‘in’ jokes, little signs, references to music; we had a common bond in that and it was very difficult for any ‘outsider’ to penetrate. That possibly wasn’t good for relationships back then.

Paul McCartney – From “The Beatles Anthology” book, 2000

Recording sessions Jane Asher participated in

Albums, EPs & singles which Jane Asher contributed to

Topazthecat • 1 year ago

Topazthecat • 1 year ago

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