Cynthia Lennon Biography

Cynthia Lennon was born Cynthia Powell on 10 September 1939 in a boarding house in Blackpool, England, to Charles Powell and Lillian Powell. She was the youngest child of her parents and had two elder brothers.

In 1950, she took part in an art competition organized by the newspaper publishing house, Liverpool Echo and received a prize for her work. In 1951, she gained admission into Junior Art School in Liverpool.

Following her father’s untimely demise in 1956; her mother, Lillian, rented out one of the rooms to raise money for her daughter’s higher education. A year later, Cynthia gained admission at the Liverpool College of Art.

Cynthia Lennon took up a calligraphy class, where she met John Lennon for the first time. He eventually asked her out during a party. She was at the time, engaged to Barry, a Hoylake resident. She accepted the offer, nonetheless and couple began dating sometime in 1958.

Despite their rocky relationship, the bond between them grew stronger. When John had to constantly shuttle between Liverpool and Hamburg (1960-1962) during the Beatles’ formative years, he frequently wrote passionately worded letters to her.

In 1962, she became pregnant with John’s child and on 23 August 1962, the duo got married. However, the couple had to keep their marriage and pregnancy a secret, so as not to upset the female fans of the Beatles. A year later, she gave birth to Julian.

After she accompanied the band on a trip to India to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s ashram in 1967, she got to know about all of John’s affairs when he confessed about them to her on the flight back home.

The last strain on her marital relationship was when she found Yoko Ono with John upon returning home early from a trip to Greece. The two finally divorced in 1968, after she agreed to a settlement of £100,000, a further £100,000 as a trust fund money for their son, Julian.

Cynthia Lennon began auctioning some of John Lennon’s mementos after his death in 1980. One such item – a hand drawn Christmas card that John made– fetched her £8,800 at a Christie’s, the following year. She auctioned off all of John’s memorabilia she possessed a decade later to steady her finances.

After her divorce from John Twist in 1982, she changed her name back to Cynthia Lennon by way of deed poll. Thanks to surname change, the following year she was able to land a three-year contract with Vantona Vyella to design bedding and textiles for the brand.

In 1988, she ventured, albeit unsuccessfully, into the perfume industry. She named her creation, ‘Woman’ after one of the John Lennon’s songs. A year later, she opened a restaurant named, Lennon’s in Covent Garden, London. However, that venture too was short-lived.

She made her recording debut in 1995 with a rendition of Those Were The Days. While the original, sung by Mary Hopkins decades earlier was a raging hit during its time, Cynthia Lennon’s version sadly did not even reach the chart.

In 1999, a collection of her past paintings and drawings were showcased at an art exhibition in the KDK Gallery. She was living in Normandy, France at the time.

In the later years (2005-2010), she attended various exhibitions and around the world commemorating the Beatles’ legacy. The ‘Timeless’ exhibition at New York’s Morrison Hotel Gallery was special as it featured Cynthia Lennon, Julian Lennon, Yoko Ono, Sean Lennon and May Pang together for the first time in public audience.

Cynthia Lennon wrote two memoirs, A Twist of Lennon (1978) and John (2005), detailing certain facets of her time together with John Lennon during the Beatlemania years. The former garnered renewed interest following John’s death and 20,000 copies were printed in 1981.

Several of her cartoon style drawings from her 1999 auction are on display at Liverpool’s Beatles Story Museum.

After her divorce with John Lennon, Cynthia Lennon married hotelier Roberto Bassanini in July 1970; the two divorced in 1976. Two years later, she got married to John Twist, a Lancashire based engineer and divorced him in 1981. Then came Jim Christie, a chauffeur from Liverpool. The couple enjoyed a 17-year-long relationship that ended in 1998. Her marriage with Barbadian nightclub owner, Noel Charles in 2002 was her last.

After a brief struggle with cancer, Cynthia Lennon passed away in Majorca, Spain on April 1st, 2015. She was 75 years at the time and is survived by her son, Julian.