Paul McCartney
British pop star

I'm alive and living in Scotland.

Paul McCartney was one-half of the singer-songwriting team that made The Beatles the most popular and influential musical group of the late twentieth century. Hailing from Liverpool, England, the rock quartet won legions of fanatical teenage fans early in the 1960s with such hits as ‘Love Me Do’ and ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand.’ In early 1964, ‘Beatlemania’ hit the United States, and an estimated seventy-three million people, or 60 percent of America's television viewers, tuned in to see their first performance on the Ed Sullivan Show. As the 1960s progressed, The Beatles' music became increasingly sophisticated, and in 1966 they played their last public performance, preferring instead to concentrate on their ground-breaking studio recordings. By 1969, this absence from the public eye led to the circulation of an odd rumor among some of their fans: several years before Paul McCartney had died and been replaced by an impostor. These imaginative conspiracists cited subliminal messages in the group's music and eccentric record covers, and even went so far as to listen attentively to The Beatles' recordings played backwards. On October 21, 1969, seven months after his marriage to photographer Linda Eastman, McCartney spoke with the press and dispelled the rumors of his death. In the next year, The Beatles split up and McCartney embarked on a successful solo career.