Jane Asher/ Pattie Boyd: Fab Fancies

Talent…

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… These are the lovely ladies and gorgeous girls of eras gone by whose beauty, ability, electricity and all-round x-appeal deserve celebration and – ahem – salivation here at George’s Journal…

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The Beatles, in their infinite genius, brought to us masses many things: beautiful music, fashionable togs, Eastern mysticism-trendiness and dodgy beards. They also brought to us (whether they liked it or not) their other halves, all of whom were intelligent, inspired and artistic souls themselves – and many of them were also, well, pretty tasty. Not least these two. One was a hot-to-trot actress of the age; the other a major fashion model of the era – in short, Jane Asher and Pattie Boyd. Here comes the sun then, indeed, as together they’re the latest fab pair to enter this blog’s Talent corner, peeps…
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Profiles

Names: Jane Asher/ Patricia Anne ‘Pattie’ Boyd

Nationalities: English

Professions: Actress, author and cake-maker/ Model, photographer and author

Born: April 5 1946, Willesden, London/ March 17 1944, Taunton, Somerset

Height: 5′ 6″/ 5′ 7″

Known for: Jane – an established actress of stage and screen for nearly fifty years, her most famous role is playing one of Michael Caine’s bits-of-all-right in Alfie (1966). She also appeared in the incest-themed drama The Buttercup Chain and the art-house curio Deep End (both 1970), played Jane Seymour in Henry VIII And His Six Wives (1972), starred in ITV’s acclaimed adaptation of Brideshead Revisited (1981) and the Beeb’s female WWII spy drama Wish Me Luck (1987-89) and more recently took TV parts in the resurrected Crossroads (2003) and Holby City (1999-present). She’s perhaps most famous, though, as Paul McCartney’s girlfriend in the ’60s, for whom she was the muse for his songs You Won’t See Me, I’m Looking Through You (both 1965) and For No One (1966) and with whom she and the other Beatles and their squeezes travelled to India for transcendental meditation with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in February 1968. Later she met cartoonist Gerald Scarfe, whom she married in 1981. She’s also penned several books, including three novels, and notoriously owns a cake-making business.

Pattie – a leading fashion model in the ’60s and ’70s in London, New York and Paris, she wore Mary Quant and was snapped by the likes of David Bailey and Terence Donovan and on whose appearance the legendary Twiggy has claimed she based her own. Even more so than Asher, though, she’s most famous for being the girlfriend then wife of a Beatle, George Harrison (whom she met on the set of the 1964 film A Hard Day’s Night, in which she appeared), and then of Harrison’s close friend Eric Clapton. Indeed, almost as well known is the fact that the former’s classic song Something (1970) is reputed to be inspired by her, as are the latter’s much-loved tunes Layla (1970) and Wonderful Tonight (1977). She also had an affair with Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood in the early ’70s. Recently she published an autobiography and has displayed photographs she took during the rock ‘n’ roll era of her life at exhibitions throughout the world.

Strange but true: Jane’s father was an eminent medical professional whom was responsible for the first published description and naming of Münchausen syndrome, while through her mother she can trace her lineage back through centuries of English aristocracy; Pattie’s sister Helen (whom she nicknamed ‘Jenny’, the name by which she became known) was also a ’60s fashion model and the inspiration for a classic song of the era – Jennifer Juniper (1968) by Donovan, with whom she had a relationship.

Peak of fitness: Jane – flirting and then cavorting in the nuddy with the hormonally-charged teen lead in Deep End/ Pattie – an abstract choice this, but I’d say as Harrison and Clapton saw her in both Something and Layla; after all, as the former maintained in Yellow Submarine (1968), ‘it’s all in the mind’…

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janeasher.com

pattieboyd.co.uk

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CLICK on images for full-size

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