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Joan Lennon Biography & Facts

Cynthia Lennon (née Powell; 10 September 1939 – 1 April 2015) was the first wife of John Lennon and the mother of Julian Lennon. Born in Blackpool and raised in Hoylake on the Wirral Peninsula, Powell attended the Liverpool College of Art, where Lennon was also a student. Powell and Lennon started a relationship after meeting in a calligraphy class. When Lennon was performing in Hamburg with the Beatles, Powell rented his bedroom at 251 Menlove Avenue in the Liverpool suburb of Woolton from his aunt and legal guardian, Mimi Smith. After Powell became pregnant, she and Lennon got married in August 1962, and they lived at Kenwood in Weybridge from 1964 to 1968, where she kept house and participated with Lennon in a London-based social life. In 1968, Lennon left Powell for Japanese artist Yoko Ono; the couple's divorce was legally granted in November 1968 on the grounds of adultery. Powell had three further marriages. She published a book of memoirs, A Twist of Lennon, in 1978, and a more intimate biography, John, in 2005. Over the years, Powell held several auctions of memorabilia associated with her life with Lennon. In her later years, Powell lived in Palma Nova, Mallorca, where she died of cancer in 2015. Early years Cynthia Powell was born in Blackpool on 10 September 1939, the youngest of three children of General Electric Company employee Charles Powell and his wife Lillian (née Roby), who already had two sons named Charles and Anthony. Her parents were from Liverpool, but her mother (along with other pregnant women) was sent to the safer area of Blackpool after World War II had been declared and lived in a small room in a bed-and-breakfast on the Blackpool seafront. After the birth, with Liverpool becoming a frequent target of German air raids, the Powell family moved to a two-bedroomed semi-detached house in Hoylake, a middle-class area on the Wirral Peninsula which was considered "posh" by those in Liverpool. At age 11, Powell won an art prize in a competition organised by the Liverpool Echo. A year later, she was accepted into Liverpool's Junior Art School, which was also attended by Bill Harry, later the editor of Liverpool's Mersey Beat newspaper. Art college When Powell was 16, her father died following a lengthy bout with lung cancer. Before dying, he told Powell that she had to get a job to support her mother and would not be able to go to art school. As her mother wanted her to receive an education, Powell rented out a room to four apprentice electricians. In September 1957, Powell gained a place at the Liverpool College of Art. Although studying graphics, she also took lettering classes, as did John Lennon. He never had any drawing tools with him, so Lennon constantly borrowed pens and pencils from Powell, who discovered that he was only there because other teachers had refused to instruct him. Powell had an air of respectability and moved in different social circles more than her future husband. Lennon and an art school friend, Jeff Mohammed, used to make fun of her by stopping the conversation when she walked in the room, saying: "Quiet please! No dirty jokes; it's Cynthia." Powell once overheard Lennon give a compliment to a girl with blonde hair in the college, who looked similar to the French actress Brigitte Bardot. The next Saturday, Powell turned up at the college with her hair several shades blonder. Lennon noticed straight away, exclaiming, "Get you, Miss Hoylake!" (Lennon's nickname for her, along with "Miss Powell" or "Miss Prim"). Dressed like a Teddy Boy, Lennon sometimes brought a guitar with him into class, and once sang "Ain't She Sweet" directly to Powell. Relationship with John Lennon After a college party to celebrate the end of term, Lennon asked Powell if she wanted to "go out" with him. Powell quickly replied that she was engaged to a young man in Hoylake even though the engagement had ended; Lennon replied, "I didn't ask you to fucking marry me, did I?" He later approached her and asked if she would go to the Cracke pub. Powell was confused when Lennon ignored her all evening, but eventually invited her into the group with a joke. They began dating, with Lennon now referring to her as "Cyn". In the autumn of 1958, Powell ended her engagement to be with Lennon, and he ended his relationship with another art student, Thelma Pickles. Lennon's jealousy could also manifest itself in violent behaviour towards her, as when he slapped her across the face (causing her head to hit a wall), after watching her dance with Stuart Sutcliffe. After the incident, Powell broke up with Lennon for three months, but resumed their relationship after his profuse apology. Powell's work at art school began to suffer, and teachers told her the relationship with Lennon was doing her no good. Lennon continued to be casually inconsiderate towards Powell, later saying, "I was in sort of a blind rage for two years. I was either drunk or fighting. It had been the same with other girl friends I'd had. There was something the matter with me." Tony Bramwell—a friend of Lennon's since his youth—later said: "Cynthia was beautiful, physically, and on the inside. Although she knew he [Lennon] was apt to find love on the road, she was totally dedicated to his success... and extremely influential. He was insecure and Cynthia was there to pump him up, to buttress, sort of, his weak side." The Beatles' first Hamburg residency took place in 1960, with Lennon writing frequent and passionate letters back home to Powell. After returning home, Lennon's aunt and legal guardian, Mimi Smith, threw a hand-mirror at him for spending a lot of money on a suede coat for Powell. Smith later referred to her as "a gangster's moll", and was often unpleasant towards Powell. The Beatles went to Hamburg for a second time in 1961, and both Powell and Dot Rhone (Paul McCartney's girlfriend at the time), visited them two weeks later, during the Easter holidays. They had to stay up all night because of the long sets, both taking Preludin to stay awake, which the group was also taking. Lennon and Powell stayed with Sutcliffe's girlfriend, Astrid Kirchherr, at her mother's house. After the trip to Hamburg, Powell's mother Lillian said Powell's cousin and her husband were emigrating to Canada with their newborn baby, and that she, Lillian, would be going with them while they studied to become teachers. Powell waited until Lennon came back from Hamburg before she asked Smith—who had taken in lodgers before at 251 Menlove Avenue—if she would rent a room to her. Smith rented out the box-room above the front door (which had been Lennon's bedroom), but insisted she also do chores around the house. After her student grant had run out, she took a job at a Woolworths store in Liverpool in order to pay the rent. In the same year, when Lennon was 21 years old, he received £100 (equivalent to £2,800 in 2024) from his aunt Elizabeth Sutherland (whom he called "Mater") who lived in Edinburgh, and went.... Discover the Joan Lennon popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Joan Lennon books.