Astrid Kirchherr
This is shocking news! It strikes close to the hearts of Beatlemaniacs.
Astrid Kirchherr was a very interesting girl. May 20, 1938 – May 12, 2020. I didn’t learn of her death until the morning of Thursday, May 21st. She died at 81, just shy of her 82nd birthday.
She was a German photographer, artist and interior designer, a former girlfriend of both Klaus Voormann (artist, musician, bassist, and designer of The Beatles’ 1966 “Revolver” album cover) and Stuart Sutcliffe (The Beatles’ original bassist, the “Fifth Beatle,” co-inventor of the band’s name). Astrid is popularly credited with giving The Beatles their mop-top hair style. She was a child of Nazi Germany but a devotee of French culture, and a disciple of the 1955 Rolleicord camera.
Astrid's portraits of young rock 'n roll performers in Hamburg's red light Reeperbahn district - English bands like The Beatles, or Rory Storm and the Hurricanes who performed at the same club frequented by Voormann - captured those people in that time and place forever - like a Japanese haiku on film - usually in existential black-and-white. With an artist’s eye, she was attracted to people with character and charisma, both of which the young Beatles had in spades. Her photographs of the pre-fame Beatles are iconic and universally recognisable. Astrid is inseparable from The Beatles’ early story.
She was attracted to people with character and charisma, both of which the young Beatles had in spades.
Stuart Sutcliffe died in her arms in an ambulance on the way to a Hamburg hospital in April 1962. Later, she married and divorced twice. She had no children and lived alone. The Astrid-and-Sutcliffe story is like a Romeo and Juliet tragedy. Their youth is preserved forever, and late in her life she continued to insist that, despite her two marriages, Sutcliffe was the love of her life, her man for eternity.
Throughout her life she never abandoned her trademark tomboy hair style or her affinity for black clothing.
In my mind the death of Astrid Kirchherr is comparable to the death of Leonard Cohen's muse, Marianne Ihlen (1935 - 2016). These are the mysterious and powerful women - goddesses - behind the scenes of modern pop culture gods - women like Mimi Smith, Jane Asher, Cynthia Powell, Maureen Cox, Linda Eastman, May Pang and, of course, Yoko Ono. Marianne Faithfull and Anita Pallenberg, too. It surprises me how dependent these men were on the women in their lives. Remarkably dependent.
A very interesting girl.