I’d already seen this afternoon’s syndicated SVU episode, so I made my way to Turner Classic Movies and caught Michael Caine’s 1966 flick Alfie. I’d totally forgotten that one of his “birds” was played by then-20 year-old Jane Asher (above) who, at the time, was well on her way to becoming Mrs. Paul McCartney. Sir Paul was living with her at her family’s house when she made this movie and they got engaged the next year. While she asserts that she remained faithful to him, he still shagged his way through London because 1) he thought it was cool since they weren’t married; and 2) because he was a fuckin’ Beatle.
She didn’t toss his Nehru jackets out until 1968, shortly after she came home from a business trip to find him wrapped in the sheets with his secretary, an American named Francie Schwartz who has spent the past forty years as the answer to an obscure trivia question.
The lovely Ms. Asher went on to a quietly successful career as an actress and author in the UK. At 62, she’s still a stone cold fox, while Sir Paul has started to look exactly like my grandmother. She refuses to talk about the just-short-of-six years she spent with Paul and remains the only person who ever shared a room with any Beatle—even Ringo—to not write a 500-plus page tell-all about it.
Francie Schwartz published her memoir in 1972.
