Create
John Lennon remembered, through his lover’s lens
He’s been gone a long time, but the public is still captivated by John Lennon, and the adventures (and misadventures) of the beloved music icon’s life.
In fact, 50 years have passed since the former Beatle’s 18-month romantic liaison with May Pang, who had been an assistant to Lennon and his wife, Yoko Ono.
And Pang, a native New Yorker of Chinese descent, has a treasure trove of memories, including cards, letters, drawings – and photographs.
She’s in Tampa Friday, Saturday and Sunday, accompanying a gallery show (and print sale) of many of her best photos from the period. It’s at Tempus Projects in Tampa (1624 E. 7th Ave., Ybor City).
May Pang today. Publicity photo.
The impetus, Pang explains, was the 2023 release of The Lost Weekend – A Love Story, a documentary about her time with Lennon, both in New York City and Los Angeles.
Art dealer Scott Segelbaum proposed making studio-quality prints of her negatives (“I had them under my bed for years”) and sending them to the hippest galleries. “I said to Scott, if we do this, I want not just New York, L.A., east coast/west coast. I’d like to see the middle of the country. I want to meet people, and see if they’re interested.”
They were. “And it’s been so great to meet all these people in the middle of America.”
As chronicled in her 1983 memoir Loving John, and in the documentary, Ono and Lennon were going through a rough patch in 1973. Ono knew her husband would be “seeing other people” if he moved out of their apartment – so she directed Pang to be “his girlfriend” and keep tabs on him.
And, Pang says, they fell in love.
The move to L.A. – Pang insists it was entirely Lennon’s idea – resulted in one of the most prolific periods of Lennon’s career as a solo artist. “Not with Yoko, with me,” Pang says.
He made records with Elton John, Mick Jagger and David Bowie, and began to discuss working with Paul McCartney again. He recorded the Rock and Roll and Walls & Bridges albums.
“You know how many people have come up to me and said they didn’t realize I was the voice on ‘No. 9 Dream’?” she says. “So it’s all that. If it was a smaller thing, you’d go, ‘I can’t be bothered.’ But now it’s snowballed into something else.”
It snowballed, she insists, into an Ono-crafted fairytale version of the facts, the “John & Yoko as soulmates” story. Without warning, Lennon reunited with Ono early in 1975 and remained with her until his murder in 1980. And the accepted narrative has relegated Pang to footnote status.
(According to Pang, they continued to see each other, in secret, for several years.)
“That was always her thing, that myth of the greatest love story,” Pang explains. “She wanted that myth to go forever. But if you talk to people who are willing to be honest – let me put it that way – you’ll find a different story. For me, I decided to take my life back, because they were running away with my story.
“I don’t want to go down in history that it went one way, when the truth is the other. I let it go for a long time, but then it got out of hand. And I’m listening to people say ‘Oh, she was there only for a weekend.’ After a while, you get tired of it.”
1973: “The Toy.” Photo by May Pang.
History records that Lennon, left to his own devices without the controlling hand of his spouse, spent a lot of his time in Los Angeles drunk and misbehaving. He later referred to the period as his “lost weekend,” referring to the 1945 movie with Ray Milland as an out-of-control alcoholic.
Yes, Pang has always maintained, most of those stories are true. She was there. There were, however, periods of tranquility and domestic bliss, as evidenced of her photos of Lennon relaxed and happy.
Pang was responsible for reuniting him with Julian, his then 10-year-old son from his first marriage (Julian Lennon and Pang remain friends to this day – he’s interviewed extensively in the documentary).
She shot what’s believed to be the last-ever photo of Lennon and McCartney together, in 1974 Los Angeles, and was in the recording studio when they jammed together with Stevie Wonder and other musicians.
One of the most unique photos in her portfolio is a closeup of Lennon’s hand as he signs the legal document officially disbanding the Beatles, in a Disney World hotel room. The others had already signed.
At gallery shows, Pang reveals, “I watch people come in and look at the photos first. And I’ve seen them with tears in their eyes, because they’ve never seen John look that way. They say ‘What is this? How come we’ve never seen photos like this?’
“And I tell them, these pictures were not meant for the gallery showings, they were meant for just me and John to have at home – you take pictures of yourself, you know? What you see is how I saw him. You’re seeing him through my eyes at that moment. You’re seeing an honest, candid moment.”
She enjoys answering people’s questions, too. “The general question: What was John like? And I say to them, that’s too long a story! That’s not easy.
“Or they’ll ask, have I ever met Paul McCartney? I say, did you see the photos?”
1974: “Social Commentary.” Photo by May Pang.
