'Who was the most important photographer covering the sixties ' rock and roll music scene ? I can think of no one else whose work was so comprehensive and who captured the essence better than Linda , ' Paul McCartney writes about his wife who died tragically of breast cancer at 56 . Paul McCartney remembers his adored wife who died in 1998 with portraits from this family album he states is a testament to her artistic talent . Linda 's passion for music inspired her to work independently and she amassed a major portfolio of photographs of rock musicians from the 1960s to the 1990s . Linda Eastman McCartney was born in New York City in 1941 and raised in suburban Westchester County . Scroll down for video . Lovely Linda : Eastman met Paul McCartney in London in 1967 at the Bag O'Nails Club . They met up again days later at the launch album , Sgt . Pepper 's Lonely Hearts Club Band.The couple married in March 1969 , had four children together and remained close until her untimely death of advancing breast cancer at age fifty-six in 1998 . Paul , the last of the Beatles to marry poses with his bride Linda Eastman and her daughter Heather after their wedding . She was not related to the George Eastman family of Eastman Kodak fame . Rather , her father , Leopold Vail Epstein , was the son of Jewish Russian immigrants and had changed his name to Lee Eastman . After high school , Linda headed west and was living in Arizona where a friend encouraged her to take an art history course at the Tucson Art Center with Hazel Archer . Archer introduced Linda to the great photographers Walker Evan , Dorothea Lange , Ansel Adams and told Eastman to 'Borrow a camera , buy a roll of film and take pictures ' . 'She inspired me to become a photographer , because of the photographs she showed me , unlike fashion photography , they were photographs of life , of people , of sadness , of poverty , of nature , everything – I loved it ' . Back in Manhattan , Linda 's photographic break came while working as a receptionist at Town and Country Magazine . She used an extra invite to a Rolling Stone promotional party to shoot pictures of the band . That was the beginning of her career chronicling the musical revolution of the Sixties . She met Paul McCartney in London in 1967 at the Bag O'Nails Club and met up again days later at the launch of their album , Sgt . Pepper 's Lonely Hearts Club Band . The couple married in March 1969 , had four children together and remained close until her untimely death of advancing breast cancer at age fifty-six in 1998 . These photographs appear in Life In Photographs by Linda McCartney and , in a new edition of the book published by Taschen . Paul McCartney appears to be flying while diving into a swimming pool on vacation in Jamaica in 1971 . He wrote the song 'Bluebird ' , apparently inspired by the act of 'flying , ' with Linda and Denny Laine providing background harmony . Steve McQueen and Ali McGraw , Jamaica , 1973 . Ali was Steve 's second wife and the couple fell in love on the set of the film , The Getaway , 1972 , in which she played his wife . They married the following year but the union only lasted five years . McQueen did not want his wife to make movies while they were together and allegedly cheated on Ali . Linda first met and photographed the Rolling Stones when she attended a Stones album promotional party on a freebie invite in 1966 that marked the beginning of her commercial photography career . Paul , Stella and James and Linda loved McCartney 's modest farmhouse in High Park on the Kintyre Peninsula in Scotland in 1982 . Paul bought the small farm after the breakup of the Beatles in 1970 and it saved him from the drug and the heavy drinking scene of London nightclubs . The simple lifestyle inspired him to write the song , The Long and Winding Road . The Beatles in London in 1968 , a year after Linda and Paul first met . This was the first year that the Apple Boutique , a retail store located on the corner of Baker and Paddington Streets , opened in London , the first business undertaking by the Beatles under the name of Apple Corps . Paul described the shop as ' a beautiful place where beautiful people can buy beautiful things . ' It closed that same year .
Paul wife Linda Eastman McCartney amassed a major portfolio of photographs of rock musicians from the 1960s to the 1990s . ' I can think of no one else who captured the essence better than Linda , ' Paul McCartney 's writes . Linda died tragically of breast cancer at 56 .