Wednesday, January 12, 2011

michelle my belle




'It was very hard for a girl photographer in the 60s to be accepted. In the end I gave up. I’ve hardly taken a photo since 1967.'- astrid

Kirchherr is credited with inventing the Beatles moptop haircut although she disagrees and is quoted in The Beatles Off The Record by Keith Badman as saying:
“People said, that I created their hairstyle, that’s rubbish! Lots of German boys had that hairstyle. Stuart had it for a long while and the others copied it. I suppose the most important thing I contributed to them was friendship. ”

Astrid Kirchherr (born 20 May 1938) is a German photographer and artist and is well known for her association with the Beatles and her photographs of the Beatles from their Hamburg days.
Kirchherr met artist Stuart Sutcliffe in the Kaiserkeller bar in Hamburg in 1960 where he was playing bass with the Beatles and was later engaged to him before his untimely death in 1962.

i imagine the song 'michelle' was written for someone named michelle, not astrid. however, when looking at these images i do think of an astrid, the woman who took such marvelous images of the world's favorite band. this is because actress michelle williams looks very much like her and i would be happier to know that a really great 'hamburg days' film got made with her in the part than i am to hear that she is playing marilyn monroe in yet another film that will fail to capture monroe.

in 1994 a sweet movie called 'backbeat' came out. it did a good job of telling the story of stuart and astrid and their adventures in and out of the band. still...


images: astrid and stuart/keeds! paul and george/lovebirds a&s

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