The Hollywood Archive - Celebrity, Entertainment and Historical Stock Photos

John Lennon would have been 70 on Saturday October 9, 2010 along with my son Erik (turning 15 - not 70).

Over the next two months, Lennon's birthday will be commemorated with tribute concerts, reissues of his music, a new documentary, the annual lighting of Ono's Imagine Peace light tower, even an Ono-Lady Gaga summit. Why all this now? "The reason has to do with the social climate, with wanting some of John's energy, power and conviction," says Ono according to CNN Entertainment.

Born and raised in Liverpool, Lennon became involved in the skiffle craze as a teenager, his first band, The Quarrymen, evolving into The Beatles in 1960. As the group began to undergo the disintegration that led to their break-up towards the end of that decade, Lennon launched a solo career that would span the next, punctuated by critically acclaimed albums, including John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band and Imagine, and iconic songs such as "Give Peace a Chance" and "Imagine".

Lennon's solo album sales in the United States alone stand at 14 million units, and as performer, writer, or co-writer he is responsible for 27 number one singles on the US Hot 100 chart. In 2002, a BBC poll on the 100 Greatest Britons voted him eighth, and in 2008, Rolling Stone ranked him the fifth greatest singer of all time. He was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1987 and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994. On his birthday on October 09, 2010, Google, in the form of a google doodle, changed its logo to a movie version, to commemorate his achievements.


John Lennon Trivia per IMDB:

When "Rolling Stone" magazine was launched in November 1967, Lennon made the first cover, in a photo from How I Won the War (1967).

The first instrument he learned to play was the harmonica.

He used a number of pseudonyms in his musical work. These include Dr. Winston O'Boogie, Booker Table, Dwarf McDougal, Rev. Fred Ghurkin, Mel Torment, Dr. Dream, The Honorable John St. John Johnson, John O'Cean, Joel Nohnn, Kaptain Kundalini, Dad and Winston Leg-Thigh.

Assassinated as he returned from the recording studio Monday, December 8, 1980, outside the Dakota, his apartment building, by 'Mark David Chapman', a crazed fan.

Was photographed for the cover of "Rolling Stone" magazine by Annie Leibovitz on the day he was murdered.

His neighbors at the Dakota included singer Roberta Flack, and actors Peter Boyle, Gloria Swanson, and Lauren Bacall.

Yoko Ono signed over the royalties of his song "Imagine", in perpetuity, to Amnesty International, a world-wide organization devoted to political prisoners.

(Photo: The Hollywood Archive)

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