In February 1962 Stuart Sutcliffe collapsed again. Once more he was taken to the room he shared with Astrid Kirchherr. He remained there for some time, painting and writing long letters, and suffering yet more violent head pains and blackouts. His worsening temper made it difficult for Astrid or her mother to look after him, and the medical treatment he received appeared to have little effect.
On 10 April 1962 Stuart Sutcliffe was rushed to hospital in an ambulance, with Kirchherr by his side, but died before its arrival. The cause of death was cerebral paralysis, as a result of bleeding in the right ventricle of his brain.
He died in my arms on that journey. I cannot say it was unexpected but the suddenness… the loss to me was great, and to anyone who knew him, because he was a genius, with a great mind and an original talent as an artist. He would have been outstanding, if he’d lived.
Three days later she met The Beatles at Hamburg airport and told them of Sutcliffe’s death. She fell into depression in the months afterwards, and was comforted by John Lennon. He told her: “Come on, make up your mind, live or die. Stop sitting at home – it won’t bring Stu back.”
I didn’t go to the funeral. That was it: as the man said, ‘He not busy being born is busy dying.’ But we all felt really sad and I remember feeling worst for Astrid. She was still coming to the shows and sitting there. I think it made her feel a bit better, at least, to hang out with us.
The precise cause of Sutcliffe’s ailments has never been fully known. It has been said that he had suffered a head injury after being attacked, following a performance at Liverpool’s Lathom Hall in January 1961. Allan Williams later claimed that Lennon and Pete Best went to help Sutcliffe, dragging him to safety.
Lennon broke a finger in the fight, and it is thought that Sutcliffe suffered a fractured skull. At the time Sutcliffe refused medical treatment, and failed to keep an x-ray appointment at the city’s Sefton General Hospital.
After his death Sutcliffe’s mother Millie bequeathed his brain to the Hamburg hospital that had been treating him. Eighteen months after his death a set of x-ray plates were brought from Germany to Liverpool by Kirchherr. The x-rays showed a small brain tumour; an accompanying note by a radiologist said: “Note the depressed condition of the skull.”
I looked up to Stu. I depended on him to tell me the truth. Stu would tell me if something was good and I’d believe him. We were awful to him sometimes. Especially Paul, always picking on him. I used to explain afterwards that we didn’t dislike him, really.
The Beatles, Hunter Davies
Following Sutcliffe’s death, Kirchherr wrote to his mother Millie, in which she apologised for being too ill to attend his funeral in Liverpool, and saying how much she and Lennon missed him.
Oh, Mum, he is in a terrible mood now, he just can’t believe that darling Stuart never comes back. He just crying his eyes out… John is marvellous to me, he says that he know Stuart so much and he love him so much that he can understand me.
John Lennon had two of Sutcliffe’s paintings on the walls of Kenwood, his house in Weybridge. A photograph of Stuart Sutcliffe was also included on the cover of The Beatles’ 1967 album Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Sutcliffe appears on the far left of the montage, alongside fellow artist Aubrey Beardsley.
Not many of our contemporaries had died; we were all too young. It was older people that died, so Stuart’s dying was a real shock. And for me there was a little guilt tinged with it, because I’d not been his best friend at times. We ended up good friends, but we’d had a few ding-dongs, partly out of jealousy for John’s friendship. We all rather competed for John’s friendship, and Stuart, being his mate from art school, had a lot of his time and we were jealous of that. Also, I was keen to see the group be as good as it could be, so I would make the odd remark: ‘Oh, you didn’t play that right.’ But Stuart’s death was terrible, because if nothing else he should have been a great painter – you can see that from his sketchbooks.The rest of us weren’t as close to Stu as John was – they’d been to college together and shared a flat – but we were still close. Everyone was very sad, though the blow was softened by the fact that he’d stayed in Hamburg and we’d got used to not being with him.
John didn’t laugh when he heard Stuart died, as people have made out; but being so young, we didn’t go on about it. The kind of questions we’d ask were, ‘I wonder if he’ll come back?’ Among ourselves we’d had a pact that if one of us were to die, he’d come back and let the others know if there was another side. So as Stuart was the first one to go, we did half expect him to show up. Any pans that rattled in the night could be him.
Astrid Kirchherr worked as an adviser on the 1994 film Backbeat, which chronicled The Beatles’ time in Hamburg and her relationship with Sutcliffe. Kirchherr was impressed with Stephen Dorff’s portrayal of Sutcliffe in the film.
I got the shock of my life… He’s the right age, but when he looked up, and I saw this shadow, my arms were geese pimpling. The way he talked, the way he smoked, his gestures, were just like Stu’s. I was very impressed.
The Beatles’ 1995 album Anthology 1 contained three songs with Sutcliffe on bass guitar: ‘You’ll Be Mine’, ‘Cayenne’ and ‘Hallelujah, I Love Her So’. The cover artwork, by Klaus Voormann and fellow German artist Alfons Kiefer, featured Sutcliffe’s likeness in the top right corner.
The majority of Sutcliffe’s surviving works and letters are today owned by his younger sister Pauline. In 2001 she published a memoir which alleged that Sutcliffe and Lennon had had a homosexual relationship, and that her brother’s brain haemorrhage had been caused by Lennon during a jealous rage in Hamburg a few months before his death.
Pauline Sutcliffe said she didn’t want to reveal her beliefs about the death of her brother until their mother had died. She released papers including a letter from Sutcliffe describing how both men and women were attracted to him.
I’m waiting for my main meal of the day – beefsteak and mashed potatoes and a glass of milk – this costs 4 marks, every day. [I have just sung] and received the best applause of the night. Moments after I have finished singing, the people all look at me with sad wistful looks on their faces. Recently I’ve become very popular both with girls and homosexuals, who tell me I’m the sweetest, most beautiful boy. Imagine it, me, the one who has such a complex because I was small and thought I was ugly… It appears that people refer to me as the James Dean of Hamburg… I’m quite flattered.
In spite of all the conjecture, it seems clear that, had he lived, Stuart Sutcliffe would have been an accomplished and renowned painter. Indeed, it is tempting to wonder if he might have had a similar impact on the art of the 1960s as The Beatles had on its music.
Typical. This is one of those articles you just start to read, then can’t let go. I’m hooked!!
Awesome article!I’m impressed. It had a lot of information I didn’t know about…
Do you think that the release of “Love Me Tender” here:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Love-Tender-Elvis-Presley-cover/dp/B005XLTRLO
is really Stu??
elvis Presley did a cover of the song but stuart did make the song
I look after Stuart’s grave in Hyton cemetry,Liverpool…R.I.P
It’s been said that Sutcliffe’s mental health declined heavily after Lennon kicked him in the head.
There is absolutely no proof whatsoever that lennon “kicked” sutcliffe in the head. Lets be clear about that. Eyewitnesses do not recall sutcliffe being struck in the head when he was attacked in liverpool either. (the time lennon came to his aid)
John was not with Stu in the four months prior to his death. No head trauma causes cerebral bleeding and death after that long an interval.
The sad truth is that it is far more likely sutcliffe’s tragic death was the result of an Aneurysm. Possibly acerbated by the huge amount of speed that he was taking. But that just isn’t as sensational a story though.
Very touching, very moving article. Impossible to stop reading. Thank you so much for this deeply emotional and beautiful bit of writing.
Just been to Stuart’s grave this morning. 55 years gone yesterday. Only a kid x
My son dated a distant relative of Stuart’s her name is Sarah sutcliffe
Being an artist himself, I wonder what Stu would’ve thought of Yoko Ono, and/or John’s fascination with her?
I feel that Paul sounds a liar when he involves George in his jealousy towards Stu, when the reality is that George liked Stu, he was never jealous of him, it was only Paul who felt that jealousy very strongly. Paul has a tendency to involve others in feelings that are uniquely his own.
Look, Paul’s memory is not perfect and nobody’s is. In the “Anthology”, Paul has complimented Stuart by calling him a very good painter and when he says that the only trouble with Stuart being the bassist was that he couldn’t play, he may have been referring to the formative days.
George even said that Stuart did learn a few tunes, but never fully felt at ease being in The Beatles, so he decided to return to the Liverpool College of Art or perhaps in Hamburg – I’m not really sure. It’s not like Stuart never put any effort into learning how to actually play.
Paul also denies that he ever tried to force Stuart out of the group so that he could take over on bass himself and it has to be noted that he reluctantly took over bass guitar duties.
Allan Williams alleged that Paul would surreptitiously unplug Stuart’s bass from the amplifier without his knowledge, but AFAIK, I have never seen any photographic evidence to prove it.
I’m not talking about Stu’s musical abilities. Nor am I talking about why Stu left the group. I’m talking about Paul saying that he and George were jealous of Stu, because of his friendship with John. But the only one jealous was Paul. This is very clear in Mark Lewisohn’s Tune In. It is not right for Paul to involve George in feelings that are exclusively his own.
@Isa. I wonder why you are assuming it’s Paul who is lying rather than George. George looked up to John, followed him and Cyn everywhere, according to John who felt irritated by it. George could have felt humiliated or silly years later after the acrimonious Beatles split and not admit to being jealous for all we know.
We’re talking about the relationship between Paul and Stu, nothing to do with Cynthia and John. According to the people who were there, Paul was jealous of John’s relationship with Stu, but George was not jealous of Stu, on the contrary, he got on very well with him. Therefore, Paul’s statement that “we were a bit jealous of him (Stu)” is a way of ascribing to someone else feelings that were his alone, nobody else’s. Moreover, Paul was not “a little jealous” of Stu, he was “very jealous”, according to the testimonies of Dot Rhone (Paul’s girlfriend in those days), Astrid Kirchherr, and even his brother Mike McCartney, among others.
Well, if anyone knows jealousy it is George since he spent his entire Beatles and Post Beatles life jealous of Paul for many reasons but especially because of how John favored Paul above everyone, including his own wife! Just look at Geo’s face in every interview when Paul and John are going on about something or joking – George looks like a jilted GF! You see it clearly in Get Back. George has this angry, sad puss on his face the entire time. In 1970 John finally gave George attention because he USED him to set the campaign against Paul to dis-barge his career. Sad but all true!
Back to Stu…Paul has admitted many times he was jealous of John’s relationship with Stu but John also admitted he would go overboard with attention to Stu to get a rise out of Paul because he loved how it bothered him. Paul, not one to show affection – so this what the only way John got to see that Paul really dug him, cared for him. That is what people do to get attention – they go out of their way to make the person they truly love jealous and that is exactly what John did with Stu. Not saying John didn’t love Stu, he certainly did.
Lets face it… John and Paul had one of the most loving, toxic, incredible, strange and erotic relationships in Rock history. Not even Yoko could deny John’s feelings, deep deep feelings for Paul – let alone either of them. Paul, still today at 80, still grapples with his emotions concerning John. What a love story!
“…but John also admitted he would go overboard with attention to Stu to get a rise out of Paul because he loved how it bothered him. Paul, not one to show affection – so this what the only way John got to see that Paul really dug him, cared for him.”
Really? Have you the source? I’m curious!
Why shouldn’t Paul be jealous? It’s quite normal in young male and female friendships and there doesn’t have to be any romance involved. John and Paul shared their mutual love of writing songs when they met and Paul taught John many chords he didn’t know. He helped get the Quarrymen going and got George on board. Then John, nearly two years older than Paul, went to art school befriending Sutcliffe and started treating Paul like a school boy. He minimized their friendship and everything Paul had contributed. And, according to Lewisholn, both of them played some pretty mean tricks on him. Why shouldn’t Paul feel upset? John pulled rank on him again years later when he replaced Paul with Yoko Ono. Who cares whether George was jealous of Stu or not; he was undoubtedly jealous of John and Paul. I’m sure he enjoyed every moment of Paul’s distress and I’d say it’s Paul’s way of not letting George off the hook. Paul’s detractors really seem very smug about all this.
This page busts the misconception that Stuart was a mediocre bassist and even Klaus Voormann praises him as a good bassist. It wasn’t like he had no prior musical experience and his father did teach him some chords on the guitar.
The circumstances surrounding Stuart and Pete Best’s exists were vastly different – Stuart chose to leave the band to return to art college and focus on visual arts, so he wasn’t fired, whereas Pete got kicked out of the group for a myriad of reasons.
We can only speculate what Stuart could’ve done with his life had his life not been cut so short – he could very well have done album covers for The Beatles if they asked him to provide paintings and John himself was a talented visual artist in his own right or perhaps become an art teacher in Hamburg or Liverpool.
I know that lots of biographies state that Stuart had two sisters named Joyce and Pauline, but a lot of them don’t mention this: he also had three elder half-brothers named Joe, Ian and Charles and an elder-half sister named Mattie, all of whom were the offspring of his father’s first marriage to a woman whose name has never been disclosed to any biographers. Until I knew of the existence of his elder half-siblings, I used to think that Stuart’s only siblings, half or full, were his two sisters Joyce and Pauline.
Who knows what Stuart could have done with his life had he lived?
” In 2001 she published a memoir which alleged that Sutcliffe and Lennon had had a homosexual relationship” That shocked me a lot.