OT: Linda McCartney's ex commits suicide
Nancy Rudins
some interest.
Tuesday, 21 March 2000
Art expert Mel See a suicide; Linda McCartney's
first spouse
By Carol Ann Alaimo
The Arizona Daily Star
In life, Tucsonan Joseph Melville See Jr. toiled in
obscurity, filming indigenous people of Mexico.
In death, he may be best remembered as the first husband
of the late Linda McCartney, a man who endured decades of
rumors that he was the character called Jo-Jo in a 1969
Beatles song.
See, 62, a cultural anthropologist and expert on pre-Columbian
art, died Sunday of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on his property
on in the foothills of the Tucson Mountains, friends said yesterday.
He had recently seemed troubled over personal problems, friends said.
``This is such a shock. It's a huge loss for everyone who knew him,''
said Debra Zeller, an art historian and one of See's closest friends.
See, who went by the name Mel, was the father of Heather McCartney,
Linda's eldest daughter, born during See's short-lived marriage to
the then-Linda Eastman in the early 1960s.
Paul McCartney adopted the child when he married Linda in 1969.
Heather, now 37, had little relationship with her natural dad for
much of her life. But she re-established contact with See about
10 years ago, and they were on good terms, Zeller said.
Heather McCartney was notified of her father's death and is
expected to come to Tucson to help settle his affairs, said
friend Jonathan Kress of Tucson.
For years, See was the subject of persistent rumors that he
was the real-life Jo-Jo in the Beatles' hit song ``Get Back,''
which says ``Jo-Jo left his home in Tucson, Arizona, for some
California grass.''
Kress said people have asked him if that line was a reference
to See, ``and I have to tell them, I honestly don't know.''
Zeller said See himself ``kind of laughed about it,'' whenever
the question came up. ``He knew there was a rumor and he thought
it was kind of funny.''
Linda McCartney's 1998 death from breast cancer ``hit him really,
really hard,'' Zeller said. ``He began to realize that he was mortal,
too.''
Kress said there was no ill will between the ex-spouses. See had
several relationships after that, but never married again.
See was born in New York and came to Tucson in 1960 after graduating
from Princeton University. He earned a master's degree in geology from
the University of Arizona while he and Linda were married and she was
studying art history at UA.
After the marriage ended, See went on to become a respected ethnographer
who made documentaries about tribal people whose cultures were
threatened.
Often, the work required travel to remote or dangerous areas.
Among his works were films on the Huichol Indians of central Mexico,
the Tarahumara tribe in the Chihuahua area, and the Seri Indians on
Mexico's west coast.
See had a passion for the work and a knack for gaining the trust of
the native people he filmed, Zeller said.
``He had so much respect for them. He would sit on the edge of their
land and wait for days for someone to pass by so he could try to talk
to them. He would never intrude by going uninvited onto their land.''
An expert on ancient artwork from the period prior to 1600, See also
designed and set up the pre-Columbian art collection at the Tucson
Museum of Art, Zeller said.
--
Nancy Rudins nru...@ncsa.uiuc.edu
http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/People/nrudins/
Man you should have seen them kicking Edgar Allan Poe.
Martha
>
> This is a bit off topic from true crime but it might be of
> some interest.
>
> Tuesday, 21 March 2000
> Art expert Mel See a suicide; Linda McCartney's
> first spouse
>
> By Carol Ann Alaimo
> The Arizona Daily Star
>
> In life, Tucsonan Joseph Melville See Jr. toiled in
> obscurity, filming indigenous people of Mexico.
>
> In death, he may be best remembered as the first husband
> of the late Linda McCartney, a man who endured decades of
> rumors that he was the character called Jo-Jo in a 1969
> Beatles song.
>
> See, 62, a cultural anthropologist and expert on pre-Columbian
> art, died Sunday of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on his property
> on in the foothills of the Tucson Mountains, friends said yesterday.
>
> He had recently seemed troubled over personal problems, friends said.
>
> ``This is such a shock. It's a huge loss for everyone who knew him,''
> said Debra Zeller, an art historian and one of See's closest friends.
>
> See, who went by the name Mel, was the father of Heather McCartney,
> Linda's eldest daughter, born during See's short-lived marriage to
> the then-Linda Eastman in the early 1960s.
<snip>
I wonder if his despair was deepened by learning that Linda had not left
him any money at all.
Martha
