The majority of Beatles fans gravitate towards John Lennon and Paul McCartney. They did write the majority of their hit songs and helped shaped the band's sound during their years of world domination, after all. Because Lennon and McCartney wrote the majority of their hit songs, it's easy to forget that George Harrison also wrote some memorable Beatles songs like "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," "Here Comes The Sun," and "Something." He also went on to become a successful solo artist. Then there is drummer Ringo Starr, who doesn't get as much love and attention as the other Beatles. He has also had his fair share of life tragedies, and we have the details for you.
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00:00Even though Ringo Starr was a member of the Beatles, his success hasn't saved him from
00:05the depressing side of life.
00:07In fact, he's had more than his fair share of tough times.
00:11Here are some tragic details of this drummer's life.
00:14All four of the Beatles famously hailed from Liverpool, one of England's largest cities
00:20and home to large populations of working and middle-class people.
00:24But while John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison all grew up in homes that
00:29were secure, if not wealthy, Starr's upbringing was a bit more economically unstable.
00:35As his childhood neighbor Mary Maguire Crawford was quoted in The Beatles, A Biography, he
00:41was not a barefoot, ragged child, but like all of the families who lived in the Dingle,
00:46he was part of an ongoing struggle to survive.
00:49The Dingle was an especially depressed neighborhood, full of tiny, decrepit homes with poor ventilation.
00:55The only place for kids to play was a local park, where all the coal smoke from area chimneys
01:01hung thick in the air.
01:03Those circumstances were made all the more trying when Starr's father abandoned the family
01:08when Ringo was only three years old.
01:12During the Beatles' time together, there was a through-line of disrespect towards Ringo.
01:17He was only allowed to sing lead on 11 songs and write two unassisted, and he didn't even
01:22get to play on one of the group's earliest and biggest hits.
01:26Producer George Martin didn't like the drumming that Starr turned in for Love Me Do, so he
01:31brought in a session drummer named Andy White to play drums on that track and the B-side
01:36P.S.
01:37I Love You.
01:38Starr was demoted to playing the tambourine and maracas.
01:41Toward the end of the 1960s, the band life of the Beatles was famously contentious.
01:47He got so bad in 1968 for Starr that he briefly left the band in the middle of recording the
01:52White album.
01:53As he described the situation,
01:55"...I felt I wasn't playing great, and I also felt the other three were really happy, and
02:00I was an outsider."
02:01While Starr took his family on vacation to Sardinia, the other Beatles recorded without
02:06him.
02:07They took bits and pieces of work he'd previously recorded and some new drum work by Paul McCartney
02:12to cobble together the rhythmic backing track for Back in the USSR.
02:17When Starr returned, his bandmates at least welcomed him back by covering his drum kit
02:22in flowers.
02:23"...and say, uh, hey Ringo, this is your song for the album, we hear your voice on this?"
02:27"...and no, he said, you're doing that."
02:29"...you're right."
02:30"...and when you have to sing..."
02:31"...no, he never said it like that."
02:34After the Beatles split up in 1970, all four members enjoyed solo success.
02:39For his part, Starr had eight singles in a row that all reached the top ten in the U.S.,
02:45including the number-one hits Photograph and You're 16.
02:49The albums Ringo and Goodnight Vienna went platinum and gold respectively, but then the
02:54public seemingly grew tired of what he was offering.
02:57In 1976, Ringo's Roto Gravure stalled at number 28 on the U.S. charts, and the singles A Dose
03:04of Rock and Roll and Hey Baby tanked as well.
03:07The 1977 and 1978 albums Ringo the Fourth and Bad Boy straight-up flopped, reaching
03:14just number 162 and 129 respectively on the Billboard charts.
03:21After Starr left his label over a dispute, it took him three years to record and release
03:26more music.
03:27With 1981's Stop and Smell the Roses, he enjoyed a modest comeback with the number 38 hit Rack
03:34My Brain, a song written by former bandmate George Harrison.
03:38But Stop and Smell the Roses sold so poorly that RCA Records dropped Starr.
03:43Starr met his first wife, Maureen Cox, at the Cavern Club, the venue where the Beatles
03:48cut their teeth.
03:49The two of them wed in 1965, had three children together, and their marriage weathered the
03:54storm of worldwide fame and attention, but just barely — and not, as it turned out,
03:59for the long haul.
04:00Does that worry you?
04:01The fact that, you know, you can't go anywhere with him?
04:03Um, no, not really.
04:05I just sort of enjoy myself."
04:08Cox had a brief affair with George Harrison.
04:11After she and Starr grew apart in the mid-'70s, Starr struck up a relationship with model
04:15Nancy Leigh Andrews, leading to a divorce which was finalized in 1975.
04:21According to John Lennon's first wife, Cynthia, Cox was so devastated that she attempted to
04:26take her own life by running a motorcycle into a wall.
04:30She survived, but she endured a lengthy cosmetic surgery to correct her facial injuries.
04:36Starr and Cox both remarried, but they reportedly remained cordial.
04:40They stayed so friendly, in fact, that Starr was with his former wife when she passed away
04:45in December 1994.
04:47She underwent a bone marrow transplant from their son, Zach, that was intended to treat
04:51leukemia.
04:52Sadly, the procedure didn't completely improve her health, and she died from complications
04:58of the surgery at age 47.
05:011970 was the year that the Beatles split up, but Ringo at least had something in his personal
05:06life to celebrate that year.
05:08As his first daughter and third child overall was born, Leigh Starkey stayed out of the
05:13spotlight for decades, unlike some other famous Beatles offspring.
05:17But then she made headlines in the fall of 1995, when she suddenly fell seriously ill.
05:24After collapsing and then being hospitalized in London, Leigh Starkey was diagnosed with
05:28a brain tumor.
05:30After having fluid drained from her skull, she was transferred to Brigham and Women's
05:34Hospital in Boston, where a neurosurgeon performed an experimental four-hour operation on her.
05:40The tumor was removed entirely, and she was quickly discharged.
05:44Her father was reportedly by her bedside for the ordeal, and he stayed with her in Boston
05:49for six weeks after, when she underwent eight-minute radiation treatments every day.
05:54In 2001, the tumor returned, and Starkey had to endure more medical treatments.
05:59But she thankfully managed to survive those as well.