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John L. Eastman, an attorney for musicians and artists who represented prominent clients such as Paul McCartney, Billy Joel, and William de Kooning, made him a force in the entertainment world and Played a key role in a power struggle over control. The Beatles, the last days of business, died on August 10 in East Hampton, New York at the age of 83.
The cause was pancreatic cancer, said his son Lee, a partner in their longtime family business Eastman & Eastman in Manhattan.
Mr. Eastman and his father (also named Lee) have worked with many high profile clients over the years, including Andrew Lloyd Webber, David Bowie, Elton John, and Tennessee Williams and the estate of painter Francis Bacon. But of all these people, they are the closest to Mr. McCartney, who has represented McCartney for more than 50 years.
Their connection is both professional and personal. Mr. Eastman was the brother of Mr. McCartney’s first wife, Linda McCartney, and Lee was her father.
The Eastmans joined the fight for control of the Beatles’ business empire in 1969. Mr McCartney hired the Eastman family father and son as his representatives and tried to persuade his three band members to put them in charge of the band. Despite their huge success, the Beatles were still on the brink of bankruptcy at the time.
But John Lennon and the rest of the Beatles chose another New Yorker to run the group: Alan Klein, who had worked with Sam Cook and the Rolling Stones. Mr Klein was known as a fierce negotiator, as Mick Jagger once described him,”Gangster characters” — in contrast to the refined Eastmans, whose Manhattan townhouse offices are filled with museum-quality paintings by de Kooning and others.
The conflict between Mr. Klein and the Eastmans, and divisions within the band over these men, would engulf the Beatles for years to come, even after their official disbandment in 1970.
To break Mr. Klein’s hold on the band and ensure Mr. McCartney’s independence, Mr. Eastman orchestrated a lawsuit, filed in London on December 31, 1970, to dismantle the Beatles’ cooperation agreement. As part of preparations for the case, Mr Eastman advised his brother-in-law to wear a suit and tie to court. Mr McCartney was dubious: he showed up in a suit but no tie.
Other Beatles were frustrated with the suit. “I still can’t understand why Paul did this,” George Harrison said in the affidavit. In March 1971, a judge ruled in Mr. McCartney’s favor, appointing a receiver for the Beatles’ business interests until the partnership could be negotiated a few years later.
In the early days of working with Mr. McCartney, Eastman Brothers helped him establish what would become the entertainment company MPL Communications. It owns a number of valuable copyrights, including songs by Buddy Holly, Fats Waller and Carl Perkins, and music publishing rights to Broadway hits such as “Annie” and “Grease.”
Under Eastman’s direction, Mr. McCartney also acquired ownership of all of his recording and songwriting rights since the breakup of the Beatles.Lee Eastman died in year 1991Linda McCartney died 1998.
In 2017, Mr. Eastman led a litigation Mr McCartney opposes Sony/ATV, the music publisher (now known as Sony Music Publishing), to regain his share of the US copyright to the Beatles songs he wrote with Mr Lennon, citing amendments to federal law allowing the creation of The holder can regain these rights after a specified period of time. The case has been settled, but Mr. McCartney has been registering U.S. ownership of the rights under the MPL.
“John is a great man,” Mr. McCartney wrote on twitter Last week, there was also a photo of him in a yoga pose with Mr. Eastman. “Not only has he been a tremendous help to me in my business dealings as my lawyer, but as my friend, he’s hard to beat.”
John Lindner Eastman was born in Manhattan on July 10, 1939, and grew up in Scarsdale, New York, the eldest of four children of Lee and Louise Lindner Eastman. His mother inherited a fortune from Lindner’s in Cleveland.
His father, who changed his name from Leopold Epstein, founded a successful law firm representing well-known musicians, artists and writers, including bandleader Tommy Dorsey and songwriter Harold A. Len and Hal David.
John Eastman graduated from Stanford University in 1961 and New York University School of Law in 1964. The following year, after a brief stint in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, he and his father formed Eastman & Eastman.
They have developed expertise in working with popular musicians whose businesses have suffered under previous representation. Besides Mr. McCartney, they are best known for working with Mr. Joel in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when he sued his former manager and attorney. The case was settled, and the Eastmans helped Mr. Joel rebuild his business.
“He was fierce when it came to protecting the rights of artists,” Mr. Joel said in a statement to The New York Times. “No matter how long or not I’ve been in my career, I trust him.”
Mr. Eastman has served on the boards of many prominent organizations, including the American Museum of Natural History and two music groups, the National Association of Music Publishers and the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (known as ASCAP).
In addition to his son Lee, his wife Josephine survives. Another son, Jay; a daughter, Louise; two sisters, Louise Wade and Laura Malcolm; and 11 grandchildren.
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