John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s friend and confidant Elliot Mintz was the guest on the latest episode of Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan’s interview podcast The Magnificent Others. Mintz, who was Lennon and Ono’s publicist during their years living at the Dakota building in Manhattan, recently published a memoir about his experiences with the legendary couple titled We All Shine On: John, Yoko, and Me.
During his conversation with Corgan, Mintz discussed being a witness to what he believes was the final time Lennon and fellow Beatles legend Paul McCartney ever spent time together.
According to Mintz, the get-together happened around Christmas time in 1978. He told Corgan that John and Yoko had invited him over to the Dakota, and while he was sitting in their living room, some other guests arrived at the building.
As Mintz recalled, “[T]here’s a knock on the door … and [John] opens it, and Paul and Linda McCartney walk in, and they greet each other.”
Elliot noted that this was the first time he’d ever met McCartney.
Continuing his story, Mintz said. “And [Paul and Linda] come in, and John just said, ‘This is our friend Elliot.’ And I said, ‘Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you, Linda.’ And we sat and we talked for a while. … How should I say it? It wasn’t overly jubilant. It wasn’t icy. It was just correct.”
The Couples and Mintz Then Went Out for Dinner
Mintz recalled that it was then decided that the group would get dinner at the Manhattan restaurant Elaine’s. As Elliot noted, Elaine’s was a popular dining spot for celebrities, although its food was notoriously mediocre.
He remembered that no one was particularly thrilled at the menu choices, so Linda suggested that they order a pizza from a nearby pizza place she liked and have it delivered to Elaine’s. Mintz was tasked with getting the pizza to the restaurant.
“I knew what a social faux pas was this, but I also knew that [the restaurant’s owner,] Elaine [Kaufman,] was not gonna escort [us out],” Elliot said. “We had the pizza delivered through the back door. It was taken out of the cardboard box. It was put on beautiful Elaine’s plates and brought out, so a casual observer would think it’s a dish that they hadn’t seen yet. We had the pizza, and it was pretty good.”
Back to the Dakota, and Lennon and McCartney’s Conversation
After dinner, the group then returned to the Dakota building.
Mintz remembered that once there, Yoko and Linda went off to a separate room together. Elliot said that while he sat on a couch, feeling like a fifth wheel, Lennon and McCartney walked over to “a very, very tall window that looked down upon the west side of Manhattan,” and began chatting.
Mintz said he could hear bits and pieces of what the former Beatles and old friends were saying.
“It was small talk, nothing of substance,” Elliot shared. “And I do remember Paul asking John, ‘So, you making any music these days?’ And John replying to Sir Paul, ‘No, me time is with me baby [Sean]. That’s what I do all the time. I don’t make any music. What about you?’ And Paul said, ‘I’m always making music. I make music every day of my life. I can’t stop making music.’”
Mintz continued, “I thought to myself as I sat on the couch, what would have happened if John bit the bait and said, ‘I got a couple of guitars in the other room. Why don’t I bring them out, you know, just for the hell of it?’ And the two of them could have sat in the living room and maybe changed the face of contemporary music … one more time.”
Mintz told Corgan that after the conversation, Paul and Linda stayed for about another hour and then left. He described the whole evening as “anti-climactic.”
Mintz Asked Lennon How He Felt About Seeing McCartney After He Left
Elliot also told Corgan that, after the McCartneys had left, he recalled asking Lennon how he felt about seeing Paul that day.
“He said, ‘What do you mean, how did it feel to me?’” Mintz said John responded. “And I said, ‘Was there any tension?’ He … was dismissive. He said, ‘You were with us all afternoon.’ I mean, the two of them have known each other since they were nine years old, practically.”
Wrapping up his comments about the meeting, Elliot said, “So … I’ve mentioned this story to a couple of the real Beatle historian people who believe that that was the last time that [John and Paul] were together. I can’t attest to that, and it’s my point of view. Sir Paul has not discussed that visit at all.”
You can check out Corgan’s full interview with Mintz at Billy’s official YouTube channel.
(Photo by Don Paulsen/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)