Media Day! Lee Starkey
(1970)
Lee Parkin Starkey was born in London, at Queen Charlotte's and Chelsea Hospital just months after the Beatles had broken up, on 11 November 1970. Her middle name, Parkin, was reintroduced a former Starkey family name.
While Starr went to California, Maureen stayed at home caring for Starkey and her two older brothers, Jason and Zak Starkey. Their parents separated in 1974 and divorced in 1975, when she was almost 5 years old. Maureen got custody of the children while Starr was allowed visitation rights.
On 27 April 1981, Starr remarried actress Barbara Bach. Lee Starkey was one of the bridesmaids, alongside new step-sister, Francesca Gregorini.
During the rest of the 1980s, she continued on with school, but was unable to choose a career. After leaving King Alfred’s School in Hampstead at the age of 16 with no qualifications, she worked for a time at Tower Records and enrolled briefly in drama school, but dropped out, having disliked it. She enrolled in a make-up artist's school and though she achieved a diploma, also disliked the activity. She also worked at Hard Rock Cafe, which was owned by her step-father, Isaac Tigrett. In addition, she co-starred in an Oldsmobile car commercial with her father in 1989.
As a teenager, Lee was into the punk/goth scene and dressed in black with purple hair.
In the late 1980s, with friend Christian Paris, Lee opened a clothes boutique called Planet Alice in Portobello Road, London, which specialised in 1960s-era clothes.
Her mother married Isaac Tigrett in 27 May 1989 and moved to Los Angeles, prompting Lee to ask her partner if they could relocate their boutique there, which they did in 1991, when Lee was 20. At the official opening of the store, situated on Melrose Avenue, Ringo Starr and Bach and the Tigretts were in attendance.
During the year, Lee moved into a house in Beverly Hills, which she shared with her brothers, Jason and Zak, her mother, step-father, and half sister, Augusta, but when her boutique closed within a year, she returned to Britain, to the flat next to Warwick Avenue where Starr used to live in the 1970s.
Lee continued as a fashion designer after the shop's closure but her career came to a hiatus within a couple of years due to events in her personal life.
In 1994, Starkey rushed to her mother's side when Maureen was diagnosed with leukaemia. She stayed with her mother, taking care of her. On 30 December 1994, she was at her mother's bedside when she died.
In August 1995, Starkey collapsed and was rushed to the hospital, where she was diagnosed with a brain tumour. She had previously had numbness in her leg and arm. Starr and Zak Starkey, touring together in the United States, cancelled their band tour to be by her side. She was transferred to a hospital in the United States to continue on with her treatments. Within three weeks, she was undergoing a second operation at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston. She was then given radiation therapy.
Christian Paris was frequently seen accompanying her when she underwent check-ups in the years that followed. She moved into her stepfather’s house on Mulholland Drive in the San Fernando Valley to recuperate. Her maternal grandmother, Flo Cox, also lived there, together with her half-sister, Augusta.
She returned to Britain in December 1995 to spend Christmas with the family.
In 1998, Starkey sang backup vocals on “La De Da” on Ringo Starr’s Vertical Man.
In 2001, the tumour returned, Starkey went back for more treatment. She lives in London and is currently a make-up artist and a fledging fashion designer. Since 2006, she's dating Kasabian's guitarist Jay Mehler, and on June 2009, they announced that they were expecting triplets.[1]
She has been seen at her brothers' concerts, fashion shows given by Stella McCartney, and other charitable events, while keeping a private profile.
70s
80s
1990s
Look it's Ringo Starr Boy George! No wonder Ringo never goes without a beard nowadays.
2000s
