Yoko Ono has become iconic in her own right. From dance clubs to the lounge chairs of Baby Boomers, her name is known in every country of the world.I spoke with the legendary 78-year-old proponent of peace and love just prior to the opening of an exhibit of her late husband John Lennon’s art work in Princeton.
Each day, she goes about her business of sharing her philosophies and John Lennon’s messages. Talking with her is like meeting your best friend’s best friend for the first time: only briefly unfamiliar.
In Yoko Ono’s office in New York City, callers on hold listen to her singing from a cut on her own album. Her voice is small but imperative with lessons she wants to offer. It is at once recognizably a musically educated voice.
She is candid and completely honest. There’s never a hint of superiority, of elitism or boredom, although she has been asked the same questions, a million times over. She doesn’t pander, pontificate or condescend.
“You can ask me anything you want, it’s okay. I’ll give you my thoughts and ideas on it,” she says. She offers a candor uncommon for an interview of a local mayor, much less a superstar celebrity. Yoko Ono is gracious and welcoming when meeting strangers. She is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and in conversation, her intelligence and logic are revealed.
For Lennon fans: Controversy and “Gimme Some Truth”
More than 30 years after his assassination, fans and pop culture aficionados are still trying to peel away the layers of news stories, half-truths and unknowns to see what happened in the lives of The Beatles, Yoko Ono and John Lennon.
Millions of Beatles fans worldwide bought into the assertion that “Yoko broke up the Beatles.” She was vilified and derided as a gold-digging negative power on John Lennon’s life. “How could he leave his wife and marry her? What could he see in her? She’s even older than him!”
Lennon was quite defensive of his relationship with Ono, whom he publically worshipped.
While exercising her strong sense of self, she was often referred to as the “Dragon Lady.” At the time, female confidence and independence were more suppressed than valued.
Private facts and public opinion were seriously misaligned. Yoko Ono was born into luxury in Tokyo, the fair child of a wealthy Japanese banking family in 1933. She seems to have inherited her great-grandfather Zenijiro Yasuda’s business acumen. He founded Yasuda Bank. Her father was a banker and classical pianist. She remains a wealthy woman.
