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Happy Birthday John Lennon: Remembering the Beatles Legend on His Would-Be 81st

October 9th marks John Lennon’s would-be 81st birthday on this planet.

Lennon’s legendary life can’t be described without his work in music. Starting the group with Paul McCartney, George Harrison and a myriad of drummers (later nailed down by Ringo Starr,) the group became the biggest in the world by 1963.

With Lennon writing, playing guitar and singing, he was a driving force of the band’s 20 No. 1 hits. However, by the end of 1970, the band had broken up and gone their separate way. This led to a successful and creative decade of solo music from Lennon including the iconic tracks “Imagine” and “Give Peace a Chance.”

However, the music legend’s career and life came to an end when he was assassinated on December 8, 1980.

The legend actually shares the special day with his son, Sean, who was born on October 9th, 1975. Although he became a household name for his time spent with The Beatles, Lennon’s influence spanned far beyond that.

Now, journey with us as we take a look at some of his less talked about works.

John Lennon Authored Two Books Before His Passing

John Lennon is still dubbed one of the greatest songwriters of all time by Rolling Stone, next to the likes of Bob Dylan and Beatles cohort Paul McCartney. He just had a knack for words. Actually, he even authored two books before his passing. They saw notable success, though the reviews stayed pretty mixed.  He published “In His Own Write” in 1964 and then “A Spaniard In The Works” a year later in 1965.

He joked about his writing saying “I always set out to write children’s book, but they’d turn out to be not for children…”

You can actually hear John Lennon read part of his works and discuss them here:

Remembering That Time He Starred in a Comedy About WWII

Lennon spent a lot of his life fighting for the concept of World Peace. He was heavily influenced by the Vietnam War and often denounced it. He and Yoko went on several retreats where they invited media to discuss as much. They even recorded some pacifist anthems together like “Give Peace a Chance.” 

Although John Lennon kept those strong feelings about War until his very end, some people may find it interesting that he actually starred in a War-based movie once. Filming took place in Spain, so he moved to Almería during that process. Richard Lester directed the WWII comedy named “How I Won the War.”

It comes from Patrick Ryan’s novel of the same name and reportedly takes the name as Lennon’s only “non-musical role.” Like the mixed reviews for his writing above, the reviews for the flick weren’t all that great either. Still, we’ll let you decide what you think for yourself.

Whether it’s your first time hearing about the project, or you just want a recap, here’s a trailer: