Was Eleanor Rigby a real person?

BRY2K

Yes she was- but she was not necessarily the inspiration for McCartney's 1966 classic tune. McCartney said he came up with the name Eleanor from actress Eleanor Bron, who had starred with the Beatles in the film Help!. Rigby came from the name of a store in Bristol, Rigby & Evens Ltd, Wine & Spirit Shippers, that he noticed while seeing his then-girlfriend Jane Asher act in The Happiest Days Of Your Life. He recalled in 1984, "I just liked the name. I was looking for a name that sounded natural. Eleanor Rigby sounded natural." In the 1980s, a grave of an Eleanor Rigby was discovered in the graveyard of St. Peter's Parish Church in Woolton, Liverpool, and a few yards away from that, another tombstone with the last name McKenzie scrawled across it. Many years later McCartney stated that the strange coincidence between reality and lyric could be a product of his subconsciousness, rather than being a meaningless fluke. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleanor_Rigby For your reference (or maybe you have even seen it personally, billy) here is photo of the Eleanor Rigby Statue in Stanley Street. http://www.sjsfiles.btinternet.co.uk/img0075.htm Jun 20 08, 3:52 AM