Astrid Kirchherr

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Print cover featuring an early photo of The Beatles, signed by Astrid Kirchherr.

Astrid Kirchherr (born 20 May 1938) is a German photographer and artist. (Kirchherr's photos have been exhibited in Hamburg, Bremen, London, Liverpool,New York, Washington, D.C., Tokyo, Vienna, and at the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame.)

Astrid was born in 1938 in Hamburg, Germany, the daughter of an executive for the West German branch of the Ford Motor Co. Following her father's death she was raised by her widowed mother, Nielsa, in the Hamburg suburb of Altona. Following graduation from high school Astrid enrolled in the Meisterschule with an eye toward studying fashion design, but she soon demonstrated particular talent in black-and-white photography. The school's main photographic tutor, Reinhardt Wolf, convinced her to switch majors, promising that he would hire her as his assistant when she graduated. (Bill Harry, The Encyclopedia Of Beatle People. London: Casell PLC, 1997.)

In the late 1950s and early '60s Astrid and her art-school friends in Hamburg were involved with the European existentialist movement, whose followers were nicknamed Exies. In 1995 she told BBC Radio Merseyside: "Our philosophy then, because we were only little kids, was wearing black clothes and going around looking moody. Of course, we had a clue who [Jean-Paul] Sartre was. We got inspired by all the French artists and writers, because that was the closest we could get. England was so far away, and America was out of the question. So France was the nearest. So we got all the information from France, and we tried to dress like the French existentialists. ... We wanted to be free, we wanted to be different, and tried to be cool, as we call it now."

During the Beatles' early career in Hamburg, Astrid befriended and captivated the members of the group. She first met the Beatles in October 1960at a club when she was dating fellow student Klaus Voorman, a doctor's son from Berlin. (In 1966 Voorman designed and created the cover to the Beatles' "Revolver" album). She ended up leaving him for Stuart Sutcliffe who was The Beatles' bass guitarist at the time. Astrid and Stuart ended up becoming officially engaged.

Kirchherr is incorrectly credited with inventing the Beatles' moptop haircut. She is quoted in The Beatles Off The Record by Keith Badman: "All that shit people said, that I created their hairstyle, that's rubbish! Lots of German boys had that hairstyle. Stuart had it for a long while and the others copied it. I suppose the most important thing I contributed to them was friendship."^[1] Noted Beatles expert Badman believes that Kirchherr is mistaken in stating that Sutcliffe was the first member of the Beatles to have the hairsyle. The first were, according to Jürgen Vollmer, John Lennon and Paul McCartney.

The person responsible for the moptop haircut was Jürgen Vollmer. Vollmer is also quoted in "The Beatles Off The Record": "I was combing my hair forward as an act against the bourgeois horrors in Hamburg. The barbers here always cut it too short, so I cut my own hair, but I never did anyone else's. So when John and Paul came to Paris, I gave them this haircut. It was their idea to have it the same as mine."^[1]

In 1995 Astrid told BBC Radio Merseyside: "All my friends in art school used to run around with this sort of ... what you call Beatles haircut. And my boyfriend then, Klaus Voorman, had this hairstyle, and Stuart liked it very, very much. He was the first one who really got the nerve to get the Brylcreem out of his hair, and asking me to cut his hair for him. ... Pete [Best, the Beatles' original drummer] has really curly hair, and it wouldn't work.

"I think it [Astrid's contribution to the Beatles' style] is somehow misinterpreted. Because we inspired one another in every way, as far as clothes were concerned. Because I nicked their leather gear, you know. I had the leather pants and leather jacket, and they liked my suede stuff and collarless jackets and high boots. So it was giving and taking, all the time. I wasn't sitting there telling them what to do." (Scott Wheeler: Charlie Lennon: Uncle To A Beatle. Boulder, Colorado: Outskirts Press (2005).)

When the Beatles prepared to return home to England at the close of their second Hamburg residency, Stuart Sutcliffe chose to leave the group and remain in Hamburg with Astrid. In 1962 she devotedly nursed Stuart through his devastating final illness; he died in her arms from a cerebral hemorrhage while they were rushing to hospital in an ambulance.

Several years later Astrid married English drummer Gibson Kemp, eight years her junior, who had replaced Ringo Starr in Rory Storm & The Hurricanes in 1962 and who went on to perform in a band with Klaus Voorman under the name Paddy, Klaus & Gibson. That marriage ended in divorce after seven years. Astrid went on to marry a German businessman, but that marriage also proved unsuccessful.

The 1993 feature film "Backbeat" deals with the early years of the Beatles, concentrating mainly on the relationships among Kirchherr, Sutcliffe, and Lennon, with Sheryl Lee, an American actress of Twin Peaks fame, playing the role of Kirchherr. Astrid was also consulted a number of times throughout the creation of the film to "ensure its faithfulness to what truly happened."

In 1995 Astrid published Liverpool Days (London: Genesis Publications Ltd., 1995), a limited-edition, hardcover collection of historic black-and-white photographs that she and her colleague Max Schleler had taken during her first visit to the city in 1964. In August of that year Astrid paid her first return visit to Liverpool in 31 years as a VIP guest at the city's Beatle Week Festival. During her visit she was interviewed live on BBC Radio Merseyside, along with former Wings guitarist Steve Holly and John's uncle Charlie Lennon.

Since the mid-1990s Astrid and her business partner Ulf Kruger have operated the K&K photography shop in Hamburg (http://center-of-beat.com), offering custom vintage prints, books and artwork for sale. K&K periodically helps arrange Beatles conventions and other Beatles-related events in the Hamburg area.