Ringo and Barbara ... and Maureen

Ringo and Barbara are still married today, and are set to celebrate their ruby wedding anniversary next year.

Ringo's first wife was Maureen Cox, a hairdresser who he met at the Cavern Club. They married in 1965. Ringo's proposal, Maureen's discovery that she was pregnant, and the wedding, all happened in the space of about a month; the actual order of events is not clear. Their first child, Zak, was born some seven months after the wedding, and they went on to have two more children: Jason (born in 1967) and a daughter, Lee (1970).

It was around 1970 (also the time of the Beatles' break–up) that the marriage began to run into difficulties. Ringo was having problems with alcohol abuse, and embarking on repeated infidelities; and Maureen had an affair with George Harrison. After they finally divorced in 1975, Ringo described the marriage as "dysfunctional", and admitted to being "a drunk, a wife–beater and an absent father".

Not long after the divorce, Maureen began living with the American businessman Isaac Tigrett, one of the founders of the Hard Rock Cafe chain of restaurants. They had one child, a daughter born in 1987, and married in 1989.

Maureen died in 1994, aged 48, from complications of leukaemia.

Meanwhile, Ringo had met Barbara Bach on the set of the 1981 American slapstick comedy film Cavemen (in which he played a runtish caveman, and she played the beautiful, but shallow – and also unavailable – woman he lusts after). They married in April 1981, and split their time between homes in Los Angeles, London and Monte Carlo. Ringo was listed at No. 56 in the Sunday Times Rich List 2011, with an estimated personal wealth of £150 million, and in 2012 he was estimated to be the wealthiest drummer in the world. (And he wasn't even the best drummer in the Beatles.)

Ringo and Barbara have no children together, but he now has eight grandchildren, and in 2016 he was the first Beatle (living or dead) to become a great–grandfather.

Barbara Bach is described by Wikipedia as "one of the most sought–after faces in the '60s". In 1977 she portrayed the Russian spy Anya Amasova in the The Spy Who Loved Me (opposite Roger Moore as Bond). She had previously starred along with two other Bond girls, Claudine Auger and Barbara Bouchet, in the Italian giallo mystery Black Belly of the Tarantula.

Barbara Bach should not be confused with Catherine Bach, who played Daisy Duke in The Dukes of Hazzard. They are not related.

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