Cynthia's Transformation

Juliette Gréco and Brigitte Bardot

There's a bit of a conflict regarding when Cynthia went from being a brunette to a blonde. It's been long said that Cynthia changed her hair color after she and John started going out. However, in the last 15 years or so of her life, Cynthia insisted that she turned blonde before becoming John's girlfriend in hopes of getting his attention. Let's get one thing on record here: I do not want to make Cynthia into a liar. Not my intention at all; I am more on getting the timeline straighten out. Maybe her memories got jumbled up? So much had happened in 40 to 50 years since, but she had made quite a few errors-- even her first book, A Twist of Lennon published in 1978, had screwed up errors. However, there are photos in existence of John and Cynthia together with Cynthia sporting a short dark hair do so let's use those as our main reference.

“Phyl and I experimented with pale lipstick and black eyeliner and attempted to turn ourselves into blonde bombshells with the aid of Hiltone hair dye. Quite often we ended up an odd shade of orange but we didn't care, we were having fun.”

Cynthia, 1994

When John and Cynthia started dating in late 1958, Cynthia's hair was short, brown with red tints, and she dressed in 'twin sets’, classic 1950’s fashion. She had her hair done by her mother's hairdresser that made her look older and old-fashioned. When Cynthia arrived at Liverpool College of Art, she got a real wide-eyed opener of bohemian, teddy boy styles in fishnet stockings, tighter clothes, make-up, and longer hair. During his teenage years, John was highly fascinated, maybe obsessed enough, of Juliette Greco and, especially, Brigitte Bardot. He had a poster of Brigitte taped on the ceiling over his bed.

“This was a time when John had dual fancies for his femme fatale. One dream fantast for him, as for most other boys, including Paul McCartney, was the fantabulous blonde sex-kitten Brigitte Bardot. The other was her dianetic opposite in complexion, the sultry Juliette Greco. John had posters of both women. I can imagine him lying on his bed deciding which one to have for himself! Brigitte won the day and Cynthia, a natural beauty anyway, duly transformed her long fair hair into a dazzling shade of blonde.”

Julia Baird, 2007

“Unfortunately for Cyn, she happened to come along at the time everyone was trying to turn their girlfriends into a bargain basement Bardot. We appreciate happened to be at the age when ravishing sex goddess taking off her clothes was the fantasy for us boys. We were all smitten. So the girls had to be blonde, look rather like Brigitte, and preferably pout a lot. John and I used to have these secret talks intimating, although not actually saying it, that we could be quite happy for our girlfriends to be Liverpool's answer to Bardot. My girlfriend was called Dot and, of course, John had Cynthia. We got them both to go blonde and wear mini skirts. It's terrible really. But that's the way it was.”

Paul McCartney

Not only Cynthia changed her hair, but she changed her wardrobe too with fishnet stockings, mini skirts, tighter shirts-- mostly in black.

Cynthia did occasionally went back to her natural brunette hair color; in early 1967 during the recording of Sgt. Pepper and in 1968 while in India with the Maharishi. Other than that for most of her life, Cynthia stayed blonde.