Stu Sutcliffe was born on June 23, 1940

Stuart Sutcliffe was born on June 23rd of 1940 in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Stu Sutcliffe was an art school friend of Beatles legend John Lennon and played bass with The Beatles for two years before leaving the band to concentrate on his art and to live with his fiance Astrid Kirchherr in Hamburg, Germany.

Sutcliffe can be heard playing bass with the Beatles (They were a five piece with Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison all on guitars at the time. Pete Best was the drummer) on three tracks on the Beatles Anthology 1 collection: "Hallelujah, I Love Her So," "You'll Be Mine," and "Cayenne."

Sutcliffe's role with the Beatles early career and his relationships with Astrid Kirchherr and John Lennon are the basis of the movie Backbeat.

Sutcliffe died at the age of 21 on April 10th of 1962 from a brain hemorrhage. It is not known for sure what caused the hemorrhage.

Below you can see a self portrait painted by Stu Sutcliffe:


Two "Making Of" videos for the Backbeat movie (which was released in 1994.)