John Lennon, in full John Winston Ono Lennon, (born October 9, 1940, Liverpool, England—died December 8, 1980, New York, New York, U.S.), leader or coleader of the British rock group the Beatles, author and graphic artist, solo recording artist, and collaborator with Yoko Ono on recordings and other art projects. Lennon’s fun-loving working-class parents married briefly and late and declined to raise their quick, sensitive, gifted son. Separated traumatically from each of them by age five, he was raised strictly (in Woolton, a Liverpool suburb) by his maternal aunt, Mimi Smith, whose husband died during Lennon’s adolescence, as did his