May Pang

Ono's show coincided with Lennon's 31st birthday, and a party was held at the Hotel Syracuse, which was attended by Ringo Starr, Phil Spector, and Elliot Mintz.

May Fung Yee Pang (born October 24, 1950) is an American former music executive.

She worked for John Lennon and Yoko Ono as a personal assistant and production coordinator.

In 1970, she began work in New York as a receptionist at ABKCO Records, Allen Klein's management office, which at that time represented Apple Records and three former Beatles: Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr.

Pang was asked to help Lennon and Ono with their avant-garde film projects, Up Your Legs Forever and Fly, in December 1970.

Pang then became Lennon and Ono's secretary, factotum and gofer in New York City and Britain.

This led to a permanent position as their personal assistant when the Lennons moved from London to Manhattan in 1971.

Pang coordinated an art exhibition in Syracuse, New York, on October 9, 1971, for Ono's This Is Not Here art show at the Everson Museum.

When Lennon and Ono separated in 1973, Pang and Lennon began a relationship that lasted more than 18 months.

Lennon later referred to this time as his "Lost Weekend".

In mid-1973, Pang was working on the recording of Lennon's Mind Games album.

Lennon and Ono were having marital problems, and Ono suggested to Pang that she become Lennon's companion.

Ono explained that she and Lennon were not getting along, they had been arguing and were growing apart, and that Lennon would start seeing other women.

She pointed out that Lennon had said he found Pang sexually attractive.

Pang replied that she could never start a relationship with Lennon as he was her employer and married.

Ono ignored Pang's protests and said that she would arrange everything.

Ono later confirmed this conversation in an interview.

At the time Lennon had his 18-month relationship with Pang, he was in a period of his life that he later referred to as his "Lost Weekend", in reference to the film and novel of the same title.

In October 1973, Lennon and Pang left New York for Los Angeles to promote Mind Games, and decided to stay for a while, living at lawyer Harold Seider's apartment for a couple of days and then Lou Adler's house.

While there, Lennon was inspired to embark on two recording projects: to make an album of the old rock 'n' roll songs that inspired him to become a musician, and to produce another artist.

In December 1973, Lennon collaborated with Phil Spector to record the oldies album Rock 'n' Roll.

Lennon's drinking and Spector's erratic behavior (which included his firing a gun in the studio control room) caused the sessions to break down.

Then Spector, who claimed to have been in a car accident, took the session tapes and became unreachable.

In March 1974, Lennon began producing Harry Nilsson's Pussy Cats album, thus named to counter the "bad boy" image the pair had earned in the media with two drinking incidents at the Troubadour.

The first was when Lennon placed a Kotex on his forehead and scuffled with a waitress at a concert given by Ann Peebles, who had released "I Can't Stand the Rain", one of Lennon's current favorite records; and the second, two weeks later when Lennon and Nilsson were ejected from the same club after heckling the Smothers Brothers.

Lennon thought it would be a good idea for the musicians to live under one roof to ensure they would get to the studio on time, so Pang rented a beach house in Santa Monica for her, Lennon, Nilsson, Ringo Starr and Keith Moon to live.

At this time, Pang encouraged Lennon to reach out to family and friends.

He and Paul McCartney mended fences and played together for the first and only time after the breakup of the Beatles (see A Toot and a Snore in '74).

Pang also arranged for Julian Lennon to visit his father for the first time in almost four years.

Julian began to see his father more regularly.

Pang published two books about her relationship with Lennon; a memoir, Loving John (Warner, 1983), and a book of photographs, Instamatic Karma (St. Martin's Press, 2008).

A documentary about their relationship, The Lost Weekend: A Love Story, was produced in 2022.

Pang was married to producer Tony Visconti from 1989 to 2000 and has two children.

Pang was born in Manhattan.

She is the daughter of Chinese immigrants and grew up in the Spanish Harlem section of New York City with an elder sister and an adopted brother, both of whom were born in China.

Pang's mother owned and operated a laundry business in the area.

The Pang family left Spanish Harlem when the tenements where they lived were scheduled to be razed, moving to an apartment near 97th Street and 3rd Avenue in Manhattan.

After graduating from Saint Michael Academy, Pang attended New York City Community College.

She aspired to be a model, but modeling agencies reportedly told her she was too "ethnic".

Pang's early jobs included being a song-plugger, which meant encouraging artists to record songs written by songwriters.