Exploring May Pang and John Lennon’s relationship in ‘The Lost Weekend: A Love Story’

The ballad of John Lennon and Yoko Ono has been told and re-told; it’s an essential part of rock’n’roll lore, complete with myths – Yoko broke up the Beatles, for one – and other exaggerations. Lost in the grand sweep of the Lennon and Ono saga is the story of May Pang, the quintessential forgotten woman.

“The Lost Weekend: A Love Story,” a documentary opening in select theaters on April 13, recasts that period in the early ‘70s, giving Pang center stage. 

The film recounts that Ono thought she was losing her husband and so foisted a reluctant Pang, the couple’s personal assistant, into Lennon’s arms in order to control the relationship and snatch Lennon back when she was ready. Lennon did ultimately return to Ono, but only after the 18-month affair between Pang and the decade-older ex-Beatle became far more intimate and serious than anyone anticipated; Pang also helped reunite Lennon with his son Julian, from whom he’d been estranged. 

Eve Brandstein, one of the film’s three directors, first approached Pang about the project a quarter-century ago. Pang wasn’t interested, but the women became friends and eventually Pang changed her mind. Brandstein, whose background is mostly as a casting director, brought in co-directors Richard Kaufman, who has a long career in editing, and Stuart Samuels, whose long career producing and directing documentaries includes “The Beatles: Eight Days A Week – The Touring Years.”

The three recently spoke by video about making the film and about telling the story of Pang, who Kaufman describes as “a scrappy girl from Spanish Harlem.” The interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

Q. What drew you to tell her story?

Brandstein: I knew the surface just from the news at the time, but May’s story was obscured by this other narrative. The idea of doing this untold story of the girl who was left behind intrigued me, especially in the context of today’s ideas about privilege and whose stories we tell. 

Kaufman: Eve wanted to make sure this got told as a love story, and that’s what resonates.

Samuels: May had been a footnote and we wanted to tell this from May’s point of view. We were not trying to make an objective documentary. 

Brandstein: In a sense, the film became a memoir. We don’t show the people interviewed at the age they are now – except for Julian Lennon – we hear their voices and we see pictures reflecting them from back then. Only in the last act do we see May now.

Q. How important was it to have May’s personal photos and John’s doodles to help see beyond the public image of John in that period?

Samuels: We were in the opposite situation of Peter Jackson – he had more than 100 hours of footage to tell the story of “Get Back.” We have barely any footage of John and May but that’s because this is a film about May’s private moments with John. You get to see a different side of John Lennon and it humanizes him. 

Kaufman: John gave May a Nikon and a Polaroid. He liked seeing his life through May’s eyes so she created a very intimate portrait of him and them together. May also still has 17 of his doodles, which are in the movie and which also help tell the story of their relationship. Then Stuart got us footage and stills that went beyond those personal photos and drawings. 

Samuels: I had just come off “8 Days a Week,” so I called up a gatekeeper of the Beatle archive world and he said the collectors wanted to help because they think May got a raw deal. 

Q. If, as the film shows, an employer pressured an assistant 17 years her junior into a relationship with her husband today, you can imagine that would be a cancel culture moment. Did you have to be careful with that part of the story? 

Brandstein: We speak to context in the film, and this was definitely a different era. But there was a power imbalance. May was terrified when Yoko first approached her about this idea. May was so young – she was a baby still – dealing with people who were her bosses and were quite a bit older. We tried to avoid making Yoko the evil one; we don’t have her story. 

Q. But May worked to repair that rift with Julian.

Brandstein: At 22, most people don’t have their lives together, but here was this young woman recognizing that John did not have a relationship with his son because of Yoko. When I asked her about bringing them back together, she said, “I didn’t want what happened to me and my father to happen to somebody else.” 

Kaufman: May was crying real tears when she told us the story about Julian. 

Brandstein: May made it easy for everybody. May helped John and Cynthia have closure and Julian loved the friendship between May and Cynthia, which lasted for the rest of Cynthia’s life. 

Q. The oft-told version of John’s “Lost Weekend” story was that he was drinking and carousing in L.A. with Harry Nilsson, Ringo Starr and Keith Moon, but the movie shows that in addition to reuniting with Julian, he also sobered up and lived with May in Manhattan.

Samuels: ‘The Lost Weekend’ is thought of as an empty period of John’s life but it’s not. 

Kaufman: That’s why we call it a love story in the title. When she was sick one night, John said, “Don’t worry, I’ll go to the store and get you something” and she said, “You are going to go to the store? Do you even have a wallet?” But he did go and get her something for her stomach. It was a real love story. 

Brandstein: It’s one of the most productive periods of his solo career.

Samuels: May was with John when he met David Bowie [with whom he co-wrote “Fame”] and when he met Elton John [with whom he recorded “Whatever Gets You Through the Night” and John’s cover of “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds.”]

Q. The film shows that as a couple they were much more social than John and Yoko, with photos of David Bowie or Paul and Linda McCartney dropping by the apartment. 

Brandstein: May opened up his life and all these friends showed up. It was freedom for him.