Fact Check

Is This Pic of John Lennon Playing Guitar for Spock Real?

Imagine this pic was doctored. It isn't hard to do.

Published April 12, 2017

Claim:
A photograph shows John Lennon playing the guitar on the hood of a truck with "Star Trek" actor Leonard Nimoy.

On 11 April 2017, a photograph appearing to showing John Lennon playing the guitar on the hood of a truck with Spock actor Leonard Nimoy made the rounds on social media after the Twitter account @VeryOldPics posted it:

This image was digitally altered.

The original photograph was taken by Astrid Kirchherr and featured Lennon sitting on the hood of a vehicle by his lonesome circa 1960. The image of Nimoy was taken from a photograph that showed the Spock actor leaning against his 1964 Buick Riviera:

Another equally fake (although slightly more plausible) version of this image featured musician Elvis Presley in place of Spock:

The image of Elvis was reportedly taken sometime between 1958 and 1960 during his time in the United States army. It was then flipped and superimposed into a picture of Lennon to make it appear as if the two legendary musicians were hanging out.

Here is a look at the original photograph of Lennon (left), the composite image of Lennon and Presley (center), and the original image of Presley (right):

The original photograph of the Beatles' singer did not feature Elvis or Leonard Nimoy, but simply Lennon by himself on the hood of a vehicle. The singer did, however, pose with two other musicians, Stuart Sutcliffe and George Harrison, while sitting on the hood of this same vehicle. That photograph can be seen at the 8:35 mark of the following video about "The Lost Beatle:"

Sources

BBC.  "Looking Back at the Birth of The Beatles."     2 October 2012.

Dan Evon is a former writer for Snopes.

Article Tags