LONDON (AFP) — A pay slip allegedly bearing the signature of the woman who inspired the Beatles' Eleanor Rigby has been sold for 115,000 pounds, auctioneers said Friday.
The auction went ahead despite Beatles legend Paul McCartney pouring cold water on the suggestion that the document finally solves a puzzle over a figure he insists was entirely fictitious.
"The official certificate has emerged as a key clue to one of the great unanswered questions: who was Eleanor Rigby?" said the Fame Bureau, which bills itself as the world's top auction house for rock and film memorabilia.
Annie Mawson, who had hoped the item would raise up to 500,000 pounds, said McCartney's office sent her the document after she wrote asking for a donation for a music therapy centre.
The pay slip dates from 1911 and originally came from City Hospital in Liverpool, McCartney's home city where Rigby worked.
"Eleanor Rigby" -- McCartney's song about a lonely woman who "died in the church and was buried along with her name/Nobody came" -- appeared on the 1966 Beatles album "Revolver" and was the B-side to the single "Yellow Submarine".
McCartney has previously said the name Eleanor was inspired by actress Eleanor Bron, who starred in the Beatles film "Help!" in 1965 and that Rigby came from the name of a wine merchant.
In the 1980s, a grave was discovered at Saint Peter's Church in Woolton, Liverpool, where McCartney and bandmate John Lennon used to sunbathe as teenagers, bearing the name Eleanor Rigby.
The ex-Beatle dismissed the new claim earlier this month.
"Eleanor Rigby is a totally fictitious character that I made up," McCartney said in a statement on November 12, reacting to the announcement that the document was going under the hammer.
"If someone wants to spend money buying a document to prove a fictitious character exists, that's fine with me," he said.
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