Paul McCartney acquired the rights to the cartoon character Rupert The Bear in early April 1970.
The news was announced on 7 April, when McCartney’s lawyer and brother-in-law John Eastman issued a press release in the US. It also contained news of the imminent McCartney album.
McCartney had remained a fan of the Rupert stories since his childhood, and while reading them to Heather Eastman, he recognised their creative potential. He approached Sir Max Aitken, the Daily Express editor, and persuaded him to sell the film rights.
The acquisition was handled by McCartney Productions Ltd, which had been formed on 12 February.
I ended up going to see Sir Max Aitken who was the head of the Daily Express at the time, in his big office in Fleet Street, and said, ‘Look, Max, baby, we’ve got to keep Rupert in England because if the Yanks get hold of him they’ll make him talk like Winnie the Pooh and he’ll be an American Rupert.’ So I said, ‘You’ve got to let someone like me do it.’ I gave him all the big spiel and he was impressed. So that was how we got the animation rights to do Rupert.
Although McCartney had plans to write and produce a full-length animated cartoon titled Rupert, it never came to fruition. An Apple spokesman told Disc: “At the moment Paul and Rupert are still only in the planning stages. We have no further details.”