Former Wife Of Ringo Starr Dies In Seattle

Maureen Cox Starkey Tigrett, former wife of Beatle Ringo Starr, has died here of complications arising from leukemia treatment, a hospital official said yesterday.

Mrs. Tigrett, 47, of Los Angeles, died Friday at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, spokesman Jerry Vanderwood said. She had been admitted Oct. 20 for treatment of mylodysplastic syndrome, a preleukemic disease.

Starr and their three adult children, and husband Isaac Burton Tigrett and their 7-year-old daughter, Augusta, were with Mrs. Tigrett when she died, Vanderwood said.

Mrs. Tigrett was born Mary Cox in Liverpool, England, where the Beatles began in the early 1960s. Shortly after starting work as a hairdresser, she changed her name to Maureen. She was 15 when she met her first husband, Richard Starkey - better known as Ringo Starr - at Liverpool's Cavern Club in 1962. They married in 1965 and divorced in 1975.

She later married Hard Rock Cafe creator and founder Tigrett, an entrepreneur now developing a series of House of Blues music clubs and restaurants in New Orleans, Cambridge, Mass., and Los Angeles.

The Tigretts had lived in Los Angeles for several years, family friend Bobby Zarem said. A memorial service was tentatively planned there this week, he said.