You are 76 years of age. You need Knee surgery. You can’t afford it because you live in the US and health care is nuts. So what do you do? You call a man you were engaged to 50 years ago and ask him for help. Thing is, you haven’t spoken to him in nearly 50 years either! He agrees to pay for everything. He’s Elton John!
According to Britain’s Daily Express, Linda Woodrow Hanlon, who was engaged to the pre-fame “Rocketman” in the late-1960’s, reached out to Elton to help pay for her knee surgery.
Hanlon — who now lives in Dallas and is the manager of a doctor’s office — still refers to Elton by his given named Reg, and recalled, “I sent a couple of emails to his management and put in a couple of details that only Reg might remember. They were little things I did to prove who I was.
Elton’s team responded, explaining he would be happy to help her out financially: “I am so touched by Reg. After all these years. It’s so kind. I am thrilled to bits that he is offering to help.”
She went on to say, “When Reg started out, I was paying the rent, paying the bills and paying for the food. . . We were weeks from getting married. We had new furniture and a flat in north London. His mother had even ordered the cake.”
Perhaps the most important thing to come out of Elton John’s short-lived relationship with Linda Woodrow Hanlon was Elton and Bernie Taupin‘s 1975 classic, “Someone Saved My Life Tonight.” The song was based on Elton’s half-hearted suicide attempt in an effort to escape the impending clutches of marriage.
