1952: Yoko Ono’s family moved to the United States when she was 19 years old. She joined them in New York City and attended Sarah Lawrence College.
Two years later, Japanese pianist and musical composer Toshi Ichiyanagi relocated to Manhattan to join the Juilliard School of Music. There he met Yoko Ono, who shared his taste in experimental music, and by 1956 they were wed. Ono’s family disapproved of the young musician, so she eloped with him. For both, it was their first marriages.
But their relationship didn’t last long. By 1962, they divorced after having no children.
Within months, she moved to Japan to be with her parents, and her depression was so severe that, at her family’s urging, she entered a mental institution.
Anthony Cox was an American fan of Yoko Ono’s artwork. He wore several professional hats: jazz musician, film director, and artist.
Cox traveled to Japan to secure her release from the mental hospital.
November, 1962: They married. However, due to a legal snafu, Ono had to annul her marriage to Cox, finalize her divorce from Ichiyanagi, and remarry Cox again in June 1963.
August 8, 1963: Yoko Ono gave birth to her only daughter - Kyoko Chan Cox.
Ono’s international career thrived with performances and exhibits in Japan and New York while Cox spent the majority of time raising their child.
She was in London in 1966 at one of her art showings when she first met John Lennon. Their mutual attraction was immediate.
Ono’s marriage to Cox suffered, and by February 1969 they divorced. She wed Lennon one month later.
A custody battle over Kyoko began, which Cox won. He remarried a fellow American and relocated his new wife Melinda and Kyoko to Denmark. Yoko and John visited them on New Year’s Day 1970 to reconcile, but it was short-lived.
Majorca, Spain: Cox and Melinda took Kyoko to the Mediterranean island where they studied with an Indian mystic. John and Yoko appeared and allegedly tried to take away eight-year-old Kyoko. She was returned to Cox.
A judge ordered Cox to permit Ono visitation, but Anthony became paranoid that she might try to take their child away forever.
Christmas Eve, 1971: Cox and Kyoko disappeared. Yoko had no knowledge of her daughter’s whereabouts, and she publicly pleaded for Kyoko’s return. She and Lennon launched a search that gained international attention. But Anthony Cox and his family went off the grid and remained elusive.
They had joined a little-known religious sect called Living Word Fellowship, also known as The Walk.
The Christian group’s roots were in 1950s Southern California, but by the 70s its churches flourished in Mexico, Canada, and Brazil as well as the US. The Cox family lived for a while in rural Iowa until they settled in California.
Anthony Cox admitted years later that the cult had indoctrinated him to some bizarre thoughts, and he escaped in 1977. To avoid the cult, he and his wife and daughter remained underground.
Cox and Kyoko never contacted Ono except to send her a telegram to express condolences after John Lennon’s murder in 1980. But they wouldn’t give away where they lived.
In 1986, Cox recorded a video memoir of his exploits with Kyoko, then 23, named as a producer. In it, he detailed his
Although Yoko Ono asked for reconciliation over the years, Kyoko did not see her mother again until 1998. Yoko was thrilled to be reunited. Kyoko met her half-brother Sean for the first time. She hadn’t seen her step-brother Julian in nearly 30 years.
Kyoko Cox has maintained a private life in the US. Today, she is a retired teacher past age 60, the mother of two adult children, and is still close to her own mother who is now 91.
Anthony Cox is still alive and in his mid-80s, but his whereabouts are not public.
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