Wonderful Tonight: George Harrison, Eric Clapton, and Me

by Pattie Boyd

  Being the Beatle who took most interest in the business, when Peter Brown needed a signature, Paul was the one he went to. He was easiest to get hold of, living in London, and the one most prepared to come into the office, so Apple was created somewhat in his image. Then Yoko came along with some firm ideas, and John complained that he wanted things changed but it was too late. Paul had also brought in his father-in-law and Linda’s brother on the legal side, which delighted Peter, but the others were resentful and felt that Paul was taking over.

  John wanted Allen Klein, a small, round, ruthless American accountant who had managed the Stones, to manage him. Klein had made the Stones a fortune—far more than the Beatles, even though they’d sold fewer records—and Mick had once sung his praises. But he had fallen out with Klein. They had parted company but Klein had managed to keep the rights to many of the group’s earlier songs. When Mick heard the Beatles were about to meet Klein, he wanted to advise them against him. He rang Peter Brown and told him that the Beatles should not meet with Klein because he could not be trusted.

  Peter insisted that Mick should tell the Beatles so himself, and set up a meeting. But John, in his perverse way, invited Klein to be there too. Mick left. The upshot was that John, George, and Ringo hired Allen Klein, while Paul stuck with his in-laws. Klein promised them all sorts of riches but in the end the relationship soured, as it had with the Stones, and the Beatles ended up suing him.

  While Klein was around, though, he looked after our every need—and was very influential. George and I went to New York for a week in December 1970: George had just made his first solo album, All Things Must Pass, and wanted to be sure it was cut properly before it was released onto the American market. Afterward we planned to go on to Jamaica for a holiday. We flew directly from New York to Montego Bay, where a Customs official was horrified to see that my smallpox vaccination was three months out of date. A nurse promptly gave me a jab, but they couldn’t understand how I’d got into America without an up-to-date certificate. The answer was that one of Allen Klein’s heavies had met us at the airport in New York and rushed us through Immigration and Customs without anyone checking anything.

  By the end of 1970 the Beatles as such had virtually ceased to exist. Many things led to the breakup, and Brian’s death certainly played its part; John’s obsession with Yoko contributed too. The four had never allowed anyone into the recording studio with them, but Yoko not only sat by John throughout every session, he consulted her about the music they were making, which upset Paul. She even moved a bed in because they often recorded through the night. The others were furious but there was nothing they could do about it—John was wrapped up in her. But Yoko aside, they were angry with each other and beginning to go in different directions creatively.

  John was writing more challenging music than he ever had before and becoming more political. He and Yoko had the Plastic Ono Band and he was also making some rather strange films. George was working on his own albums, also recording with the Krishnas, Jackie Lomax, Doris Troy, Billy Preston, and other bands. Ringo had developed a taste for country music. Paul was composing the ballads he had always written and was making his own albums with Linda. The four were establishing their own identities and, having been so close for so long, finding it an uncomfortable process.

  One of John’s films, called Erection, about a hotel being built in Brompton Road, was shown at the Cannes Film Festival and we went to support him, although he and Yoko weren’t there. Cilla Black and her husband Bobby came with us, also Marc Bolan, lead singer with T. Rex, his wife June, and Roger Shine, a friend of Ringo’s, with his girlfriend. We stayed on a sumptuous boat with a crew of thirty-two. There were valets to unpack our suitcases and we each had an entire suite. Ringo conveyed to the chef that he would like chips with everything, so whenever we ordered a glass of wine, along came a bowl of chips. If challenged, the waiter would say, “But Monsieur Starr says that everything he orders must have chips.”

  There had been terrible rows during the recording of Let It Be, which dragged on for six agonizing weeks at the beginning of 1969. It was filmed as part of a fly-on-the-wall documentary for television, directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg at Twickenham Studios. It was fraught with difficulty. At one point George and Paul came to blows and George walked out. Lindsay-Hogg managed to persuade him to come back and they finished the recording at the Apple Studios in Savile Row, then played the title number on the roof to an invited audience.

  The situation reached boiling point in September. John arrived at Kinfauns unannounced, as he often did, with Yoko and told George he was planning to leave the Beatles. It seemed to have come out of the blue. I thought Yoko must have been behind it, wanting to take John in a different direction. George was very angry.

  Also that day George heard that his mother had been ill for eight weeks and was in a critical condition. She hadn’t wanted us to know in case George was busy, but I have no doubt her illness was another reason for his black moods. His brother Harry had telephoned with the news, and when we arrived at the house in Warrington it was clear that he hadn’t been exaggerating. Lying in her bed, Louise Harrison reminded me of my grandmother the last time I’d seen her, just days before she died. Her skin was covered with goose pimples and she was rambling about people in the room whom we couldn’t see.

  Her GP hadn’t done anything other than give her some pills; he thought she was suffering from dementia and hadn’t thought to examine her. When we saw him he asked George for an autograph. We immediately found another doctor, who sent Louise straight to hospital for X-rays. Four hospitals later, we discovered she had a brain tumor. It was inoperable, but a surgeon drilled a hole in her skull to release some fluid and relieve the pressure. Then she had two weeks of radium treatment. We were told her chances of survival were fifty-fifty, and it was sad to watch George try to comfort his father when he himself was so low. Gradually, though, Louise improved. We stayed with her for those two weeks, and in the end, although still in hospital, she was up and dressed, watching television, and telling jokes.

  The illness had set in a couple of months after we had sat up until three or four in the morning at Kinfauns watching Neil Armstrong take his first steps on the moon. I believe that threw Louise into “future shock,” a concept Alvin Toffler wrote about in a book of that title—that people can be psychologically affected by too much change in too short a time or, to use the phrase he coined, from “information overload.” According to his theory, someone like George’s mother, who had lived through the war years, then seen her youngest son become globally famous, had been through such a lot that the idea of men walking on the moon was too much for her. Louise wanted to believe it had been done in a film studio.

  She died about a year later. It was hard on George because he had adored his mother. But he was also concerned about how his father would cope. He, of course, was devastated. After the funeral he came to live with us, and later George took his father to Los Angeles with him. Suddenly the old man blossomed: he was amazed to find that so many people wanted to meet him; it gave him a whole new lease on life.

  For some time my mother had been saying it was a shame that I hadn’t become pregnant—perhaps I should see my doctor, she suggested. I made an appointment with my GP, who sent me to see a gynecologist at a hospital in Chelsea, where I was kept in overnight while they did tests. “Received a beautiful injection,” I wrote in my diary. It would have been around my twenty-third birthday, and I had never used any form of contraception—the only time I did was soon after this when I went on the pill for a month, thinking that women were always more fertile when they came off it. I’d always thought I’d become pregnant naturally, but it didn’t happen. The specialist discovered that one of my tubes was partially blocked, but the other was clear and, in his opinion, I should have been able to conceive naturally. I wasn’t desperate for children and I imagined that something would happen sooner or later so I didn’t panic.

  George was working very ha
rd, things were not going well with the Beatles, and he was bringing home bad vibes. We would argue and bicker, never reaching any conclusion, so we were left feeling irritated with one another. He spent more and more time away from home—sometimes he wouldn’t get back until four or five in the morning, at others not at all.

  When he wasn’t recording he would be at the Apple offices, which I knew were full of pretty girls—and George was sexy, good-looking, witty, and famous, an irresistible combination. He had never used aftershave or cologne in the past, but since we had come back from India he had taken to wearing sandalwood oil, which I imagined was to attract other women. But if I accused him of anything he would deny it. He made me feel I was being unreasonable, nasty, and suspicious.

  My diary is full of entries about my unhappiness and the disintegration of our relationship. On July 24 it simply says, “Silence reigns and my cheeks get wet.” I felt so helpless. At George’s insistence I had virtually given up modeling. I thought he had wanted me at home so we could be together, but as often as not I had just the cat for company. Maybe I should have stood my ground and fought for what I felt was my due, but I didn’t have the confidence. And the more George retreated into himself, the less confident I was. I busied myself with other things and saw my friends and family.

  I let it be known that I was available for modeling again, and did a show for Ossie Clark at Chelsea Town Hall, which the Beatles came to watch. One of my outfits was a long strapless chiffon dress that barely covered my nipples—I was terrified they might pop out and cause a row with George. Then I went to Milan with Twiggy and Justin de Villeneuve, and did some cover shots for Italian Vogue. Twiggy and I did our own makeup and did it identically, with little freckles penciled over our noses falling onto our cheeks. Anna Piaggi, the fashion editor, loved us and ran us over five pages. I did some British Vogue covers with David Bailey; then Jenny and Paula, my sisters, and I did a job together for the one and only time. It was for Vogue with Patrick Lichfield, a nice picture of us with kites on Hampstead Heath.

  I also took up flying. I had a few lessons in a Cessna at a little airfield near Esher called Fairoaks. I gave it up in the end because math was involved and numbers had always been beyond me. I also did a cookery course, which I enjoyed, and George gave me a knitting machine so I took knitting lessons. I had been inspired by Twiggy, who also had one and could run off wonderful sweaters. I found it terribly difficult. I knitted George a Fair Isle one and that was it.

  I also went to art classes in Richmond with a friend called Sheila Oldham. She was married to Andrew Loog Oldham, who managed the Stones for quite a while. We became passionate about Perspex and were terribly creative, especially after lunch and a joint, or so we thought. One day I arrived at her house and she asked me how I wanted to feel. She had all these pills and said, “I’ve got up, down, or sideways.” I couldn’t decide so she chose some for me and I had mine and she had hers, and we drank whatever we drank and soon we were pretty high. It was a nice day and we were talking in the sun, and her little boy Sean was playing.

  Later we went down to the basement of her huge house in Richmond and she started work. She was chucking paint around—all very Jackson Pollock—setting fire to it, then putting it out. Suddenly rather more than she had intended caught fire and we were so out of it…I grabbed Sean and ran upstairs with him, leaving Sheila to deal with the fire, which she did. I was so stoned I couldn’t drive—I could hardly walk or talk—so Sheila drove me home. George was furious that she had let me get into such a state. For his next birthday I gave him a Perspex sculpture, which he seemed to like.

  I took such pleasure in buying him presents. When I was modeling I would always come back from Paris or Rome or wherever with something special. For Christmas I once gave him what looked like the most extravagant, expensive present, beautifully wrapped. We watched, tension mounting, as he ripped off the paper. Inside he found a black leather box embossed with gold and inside a little brush, with a note: “For the man who has everything—a belly-button cleaner.” He loved it! One year I bought him a Dobro guitar, which has a metal body. I was so thrilled to find one and drove to Hastings to get it. He loved that too.

  That Christmas George gave me a Nikon camera with three lenses. I had bought a small Pentax when I was with Eric Swayne, but this one took my photography to a new level. I’d hung out with so many photographers that I knew how important lighting, composition, and shutter speeds were. I was fascinated by the process and loved being on the other side of the lens. I took photographs of the cat, my family, our friends, other musicians who came to the house, the places we traveled to, and the people we saw. It grew into a passion and eventually I created my own darkroom.

  I also started buying and selling antiques. Jenny and I took a stall in the antiques market in the King’s Road, and specialized in art nouveau. We called it Juniper—because of “Jennifer Juniper”—and ran it for about a year. Jenny looked after the stall and I did the buying. I drove all over the country finding objets d’art, including a set of Fabergé menu holders, paintings, and knickknacks of the period. John Jesse, who was married to Mick Fleetwood’s sister, introduced me to art nouveau at a time when few people prized it and I could buy it quite cheaply; the jewelry was recognizable and we knew that if it had a signature it was more valuable. Our stall was next door to an antiquarian bookseller. We didn’t make much money because we didn’t charge enough. I was always so pleased when someone liked what I had bought that I would almost give it away.

  Lots of people still came to our house, mostly old friends of mine, family, and musicians. Among the latter group a new face began to appear—that of Eric Clapton. He had played on a couple of albums with George, had been in the Yardbirds, John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, Cream, and Blind Faith. I first met him at a party Brian Epstein gave after a Cream concert at the Saville Theatre, which Brian had just bought. Eric was held in awe by his fellow musicians for his guitar playing, and graffiti declaring that “Clapton is God” had been scrawled on the London Underground. He was incredibly exciting to watch. I was in a box next to Tony King, who worked for the Beatles, and he kept saying, “Oh, my God.” He looked wonderful on stage, very sexy, and played so beautifully. But when I met him afterward he didn’t behave like a rock star: he was surprisingly shy and reticent.

  He and George had become close friends; they played, wrote music, and recorded together. At that time his girlfriend was a model called Charlotte, but I was aware that he found me attractive—and I enjoyed the attention he paid me. It was hard not to be flattered when I caught him staring at me or when he chose to sit beside me or complimented me on what I was wearing or the food I had made, or when he said things he knew would make me laugh or engaged me in conversation. Those were all things that George no longer did.

  In December George and I, Ringo and Maureen went to see Eric playing with Delaney & Bonnie & Friends at the Albert Hall. Delaney & Bonnie were an American husband-and-wife team and just the best band. It was an electrifying show, and afterward we went on to the Speakeasy, in Margaret Street. It was a great place—really funky, not as smart as Tramp, the Crazy Elephant, or the Ad Lib. The best musicians went there and we’d stay until it was almost daylight—they would put the chairs on the tables and still we would stay. That night, a guy I knew called Denny Laine sang a beautiful song called “Go Now” I was feeling really chilled until his girlfriend grabbed me and gave me a tongue sandwich. I was so shocked, but she was drunk, as we all were, and later became one of the Marquess of Bath’s wifelets, so I’m sure she didn’t fancy me. “A fantastic night to remember,” I wrote in my diary—and it wasn’t that kiss that had made it special.

  A few days later Delaney & Bonnie & Friends were playing in Liverpool and I took Paula with me to see them; once again, there was a fantastic party afterward. Paula was then seventeen and a bit of a wild child; my mother was finding it difficult to cope with her. She was so pretty—the prettiest of us all—creative, lively, and outgoi
ng, not cripplingly shy like Jenny and me. As a little girl, when our stepfather was living with us, she was utterly adored and always had the biggest present at Christmas; but she clearly remembers even at that young age thinking that when she opened her present, whatever it was, it wouldn’t be enough. She was born with an addictive personality; her attitude to the Christmas present was like the alcoholic for whom one glass is never enough—and as a teenager she was well on the way to having a problem.

  She had always wanted to be an actress and had been sent to a children’s drama school. George and I went to see her onstage a couple of times, and she had parts in a couple of children’s television series, including Swallows and Amazons. Potentially she had a good career ahead of her. And then it started to go wrong. She and my mother started to fight over clothes: she wanted to wear really short skirts and other things that Mummy thought she was too young for. Eventually Paula was sent to boarding school, but that was a disaster and only made things worse. As soon as she left school, she went to live with an actor boyfriend. Poor Mummy was frantic. Then, to add to her worries, that night in Liverpool Eric fell for Paula. After the show we all went to a restaurant and everyone was quite drunk and raucous. When the rest of us went back to the hotel, we left Eric and Paula dancing. George was furious with him. He was protective of Paula.

  The next night Delaney & Bonnie & Friends played in Croydon, and again Paula and I went to watch, and again there was a wild party afterward, this time at Eric’s magnificent Italianate manor house, Hurtwood Edge, about an hour’s drive away. Everyone was exhausted, but it was a fantastic night. Soon afterward, Paula moved into Hurtwood Edge.