'Layla' speaks

The woman who brought George Harrison and Eric Clapton to their knees tells all in new memoir

Susan Whitall / The Detroit News

She never wrote a song, never sang on a Top-10 hit, but as muse and companion to two prominent musicians, Pattie Boyd was a potent influence on rock music.

She was Beatle George Harrison's first wife, a giggly, lithesome top London model. But she was also an integral part of the artsy, Bohemian scene, the person who introduced her young husband to transcendental meditation, changing the Beatles forever. Boyd inspired Harrison to write "Something," the ethereal love song that rivaled John Lennon and Paul McCartney's best work.

When her marriage to Harrison hit the rocks and Boyd had a brief affair with Eric Clapton in the late '60s, the guitarist poured out his anguish over her rejection in the searing, emotionally raw "Layla," with the lyrics: "You've got me on my knees/Layla, please "

Now the model-turned-photographer has written a memoir, "Wonderful Tonight" (Harmony Books, $25.95). She gives a peek into the Beatles' fun-loving world, describes the love triangle that led to "Layla," and documents her turbulent, alcohol-fueled marriage to Clapton. That marriage ended when she found out that one of Clapton's girl-friends was pregnant, just as Boyd struggled to conceive.

"Wonderful Tonight" debuted at No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list in mid-September (it's currently at No. 16). Boyd was in New York to promote her book in early September, but was also hosting an exhibit of her photographs (many of her rock star husbands, and friends) in New York.

"When Eric and I split up, I thought, 'What am I going to do with the rest of my life?' " Boyd, now 63, said in a phone interview from her New York hotel. "The one thing that I'd forgotten, that I'd been doing forever, was taking photographs."

That Boyd's book debuted in the United States at No. 1 is a testament to fans' seemingly boundless appetite for information about the Beatles, their music and personal lives.

"People are looking for (books by) people who knew the Beatles' world," said Larry Kane, author of "Lennon Revealed." Baby boomers are scooping up the books, but the audience goes beyond that demographic, Kane believes.

"You see a lot of teenagers at the Beatlefest conventions, tons of them in their 20s and 30s," Kane said. "John Lennon died when they were little kids, the Beatles stopped recording before they were born. But there's this tremendous amount of interest, and they want to know the real story."

The daughter of an RAF pilot and his wife, Boyd spent much of her girlhood in Kenya. In her late teens she became a sought-after model at the height of 1960's "swinging London." She met Harrison in 1964, on the set of the Beatles' movie "A Hard Day's Night." Boyd had been booked by her modeling agency to play the role of a giggling schoolgirl who encounters the Beatles on a train. Her only line: "Prisoners?"

She turned Harrison down the first time he asked her out, but the two eventually started dating, and the Beatle she called the best-looking man she'd ever seen, with "velvet brown eyes and chestnut hair," proposed within 10 days. They married in January 1966 when Harrison was 22, Boyd 21.

Life with George

Harrison had always been treated like a talented, but immature, younger brother by McCartney and Lennon, but somehow, later in the '60s was writing timeless songs like "Something," "Taxman" and "While My Guitar Gently Weeps."

As a Beatle wife, Boyd witnessed this metamorphosis.

"I think that maybe his creativity was restrained by Paul and John, because they were the prolific writing team in the Beatles," Boyd said. "And he was held back. So when he did write, it was so rich with color because he hadn't been given his freedom.

"I was just thinking of his album, 'All Things Must Pass,' that was so beautiful and absolutely amazing to everybody," she added. "People didn't really realize it was in him, because he was so restrained in the band. He was really only allowed one or two songs per album."

Boyd left Harrison in 1974 (their divorce was finalized a few years later) and was on good terms with him at the time of his death in 2001, at age 58, from cancer. Her relationship with ex-husband Clapton is a little trickier; he didn't like her most recent companion (of 10 years), Rod Wetton, and he was cool to her at parties. But Clapton did allow her to quote from the letters he sent her.

Clapton's own autobiography hits the racks Oct. 9. Boyd wasn't sure if her ex-husband had read her book yet. "Eric hasn't said anything," she said.

Rocky relationship

In "Wonderful Tonight," Boyd describes the intoxicating romance of her early relationship with Clapton in the '70s, but also, in great detail, his later infidelities, his abusiveness when drinking, and how she came to dread their physical relationship. This and more has been documented in biographies written about the guitarist. Did she pull any punches?

"I don't want to be unkind or unpleasant or tell tales out of school because I don't think there's any point in it," Boyd said. "It's bad karma, for a start. It's unnecessary. Not in my nature."

What happened between Clapton, Boyd and Harrison has become one of rock's iconic stories, almost myth-like in the telling. Harrison started to drift away from her, meditating obsessively, ingesting large amounts of cocaine and flaunting his affairs with other women. She confirms a long-running rumor that Harrison and Maureen Starr, Ringo's first wife, even had an affair.

In her book, Boyd writes that Ringo's wife would knock on her door, then disappear into Harrison's bedroom for hours. Boyd was furious, yet surprisingly tolerant, she admits today.

Although both the Starr and Harrison marriages eventually broke up (Boyd left Harrison for Clapton in 1974), the two Beatles remained friends. How could that be?

"I know, funny, isn't it?" Boyd said. "But they'd known each other for so long. I don't know, listen, I don't know," she said, dissolving into giggles. "Who knows?" (Clapton and Harrison remained buddies, calling each other "husband-in-law.")

Clapton had always been attracted to Boyd. Sensing her marital turmoil (From "Layla," "I tried to give you consolation/when your old man had let you down") and stepped up his attentions. Such pursuit was a balm to her ego, but when Clapton threatened to become a heroin addict if she didn't leave her husband, Boyd famously turned him down.

Great love songs

Clapton did indeed retreat into drugs for years, but he also wrote and recorded "Layla."

Before its release, he invited Boyd to an apartment in London where he played her the song for her. From the first shriek of his guitar, she understood, and was moved, but also afraid that everybody would hear it and know he was singing about her.

Another great love song inspired by her, "Something," Boyd also experienced first, when Harrison played it for her on his acoustic guitar in the kitchen of their Surrey home. Her husband's favorite version of "Something" was by soul singer James Brown; Boyd's favorite was the one he played in her kitchen.

Beatle fans will be interested to hear that Boyd believes that the death of their longtime manager Brian Epstein in 1967 was the death knell for the band, the beginning of endless personal and business turmoil.

"That really did so much damage to them all, because they really had to take control of themselves, their lives and the business," Boyd said. "The boyishness in them had to disappear."

Harrison's death left Boyd shocked and "bereft." During and after her marriage to Clapton, Harrison told her he would always take care of her, a comfort when her life was in turmoil.

She says there are things only she and Harrison know, things she wanted to talk to him about. "That's the worst part about somebody dying," Boyd said.

Was it drugs that caused a lot of the bad behavior documented in "Wonderful Tonight?"

"I think I can take a wild guess and say yes, you're right," Boyd said with a laugh.

Today, having ended a decade-long relationship with Rod Wetton, a property developer earlier this year, Boyd is single, concentrating on her photography, travel, enjoying her many nieces and nephews and her cottage in Surrey.

Although she looks back on two broken marriages and a lot of heartache, she hastens to add that the joy was at least equal to the pain.

"We only did what was fun then," Boyd said. "And we were lucky enough to be in a position to carry on having fun."

You can reach Susan Whitall at (313) 222-2156 or swhitall@detnews.com.