Beatles (65 page)

George had vowed he would never tour again, but he did so in 1974, across the States, which was not a huge success. He was criticized for being too experimental, though people were mainly disappointed because he refused to play many Beatle numbers. It exhausted George, mentally and physically, and in 1974 he came close to having a mental breakdown.

He had started so well in 1969, moving off quickly and freeing himself from the worst of the Apple madnesses, but he was in a fairly depressed and unhappy state by the mid-’70s. His marriage to Pattie was collapsing, which he admits was becoming evident as early as 1972, when he wrote ‘Sad Song’. ‘It
is
so sad,’ he said. ‘It was at the time I was splitting up with Pattie.’ They were divorced in 1977. They had had no children. Pattie later married George’s friend, the guitarist Eric Clapton.

In 1978, George married Olivia Arrias, a Mexican-Californian, from a Roman Catholic family, who had originally come to work as a secretary in his record company, Dark Horse Records. They had lived together for about four years before they married. (All four Beatles ended up marrying foreign girls, all American-based, three of them divorcées. And three Beatles themselves got divorced and then remarried.)

Their first, and so far only, child, was born on 1 August 1978, a boy named Dhani. He has brown eyes and dark hair, very like his mother. It was George’s first child, born when he was 35, rather old to become a dad for the first time, but then George did always very sensibly take his time.

They live in an enormous Victorian Gothic mansion, Friar Park, at Henley-on-Thames, in Oxfordshire, which he and Pattie moved into in 1969, buying it at a time when it looked as if it might be demolished, since the nuns who were living there could no longer afford its upkeep. This house, in the last ten years, has become a major passion in his life. He has had his own record studio built on to it, plus a temple, but the main energies have been put into the 36-acre garden. He has a staff of ten gardeners, growing and caring for exotic flowers and plants. His two older brothers, Harry and Peter, work for him on the estate, supervising the garden and the house, one living in the gatehouse lodge and one nearby. At the entrance to the house is a wooden signpost that says ‘Private: Keep Out’ in ten different languages. There’s even an American English version which reads ‘Get your ass outa here’.

George’s book
I Me Mine
(published in 1980 by Genesis Publications, and in 1982 by W. H. Allen) was dedicated to ‘gardeners everywhere’ and in it he says that he now looks upon himself as a gardener. ‘I’m really quite simple. I don’t want to be in the business full-time, because I’m a gardener. I plant flowers and watch them grow. I don’t go out to clubs and partying. I stay at home and watch the river flow.’

The latter is certainly true, as he lives a private life, but he is not a recluse, as some people have described him. A recluse, of
the Howard Hughes variety, implies an eccentric, if not someone tinged with madness, which George is certainly not. He is sensible, well balanced, witty, aware of himself, aware of the world, honest and forthright, kind and generous and idealistic. He can also be grumpy, harsh and unfair and harbour resentment. In many ways, holed up in that Gothic folly, he leads a more ‘ordinary’ life than Paul, in that, unlike Paul, he no longer plays the public part of a rock and roll superstar.

He keeps out of the limelight because he knows, only too well, that the lime wants to alight on his old Beatle days, a subject he hates talking about. Even at the time, back in the late 1960s, writing my book, I found it hard to get George to talk about being a Beatle. It was a shame, as he has the best memory of the four and saw things very clearly.

With John, I often felt that his rubbishing of his Beatle days was partly for effect, to be contrary, to be provocative, and also to cover up his own guilt. Given the right interviewer, and the right atmosphere, John could always be talked into going over it all, once again. Paul will very easily talk about the past. But George was always matter-of-fact, quick and dismissive. Fifteen years later, he has many more engrossing topics to concern himself with. No outsider has trapped George, in the last 15 years, into talking properly about his Beatle days, either for or against them. It is only in passing, in brief conversations, or quick asides, that he will mention them.

‘There were a lot of things we had to do collectively that didn’t grab me personally that deeply,’ so he wrote in his book. ‘There was never anything, in any of the Beatle experiences, really, that good; even the best thrill soon got tiring. You don’t really laugh twice at the same joke, do you, unless you really get silly.

‘There was more good than evil in being a Beatle, but it was awful being on the front page of everyone’s life, every day. What an intrusion into our lives. Dick Lester’s version made it look fun and games, a good romp. That was fair in the films, but in the real world, there was never any doubt. The Beatles were
doomed. Your own space, man, it’s so important. That’s why we were doomed, because we didn’t have any. You know, everything needs to be left alone.’

Any success on the scale of the Beatles is of course doomed. How can it continue at that rate? Once you get to the peak, where can you go? And by definition, in Beatle terms, even standing still at the top is failure. George always knew their days were numbered and wanted to get out before anyone else realized it.

George’s own life, after those mid ’70s problems, was helped by his house and garden, by his marriage and first child, and also by having a few laughs. This is one of the many paradoxes about George. He can appear to be preaching at you, bending your ear back with Indian philosophy, or gardening, or history, and just as you’re beginning to think he’s gone a bit loony, taking himself and life far too seriously, he then stops and laughs at himself.

He was always a fan of the Monty Python comedy team, as so many millions of people were in the 1970s, both here and in the States. He became friendly with them, especially with Eric Idle and Michael Palin. The Pythons come from rather different worlds than the Beatles, proper middle-class English boys, mostly educated at Oxbridge, far more serious and erudite in real life than their image might suggest, although they were working against the system, trying to do things their way, just as the Beatles did.

George loved
The Ruttles
, a television parody of the Beatles’ story, which was done mainly by Eric Idle. He even appeared in the show, heavily disguised, as a reporter. In 1978, George heard that the Python team was having trouble with EMI over their proposed film,
Life of Brian
. Lord Delfont, then head of EMI, thought it was in very bad taste, making fun of the life of Jesus.

George asked his business partner, Denis O’Brien, who had been helping him with his affairs since the Apple fiasco, if perhaps they could manage to raise the two million pounds needed to get the film floated. They did, and the film was a huge success.
The result was Handmade Films. George took the title from some handmade paper he had been given when he went to visit an old paper mill in Somerset.

Since 1978, Handmade Films had become one of the big successes of the British film industry. Not exactly a strong field, though David Puttnam during the same period has also done very well. They have now produced or backed ten major films, including
The Long Good Friday, Time Bandits, The Missionary, Privates on Parade, Water, Private Function
. They have one thing in common – all have British settings or British inspiration. It was partly by trying to ape America, and do mid-Atlantic films, that Lords Grade and Delfont eventually came to grief.

George takes an active part in the company, with his name often appearing as ‘producer’, and there are a lot more films in the pipeline, but he says that Denis O’Brien is the real businessman, the one with the financial flare, who makes sure the films get made on time and on budget.

‘It’s difficult being a film producer. I’ve been the one who’s said of the people with the money, “What do they know?” and now I’m that person. But I know that unless you give an artist as much freedom as possible, there’s no point in using that artist. On the whole, most of our relationships are still intact.’

I have talked to several of the people involved in making Handmade films and they all say George has been an ideal boss to work for, concerned, helpful, yet at the same time decently remote. Despite being ‘friends’ with the Pythons, he is not one of them, not their type, nor is he really in tune with the more artistic pretensions of some of the creators. He lets them get on with it.

One has to admire George for what he has done with Handmade Films, a creation of which he can be proud, and it must give him a lot of satisfaction. He has done it without using his ‘Beatle’ persona in any way. He has not insisted on star-studded premieres, lent his name to gala shows, turned up in person to promote his films, or gone on tour to publicize his own investments. He has been a background backer, a figure in the wings, content to let the product speak for itself.

I am not so sure that his book
I Me Mine
was such an admirable decision. He has gone to great lengths to distance himself from his Beatle days, yet the selling point of this book was presumably his boyhood and Beatle memories, and the presentation of the original manuscripts of his songs. It was all harmless enough, and fairly brief as far as the words went, revealing very little. It was the cost that was ridiculous. Each book, in the limited 1980 edition of 2,000 signed copies, cost £148. In it, he does confess to qualms about his reasons for doing such a book, but he never satisfactorily explains them, except that it was keeping alive the craft of hand-tooled, leather-bound, terribly expensive books.

In his spiritual searches, George, as I understand it, has been trying to rise above himself, to relate to greater gods and more constant truths, yet the contents of the book were an exercise in pure ego. The title makes that clear, though that could have been a double irony.

We should perhaps look upon it as yet further proof of the paradoxical George. While denying his fame, he provides for it. While casting off the Beatles, there are times when he appears to be calling for them again. ‘The fab four were good because if one was in a bad mood, the others would cover. We protected each other. Now, you have to be more on your guard when you’re alone. I miss them at times. We had great love for each other.’

George has discovered, as they all quickly did, that being famous attracts people who like you for being famous. It is very hard to find people you can trust. Nice people hold back. Pushers push forward. At least with three others, all in the same position, they had their brutal honesty to fall back on. In their present happy marriages, it is to be hoped that George, Paul and Ringo are getting the
real
truth, the ice-cold advice, the unpleasant criticisms, which John could give them, or they in turn could give John and each other.

I was also intrigued to learn, from George’s book, that he had been back to Liverpool. It was when he first met his new
wife, Olivia, to show her the house where he was born in Arnold Grove and then his old school, the Institute, to take her into his old classrooms. A normal enough thing to do. Yet this was the school George went through life hating. And in the book he still says he hated it. Has he protested too much?

George still hates flying, as he did in his Beatle years, when he could be almost physically sick in a plane or at an airport, and yet he has taken up fast driving in recent years, even in racing cars. He is still a vegetarian, still interested in India, in Hare Krishna and in things of the spirit.

As with the others, he has become obsessive about protection since John’s death. Paul’s fear is that there will be someone lurking in his bushes, who will spring out at him when he’s jogging. He once imagined that someone was hiding in his garden, smoking a cigarette. It turned out to be a distant street lamp. George’s fear is that the danger will come from a photographer, pointing a loaded camera at him, which is why he hates anyone suddenly snapping at him.

As for music, George at present appears to have come to a stop as a public composer or performer. In the last 15 years, he has produced regular albums, though his 1982 album,
Gone Troppo
, did not do very well. In 1984, he said he had retired from popular music. This does not mean he no longer makes music. He does, at home, but for his own amusement.

It is to be hoped this is only a temporary situation. George was different from John and Paul in music making, in that, while they wrote songs, he wrote feelings. ‘Writing a song was like going to confession,’ so he wrote in his book. It was when the spirit moved him, for good or ill, that George felt compelled to compose, which was why it took him so long to get going and why he always held back, till he had something to say. With Paul, making music is as natural as getting up and walking, eating and sleeping.

It is hard to tell which way George will go in future. Turning out to be a successful film producer has been a big surprise, at least to those who first met him as the baby of the group, shy
and backward, compared with John and Paul. With George, there could be more surprises yet to come, new artistic or business endeavours. Or he might suddenly up and off to Hawaii, to the estate he has recently bought, to cultivate a tropical garden for a change, which would keep him well away from any dangerous photographers.

Unlike the other three, Paul started off his independent life very shakily indeed. His wife Linda wasn’t exactly loved by all and Paul took the brunt of the legal troubles, being hated by the other three for starting it, and being disliked by the fans, who mistakenly thought he’d broken up the group. He too became a recluse, very fashionable for superstars in the early ’70s. You had to get away and find yourself, just to prove you existed. There were rumours at one time that Paul was dead. He had in fact retreated to a small farm he’d bought, and still owns, in Argyllshire, Scotland.

‘When the Beatles split up, I felt on the rocks. I was accused of walking out on them, but I never did. I think we were all pretty weird at the time of the court cases. I’d ring John and he’d say don’t bother me. I rang George and he came out with effing and blinding, not at all Hare Krishna.’