From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article or section resembles a fan site. Please help improve this article by removing excessive trivia and irrelevant praise, criticism, lists and collections of links.(November 2007)

Patricia Anne "Pattie" Boyd (born 17 March 1944) is an English model and photographer best known as the wife of first George Harrison and then Eric Clapton. She served as inspiration for several popular rock love songs written by both musicians.

Contents 1 Career 2 Personal life 2.1 George Harrison 2.2 Rock stars' muse 2.3 Eric Clapton 2.4 Other 3 Photography 4 Autobiography 5 References 6 External links

Born in Taunton, Somerset, Boyd was a model during the 1960s.^[1] She was known to frequent several nightclubs as well enjoy the company of designers Mary Quant and Ossie Clark. She was photographed by fashion photographers of the day, such as David Bailey and Terence Donovan, and appeared on covers of the UK and Italian editions of Vogue and other magazines. Her stature increased after she became George Harrison's girlfriend when she was asked by Gloria Stavers to write a regular column for 16 Magazine.^[2]

Boyd was a 19-year-old model in 1964 when she met the youngest Beatle during filming for A Hard Day's Night. She was cast as a schoolgirl fan for the film.^[3] According to her autobiography, one of the first things he said to her was "Will you marry me?" She said that he was "the best-looking man I had ever seen."^[3] After their meeting Boyd married George Harrison on January 21, 1966, in the midst of the heyday of his group, The Beatles.^[3]

She married Harrison in 1966 in a ceremony in Surrey with Paul McCartney as the only other Beatle in attendance.^[1] Through her interest in Eastern mysticism and her membership in his Spiritual Regeneration Movement, she is said to have inspired the Beatles to meet the Indian mystic Maharishi Mahesh Yogi the next year.^[4][5][1]

Boyd was present, along with Harrison and John and Cynthia Lennon, on the group's first encounter with LSD, when a dentist acquaintance laced their coffee with the drug.^[5] She also attended the live broadcast of "All You Need Is Love"^[5] and was arrested for possession of marijuana along with Harrison in 1969 after a raid of their home.^[6][1]

Boyd says she served as the inspiration for one of Harrison's most famous Beatles songs, "Something," which Frank Sinatra called one of the best love songs ever written. Boyd maintains that Harrison told her that "Something" was written for her but after she left him, Harrison denied Boyd was his muse.

Boyd is said to also be the inspiration to "Bell Bottom Blues," which Clapton reportedly wrote after she gave him a pair of blue jeans. In her autobiography, she claims he gave her the pair of pants after returning from a trip to Miami.^[7] It appeared on the same album as "Layla." "Layla" took its name from a Persian tale of unrequited love that Clapton had received from a friend.^[6]

On September 7, 1976, Clapton wrote the famous love song "Wonderful Tonight" for Boyd while waiting for her to get ready to attend Paul and Linda McCartney's annual Buddy Holly party. (In an interview on Sept. 19th, 2007, on KQRS radio in Minneapolis, Boyd said that it was not a Buddy Holly party but just some dinner or party). He also reportedly penned other tunes for her: "Pretty Blue Eyes", "Golden Ring", "Never Make You Cry" (from Behind the Sun) and "Pretty Girl" (from Money and Cigarettes).

Of "Wonderful Tonight," Boyd would say: "For years it tore at me. To have inspired Eric, and George before him, to write such music was so flattering. Wonderful Tonight was the most poignant reminder of all that was good in our relationship, and when things went wrong it was torture to hear it."^[8]

In the late 1960s, Clapton became a close friend of Harrison, writing and recording music together at Harrison's home. It was reportedly at this time that Clapton fell in love with Boyd.^[3] Clapton fell in love with Boyd's 17-year-old sister, Paula, who moved in with him.^[3] At the same time, the 25-year-old Clapton was also linked to another 17-year-old, Alice Ormsby-Gore.^[9]

Paula left Clapton when she heard "Layla," because the song confirmed what she had suspected: he had been using her as a substitute for her sister.^[7] Boyd claims that when she rebuffed Clapton's advances in late 1970, he descended into an addiction to heroin and self-imposed exile with Ormsby-Gore for three years.^[7] Meanwhile, during Clapton's tenure in Derek and the Dominos, their only studio album, Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, was fueled by his unrequited love for Boyd.^[5] In Eric Clapton's autobiography he claims that "In truth, I had been taking heroin almost full time for quite a while" (2007) and his difficulties with relationships and drugs had deeper roots.

This longing for his friend's wife produced one of his most famous songs, "Layla," a rock song that became a pop hit in three different decades, in two different versions. According to Boyd's account, the day Clapton played it for her, Clapton told Harrison that he was in love with Boyd.^[3]

Boyd states that after Harrison's increasing religious explorations and continuing infidelities irrevocably alienated her, she left him for Clapton in 1974. What Boyd calls "the last straw" was Harrison's affair with Ringo Starr's wife Maureen Starkey. Boyd says that she informed Starr of their spouses' affair.^[7] According to Boyd, in 1974, Harrison went so far as to tell bandmate Ringo that he was in love with Maureen.^[7]

However, just like with her marriage to Harrison, the outward image of the perfect couple Clapton and Boyd projected masked deep pain and struggle within their marriage, which began in 1979. She became an alcoholic, as documented in Clapton's song The Shape You're In.^[4] Boyd states that she divorced Clapton in 1989 after years of alcoholism as well as numerous affairs on his part,^[4] beginning before their marriage.^[8] Boyd also states that she left him at one point due to his refusal to seek treatment for his alcoholism and began seeing a photographer, Will Christie.^[8] In 1984, Clapton began a year-long relationship with Yvonne Kelly; they had a daughter, Ruth, born in January 1985. Clapton and Kelly did not make any public announcement about the birth of their daughter, and she was not revealed as his child until 1991, at the funeral of his son Conor.^[10] Boyd says that she did not know of the existence of Ruth until 1991: "What cut deepest was that Eric had known about the child all along. While declaring undying love to me and pleading with me to go back to him, he had been paying Yvonne maintenance for the past six years."^[8] Clapton and Boyd divorced in 1989 following his affair with Italian model Lori Del Santo, who gave birth to their son Conor in August 1986.^[11][12] Boyd herself was never able to conceive children, despite attempts at in vitro fertilization.^[11][8] Boyd and Clapton's divorce was granted in 1989, reportedly on grounds of "infidelity and unreasonable behaviour."^[8]

Harrison and Clapton remained friends despite their relations with Boyd. George once jokingly refered to Eric as his "Guitarist-in-law". Clapton cited his reasons for being with Boyd as human nature, moreover pointing out that it was not done with ill-will towards Harrison,^{[citation needed]} and the two remained good friends over the years. After Harrison's death, Clapton organized, emceed, and performed at the Concert For George, the commemoration concert for Harrison organized by his widow Olivia Trinidad Arias.

Boyd's younger sister Jenny Boyd (born Helen Mary Boyd, but nicknamed Jenny after one of Pattie's childhood dolls) also experienced a musician love triangle: she was the muse for some of Donovan's pop hits, most notably "Jennifer Juniper." However, she eventually chose Mick Fleetwood of Fleetwood Mac fame, marrying Fleetwood in 1970 and bearing him two daughters during their two marriages in the 1970s.^[5][13]

John Lennon^[4] and Mick Jagger were also said to have had crushes on Boyd, with the latter admitting to Bebe Buell in the 1980s that he'd tried and failed to seduce Boyd for years.^[14] She had also had a brief affair with future Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood, then a member of The Faces, during the fall of 1973, as her marriage to Harrison was ending. Ronnie Wood and his then-wife, Krissie, were frequent guests of Harrison and Boyd at their home, Friar Park, where Harrison and Wood would record together. According to Boyd, Harrison backed out of a planned holiday with her, claiming to be ill, and instead invited Krissie Wood on a holiday to Spain to see Salvador Dali - with her husband's blessing.^[7] Harrison denied an affair, however.^[7]

In Boyd's account, while Harrison was in Spain with Krissie Wood, she (Boyd) travelled to the Bahamas with her sister Paula and other friends and was joined by Ron Wood, who was then on tour with The Faces.^[7] Boyd and Wood were apparently spotted by the press upon their return landing at a London airport on November 25, 1973 - thus intensifying rumours in the press about the Harrisons' marriage. However, Boyd claims that she left Wood heartbroken, influencing another musician's recordings through the songs "Breathe on Me" and "Mystifies Me."^{[citation needed]}

An exhibition of photographs taken by Boyd during her days with Harrison and Clapton opened at the San Francisco Art Exchange on Valentine's Day 2005, titled "Through the Eye of a Muse."^[5] The exhibition also ran again in San Francisco in February 2006 and for six weeks in June/July 2006 in London.

Wonderful Today: George Harrison, Eric Clapton, and Me, ^[15] was published in England on August 23, 2007 by Hodder Headline Review and in the U.S. (as Wonderful Tonight) on August 28, 2007, by Harmony Books, includes her own photographs and was written with a £950,000 ($2.2 million) advance.^[4] It was written with journalist Penny Junor. The 63-year-old Boyd lives in a 17th-century cottage in West Sussex and is said to be enjoying the prospect of her account going head-to-head with Clapton's autobiography.^[4]

In the United States, it debuted at the top of the New York Times Best Seller list.^[16]

• Something About Pattie Boyd: Yahoo! group containing news, over 1000 photos of Pattie Boyd through 1974, and dozens of articles, plus message posts between fans.
• Pattie Boyd's Sixties Style : Yahoo! group containing hundreds of Pattie Boyd's modelling photos, and dozens of fashion articles, plus message posts between fans.
• Forever Pattie Boyd : Yahoo! group containing hundreds of photos of Pattie Boyd from 1974 to the present, and dozens of articles, news, plus message posts between fans.
• Pattie Boyd : The Official Website of Pattie Boyd showcasing her Autobiography plus a Gallery of her Photographs, a personal Photo Album, Scrapbook, Portfolio, Polaroid snapshots, and Video starring Pattie in a shampoo commercial from the mid sixties.
• Dollyrocker: A site on Pattie Boyd with many Beatles/Clapton artifacts and article reprints. Includes dated fashion advice and "Letters from London" published in 16 Magazine from February to August 1965, as well as an interview from 1992.
• A Pattie Boyd site: biography, images, and FAQ.
• Patti (sic) Boyd: My life as a muse, The Independent, 04 June 2006
• Pattie Boyd: My hellish love triangle with George and Eric, Daily Mail, 6 August 2007
• Hilary Alexander, Patti (sic) Boyd, back in style, The Telegraph, 14 November 2005
• Patti (sic) Boyd: The dentist who spiked my coffee with LSD, Daily Mail, 5 August 2007