Pattie Boyd

Lore & Background

Boyd met George Harrison on 2 March 1964, when she was 19 (two weeks away from her 20th birthday), while working as a fashion model. She was in a relationship with photographer Eric Swayne at the time and initially declined Harrison's date proposal. Several days later, having ended that relationship, she accompanied Harrison to the Garrick Club, chaperoned by Beatles manager Brian Epstein. The couple became engaged on 25 December 1965 and married on 21 January 1966 at Epsom register office. In September and October 1966, after the Beatles' final concert tour, Boyd and Harrison spent six weeks in India as guests of Ravi Shankar. While in Bombay, as Harrison studied sitar, Boyd began learning to play the dilruba, a bow-played string instrument. Due to attention from fans and the press, they left the city with Shankar and stayed on houseboats on Dal Lake in Kashmir. Boyd divorced Harrison in 1977 and married mutual friend Eric Clapton in 1979; they divorced in 1989.

Reader's Guide

Boyd began her fashion career in 1962, modelling in London and Paris. Among her regular assignments were jobs for the UK edition of Vogue, Vanity Fair, Elle in France, and Honey, as well as fashion spreads in The Daily Telegraph and The Times. She was photographed by David Bailey, Terence Donovan and Brian Duffy, and appeared on the cover of British Vogue. In early 1964, Boyd appeared in a television advertising campaign for Smith's crisps, directed by Richard Lester. Lester then cast her as a schoolgirl in the Beatles' 1964 film A Hard Day's Night, where she met and befriended George Harrison. At the request of Gloria Stavers, Boyd began writing a column titled "Patti's Letter from London" for the American teen magazine 16. In July 1968, she and her sister Jenny, also a model, opened a boutique in London's Chelsea Market named "Jennifer Juniper" after Donovan's song. Boyd first exhibited her photos of Harrison and Clapton at the San Francisco Art Exchange on Valentine's Day 2005, in a show titled Through the Eye of a Muse.

Did You Know?

• Boyd was born on 17 March 1944 in Taunton, Somerset, and lived in Nairobi from 1948 to 1953 after her father's discharge from the Royal Air Force.
• She achieved three GCE O level passes in 1961 and moved to London the same year, finding work as a trainee beautician at Elizabeth Arden's Bond Street salon at age 17.
• Boyd's modelling career skyrocketed after her romantic involvement with Harrison, leading to further assignments for Vogue, Vanity Fair, and Tatler.
• In 1998, Boyd co-founded SHARP (Self Help Addiction Recovery Program) with Barbara Bach, the second wife of former Beatle Ringo Starr.