Pattie Boyd - Wonderful Tonight: George Harrison, Eric Clapton, and Me

PRAISE FOR THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Wonderful Tonight

The appeal of Wonderful Tonight is as self-evident as the seemingly simple but brash opening chord of A Hard Days Night.A charming, lively and seductive bookthis isnt a bitter tell-all. Theres an aura of sweetness around Boyds approach.

New York Times Book Review

Boyd finally answers some of those questions [about George Harrison and Eric Clapton]but on her own terms.

USA Today

Sixties model Pattie Boyd opens up about her rocky relationships with two of musics most famed performers.

Harpers Bazaar

[Wonderful Tonight] will thrill classic-rock buffs with a taste for scandal.

Entertainment Weekly

A backstage pass into a life with icons and iconic songs. As open and honest as an acoustic performance, Boyd shares the tumult and happiness of her life.

On-the-Town magazine

They say if you can remember the s, you werent really there. Well, Pattie Boyd was there, and she remembers it all. Wonderful Tonight is a unique gospel of a turbulent time by someone who was in the very eye of the rock n roll hurricane.

Sydney Morning Herald

Pattie Boyd married two sixties legends and inspired three of the eras greatest love songs, but life was far from glamorous. The ex-wife of George Harrison and Eric Clapton speaks out in this compelling autobiography.

Sunday Times (London)

There are so many wonderful stories in Pattie Boyds life: Falling in love with a Beatle. Falling in love with another famous rock star, Eric Clapton, and being serenaded with Wonderful Tonight.There is much that is excruciating in her life storybut here she is: not dead, not on drugs, not an alcoholic, but a survivor.

Daily Mail (London)

Photo by Chaloner Woods/Getty Images

I have no memory of this photograph being taken but I was given the print about five years ago by a friend who bought it at a Getty exhibition.

Copyright 2007 by Pattie Boyd

All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Three Rivers Press, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com

Three Rivers Press and the Tugboat design are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Originally published in hardcover in Great Britain as Wonderful Today: The Autobiography of Pattie Boyd by Headline Review, an imprint of Headline Publishing Group, London, and in hardcover in the United States as Wonderful Tonight: George Harrison, Eric Clapton, and Me by Harmony Books, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, in 2007.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

eISBN: 978-0-307-45022-7

v3.0_r4

CONTENTS

To my darling brothers and sisters
with thanks for all their love and support,
and to my dearest friends
who bring me nothing but happiness.

PATTIE BOYD

Very special thanks to the wonderful Ivan Massowa true friend
who introduced us to each other. Without him this book might never have
been writtenand we would have missed out on all that laughter.
Moments may have been painful, but the partnership has been a joy.

PATTIE BOYD AND PENNY JUNOR

Bob Whittaker/Camera Press

Preface

P eople have been trying to persuade me to write a book for years. And for years I have resisted. I have had the most extraordinary life, and ultimately the most rewarding and enriching life, and I wouldnt change a day of it. I was part of the sixties revolution, I have known the most beautiful, talented people, and I have been married to two exceptionally creative musicians. My resistance has not been for want of something to say. It was partly because I have always been an intensely private person and have never spoken easily about my feelings, and partly because I have lived through a lot of pain and didnt want to write my story until I felt strong enough to talk about it from a healthy perspective.

Now I feel that time has come. And for the sake of everyone who has shared similar experiences in their lives but not yet come through to that position of strength, I feel it is important to have my say. My experiences of childhood, of divorced parents and a stepfather, of marriages that went wrong, of unfaithful husbands, addictive personalities, and childlessness are not unique. All that is unique is that it happened to me in a very high-profile, crazy, rock n roll world. And as I discovered at Al-Anon, realizing that other people are going through exactly what you are is incredibly comforting and therapeutic. Secrets are not healthy.

So I am finally letting go of mine.

But it is important to say that this is the story as I remember it. I behaved throughout my life and reacted to situations as I did because of the way I had been brought up. We all do; its human nature. So I attach no blame to any of the characters in my story. They did the best they could with the tools they had. We are all the products of our upbringing. I hope and pray that none of the people I love so dearly will feel I am letting them down in any way.

Pattie Boyd, 1997

This is my truth, which may not necessarily be as others remember it. But if my story is to have any validity, I have to tell the truth as I see it.

From the collection of Pattie Boyd

My parents wedding at Taunton in September 1942, six months after the accident that left Jocks hands badly burned. Both now say they were too young.

ONE

Childhood in Kenya

M y earliest memory is of sitting in a high chair spitting out spinachstrange for someone who turned into such a passionate foodie. In my late teens I became determined to improve the experience, even enjoy it, and today spinach is one of my favorite vegetablesbut it has to be right: steamed, chopped, and mixed with double cream, white pepper, and nutmeg. Delicious. Raw in a salad, its even better. But at the age of two I couldnt get the repellent dark green mess out of my mouth fast enough.

I was living in Scotland, at a house in West Lothian my grandparents had bought when I was a year old in 1945. We lived with them at that time, and my mother remembers the move from Somerset: taking me on a trainin an ordinary carriage, as she puts itwith all our belongings, and the embarrassment of having to feed me during the journey amid a group of soldiers. I was her first child, of six, and she was a young, nervous mother. Shortly after we arrived in Scotland my brother Colin was born. He is almost exactly two years younger than I am and I remember examining him when he was a baby and noticing that there was a small difference between us. He was a huge baby, and as soon as he could walk he followed me everywhere.