The Beatles were all young when they were catapulted to worldwide fame, but George Harrison was the youngest, and he didn't always receive the best treatment from John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Lennon and McCartney were writing hit songs right out of the gate, and while Harrison quickly evolved into a great songwriter himself -- penning such classics as "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" and "Something" -- his contributions were never given the same credibility by the band or producer George Martin.
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00:00George Harrison is beloved for his career as a Beatle and as a Grammy-winning solo musician.
00:05While he enjoyed plenty of professional and personal success,
00:09his life was also often marked by darker moments. This is his tragic, real-life story.
00:15By the time of his death in 2001, Harrison had a reported net worth of $400 million.
00:21He'd come a long way since his childhood in Liverpool. Just like the other Beatles,
00:25he didn't exactly grow up in wealth and comfort in post-World War II England. Far from it.
00:31He was born on February 25, 1943, in the Wavertree area of Liverpool,
00:36the youngest of Harold and Louise Harrison's four children.
00:39All of the downstairs rooms in his childhood home were only 10 square feet,
00:44and during the winter, the house would get terribly cold. Young George used an outdoor
00:48toilet as he and his family made do without any hot running water indoors.
00:53In 1949, the Harrison family moved into a council house, which is a form of public housing in
00:58England, on 25 Upton Green, in the city of Speke. In 1954, Harrison started to attend
01:05the Liverpool Institute High School for Boys, even though it was a far bus ride away.
01:09Though it took a while to get home, it was on one of these bus rides that he met an upperclassman
01:14who also lived in the area, and the pair sparked a friendship. That upperclassman
01:19was none other than Paul McCartney.
01:22On July 6, 1957, a 15-year-old Paul McCartney watched a local skiffle band called the Quarrymen
01:28play. The group was fronted by an almost 17-year-old John Lennon. Lennon and McCartney's
01:34shared love of music led to a friendship and partnership as McCartney soon joined the band,
01:39which led into their time together in the Beatles. While Lennon was the clear leader
01:43of the Beatles in their early days, McCartney knew his school friend George Harrison's skills
01:47at the guitar surpassed everyone else's in the group. But there was a major sticking point that
01:52made Lennon hesitate to add Harrison, as he was three years younger than Lennon and one year
01:57younger than McCartney. But then during a bus ride, Harrison played a perfect rendition of
02:02the rock and roll song, Raunchy, which convinced Lennon to add him into the group as the lead
02:07guitarist. This wouldn't be the last time that Harrison's age affected his career.
02:11When the Beatles began to play shows in Hamburg, Germany, their first residency ended with Harrison
02:16being deported, as he was only 17 and thus ineligible to work.
02:21As the Beatles' popularity grew, each member became known by his reputation.
02:26John was the smart one, Paul was the cute one, and Ringo was the funny one.
02:30George Harrison, meanwhile, earned the title of the Quiet Beatle. While he never complained
02:34about the nickname, people close to him knew it was inaccurate. His silent reputation came in
02:39part from his shyness and from being the youngest Beatle, and also from having to share the stage
02:44with three bandmates who had louder personalities. On the stage, he usually kept his head down and
02:49focused on his guitar playing, while Lennon and McCartney commanded attention with the vocals.
02:53A big reason for the reputation, though, was that when the group arrived in the United States in
02:58February 1964, Harrison was suffering from a 104-degree temperature and strep throat.
03:04That kept him inside while the other Beatles enjoyed New York City. His sister Louise,
03:09who cared for her brother while he was ill, told the New York Post that his nickname came in part
03:13because he didn't really feel like talking very much while he was sick.
03:17Much has been discussed about the Lennon-McCartney relationship throughout the years,
03:22but their interactions with George Harrison were at times the most contentious within the band.
03:27Harrison once told Rolling Stone,
03:29"[My problem was that it would always be very difficult to get in on the act because
03:33Paul was very pushy in that respect. When he succumbed to playing on one of your tunes,
03:37he'd always do good, but you'd have to do 59 of Paul's songs before he'd even listen
03:42to one of yours. Is there a slight undercurrent of hostility between you and the other members?"
03:49Harrison and Lennon's relationship grew during their time together in the Beatles,
03:53but it eventually deteriorated as Harrison desired to grow as a songwriter and became
03:58tired of Yoko Ono, Lennon's girlfriend and future wife. Harrison even left the band for a bit after
04:03a blow-up with Lennon in 1969. After the Beatles broke up, the two repaired their relationship,
04:09with Harrison even playing guitar on the Lennon song,
04:12How Do You Sleep? But then their relationship deteriorated over the next decade,
04:17and they never reconciled before Lennon's death in 1980. As for McCartney, he met with Harrison
04:23less than two weeks before Harrison's death, and they had a long, friendly conversation,
04:28though they reportedly still had a volatile relationship until Harrison's passing.
04:32After the Beatles broke up, Harrison launched right into the new decade with the release of
04:37his 1970 solo album, All Things Must Pass. Filled with songs he stockpiled during his final years
04:43with the Beatles, it's considered by many as the best solo album by any former Beatle. Songs such
04:48as Isn't It a Pity? and Let It Down were completely ignored and rejected by McCartney and Lennon for
04:54Beatles records, but both wound up as beloved tracks on All Things Must Pass. One of the many
05:00standout songs on the album was the chart-topping My Sweet Lord, which was inspired by the hymn
05:05O Happy Day. Harrison wrote it in December 1969 and attempted to give it to his friend
05:10Billy Preston, but he then recorded it himself. Alas, trouble lay ahead.
05:15In February 1971, Bright Tunes Music sued Harrison for copyright infringement,
05:20claiming that My Sweet Lord was too similar to a song under their label,
05:24the chiffon's 1963 hit He's So Fine. The lawsuit wasn't settled until 1976,
05:31when the judge declared that Harrison had subconsciously used the song
05:35and ruled in favor of Bright Tunes Music.
05:38On the set of the Beatles' first film, A Hard Day's Night, a 21-year-old George Harrison
05:43met a young model named Patti Boyd. The two then began a romantic relationship and married in 1966,
05:50but by the end of the decade, their marriage was on the rocks, thanks in part to one of
05:54Harrison's closest friends. He and Eric Clafton had been collaborating in and out of the studio
05:59around this time. Clafton played the guitar solo on Harrison's While My Guitar Gently Weeps,
06:04while Harrison co-wrote the song Badge, which appeared on the farewell album of Cream,
06:09Clafton's band. During this same period, Clafton fell in love with Patti Boyd.
06:14In 1971, Clafton, now the leader of the band Derek and the Dominoes,
06:19wrote an entire album about his unrequited love for his best friend's wife. The title track,
06:24Layla, has endured as one of the most iconic classic rock songs of all time.
06:29Eventually, Clafton confessed his love for Patti to George while the three were at a party.
06:34Boyd left Harrison in 1974, and then began a relationship with Clafton. Despite all of this,
06:40Harrison remained close with the new couple, and even attended their wedding in 1979.
06:46Outside of his music, Harrison became entangled with another iconic group of Brits,
06:51as he became close friends with the Monty Python comedy troupe. The Python crew was
06:56struggling to find a company that would produce their 1979 religious satire film
07:00Life of Brian, so Python member Eric Idle called Harrison. After reading the script and talking to
07:06his business manager, Harrison established Handmade Films and remortgaged his home to
07:11produce the film, which would become a critical and commercial smash hit.
07:15Handmade Films would go on to become an important production company for
07:19British cinema throughout the 1980s. It released films like Time Bandits and With
07:24Mail and I, and helped to launch the film careers of such actors as Bob Hoskins,
07:29Helen Mirren, and Richard E. Grant. But by the 90s, the studio was on the verge of bankruptcy
07:34after a number of financial disappointments at the end of the previous decade. Due to growing debt
07:39and falling numbers, the company disbanded. Harrison later sued his partner Dennis O'Brien
07:44for fraud and negligence and was awarded £11 million.
07:49The stress brought on by Beatlemania and the 1980 killing of John Lennon by a deranged fan
07:55ultimately led Harrison to become very wary of the public.
07:58At the moment I go out the gate, I think, what the hell am I doing here?
08:01His concern for privacy was proven to be justified in 1999 when a young man broke
08:06into his home and attacked him and his wife Olivia. On the night of December 30th, around
08:113.30am, a 33-year-old man named Michael Abram made his way into Harrison's mansion. Harrison
08:18confronted him and attempted to tackle and disarm him, but he managed to stab Harrison in the chest.
08:23Olivia then disarmed him by hitting him with a lamp, but her husband had suffered near-fatal
08:28wounds. Abram claimed to have been driven by wild thoughts. He was ultimately found
08:33not guilty for reason of insanity and spent two years in a mental hospital.
08:37Following the attack, Harrison joked to the press he wasn't a burglar and he certainly wasn't
08:42auditioning for the traveling Wilburys. According to George and Olivia's son Danny, this incident
08:47took years off his father's life, as he was also fighting throat cancer at the time.
08:52It's gotta, it's gotta take it out of you, you know?
08:55It wasn't just his former bandmates who George Harrison drifted from in his later years. He was
09:00very close to his older sister Louise for most of his life. He was even actually the first Beatle
09:06to spend time in the United States. This was six months before the group's Ed Sullivan show debut,
09:11when he visited Louise and her American husband in Illinois.
09:14Beginning in 1980, George started providing his sister a $2,000 monthly stipend.
09:20This came after Louise's two failed marriages with husbands who had alcohol problems.
09:24According to Louise, her brother told her,
09:27"'Don't go getting married again.' There's no reason, given my circumstances,
09:31that my sister should have any kind of hardship."
09:33By the early 90s, Louise decided to turn the home where a young George once stayed
09:38into a Beatles-themed bed-and-breakfast. This angered George, though he still continued to
09:43pay the stipend. Louise, for her part, said that she never tried to exploit the Beatles.
09:48The two eventually reconciled when George was on his deathbed. Alas, though, after his death,
09:53the monthly stipend that he had provided her stopped coming.
09:57While the death of John Lennon was quick and violent, George Harrison went through a slow,
10:02painful process as he suffered from the combined effects of throat cancer and a brain tumor.
10:07A smoker for the majority of his life, he blamed the habit for his condition.
10:11His cancer diagnosis came in 1997, and he immediately underwent treatment.
10:16It was initially successful, but then in May 2001, he had to enter the Mayo Clinic for more
10:21treatment, this time for lung cancer. Two months later, he had to undergo radiotherapy for a brain
10:27tumor in Switzerland. In his final days, he flew to New York to undergo his final treatments for
10:32brain cancer. While he was in bed shortly before his death, Harrison still had the energy to crack
10:38jokes with Ringo Starr during their final conversation. Starr was on the way to Los Angeles
10:44because his daughter was undergoing brain surgery herself. This prompted Harrison to quip,
10:49"'Do you want me to come with you?' Those were his last words he ever spoke to his former bandmate.
10:55Harrison passed away on November 29, 2001, in Los Angeles.
11:00Upon hearing the news, Paul McCartney said,
11:02"'He was a lovely guy, and a very brave man, and had a wonderful sense of humor.
11:07He is really just my baby brother.'"
11:09"'This is the only life I can remember, and I'm happy enough doing it.'"