Wonderful Tonight: George Harrison, Eric Clapton, and Me

$11.38
by Pattie Boyd

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#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • For the first time, rock music’s most famous muse tells her incredible story, from her tumultuous childhood and the beginning of her modeling career to her marriages with George Harrison and Eric Clapton, and shares exclusive photographs of her life in the sixties and beyond “A charming, lively, and seductive book.”— The New York Times Book Review “[ Wonderful Tonight ] will thrill classic-rock buffs with a taste for scandal.”— Entertainment Weekly 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. In Wonderful Tonight, iconic photographer Pattie Boyd breaks a forty-year silence and reveals how she found herself bound to two of the most addictive, promiscuous musical geniuses of the twentieth century and became the most legendary muse in the history of rock and roll. She met the Beatles in 1964 when she was cast as a schoolgirl in A Hard Day’s Night. Ten days later, a smitten George Harrison proposed. For twenty-year-old Pattie Boyd, this was the beginning of an unimaginably rich and complex life as she was welcomed into the Beatles’ inner circle—a circle that included Mick Jagger, Ron Wood, Jeff Beck, and a veritable who’s who of rock musicians. She describes the dynamics of the group, the friendships, the tensions, the music-making, and the weird and wonderful memories she has of Linda and Paul McCartney, Cynthia and John Lennon, Maureen and Ringo Starr, and especially with her husband, George. It was a sweet, turbulent life, which took an unexpected turn when a passionate letter set in motion a sordid love affair with Eric Clapton. The woman who inspired Harrison’s song “Something” and Clapton’s anthem “Layla,” Pattie Boyd has written a book that is rich and raw, funny, and heartbreaking—and totally honest. “A scrumptious memoir . . . There is exactly one big question for Ms. Boyd to answer here: What made her leave Mr. Harrison for Mr. Clapton, her husband’s close friend? To its credit the book answers that question plausibly and fully.” — The New York Times “The appeal of Wonderful Tonight is as self-evident as the seemingly simple but brash opening chord of ‘A Hard Day’s Night.’ . . . A charming, lively, and seductive book . . . this isn’t a bitter tell-all. There’s an aura of sweetness around Boyd’s approach.” — The 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 music’s most famed performers.” — Harper’s 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 ’60s, you weren’t 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 era’s 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 Boyd’s 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 story . . . but here she is: not dead, not on drugs, not an alcoholic, but a survivor.” — Daily Mail (London) Pattie Boyd is an acclaimed photographer whose exhibition Through the Eyes of a Muse toured two continents. She lives in West Sussex, England. Chapter 1 One Childhood in Kenya My earliest memory is of sitting in a high chair spitting out spinach—strange 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 vegetables—but it has to be right: steamed, chopped, and mixed with double cream, white pepper, and nutmeg. Delicious. Raw in a salad, it’s even better. But at the age of two I couldn’t 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 train—in an ordinary carriage, as she puts it—with 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

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