How Pete Townshend helped Eric Clapton romance Pattie Boyd
Shortly after The Beatles’ seismic rise to global stardom in the early 1960s, George Harrison met his first love, the model Pattie Boyd, on the set of the band’s film A Hard Day’s Night in 1964. It was love at first sight, and Harrison, knowing what he wanted from the off, even asked Boyd if she would marry him, having known each other for just a few short hours.
While the notion of marrying up a Beatle and a model at the time felt like the epitome of the swinging 1960s dream, their relationship wouldn’t provide such happy ground for the pair. Both were liable to unfaithfulness and would, ultimately, be unable to fulfil the needs of the other. The couple finally married in 1966 and were together for 11 years until their divorce in 1977.
The marriage had been turbulent for several years after a number of infidelities on both sides, most famously with Boyd falling for Harrison’s close friend Eric Clapton. In the spirit of hippie-driven free love, it wasn’t unusual for rockstars to commit infidelities. Harrison was the so-called ‘Quiet Beatle’, but he certainly had no lack of confidence when it came to the ladies and found himself breaking his marriage vows on numerous occasions.
Boyd split from Harrison in 1974 after a string of infidelities, including an alleged fling with Ringo Starr’s wife. Meanwhile, Boyd was famously seeing Clapton with the guitarist apparently penning the song ‘Layla’ for her. The relationship was supposedly kept a secret from Harrison for a few years for three years, until Boyd and Harrison finally divorced in 1977.
Some would have expected Harrison to have been left upset by his friend cosying up to his wife, but the truth was a little different. In an interview with Paul Cashmere, Harrison revealed how little he was bothered by the set-up, which he believed “annoyed” Clapton. He claimed that Clapton “didn’t really run off with her, because we’d kind of finished with each other basically anyway.”
He explained, “And, you know, for me, this is what I think is the main problem, not the fact that he got married to Pattie. I think the fact that makes the problem is that I didn’t get annoyed at him, and I think that has always annoyed him.” For Harrison, seeing Boyd happy was pleasing – he didn’t want a big legal fallout with “all these big rows and divorces.” He continued, “I think that deep down inside, he wishes that it really pissed me off, but it didn’t, because I was happy that she went off, because we’d finished together, and it made things easier for me.”
As it turns out, Boyd and Clapton’s secret had a number of guardians helping them along the way, including The Who’s iconic guitarist Pete Townshend. In Townshend’s memoir, Who Am I? he recalled Clapton asking him: “Would I go with him and maybe spend some time with George so Eric could be alone with Pattie?”
He continued: “This turned out not to be difficult. George was happy to talk to me about Indian mysticism and music, even his use of cocaine. I found it hard to follow his reasoning that in a world of illusion, nothing mattered, not wealth or fame, drug use or heavy drinking, nothing but love for God”.
In further detail, he added: “[Eric] said later that it was a crucial moment in their relationship. Pattie did eventually leave George for Eric, who celebrated that success by having as much fun as he could without drugs. Pattie seemed happy and free. I hadn’t seen her smile in quite the way she did with Eric since I had first met her.”
In the early 1980s, Boyd and Clapton got married, and surprisingly, Harrison remained close with Clapton, fully understanding the will of the heart. Clapton and Boyd were married for several years, but sadly, it wasn’t to last, and they got a divorce in 1989. While the rollercoaster of marriage, infidelity and divorce caused a lot of hurt, we music lovers got to hear some great music written for Boyd, including Harrison’s ‘Something’ and Clapton’s ‘Layla’.
