#meetthebeatlesforreal

[harrisonstories]

George Harrison turns his amp back on after police attempt to stop the rooftop performance. (Get Back, 2021)

George Harrison v.s. the police

“In Cleveland, without asking us, two senior police officers marched on stage and stopped our show completely because they said the crowd was getting out of hand. The safety curtain was pulled down, and we were ordered to our cars. With the cops shouting, ‘The show’s over, fellows, this is where we take over.’ It’s never happened to us before. But that’s the trouble with American cops – they’re over-enthusiastic, whether it’s for stopping shows, hurling us into cars, baton charging the crowd or just asking 30 autographs at a time." - George's column in The Daily Express (1964) [x]

"We've been and played here in Sydney, and it was the biggest drag of all time. The stage revolves every three minutes and we have to walk right down the aisles like boxers to get to the stage. At the first house I punched a policeman because he was shoving me like mad and some kids had a hold of me all at once and I was trying to get off the stage. I was swearing my head off at one policeman (sorry), and later the chief came and apologised to me." - George in a letter to his parents (1964)

“I noticed a police car. It says, written on the door, ‘To serve and to protect’, and that really sort of buzzed me. I was starting to wonder like, who are they serving, and who are they protecting? I mean that’s where it’s really at because maybe they do serve and protect, but you know…themselves or? Like, who? […] That’s the trick you see. They say, ‘It’s not me. It’s somebody up there telling me what to do,.’ and you can never find like, who is the guy at the top? Because they shift the load, you know? Take a load off Annie.” - George interviewed by Don Hall and Charles Laquidara (1968)

“George arrived home, with Mal Evans and Derek Taylor in tow. All the detectives instantly leaped from George’s settees to converge upon their quarry as he stormed, ranting and raving, into his kitchen. 'The foxes have got their lairs,' George shouted, 'and the birds have their fucking nests, but man doesn’t have anywhere he can fucking go without people breaking into his house!' Ignoring this tirade, the Drug Squad, charging him with possession of cannabis, produced two pieces of incriminating evidence. 'That one’s mine!' George snapped. 'But I’ve never seen this one before in me fucking life! You don’t have to bring your own dope to me house, I’ve got plenty meself! And you didn’t have to turn this whole fucking place upside down, I could have shown you where the stuff was if you’d asked me!' Their only response was to ask George to accompany them to the police station. 'Well, I don’t care where the fuck we go,' George retorted, 'just so long as you get all these fuckers out of my house!'" - Pete Shotton on the 1969 drug bust at Kinfauns [x]

"The prosecution had stated then that Harrison drove his car on to the busy junction of Wigmore Street and Orchard Street blocking traffic. When stopped by the Pc, Stephen Gardner he drove the car forward with the constable walking alongside and twice refused a requestion to drive to the offside of the road. Pc Gardner walked forward and stood in front of the car and Harrison advanced the car slowly and it hit the officer's knee. He drove against the officer three times. Police spent 15 minutes trying to get his name and address, but Harrison, who was heavily bearded, was finally recognized. Mr. Polden told the magistrate yesterday that Harrison was trapped in the boxed area. He was driving his wife's Mercedes, and drove slowly forward. He heard a hammering on the car roof. ‘Mr. Harrison's lot has been to find people hammering on the roof of his car and he did not associate it initially with police action.’

The policeman believed the driver was taking no notice of his signal. Harrison had the car radio on and did not hear the officer speak to him. When the policeman ran in front of the car Harrison realized for the first time he was being requested to stop ‘for reasons quite obscure to him.’ He decided to pull in to the near side and started to turn not realising he was being discourteous. ‘He should have stopped, but it stemmed from a misunderstanding. That is why he pleaded guilty.’ ‘Mr. Harrison's nature is such that the arrogant level of driving does not really enter into it. As far as a man in his position can have, he has a sense of humility. He is not capable of deliberately driving into a police officer, causing him to hurt. He took the whole business impassively rather than arrogantly.’” - Guy Rais, Ban on Harrison (1971) [x]

"George gives me a souvenir as I leave -- a baton belonging to the Chief Constable of Liverpool, which GH took off him at the Liverpool premiere of A Hard Day’s Night!" - Michael Palin, Halfway to Hollywood: Diaries 1980–1988

"I was 15 and then uh...had some little run-in with some policemen, and he told the policemen to fuck off. And that was when I realised he was actually cool, on my side, and not just a scary dad, y'know?" - Dhani Harrison, Living in the Material World

[underthecitysky]

[scourgiez]

the thing ever is people meeting the beatles and commenting that ringo is smaller in person

[mrepstein]

Ringo Starr and Brian Epstein in Blackpool, August 1965. Photo credit: meetthebeatlesforreal

[monkberries]

Sara of meetthebeatlesforreal said this about George. It's not scientific by any means but I thought it was interesting since George is by no means her fave and she pays the most attention to that stuff. "Of all four of the Beatles, George is the one that opened his home most frequently, chatted with fans and stopped to sign autographs outside of the studio. While there are a few stories that show times when George lost his temper, overall – he went above and beyond to show kindness to others."

Thank you for these sources!!

[rolloroberson]

Arrivals and Departures: Candid photos of a day in July, 1969, during the “Abbey Road” album recording sessions taken by various members of the Apple Scruffs and other Beatles fans on vigil outside Abbey Road-EMI Studios that day in London. You see Paul arriving- Linda is nearby but not in the shot taken by his adoring fans: John inside the studio photographed by Yoko from the vantage point of her bed: George arrives being guarded by Mal Evans: at the end of a day where he recorded some of the best sounding drum parts in music history, Ringo departs with his driver Alan(according to accounts Maureen accompanied Ritchie but not photographed): and finally after midnight the departure of Pattie Boyd Harrison is pictured(then the fireman rushes in... oh never mind). Information derived from www.meettheBeatlesforreal.com and posted by Sara S., an eyewitness of that day in the life.

[bugband]

i'm planning on scanning and uploading my beatles magazines, john's playboy interview (i have the original ripped from the magazine interview which is quite nice, thank my sister) and stuff from my books for yall

[harrisonarchive]

George Harrison in the doorway of Kinfauns, 1967; photo by Beatle fan Pattie Emerson. Photo courtesy of meetthebeatlesforreal dot com, with the additional info that: "Pattie was a 14 year old fan who knocked on George’s door and was given an orange soda by him while he chatting and signed autographs for her."

The time frame of this photo also corresponds with this topic:

"It was one of those days where it was nice to make plans to do nothing… No one was answering the phone at their house, so we figured they couldn’t hear the phone because they were out by the pool. Anxious to set about doing nothing with them, we decided to grab our swimming suits and drive over and join them. We walked through the gate and saw George and Pattie lying by the pool sunbathing. We yelled our hellos from a slight distance on our way across the large lawn into the pool area. Upon seeing us headed in their direction, George suddenly jumped up and grabbed a long-sleeve shirt from the back of a nearby chaise lounge and quickly put it on. I didn’t think anything of it, figuring it was an act simultaneous to our arrival to cover up from getting sunburn. 
Later, while George and I were in the kitchen and the wives had gone shopping, Pattie confided to my wife that George was bashful about his slenderness and was embarrassed to be seen without his shirt on. When she told me this, I realized I had never seen him in anything but long pants and primarily long-sleeve shirts before. It all goes to show how we think of celebrities as so invincible, and yet here was a normal person with normal little insecurities like everyone else." - Ken Mansfield, The White Book (x)

[eppysboys]

“I met John Lennon at Disney World while working as a monorail operator. He, Julian and May Pangrode in the front of the monorail on two different occasions with me. I allowed him and Julian to operate the train. The second day John came out to the station and actually ask if I was working. He and Julian waited until I arrived in the train and again rode with me and drove the train. May Pang took a lot of pictures that day. As they left the train that day John ask if I would like to take some pictures and waited while I retrieved a camera. I have a great 8×10 of John Lennon and I together." - Cast Member Hal East

“Riding the Disney World monorail back to our hotel, I overheard a father tell his son he had heard a Beatle was visiting. “Which Beatle?” The father said, “George Harrison." I burst out laughing. John asked why. We then all started laughing so hard that the Dad turned around. It then registered which Beatle was at the park that day - and why we were laughing. “It’s O.K.," John jokingly said, "we all look alike.” - May Pang

source: meetthebeatlesforreal

[ludmilachaibemachado]

Credits to @meetthebeatlesforreal

[blueguitar]

Paul McCartney and George Harrison, Florida, 1964.

This was in Key West, by Curt Gunther. Here are some more from that day, via meetthebeatlesforreal

[harrisonstories]

Louise Harrison standing in her kitchen in Liverpool. (1964)

Photo from: Rolls Press/Popperfoto

NOTE: I recommend reading this whole story at MeetTheBeatlesForReal because it is lovely!

"[In June 1969] Mrs. Harrison, Sima and I sat on the porch and talked. I told her how upset I was because we had missed seeing George, by just a couple hours a few days earlier (He was off to Sardinia with Pattie). Mrs. Harrison told us that George had called them before he left and said he would be gone two weeks, but if the weather was good, they might stay longer. She told us about the time George walked out of the 'Let it Be' sessions. Pattie was away modeling or visiting her family at the time, so George drove home to them. Mrs. Harrison tried to convince George that the other three were conspiring against him by playing too loud while he sang. She played him various cuts to show him, but George didn’t see it that way.

She talked to us about John and wondered 'what was happening to him!' (Sima didn’t like this since she is a John fanatic!). Mrs. Harrison had even asked George if she should go down to London and talk some sense to John, but George told her it wouldn't do any good.

Another time, she went to visit Paul’s father because he had been ill. When she got there, Paul answered the door and introduced Linda to her. 'I want you to meet my girlfriend.' Mrs. Harrison said she did a double take and wondered where Jane was! The house was full of relatives and Heather (being only 5 at the time) was excited being in a new place and all and didn’t finish her dinner. Linda wouldn’t let her have dessert and sent her off to bed instead. Mrs. Harrison thought that was horrible!

While we talked, a few flies would buzz around from the garden and Mrs. Harrison went to hit them. She said she couldn’t do that when George was there because he believed that everything had a right to live – no matter how small."

-- Susan Maier, "A Special Day," 1979 issue of the Harrison Alliance

[mododyssey]

The Beatles were seated on their swivel stools.  John swung joyously about on his throughout the conference. George, wearing a brown suede jacket over a white silk shirt tucked into scuzzy blue jeans sat nearest me; my beloved Paul in white Levis and a grey shirt with black pinstripes; John, in a black jersey shirt and dark-cinnamon colored suit; and Ringo in blue and white striped pants, blue print shirt and white jacket.

“Fans that Got to Meet the Beatles (Los Angeles)” by Vicki Hessel, in Datebook magazine [Source: meetthebeatlesforreal]

[withthebeatlesgirls]

I don't know how to link it, but on meetthebeatlesforreal there's an article called "The truth about my romance with Beatle Paul" by Jill Haworth from a 60s magazine. There's some interesting info in the comments where someone mentions similar articles came out at the same time about Ann-Margaret/Ringo and Joey/George. One commenter was a publicist & suspected these starlets were trying to drum up publicity by exaggerating their stories. Knowing what 60s mags are like it's possible. [1/2]

Continued -’Anyway, thought you might find that interesting! It's probably where all these rumors have come from. [2/2]’

Here’s a link to the article to anyone whose interested 

I read through the comments, and a lot of people say the same thing about it how it was just rumors and for publicity. And that very much could be true, it certainly wouldn’t surprise me

[mrepstein]

Brian Epstein photographed by Beatle fan Annette outside EMI’s Abbey Road Studios, June 25, 1967 - the day the Beatles recorded “All You Need is Love” for the Our World live satellite television broadcast. (Photo credit: Annette / meetthebeatlesforreal) 

[good-to-drive]

This reminds me...Sara from Meetthebeatlesforreal once said there were stories she thought best not to share because both sides of the conflict between Paul, Linda, and the fans came off very badly. I think I remember her saying it would change how people see them. Maybe that story is one of them.

That makes me a little nervous 😬 But for now I'm just assuming it didn't really happen....