Olivia Harrison_Interviewed by Katie Couric

then life with the former Beatles Olivia Harrison speaks for the first time ever about George their life and his music sometimes people would say are you musicians they were I used to be in a band yes Olivia Harrison on George's journeys and the song he left behind when we come back the California girl who captured a Beatles heart the George is very brave and people don't know that Olivia Harrison breaks decades of silence about the life and music of were late husband George he was called the quiet Beatle the gentle giant of pop Ibis happiness later in his life some branded him a recluse a brilliant yet eccentric musician but to her the real George Harrison wasn't an enigma at all she was his constant companion his biggest fan she was his wife he was a person that I had a great connection with and he also had a great sense of humor and he was very serious and he aspired to a higher kind of consciousness a higher life his Danna getting Olivia Harrison to agree to an interview wasn't easy it is after all this is a woman who spent nearly three decades not talking about George a man who intensely guarded his privacy which begs the question of why is she talking now she says she wants the world to celebrate George's new music and in turn celebrate his life there's a view and no places Harrison's presence felt more strongly than here friar Park the garden like foothills of his home outside London this is where the famed rock Idol and his wife shared many precious moments together and now for the very first time Olivia opens the gates to their sanctuary of 27 years this is such a spectacular place and George absolutely adored it didn't he yeah he loved it here you know early on he had to get out of London and he found a place where he could get away from the crowds and this was it an hour and a half west of London the 120 room Gothic mansion was built in the late 1800s on 30 acres of land it's shrouded in the mists of the Thames Valley but George felt most at home outside in the gardens of friar park now did George plant all of these and all of them I mean he had help we sat down on a typically rainy English afternoon but as George might have said it's good for the garden you know is nature really that he loved and I think he felt closest to God in nature The Beatles Apple may have turned sour in 1970 but for George it was a fresh start he bought friar Park which was a stark contrast to Beatlemania and a perfect place to ask life's essential questions like Who am I what am I doing here and where am I going George always said no one had time to ask those questions and really that's where he was at and he felt that from an early age but because he was had commitments and he was had a career and he had was in a band and he had a lot of songs to write and still a lot of aspirations to fulfill you know he had to continue participating probably longer than he wanted to I like the way you say he was in a band like no big deal well that's you know is that how he felt about it in a way yes yes and no I mean sometimes people would say are you a musician he said well I used to be in a bag by 1974 this beetle was flying solo professionally and personally already divorced from his first wife model Pattie Boyd George was about to embark on his very own US tour that's when he met a 26 year old named Olivia arias in Los Angeles her grandparents had immigrated from Mexico her mother was a seamstress her father a dry cleaner as I read about you I thought a lot about fate and destiny and how you were a nice girl in California working as a secretary in a record company and all of a sudden you're here and I'm sure on several occasions Olivia you might have thought wow how does this happen didn't he get lucky that's what I thought is it good for you four years after they met their first and only child Danny was born and while music always filled this young family's home it wasn't the music you might think george's morning wake-up calls to Olivia would often be a Mozart concerto cap Callaway's bugle call rag or Hoagy Carmichael's Stardust George had an incredible Ishrat Aviv that might belies for the image that a lot of people have of him he met a lot of people in his life and the people he wanted to be around usually had the same quality which was a simplicity he loved people who would appreciate that ginkgo leaf on the ground and say wow look at that but George didn't love the press and made no bones about it the press are such dummy is generally speaking I mean there are some great writers and great articles in papers and they in some ways do a useful job but the whole thing is just a salah' paper with some stupid sort of headline my images come across like I'm some weird old mystical hex peat old but he really wasn't some weird old mystical ex-beatle was he yeah he was weirder in some ways ya know I you know he was mystical and he was an X beetle so if you want to put those together then you've got yourself a headline but you know I don't think that's a very intelligent way to write about someone people would say always a recluse he said you know I just don't go where all the presses people say I don't go out I just don't go where they are but even in this film footage Olivia shared shot just over a year before his death George himself reveals just how isolated he'd become sometimes I just feel I'm actually on the wrong planet you know and I feel great but I mean my garden but the moment I go out the gate I think what the hell am I doing here still it wasn't all about privacy Harrison feared for his personal safety and as it turned out with good reason it was a terrifying experience it was nearly fatal experience it was December 1999 around 3:00 in the morning while they slept a 33 year old schizophrenic broke into friar park and viciously attacked them both stabbing George in the chest as many as eight times you might not want to admit it but you were pretty feisty yeah in a desperate attempt to subdue the assailant Olivia struck the man first with a fireplace poker then an antique lamp you took that lamp and you wallop him over the head like that yeah George was coaching me I have to say and George is very brave and people don't know that because he had already been injured and he had to jump up and bring him down to stop him from attacking me you know he saved my life - you saved each other's yeah we did and that was so that was an interesting experience because you know not a lot of people get tested like that thank God George might have escaped that brush with death but his next test would be his last after a four year battle with cancer George Harrison passed away one year ago this Friday Olivia says he faced death with no fear no regrets in a way it was the Tor he'd been rehearsing for nearly all his life after all this was the man who thirty years ago wrote about the art of dying while he was sick how did he deal with that the fact that here was something happening to his body ravaging his body in fact that he really couldn't control you know he never really I don't think felt in control he gave his life to God a long time ago he wasn't trying to hang on to anything he wasn't he was fine with it sure you know me nobody want likes to be ill nobody likes to be uncomfortable but you know he he went with what was happening he said you know you can't just at the end of your life start thinking about God you have to practice and it doesn't it's not something you just stumble upon you know consciousness and self realization you have to work for it and he worked on his music till the very end as well but would not see the completion of brainwashed a collection of 11 new songs all but one written before his illness so Olivia tapped to uniquely qualified musicians to finish the work Georgia's good friend and fellow traveling Wilbury Jeff Lynn and wouldn't you know here comes the Sun it was the happiest and the saddest thing we've ever had to do is to privilege and honor to work on a record like this and so sad that he couldn't be there to do it for us you know especially me brainwashed maybe his swan song but if you're looking for any prophetic words of wisdom you'll have to read deep between the lines his wife of 23 years says George Harrison songs were about life not death George dedicated a lot of his life to to obtain a good ending and I don't have any doubt that he was successful

Channel: SailAwayRaymond7

Views: 1,290,780

Keywords: Olivia, Harrison, George, brainwashed, katie, couric, friar, park, interview, beatles

Id: L132-4rYlXQ

Length: 11min 3sec (663 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 06 2011