Pattie Boyd

Pattie Boyd Biography

Patricia Anne "Pattie" Weston (ne Boyd) (born 17 March 1944) is an English model, photographer and author. She was the first wife of both George Harrison and Eric Clapton. In August 2007, she published her autobiography Wonderful Tonight. Her photographs of Harrison and Clapton, titled Through the Eye of a Muse, have been exhibited in Dublin, Sydney, Toronto, Moscow, London, Almaty, and throughout the United States.

Early life

Boyd was born on 17 March 1944, in Taunton, Somerset, and was the first child to Colin Ian Langdon Boyd, and Diana Frances Boyd (ne Drysdale). The Boyds moved to West Lothian, Scotland, where her brother, Colin, was born in 1946. They then moved to Guildford, Surrey, where her sister, Jenny Boyd, was born in 1947. Boyd's youngest sister, Paula, was born at a hospital in Nakuru, Kenya, in 1951; the Boyds lived in Nairobi from 1948 to 1953, after her father's discharge from the Royal Air Force. The family returned to England where Boyd gained two half brothers, David (b. 1954) and Robert Jr. (b. 1955). Boyd attended Hazeldean School in Putney, the St Agnes and St Michael Convent Boarding School in East Grinstead, and St Martha's Convent in Hadley Wood, Hertfordshire (where she received three GCE O level passes in 1961). She moved to London in 1962 and worked as a shampoo girl at Elizabeth Arden's salon, until a client who worked for a fashion magazine inspired her to begin work as a model.

Career

Boyd began her fashion career in 1962, modelling in London, New York City and Paris. She was photographed by David Bailey and Terence Donovan, and appeared on the cover of Vogue. Boyd appeared on the cover of the UK and Italian editions of Vogue magazine in 1969, with other popular models of the day, such as Twiggy, who based her early modelling appearance on Boyd. Boyd was asked by Gloria Stavers to write a column for 16 Magazine, and appeared in a TV commercial promoting Smith's crisps. She was cast for A Hard Day's Night, where she met George Harrison.

Boyd exhibited her photos of Harrison and Clapton at the San Francisco Art Exchange on Valentine's Day 2005, in a show entitled Through the Eye of a Muse. The exhibition appeared in San Francisco and London during 2006, and in La Jolla, California in 2008. Boyd's photography was shown in Dublin and in Toronto in 2008 and at the Blender Gallery in Sydney, Australia and in Almaty, Kazakhstan in 2009 and 2010. Her exhibit "Yesterday and Today: The Beatles and Eric Clapton" was shown in Santa Catalina Island in California, and at the National Geographic Headquarters in Washington, DC, in 2011.

In 2007 Boyd published her autobiography, which includes some of her photographs, titled Wonderful Today in the UK; in the US it was published with the title Wonderful Tonight: George Harrison, Eric Clapton, and Me. In the United States Boyd's book debuted at the top of the New York Times Best Seller list.

Personal life

Marriage to George Harrison

Boyd met Harrison during the filming of A Hard Day's Night in 1964. She was cast as a schoolgirl in that film. Her only line in the film was asking "Prisoners?", but she later appeared in the "I Should Have Known Better" segment. Boyd was "semi-engaged" to photographer Eric Swayne at the time, and so declined a date proposal from Harrison. Several days later, after ending her relationship with Swayne, she went back to work on the film, and Harrison asked her out on a date for a second time; she said "yes". The couple went to a private gentlemen's club called the Garrick Club, chaperoned by the Beatles' manager, Brian Epstein. According to Boyd one of the first things Harrison said to her on the film set was: "Will you marry me? Well, if you won't marry me, will you have dinner with me tonight?"

Boyd had her first encounter with LSD in early 1965 when the couple's dentist, John Riley, secretly laced her coffee with the drug during a dinner party at his home. As she was getting ready to leave with Harrison and John and Cynthia Lennon, Riley told them that he had spiked their drinks and tried to persuade them to stay. Outside, Boyd was in an agitated state from the drug and threatened to break a store window, but Harrison pulled her away. Later, when Boyd and her group were in a lift on their way up to the Ad Lib club, they mistakenly believed it was on fire.

Later that year, Boyd moved into Kinfauns with Harrison. The couple were engaged on 25 December 1965, and married on 21 January 1966, in a ceremony at a register office in Ashley Road, Epsom, with Paul McCartney as best man. Later, the couple went on a honeymoon in Barbados. In September, Boyd flew with Harrison to Bombay to visit sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar, before returning to London on 23 October 1966. The following year, Boyd attended the Our World broadcast of "All You Need Is Love". Through her interest in Eastern mysticism and her membership in the Spiritual Regeneration Movement, she inspired all four Beatles to meet the Indian mystic Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in London on 24 August 1967, which resulted in a visit to the Maharishi's seminar in Bangor, the following day. Boyd accompanied Harrison on the Beatles' visit to the Maharishi's ashram in Rishikesh, India, in February 1968. In March 1970, Boyd moved with Harrison from Kinfauns to Friar Park, a Victorian neo-Gothic mansion, in Henley-on-Thames.

In 1973, Boyd's marriage to Harrison began to fail and she had an affair with Faces guitarist Ronnie Wood. She separated from Harrison in 1974 and their divorce was finalised on 9 June 1977. Boyd said her decision to end their marriage and leave Harrison was based largely on his repeated infidelities, culminating in an affair with Ringo Starr's wife Maureen, which Boyd called "the final straw". Boyd characterised the last year of her marriage as "fuelled by alcohol and cocaine", and claimed "George used coke excessively, and I think it changed him ... it froze his emotions and hardened his heart."

Marriage to Eric Clapton

In the late 1960s Clapton and Harrison became close friends, and began writing and recording music together. This is when Clapton fell in love with Boyd. His 1970 album with Derek and the Dominos, Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, was written to proclaim his love for her, particularly the hit song "Layla". When Boyd rebuffed his advances later that year, Clapton descended into heroin addiction and self-imposed exile for three years. Boyd moved in with Clapton and married him in 1979. Her struggles within the marriage were masked by her public image with Clapton. Boyd drank, and admits to past drug use, but she never became a drug addict like Clapton did. Boyd left Clapton in September 1984, and divorced him in 1989. Her stated reasons were Clapton's years of alcoholism, as well as his numerous affairs, including one with Italian model, Lory Del Santo. In 1989, her divorce was granted on the grounds of "infidelity and unreasonable behaviour". Boyd was also the inspiration for the songs: "Bell Bottom Blues" and "Wonderful Tonight".

Marriage to Rod Weston

On 30 April 2015 Boyd was married for the third time at the Chelsea Register Office at Chelsea Old Town Hall in London. Her husband, property developer Rod Weston, was quoted as saying, "It's almost our silver anniversary so we thought we had better get on with it".