Cherry Pop
2003-10-21 21:36:40 UTC
If anyone appeared to live a charmed life in the Sixties and Seventies, it
was the model Pattie Boyd. Blonde, leggy, and foxy, she had a gap-toothed
grin that lent her an air of child-woman vulnerability.
Like a modern-day Helen of Troy, she was the muse who was loved and lost,
wooed, won and lost again by two of the rock heroes of the time - George
Harrison married her, and his best friend Eric Clapton stole her away like
chattel. In the course of these romances, Boyd had so many rock anthems
written to her - "Something", "Layla", "Wonderful Tonight", "I'd Have You
Anytime" - that the wealth of tributes bordered on profligacy.
With musicians' machismo, Harrison and Clapton once engaged in an all-night
duelling guitar session for her hand....and presumably the rest of her.
When Clapton "won", she re-immersed herself in a fresh round of wild London
parties and hectic foreign tours, until Clapton's drug and drink addictions
eclipsed everything else in his life - and the "Layla" spell broke.
"I was a very shy person and, I suppose, easily manipulated," says Boyd now.
"Of course, it's flattering to feel someone desperately wants you, but
looking back, it's quite uncomfortable to realize that you were the object
of sexual obsession. That's quite a passive thing to be. There's more to me
than that."
Now nearing age 60, if you can believe it, Boyd still has something of the
Sixties rock chick about her: a tight, plunge-necked top reveals a plump
embonpoint but with emerging jowls, and her waist is Barbie-doll trim. Her
skin may be crosshatched with the lines and wrinkles of age, but the
kitten-blue eyes are wide and the gaze direct.
She sits gracefully erect on a cream sofa in the huge, glass-walled atelier
living room of her west London flat. Her work in front of the camera as a
model has long since been swapped for a career as a professional
photographer, but she has also been heavily involved in drug rehabilitation
charity work since 1991.
It is clear that Boyd's interest goes beyond celebrity tokenism; once
married to one of the most famous addicts of them all, she has a well of
bittersweet personal experience from which to draw. "I've become involved in
this because of people - friends - who have been in trouble as a result of
alcohol and drug abuse," she acknowledges. "It's harrowing, totally
harrowing, to watch."
Certainly, the stories she recounts, in her soft, cultured tones, highlight
the destructive flipside of rock and roll hedonism. Like many others in her
circle, Boyd sampled the booze, dope and cocaine but, unlike Clapton (and
later Ringo Starr), she knew when to stop. Her account of his descent into
heroin addiction quietly conveys the aghast impotence of a helpless
bystander.
She met Clapton in 1966, just after she and Harrison were married. By 1970,
Clapton was making no secret of the fact that he was obsessed with his
friend's wife, nor of his fury at her refusal to leave George.
One day, he turned up at the home she shared with Harrison in
Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, and proceeded to deliver a final ultimatum.
Even now, nearly three decades on, it sends a shiver down her spine.
She recalls: "Eric showed me this packet of heroin and said: 'Either you
come away with me or I will take this'. I was frankly appalled. I grabbed
at it and tried to throw it away, but he snatched it back. I turned him
down - and, as a result, for four years he became a drug addict. It was
supposed to be all my fault. You know, I made him do it!"
The conclusion she draws might seem over-simplistic - even arrogant. But
Boyd long ago ceased to feel flattered by any man's fixation on her....not
that it's happened lately in any case.
"At first, I felt guilt. Then I felt anger because it was totally
irrational of him to blame me for something he was probably going to do
anyway; it was very selfish and destructive."
She stayed in touch with him, and the months that followed, she says, were
"the most horrible, horrific time". Heroin, that most isolating of drugs,
transformed Clapton into a virtual recluse who rarely saw anyone and seldom
answered the telephone. However, in 1974, he was finally weaned off the
drug through electro-acupuncture. Later that year, he finally persuaded
Boyd to leave Harrison. Whether Harrison cared at that point is not known.
"In my naivete, I believed everything was all right," she says. "He wasn't
taking heroin, which I thought was the main addiction for him. But, as it
turned out, his drug of choice turned out to be alcohol."
Boyd, who had never been on the road with the Beatles, began joining Clapton
on tour. It gradually dawned on her that the pattern of his evenings was
invariably the same. "Eric would just completely pass out wherever he was
sitting, whether it was on the sofa or the floor, or even in bed at
inopportune moments, because he was saturated with drink. The realisation
hit me: 'This isn't fun. He's not having fun'."
Among his acquaintances, Clapton's drinking became a running joke, and they
would start taking photographs of him where he lay, comatose like a wino in
New York's Bowery. Boyd would attempt to shield him from the attention.
Clapton, however, would angrily deny he had a problem, despite the photos,
and become abusive and belligerent with friends who criticised him.
But, amid the relentless excess, there were quieter times, too, spent in
Surrey at Clapton's turn-of-the-century Italianate country house with its
garden designed by Gertrude Jekyll. "I loved living in the country; that
was the best time we had," says Boyd. "It was the most staggeringly
romantic garden. There was a sadness in the house and garden, a kind of
melancholy which was very Eric, in a way, and very creative."
The couple finally married in 1979 but, gradually, Clapton's drinking took
its toll on both him and Boyd, who was constantly on the alert, watering
down his drinks and fretting about his safety.
"One Christmas, I'd cooked lunch and most people had arrived and I couldn't
find Eric," she recalls. "It was snowing outside, and I went out and called
him, but I couldn't find him and became concerned. I just imagined him
stumbling around in the garden, passed out in a snow drift. Anything could
have happened."
The house and garden were combed, until finally Clapton was found slumped on
top of a log pile in the basement. Boyd's efforts to make him seek help -
together with those of his mother and managers - were resisted.
It was some time before Clapton faced the truth, and agreed to go to the
Betty Ford Clinic in the United States. The respite proved to be temporary.
"It was becoming very difficult," says Boyd. "You'd look for the part of the
person you know and love, but it was hard to find. I think Eric was worried
about his talent totally disappearing if he stopped drinking, which is a
common idea among creative people."
In 1985, Patti learned belatedly that he'd been having an affair with an
Italian actress, Lori Del Santo, who bore him a son, Conor, in 1996. (Conor
died in a tragic accident six years later, falling out of a hotel window.
Although Clapton was initially considered negligent by the authorities, he
was never charged.) Boyd was devastated at the news of Conor's impending
birth; she and Clapton had actively tried to have a family, and she had
undergone IVF treatment twice. She felt she had little alternative but to
leave.
"It was the most difficult thing I ever did in my life," she says. "I loved
him deeply, but knowing that he was still seeing Conor's mother, I felt
there was no role for me." S he claims Clapton failed to understand why she
was so hurt by the news, or why she felt compelled to leave. Incredibly, he
expected her to share his joy. "Because he loved me, he believed I would be
pleased and happy for him that he had a baby by another woman!," she says.
"It was as if I was his best friend; that he could tell me everything
without realising how deeply painful this was for me."
Although he begged her to stay, and engineered a brief reconciliation, the
couple split up for good. Boyd filed for divorce; at 42, she was on her
own.
"It probably took me six years to get over it, with four years of
psychotherapy," she says. "My self-esteem was unbelievably low, and I found
it really hard to build up relationships because I had been used to
difficult people. Anybody who was sweet and nice to me was no challenge."
While Clapton was seen with high-profile women, including Michelle Pfeiffer
and Sheryl Crow, Boyd concentrated on building her career as a photographer.
She had one short relationship before meeting her current companion,
property developer Rod Weston, a few years ago.
Today, Boyd's ties with the past are still in evidence; on her bookshelves,
alongside many photographs of herself and Weston, stands a bronze cast of
Clapton's hand fingering the neck of a guitar.
When Clapton's son fell to his death from a New York hotel window, she was
there to support him in the grim aftermath. They talk on the phone
occasionally and sometimes meet up; ironically, he, too, has become
passionate about providing help for addicts. Wryly, she refers to Clapton's
decision to spend more time on the drug rehab treatment centre he recently
opened in Antigua as "his new obsession".
I ask what it was about her that captured men's hearts, but for all the
distance the years have lent her, Boyd seems genuinely unable to pinpoint
why she became the ultimate rock muse. "My face? My body? My long legs? I
honestly don't know."
"Maybe it had more to do with them," she says, shrugging. "Perhaps Eric just
wanted what George had. You know, forbidden fruit. I don't know - I just
think it's amazing I've come through it and survived."
was the model Pattie Boyd. Blonde, leggy, and foxy, she had a gap-toothed
grin that lent her an air of child-woman vulnerability.
Like a modern-day Helen of Troy, she was the muse who was loved and lost,
wooed, won and lost again by two of the rock heroes of the time - George
Harrison married her, and his best friend Eric Clapton stole her away like
chattel. In the course of these romances, Boyd had so many rock anthems
written to her - "Something", "Layla", "Wonderful Tonight", "I'd Have You
Anytime" - that the wealth of tributes bordered on profligacy.
With musicians' machismo, Harrison and Clapton once engaged in an all-night
duelling guitar session for her hand....and presumably the rest of her.
When Clapton "won", she re-immersed herself in a fresh round of wild London
parties and hectic foreign tours, until Clapton's drug and drink addictions
eclipsed everything else in his life - and the "Layla" spell broke.
"I was a very shy person and, I suppose, easily manipulated," says Boyd now.
"Of course, it's flattering to feel someone desperately wants you, but
looking back, it's quite uncomfortable to realize that you were the object
of sexual obsession. That's quite a passive thing to be. There's more to me
than that."
Now nearing age 60, if you can believe it, Boyd still has something of the
Sixties rock chick about her: a tight, plunge-necked top reveals a plump
embonpoint but with emerging jowls, and her waist is Barbie-doll trim. Her
skin may be crosshatched with the lines and wrinkles of age, but the
kitten-blue eyes are wide and the gaze direct.
She sits gracefully erect on a cream sofa in the huge, glass-walled atelier
living room of her west London flat. Her work in front of the camera as a
model has long since been swapped for a career as a professional
photographer, but she has also been heavily involved in drug rehabilitation
charity work since 1991.
It is clear that Boyd's interest goes beyond celebrity tokenism; once
married to one of the most famous addicts of them all, she has a well of
bittersweet personal experience from which to draw. "I've become involved in
this because of people - friends - who have been in trouble as a result of
alcohol and drug abuse," she acknowledges. "It's harrowing, totally
harrowing, to watch."
Certainly, the stories she recounts, in her soft, cultured tones, highlight
the destructive flipside of rock and roll hedonism. Like many others in her
circle, Boyd sampled the booze, dope and cocaine but, unlike Clapton (and
later Ringo Starr), she knew when to stop. Her account of his descent into
heroin addiction quietly conveys the aghast impotence of a helpless
bystander.
She met Clapton in 1966, just after she and Harrison were married. By 1970,
Clapton was making no secret of the fact that he was obsessed with his
friend's wife, nor of his fury at her refusal to leave George.
One day, he turned up at the home she shared with Harrison in
Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, and proceeded to deliver a final ultimatum.
Even now, nearly three decades on, it sends a shiver down her spine.
She recalls: "Eric showed me this packet of heroin and said: 'Either you
come away with me or I will take this'. I was frankly appalled. I grabbed
at it and tried to throw it away, but he snatched it back. I turned him
down - and, as a result, for four years he became a drug addict. It was
supposed to be all my fault. You know, I made him do it!"
The conclusion she draws might seem over-simplistic - even arrogant. But
Boyd long ago ceased to feel flattered by any man's fixation on her....not
that it's happened lately in any case.
"At first, I felt guilt. Then I felt anger because it was totally
irrational of him to blame me for something he was probably going to do
anyway; it was very selfish and destructive."
She stayed in touch with him, and the months that followed, she says, were
"the most horrible, horrific time". Heroin, that most isolating of drugs,
transformed Clapton into a virtual recluse who rarely saw anyone and seldom
answered the telephone. However, in 1974, he was finally weaned off the
drug through electro-acupuncture. Later that year, he finally persuaded
Boyd to leave Harrison. Whether Harrison cared at that point is not known.
"In my naivete, I believed everything was all right," she says. "He wasn't
taking heroin, which I thought was the main addiction for him. But, as it
turned out, his drug of choice turned out to be alcohol."
Boyd, who had never been on the road with the Beatles, began joining Clapton
on tour. It gradually dawned on her that the pattern of his evenings was
invariably the same. "Eric would just completely pass out wherever he was
sitting, whether it was on the sofa or the floor, or even in bed at
inopportune moments, because he was saturated with drink. The realisation
hit me: 'This isn't fun. He's not having fun'."
Among his acquaintances, Clapton's drinking became a running joke, and they
would start taking photographs of him where he lay, comatose like a wino in
New York's Bowery. Boyd would attempt to shield him from the attention.
Clapton, however, would angrily deny he had a problem, despite the photos,
and become abusive and belligerent with friends who criticised him.
But, amid the relentless excess, there were quieter times, too, spent in
Surrey at Clapton's turn-of-the-century Italianate country house with its
garden designed by Gertrude Jekyll. "I loved living in the country; that
was the best time we had," says Boyd. "It was the most staggeringly
romantic garden. There was a sadness in the house and garden, a kind of
melancholy which was very Eric, in a way, and very creative."
The couple finally married in 1979 but, gradually, Clapton's drinking took
its toll on both him and Boyd, who was constantly on the alert, watering
down his drinks and fretting about his safety.
"One Christmas, I'd cooked lunch and most people had arrived and I couldn't
find Eric," she recalls. "It was snowing outside, and I went out and called
him, but I couldn't find him and became concerned. I just imagined him
stumbling around in the garden, passed out in a snow drift. Anything could
have happened."
The house and garden were combed, until finally Clapton was found slumped on
top of a log pile in the basement. Boyd's efforts to make him seek help -
together with those of his mother and managers - were resisted.
It was some time before Clapton faced the truth, and agreed to go to the
Betty Ford Clinic in the United States. The respite proved to be temporary.
"It was becoming very difficult," says Boyd. "You'd look for the part of the
person you know and love, but it was hard to find. I think Eric was worried
about his talent totally disappearing if he stopped drinking, which is a
common idea among creative people."
In 1985, Patti learned belatedly that he'd been having an affair with an
Italian actress, Lori Del Santo, who bore him a son, Conor, in 1996. (Conor
died in a tragic accident six years later, falling out of a hotel window.
Although Clapton was initially considered negligent by the authorities, he
was never charged.) Boyd was devastated at the news of Conor's impending
birth; she and Clapton had actively tried to have a family, and she had
undergone IVF treatment twice. She felt she had little alternative but to
leave.
"It was the most difficult thing I ever did in my life," she says. "I loved
him deeply, but knowing that he was still seeing Conor's mother, I felt
there was no role for me." S he claims Clapton failed to understand why she
was so hurt by the news, or why she felt compelled to leave. Incredibly, he
expected her to share his joy. "Because he loved me, he believed I would be
pleased and happy for him that he had a baby by another woman!," she says.
"It was as if I was his best friend; that he could tell me everything
without realising how deeply painful this was for me."
Although he begged her to stay, and engineered a brief reconciliation, the
couple split up for good. Boyd filed for divorce; at 42, she was on her
own.
"It probably took me six years to get over it, with four years of
psychotherapy," she says. "My self-esteem was unbelievably low, and I found
it really hard to build up relationships because I had been used to
difficult people. Anybody who was sweet and nice to me was no challenge."
While Clapton was seen with high-profile women, including Michelle Pfeiffer
and Sheryl Crow, Boyd concentrated on building her career as a photographer.
She had one short relationship before meeting her current companion,
property developer Rod Weston, a few years ago.
Today, Boyd's ties with the past are still in evidence; on her bookshelves,
alongside many photographs of herself and Weston, stands a bronze cast of
Clapton's hand fingering the neck of a guitar.
When Clapton's son fell to his death from a New York hotel window, she was
there to support him in the grim aftermath. They talk on the phone
occasionally and sometimes meet up; ironically, he, too, has become
passionate about providing help for addicts. Wryly, she refers to Clapton's
decision to spend more time on the drug rehab treatment centre he recently
opened in Antigua as "his new obsession".
I ask what it was about her that captured men's hearts, but for all the
distance the years have lent her, Boyd seems genuinely unable to pinpoint
why she became the ultimate rock muse. "My face? My body? My long legs? I
honestly don't know."
"Maybe it had more to do with them," she says, shrugging. "Perhaps Eric just
wanted what George had. You know, forbidden fruit. I don't know - I just
think it's amazing I've come through it and survived."