Какова судьба Патти Бойд?

С помощью поиска посмотрел: вроде бы такого вопроса на форуме не было, а меня он интересует.
ПБ - первая жинка ДХ. Насколько я помню, она была смазливой девушкой. Ну, конечно же все знают про историю с Клаптоном (увёл жинку у друга, посвятил ей песню "Лэйла"...)
Но вот сейчас (да и вообще, скоолько себя помню) с Эриком не Патти. Так где ж она? Как сложилась её судьба, как и когда закончились (продолжаются?) её отношения с ЭК? Каковы были её отношения с ДХ после развода? (хотя, каие к чёрту отношения после такого?) Есть ли у неё дети (от ДХ, от ЭК, или от кого-либо)? Вообще, жива ли?

'It's amazing we're still alive'


Pattie Boyd was married to one of rock's most famous drug addicts - now she is raising funds to help others.

If anyone appeared to live a charmed life in the Sixties and Seventies, it was the model Pattie Boyd. Blonde and leggy, she had a gap-toothed smile 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. In the course of these romances, Boyd had so many rock anthems written to her - Something, Layla, Wonderful Tonight - 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. When Clapton won, she re-immersed herself in a fresh round of wild London parties and hectic foreign tours, until his drug and drink addictions eclipsed everything else in his life - and the 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 realise that you were the object of desire. That's quite a passive thing to be."

In her early fifties, Boyd still has something of the Sixties rock chick about her: a tight, plunge-necked top reveals a plump embonpoint and her waist is Sindy-doll trim. Her skin may be crosshatched with the lines 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.

Along with Barbara Bach (wife of Ringo Starr) and Lucy Ferry (wife of Bryan Ferry) - both of whom have been treated for alcohol abuse - plus Jools Holland's lover, Christabel Durham, she is currently engaged in a fundraising drive to provide support for addicts. The latest project is a concert, featuring Holland and his Rhythm and Blues Orchestra, which takes place tomorrow.

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, she knew when to stop. Her account of his descent into heroin addiction quietly conveys the aghast impotence of a helpless bystander.

She met him in 1966, just after she and Harrison were married. By 1970, Clapton was making no secret of the fact that he was besotted by his friend's wife, nor of his anger at her refusal to leave her husband.

One day, he turned up at the home she shared with Harrison in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, and proceeded to deliver an ultimatum. Even now, nearly three decades on, it sends a shiver through her.

She recalls: "Eric showed me this packet of heroin and said: 'Either you come away with me or I will take this'. I was appalled. I grabbed at it and tried to throw it away, but he snatched it back. I turned him down - and, for four years, he became a drug addict."

The conclusion she draws might seem over-simplistic - even arrogant. But Boyd long ago ceased to feel flattered by any man's obsession with her.

"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 persuaded Boyd to leave Harrison.

"In my naivety, 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, 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. Boyd would attempt to shield him from the attention. Clapton, however, would deny he had a problem, 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 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. 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 a treatment centre 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, it emerged that he had had 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.) Boyd was devastated at the news of the 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." She claims Clapton failed to understand why she was so hurt by the news, or why she felt compelled to leave. 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," 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, in 1991.

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.

"Maybe it had more to do with them," she says, shrugging. "Perhaps Eric just wanted what George had. I don't know - I just think it's amazing we've come through it and we're all still alive."

Посмотрите вот эту страничку
http://www.geocities.com/laylaboyd/pattie.html
Тут много ее фото

Свадьба одной из родственниц Ринго.
На фото видно и Джорджа с Оливией и Патти.

Интересно - в каком году сделана эта фотография?
Судя по всему (прежде всего по внешнему виду Ринго) - это начало 80-х.

Вот абсолютно счастливый Джордж рядом с Патти на снимке 1966 года:
http://www.photoland.km.ru/view/a0CB233E3B244459782FC50BA51A9C2D3.htm

Mr. Kite Примерно тогда, точную дату не помню

August 31, 2004 -- Hello Magazine

Ex-wife of George Harrison, Pattie Boyd, has done a two-part interview with Hello magazine (issues #831 - Madonna on the cover & issue #832 Princess Diana on the cover) in the UK "My Life with George Harrison - Pattie Boyd's Memories."
In part one Patti talks about her life with George, illustrated with rare photos.

In part two, Pattie talks about her rollercoaster life with guitarist Eric Clapton.

Поясните, пожалуйста, разве русский "Hello" чем-то отличается от зарубежного? В номере от 31 августа ничего нет!

2Юю: к сожалению отличается

так что, олучается, детей у нее не было?

CLAPTON'S EX-WIFE REGRETS SPURNING LENNON



Rocker ERIC CLAPTON's second wife PATTIE BOYD still regrets not inviting late rocker JOHN LENNON to their wedding.

The couple married on 27 March 1979 and devastated Lennon by spurning him, but inviting all of his fellow BEATLES, ROLLING STONES MICK JAGGER and BILL WYMAN, and a reunited CREAM. Lennon - who was shot dead in 1980 - later complained he would have attended the ceremony if he'd been asked.

Boyd explains, "I did feel remorseful afterwards that I hadn't invited John to our wedding party.

"But I knew he wouldn't come. He was living in America at the time and the authorities were threatening not to allow him back in if he left the country."

01/09/2004 09:03


http://www.contactmusic.com/new/xmlfeed.nsf/0/CDC7AC0EBF980A7480256F02002C4C7D!opendocu...

PATTIE BOYD TALKS to HELLO! Magazine, August 31, 2004. Part 1 of two:

COVER: “MY LIFE WITH GEORGE HARRISON” PATTIE BOYD’S MEMORIES

In The First Of A Two-Part Memoir
PATTIE
BOYD
TALKS ABOUT HER
FASCINATING LIFE AS A TOP
MODEL AND BEATLES WIFE

Pattie Boyd occupies a unique place in the history of rock music. Married first to Beatle
George Harrison, then to his best friend Eric Clapton, she was at the very heart of the
cultural and social revolution that swept the old order aside during the Swinging Sixties.

A famous beauty, she inspired some of the greatest love ballads ever written - George
Harrison’s much-recorded Something and Eric Clapton’s wistful Layla and Wonderful
Tonight. At the end of her marriage to George, the two musicians are even said to have
fought a guitar duel over her.

In the quietly elegant woman she is today, it is still easy to glimpse the tall and willowy
teenager with cascading blonde hair and striking blue eyes who turned heads at the
dawning of the Age of Aquarius. When he first began dating her, George Harrison
proudly told his fellow Beatles that she looked like Brigitte Bardot.

“Creative artists have always had their muses,” reflects Pattie. “When George told me
Something (described by Frank Sinatra as “the greatest love song in the last 50 years”)
was for me, he just mentioned it quietly. I was young and very shy, and it didn’t seem a
big deal. I had no sense of being part of history. That only came later.”

Today, she divides her time between her elegant penthouse apartment in London and her
pretty country cottage in Sussex. Happily settled with her long-time partner, property
developer Rod Weston, and enjoying a burgeoning career as a photographer, she ponders
calmly on the heady days when she was the ultimate rock chick.

There was little in Pattie’s quiet, middle-class upbringing to suggest that she would one
day be pursued by two of the world’s greatest guitarists. She was born the daughter of an
Army officer at the family home outside Taunton in Somerset. When she was four years
old, her father was posted to Kenya, where he took up horse breeding.

“Eventually, there were four of us - myself, plus my two younger sisters Jenny and Paula,
and my brother Colin. We pretty much ran wild. We played and hung out with the local
kids,” recalls Pattie.

Her carefree idyll ended when she was sent to a boarding school in Nakuru, outside
Nairobi, at the age of seven. “I couldn’t understand it, couldn’t work out if it was a
punishment,” she says. “I was so emotionally confused. It has left a legacy of insecurity.”

Eventually, Pattie’s mother remarried and moved back to England with the children and
their new stepfather. “I was amazed at all the bright lights in London,” says Pattie. “In
Africa the nights are so dark, but London seemed permanently lit up. It was quite magical
and wonderful.”

The family settled in Wimbledon, but Pattie was packed off to another boarding school,
this time in East Grinstead, Sussex. “I grew quite estranged from the family. There was a
stepfather and two more brothers, my mother’s new children. Sometimes I was taken out
of school and there were these very silent lunches at the local hotel.”

When Pattie left school at 17 she had no inkling of the extraordinary life that awaited her.
“I had no ambitions at all. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. Few Women thought about
careers then. It was just assumed that you would get married and that would be the end of
it.

“I was very shy but also rebellious. In a vague way I knew I didn’t want to conform. I told
my parents I was leaving home to share a flat in London with some girls I’d met. Of
course, that meant getting a job.”

It was the dawn of the Swinging Sixties, a time when London’s post-war greyness was
suddenly full of colour and possibility. Pattie went to work in the hairdressing department
of Elizabeth Arden, a job that lasted barely two months before she was talent-spotted.

“When I was at Arden I saw Vogue magazine for the first time,” says Pattie. “There were
the most stunning photographs of Jean Shrimpton. She looked so very young. She became
an icon for me and I dreamed of becoming a model. Then one day a client who worked for
a fashion magazine came into Arden and asked if I wanted to be a model. It was the
classic story, really. I just couldn’t believe my luck.

“For the first three months it was quite hard work, traipsing around various advertising
agencies looking for work and trying to persuade photographers to take pictures of me for
my portfolio. Finally, the jobs started coming in. I did a lot of work for magazines and
catalogues. By this time I knew David Bailey socially and I’d met Jean Shrimpton.

“Then I went to a go-see (casting) for a TV commercial for Smith’s crisps. The director
was Dick Lester. Meeting him changed my life. It was one of those sharp right turns that
alters things forever.

“Some time later he called me back again, and I automatically assumed it was for Smith’s,
but he told me he was casting for a film he was directing, starring The Beatles - their first
feature film. He also said I would have to wear a school uniform. I remember telling him I
had no desire to be an actress. I was quite horrified - the idea of meeting famous rock stars
dressed as a schoolgirl!”

The film was A Hard Days Night. Pattie’s role was tiny, defined as ‘Girl on train’ and
amounting to two small scenes and a single word of dialogue before The Beatles perform
I Should Have Known Better.

“It was all very cloak-and-dagger because this was the height of Beatlemania. I boarded
the train at Paddington. It was the first time filming had ever been done on a moving train;
usually they would have built a set. The train pulled up somewhere in the suburbs and The
Beatles finally got on board. I met them and they said hello. I couldn’t believe it. They
were so like I’d imagined them to be.”

Pattie remembers that when she asked George to sign an autograph for herself and her
sisters, he put three kisses under each of her sisters’ names - and seven under hers.

“George made a pitch but I already had a boyfriend, although we weren’t living together,
so I turned him down,” says Pattie. “Then a week later we were called back for more
filming at Pinewood. That week gave me time to think. When I first saw George, I
thought he was extraordinarily good-looking, very charming and, like me, very shy. He
had an amazing sense of humour, not in a practical-joke-sort-of-way like Paul, but with
words, in a very dry way. I liked him immediately. So when he asked me again I said yes.
I thought it would be fun. I imagined it would only be for one evening and that would be
it.”

Little did she know. “It was quite a fast romance and pretty soon we were seeing each
other every day,” she says.

Initially, they kept their relationship secret, fearing the reaction of fans. In fact, it was
said that George even asked permission from the band’s manager Brian Epstein before taking
Pattie out on their first date.

There was plenty to fear from the fanatically devoted fans, as Pattie found out to her cost.
“One night, I went with some friends to a Beatles concert at what was then the
Hammersmith Odeon.* I knew we had to get out before the end of the show, and we left
by a side exit. Then ten fans spotted me and started chasing me, kicking me from behind.
We got to our Mini and jumped in, and these girls started rocking the car. They were
furious because I’d bagged a Beatle. It was so frightening.”

The band’s management also worried what fans might think. “Once there was a film
premiere and Brian thought it would be more appropriate if George turned up with Hayley
Mills on his arm rather than me, so she was his date for the night. I felt crushed.”**

But within a year they were living together and by the time Pattie was 21 they were
married. The wedding took place on 21 January 1966, at Epsom Register Office in Surrey,
with the bride and groom wearing his-and-hers fur coats designed by Mary Quant. Paul
McCartney was the only other Beatle in attendance and Brian Epstein acted as best man.

The newlyweds lived in manorial splendour in Esher, in the heart of stockbroker country.
“John Lennon and Ringo Starr lived nearby in Weybridge,” says Pattie. “I felt I’d joined
a very exclusive club. We all spent a lot of time together. We didn’t go to many parties -
they always seemed so formal and grown-up. We just hung out with each other and other
musicians. It was quite an insular life.

“Actually, though, in a strange kind of way, we could escape a lot of the attention. Rock
and roll is different to acting. It’s not really showbiz. It’s raw and personal. Rock stars are
less concerned with creating an image - if they don’t want to do something, they just
won’t do it. They’re performers, not actors - at least the people I was with. So in that
company I didn’t have to perform either. I could just be myself.”

George himself was hardly a social animal. Dubbed ‘The Quiet Beatle’, he loathed the
fame game. In a grudging acknowledgement of his status, he once remarked laconically:
“I guess if you’ve got to be in a rock group, it might as well be The Beatles.”

Being with George, Pattie avoided some of the social pressures that might have tested her
shyness. Even so, her influence on the other Beatles was considerable. John was said to
harbour an innocent fancy for her and called by ‘Battie’, while Paul included the track
Honey Pie on The White Album simply because she expressed a liking for it. Pattie
attended many of the band’s recording sessions and was the only Beatles wife present for
A Day In The Life.

Of George’s band mates, she says: “John was always great fun to be around. He had a
certain energy and was super-talented - quite wonderful. Of course, I was devastated
when he was murdered. We all were. It was one of those terrible events everyone
remembers. As for Paul, in a way I felt as if I didn’t really know him. He was just Paul, as
he projected himself to the public, and I didn’t feel I knew any more about him than
anybody else. Ringo was really funny. I’ve stayed friendly with him over the years and
still see him quite often. He and his wife Barbara Bach live quite close to me in Sussex.”

It was Pattie who introduced George to meditation and Indian mysticism, and who
inspired The Beatles famous journey to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s ashram in India in 1968.
“I was always interested in Eastern philosophies and wanted find out about meditation,”
says Pattie. “I went to some lectures and became initiated into transcendental meditation.
When the Maharishi came to England, George said he wanted to meet him and became
passionate about his teachings.”

In time the whole band followed the Maharishi to India, with wives, girlfriends and
Pattie’s sister Jenny in tow. For Pattie and George, at least, it was a deeply rewarding
experience. “It was a very simple routine,” she recalls. “The accomodation was utterly
basic, without any kind of rock-star comforts. We just meditated until breadfast, then for
the rest of the day or attended lectures given by Maharishi, learning all the time.”

The other Beatles were rather less enamoured. John, in particular, was unconvinced
that the Maharishi was the genuine article and later wrote the disparaging song Sexy
Sadie about him. “John had his own concerns then,” explains Pattie. “He had started
his relationship with Yoko and wanted to get back to her. And Ringo’s (first) wife
Maureen was allergic to the flies in India, so they didn’t stay very long. At least Paul and
Jane (Asher, who was his girlfriend) seemed to have a good time. In any case, I think
the other three Beatles wanted to get back to London to start up a certain record company
called Apple.

“George and I, on the other hand, really got a lot out of the experience. We decided to
stay on after the others had left and went to South India. We stayed two-and-a-half
months altogether. It changed our lives and had a lifelong effect on George and on his
music,” says Pattie, who is still a devotee of meditation.

Back in England after their Indian adventure, it was perhaps inevitable that they would fall
foul of the narcotics squad. They had had a lucky escape when Mick Jagger was arrested
at a party in 1967, but were arrested for possession of hashish two years later on the very
same day that Paul McCartney married Linda Eastman.

Released and given a modest fine, that night they went to a party attended by Princess
Margaret and Lord Snowdon where Pattie spotted her sister Paula smoking a joint and
offering it to the Princess.

“I couldn’t believe it,” says Pattie. “It was the same day that we’d been busted and there
was my sister trying to hand Princess Margaret a joint.”

By this time Pattie had given up her career as a model.*** “George didn’t like me
modelling,” she explains. “He told me to stop. I didn’t mind really because I had already
achieved quite a lot. Before we married I’d been featured in the English, French, Italian
and American Vogue. I’d been on two covers**** of English Vogue and once on Italian
Vogue. So I’d had a successful career and I felt I’d achieved something on my own.
Besides, I really didn’t mind being the wife at home.”

Eventually, however, it was no longer enough. Pattie’s initially happy marriage began to
founder amid rumours of George’s infidelities and his self-absorbed retreat into mediation.
She turned to Eric Clapton for comfort and to make George jealous.

“Eric was a strong presence in our lives,” says Pattie. “He was a brilliant guitarist and was
already an established star. He’d played with John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers before forming
Cream with Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker. He and George were great friends.

“I suppose you could say that we had a two-part romance. First we had what you’d call
an affair. I did want to make George take notice, though I didn’t understand my motives
at the time. Sometimes you act unconsciously, and it’s only afterwards that you realise
why you did it,” she says.

The only flaw in the this plan was that Eric fell completely under her spell and wrote his
famously coded song Layla - recorded under the name Derek and the Dominoes - as a
covert tribute to Pattie.

He even turned up at her home an begged her to leave George but Pattie wouldn’t.
“I wanted to be there, but I also didn’t want to be there,” she says. “You can love
someone but it doesn’t necessarliy mean you can live with them. Even though George
and I both loved each other, it finally became essential that we went in different
directions.”

Worn down by George’s inability to declare his affection, and by Eric’s persistence,
Pattie left home and moved in with Eric. She and George divorced in 1977, and Pattie
married Eric two years later in Arizona. And who should attend the wedding but
George - with his new wife, Olivia.***** Despite the circumstances, George maintained
his friendship with Eric, dismissing the stolen-wife theory as “rubbish”. As he told a mate:
“If it had to be, it has to be - as long as we are still friends because that’s the most
important part.”

As for Pattie, she never lost her affection and admiration for her first husband. “We were
so different, from completely different backgrounds. He came from the north of England,
Liverpool, and I suppose I felt more sophisticated than him. But we grew up together
spiritually. It’s something you never lose.”

Pattie was devastated when George, having survived a near-fatal attack by a deranged
intruder at his home in Henley in December 1999, died from cancer just two years later.
“I just didn’t realise how ill he was. I kept imagining he would recover. I hadn’t seen him
for six months, but I never dreamed it was the last time. I was distraught. He was my first
love and the most important influence in my life. I will always miss him.”

END

Спасибо, Ася (тетя?) за первоисточник. Жду продолжения. Вторая часть вероятно не хуже. Спасибо.

Пожалуйста, oea.
Part 2
THE FORMER WIFE OF BEATLE GEORGE HARRISON

PATTIE BOYD

TALKS ABOUT HER ROLLERCOASTER LIFE
WITH SECOND HUSBAND ERIC CLAPTON

Last week, Pattie talked about her childhood among Kenya’s Happy Valley set, how she
got her break as a model while working as a hairdressing assistant at Elizabeth Arden, her
bit part as a schoolgirl in The Beatles film A Hard Days Night that led to marriage to
George Harrison and their spiritual growth together. This week she picks up the story
after George retreated into himself and, in loneliness, she turned to his best friend and
fellow guitarist Eric Clapton, who fell deeply in love with her...

Pattie Boyd and Eric Clapton were married in Tucson, Arizona, on 27 March 1979, at
the Apostle Assembly of Faith in Jesus Christ, having booked six different churches to
throw the fans off the scent. Clapton had just embarked on a major tour, and the night
after their wedding he brought Pattie on stage when he performed Wonderful Tonight,
the song he had composed for her. It seemed an idyllic start to married life.

“If I’m honest, I suppose my favourite is Layla,” says Pattie. “Eric wrote it when he
couldn’t declare himself openly. It’s so emotional, so deeply moving.”

On their return to England, the couple held a wedding party at their home, Hurtwood
Edge, in Surrey. The invitation read, “Me and the Mrs got married the other day but that
was in America so we’ve decided to have a bash in my garden on Saturday, May 19
about 3pm for all our mates here at home. If you are free, try and make it, it’s bound to
be a laugh.”

That night there was an impromtu jamming session on a specially constructed stage in the
garden. It featured a reunited Cream - Clapton, singer and bass player Jack Bruce and
drummer Ginger Baker - as well as two of the Rolling Stones - Mick Jagger and Bill
Wyman - and all of The Beatles except John Lennon, who later said he would have
attended if he had known about it.

“I did feel remorseful afterwards that I hadn’t invited John to our wedding party,” admits
Pattie, “but I knew he wouldn’t come. He was living in America at the time, and the
authorities were threatening not to allow him back in if he left the country.”*

Unfortunately, it wasn’t long before the marriage was in trouble. “We’d lived together for
four years before we got married, and I thought I knew Eric pretty well,” explains Pattie.
“In the beginning everyone was thrilled because he had kicked his heroin habit and
although he was drinking alcohol, it didn’t seem such a bad thing by comparison. But as
time went on his consumption of it increased. At first I tried to keep up, but I found I
couldn’t keep pace with him. It just made me ill.

“About eight years after we first got together, it reached a point where it wasn’t fun any
more. I said to myself, ‘There might possibly be a problem here called alcoholism.’ It was
a taboo subject then. Nobody admitted to being an alcoholic and out of control.

“There was a concert in Australia where Eric played lying down on his back because he
just couldn’t stand up. A few people thought it was funny but the sad truth is that it was
desperate. I set out to try and help him, looking for doctors who treated alcohol problems
and trying to make him face things.”

Clapton has since acknowledged that being a “full-blown, practising alcoholic” had a
destructive effect on his marriage.

There was another problem too - Pattie’s inability to have children. It had been a factor in
her previous marriage, but to a lesser extent. As Pattie says: “It was certainly one of the
tensions - more so for Eric than for George.”

Their marriage difficulties finally became too great to bear. When Eric returned from a
tour of Australia and Hong Kong in the autumn of 1984, he found that his wife had moved
out. They got back together in 1985 but Pattie left the marital home for good in 1987 and
they divorced the following year.

Pattie was mortally wounded when she found out that Eric had fathered two children with
other women while they were still married. His son Conor, by Italian model and actress
Lori del Santo, was born in August 1986. Tragically, the little boy fell to his death from an
open window of a New York apartment in 1991, prompting one of Clapton’s saddest
songs, Tears In Heaven.

It was only after Conor’s death that Clapton revealed to Pattie that he also had a daughter,
Ruth, born in 1984 following a relationship with Yvonne Kelly, who he first met while
recording an album on Montserrat in the Caribbean.

“Actually, I saw Ruth in London the other day. She really is a lovely girl,” says Pattie.
“But I was devastated when he told me. It didn’t help, not being able to have children of
my own.”

For Pattie, divorcing Clapton was one of the hardest decisions she’d ever had to make.
She still loved him, but she knew he was still seeing other women, including Conor’s
mother. She felt he was treating her as a best friend, someone to share confidences with,
rather than as a wife. “He really believed I would be pleased and happy for him that he
had a child (Conor). He didn’t seem to realise how deeply hurtful this was for me,” says
Pattie.

The subject of children is still painful for her and she has never discussed it publicly
before. “When I was married to George, it just didn’t happen,” she says. “At first I didn’t
think there was a problem. After a time I went for tests and the doctors said things seemed
okay. Later on, after further investigation, they found I had a blockage and I started to do
something about it. I tried all sorts of treatments, I had IVF, but nothing worked.

“When I was married to Eric, we thought we should try adopting. But I was 36 by then,
and in England that was considered too old. So it never happened and it was a great regret
to me. It was very painful for years. Eventually, I had to realise that it just wasn’t to be.”

Nevertheless, Pattie’s life is not bereft of kids, “All my brothers and sisters have children,”
she says. “I actually have 13 nieces and nephews, who come to stay sometimes. So I’m a
devoted auntie.” She is also devoted to her two cats, Polo and Molly.

Clapton eventually overcame his dependencies, spending time in recovery in Antigua, and
it was here that he founded his own rehab centre, Crossroads, to help fellow victims of
drugs and alcohol.

“He’s clean and he’s reformed, a different person,” says Pattie. “We’re not exactly great
friends. I see him sometimes and we’re very civil to each other. He leads a completely
different life to me now. He’s a family man and he’s enjoying his life. I’m so glad he’s
touring again after saying he was giving it up for good. He’d be mad to abandon it. I saw
him play at the Albert Hall recently and he’s still incredible.”

Having witnessed the ravaging effects of drugs and alcohol, it was perhaps inevitable that
Pattie would put her painfully acquired knowledge to good use. In 1991, she and her good
friend Barbara Bach, Ringo Starr’s wife, founded SHARP (Self Help Addiction Recovery
Programme) in London.

“I’d seen the difficulties faced by Eric and, of course, I knew all about the problems of
being attached to someone like that,” she says. “Barbara and Ringo also had their
problems. One day, when things were really bad, they decided to confront their demons.
It was an act of great bravery, like staring into the abyss, but they came through it.

“Barbara and I wanted to create a centre that was accessible to ordianry people who
couldn’t afford expensive treatment. Not long ago we celebrated our tenth anniversary -
I’m really proud of that.”

After loving and leaving two of the world’s greatest guitarists, it is hard to imagine a
greater contrast than the calmly contented life Pattie leads today. For the past 13 years
her partner has been property developer Rod Weston. He has given Pattie the stability
and support that had been missing in her life.

“We first met in Sri Lanka,” she recounts. “I was on holiday with a girlfriend, and Rod
happened to be there with a group of other people. All of us got on well together and
remained friends. Then, four years later, we met again in Kenya. We were just good
friends for years before we started living together.”

At first, Pattie was puzzled by Rod. “I couldn’t work him out at all when we got
together,” she says. “I was seeing a psychotherapist at the time and I started discussing
Rod. I said I was confused because his mood was always the same, his behaviour never
seemed to change. I wondered what was wrong with him. The therapist said, ‘No, no,
Pattie, there’s nothing wrong with him at all. That’s just how normal people are.’

“I was just so used to dealing with addiction that I couldn’t imagine being with someone
who was on an even keel. Eric and I were together for 13 years altogether and it had
become usual for me to tread on eggshells. I never knew what to expect or how to
behave. With Rod there were no eggshells. It seemed odd, potentially even rather dull,”
she laughs. “I guess I got used to normality eventually. We’re very settled and happy. Life
is good.”

Rod jokes he was wary about picking up a guitar but apart from that was unfazed by
Pattie’s history. “I wasn’t entirely new to her world,” he points out. “I was quite social
and already knew a lot of people. We had friends in common.

“George Harrison was always nice to me. I remember going to dinner at Friar Park
(Harrison’s 19th century mansion in Henley-on-Thames), and the house was full of rock
stars. After dinner he handed out ukuleles to everyone - he was president of the
George Formby fan club - so we all ended up playing.”

These days Pattie divides her life between town and country. I spend most of my time in
the country. When I’m up in London I see friends, go to the theatre, visit galleries and
museums. I’m always busy. In the country, life is different. I’m a really keen garderer and
that takes up a lot of my time. I did a year’s course at the Royal Horticultural Society so
I know what I’m doing. I also love cooking. I enjoy preparing food with herbs and
vegetables from my own garden.

I play a lot of tennis. Here again, I had proper coaching from a professional so that I could
play reasonably well. And in the summer I love watching polo. Some friends of mine have
children who play seriously and I often go to watch them.”

Pattie remains close to all her siblings. Her sister Jenny, a psychotherapist and now
married to an architect, was once the wife of Mick Fleetwood of Fleetwood Mac. In fact,
inspiring hit songs is something of a family tradition. Folf singer and balladeer Donovan,
sometimes called England’s answer to Bob Dylan, wrote his 1968 hit Jennifer Juniper in
honour of Jenny.

Pattie’s other sister Paula is a mother, while her brother Colin runs a company that sells
local produce in Norfolk. “As for my two half-brothers,” she says, “David was profoundly
influenced by George and absorbed his spirituality. He became a preacher. Boo, the
youngest, is by far the most successful of us all. He’s a top hotelier and runs a chain of
hotels. I adore him. We’re both passionate about food and talk endlessly about ingredients
and new flavours.”

With Pattie’s new-found serenity came a new career. She has been a serious photographer
since 1991 and her work is now attracting attention as well as commissions. Her most
prestigious job to date involved photographing dozens of stars and celebrities, many of
them personal friends, from the arts, music and showbusiness. It came about through
Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood, now a respected painter.

“Ronnie has been a close friend for long time. He used to come to Friar Park with his
former wife Chrissie,” says Pattie. “Anyway, Ronnie was commissioned by Andrew
Lloyd Webber to paint a triptych showing 50 celebrities of Andrew’s choice who are
regulars at The Ivy restaurant in London. He wanted to hang the result in one of his
theatres.

“Of course, Ronnie couldn’t assemble everyone all at the same time, so he asked me to
photograph his sitters in the studio of his home in Richmond. I photographed them
individually in colour and black-and-white, and Ronnie did the sketches of them as well.
Then he worked from a combination of his sketches and my photographs. It certainly gave
me the chance to assemble a wonderful portfolio of portraits.