While those who knew George Harrison said he wasn’t exactly the Quiet Beatle, he was the most uncomfortable with fame, fan clubs, and paparazzi. He liked his privacy and grew tired of The Beatles’ fame by the mid-1960s. Still, it became a part of his life, and he dealt with it. In 1970, though, the fan club went too far. After learning about one of their plans, Harrison took steps to shut down the fan club.
George Harrison was not happy with The Beatles’ fan club
Even after The Beatles broke up, their fan club continued on. Freda Kelly, the band’s longtime secretary and head of their fan club, stopped working for the band in 1972 but continued to answer fan mail until 1975.
“You can’t just close a fan club overnight,” she told The Guardian.
Because of this, the fan club still existed when Harrison’s mother, Louise, died in 1970. Given her frequent interaction with fans, they wanted to commemorate her life. Pat Kinzer, who was working for the fan club, helped found a memorial fund in honor of Louise, which Harrison appreciated. In August of 1970, though, the fan club infuriated him.
Per The Beatles Diary Volume 2: After the Breakup, a Beatles fan club in America started advertising trips to England to visit Louise’s grave. Harrison immediately began working to dismantle the club.
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George Harrison was the most uncomfortable with things like the fan club
Of all the Beatles, Harrison had the biggest struggle with fame. He didn’t want his wife, Pattie Boyd, to speak to the press at all in order to protect his privacy. The crush of fans everywhere he went made him nervous, and his LSD use brought him a greater awareness of a life outside of fame.
“That presented a problem as well, because then the feeling began in me of, well, it’s all well and good being popular and being in demand, but you know, it’s ridiculous, really,” he told Rolling Stone in 1987. “I think, from then on, I didn’t enjoy fame. I enjoyed it in a sort of teenage way up until then, and then I realized that this is serious stuff. This is my life being affected by all these people clamoring and shouting, and all those newspapers writing. That’s when the novelty disappeared, around 1966, and then it became hard work.”
Because of this, things like a fan club likely became grating to Harrison.
His anger was completely understandable
The Beatles’ level of fame meant that they had to adjust their lives based on the knowledge that they could never go anywhere anonymously. This is a natural part of fame, but it was far more extreme for the band.
Harrison valued his privacy, and the knowledge that fans were organizing pilgrimages to visit his mother’s grave was likely horrifying to him. While the fans might have had good intentions, it turned Harrison’s personal tragedy into a tourist destination. The steps he took to shut down the fan club are completely understandable.
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