Model Pattie Boyd is selling letters that reveal her infamous love triangle with musician Eric Clapton and Beatles star George Harrison.
Boyd was a muse for both men in the 1960s and 1970s, spawning Harrison’s famous song Something as well as Clapton’s successes Wonderful Tonight and Layla.
Initially married to the Beatle, she was chased by his close buddy Clapton through a series of impassioned love letters.
She is currently auctioning both men’s notes, as well as other items.
The sale will take place at Christie’s in London next month, with the items on public view from 15 to 21 March.
Boyd encountered the Beatles when she was placed in their 1964 film A Hard Day’s Night, and she immediately felt a connection with Harrison, the band’s famously “quiet” guitarist.
“He was quite shy, like myself. “I believe that is why we got along,” she remarked in an interview published on Christie’s website.
They dated for two years before marrying in January 1966. During this period, the Beatles were frequently on tour.
“George was so adorable when he was away,” she stated. “He missed me, and I missed him terribly, and he would write amazing letters and wonderful postcards.”
In one letter in the auction, Harrison writes: “Hope you’re okay. I miss you. I’m starving, so I’m eating grilled cheese sandwiches like crazy. “I love you.”
Clapton was a frequent visitor to the couple’s home in Surrey but, unbeknownst to Harrison, had emotions for Boyd.
‘Is there is still a feeling in your heart for me?’
In 1970, he wrote her a letter in perfectly clean, angular longhand. “I am writing this letter to you, with the main purpose of ascertaining your feelings towards a subject well known to both of us,” he said.
“What I wish to ask you is if you still love your husband?” He kept going. “All these questions are very impertinent, I know, but if there is still a feeling in your heart for me… you must let me know!”
“Do not use the telephone! Send a letter. That’s considerably safer.
Boyd assumed the letter was from a fan and only discovered the truth when Clapton called her later that day.
Several months later, Clapton wrote a second letter on a ripped page from John Steinbeck’s novel Of Mice and Men.
‘Take me, I am yours’
“Dear Layla,” Clapton began, using his nickname for Boyd. “Why do you hesitate, am I a poor lover, am I ugly, am I too weak, too strong, do you know why?
“If you want me, take me, I am yours… if you don’t want me, please break the spell that binds me. To cage a wild animal is a sin, to tame him is divine. My love is yours.”
He later penned Layla, a rock staple for Boyd.
“It was so beautiful and magical,” Boyd remembered. “I was so flattered, but I was also so worried that George would work out why Eric had written this song.”
Boyd initially turned down Clapton’s approaches, but after her marriage failed in the early 1970s, the musician encouraged her to join him on tour.
Their romance blossomed, and they married in 1979, with Harrison’s consent, who began referring to Clapton as his “husband-in-law”.
Ultimately, Clapton’s drunkenness and infidelity ruined the marriage, and they divorced in 1989.
Boyd, the daughter of a retired RAF bomber pilot, rose to prominence as a fashion model in the 1960s before focusing on photography.
She plans to sell her collection, which includes letters, paintings, photographs, jewellery, and clothes, next month.
The items include a doodle by Harrison of himself seated behind an apple tree, as well as a Christmas card he made for her in 1968.
“I’ve had them all for so many years–far too long,” Boyd, who turns 80 this year, told The Telegraph. “I thought, why don’t I just sell everything and let everybody else enjoy it?”
Emile Théodore Frandsen de Schomberg’s artwork La jeune fille au bouquet, which served as the cover for Clapton’s band Derek and the Dominoes’ 1970 album Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, will be the centerpiece of the sale.
Clapton initially purchased the picture from the artist’s son because the model’s blonde hair and attractive almond eyes reminded him of Boyd. It’s likely to sell for between £40,000 and £60,000.
Boyd told the Telegraph that she obtained Clapton’s approval before selling the belongings.
“He asked if I was selling the Layla painting, and I said yes,” she explained. “He said, ‘Maybe there are other things you could sell as well.’ So he’s perfectly fine with me auctioning everything.
