“It was like a scene from a horror film.” Eric Idle recalls the violent attack on George Harrison .
As 1999 was rolling to a close, George Harrison should have been ringing in the new year with his family at his Friar Park Estate in Henley-on-Thames, England.
Instead, the former Beatle was lying in a hospital with 40 stab wounds after an intruder broke into his home on December 30 and left him fighting for his life.
British comedian Eric Idle recalls the incident on the latest episode of the Adam Buxton Podcast. A founding member of Monty Python's Flying Circus, Idle was both Harrison's friend and associate. Harrison appeared in Idles' satirical Beatles take-off All You Need Is Cash and even re-mortgaged his home to help finance Monty Python's 1979 film Life of Brian.
The attacker was Michael Abram, a 34-year-old suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. After breaking in, Abram encountered Harrison, leading to a prolonged fight in which the guitarist suffered a punctured lung and multiple head injuries.
As Idle tells Buxton, the incident shook Harrison to his core. “He was very disturbed,” he says. “I have never, ever seen him more disturbed. It was really shocking, because they fought for 20 minutes.” Idle adds that he had been attacked “with a butcher's knife,” and was “bleeding to death.”
All the latest guitar news, interviews, lessons, reviews, deals and more, direct to your inbox! He describes Abram as “a crazed guy, off his meds." Abram's was initially looking to kill Paul McCartney but decided to make Harrison his target. "He couldn't find Paul, so it's easier to find Henley," Idle says.
“He came over the wall, smashed in the window, and George, I think, came out because George was the bold one, who told the Hell's Angels to fuck off."
Idle is referring to Harrison throwing Hells Angels members out of the Beatles Apple Corps in the 1960s, after they became disruptive: "He was always the one who came and said, 'No, you've got to fuck off.'"
Source: guitarplayer.com/Phil Weller
