Justin Tallis/AFP by way of Getty Photos
Pattie Boyd, the previous spouse of George Harrison and Eric Clapton and the inspiration for the latter’s “Layla,” offered her non-public assortment of letters, photographs and extra – together with gadgets from the 2 rock legends – at public sale for $3.6 million.
Boyd’s stunning collection of 111 artifacts tells the story of her whirlwind romance with Harrison after they met on a set of A Exhausting Day’s Evening in 1964, their time collectively on the top of Beatlemania, her disillusionment with him within the late Sixties, and Clapton’s makes an attempt to steal her away although he was shut buddies with Harrison.
Maybe essentially the most gorgeous merchandise was a handwritten 1970 letter to Boyd from Clapton. “Dearest L,” he wrote. “It looks like an eternity since I final noticed or spoke to you…If there may be nonetheless a sense in your coronary heart for me … you could let me know!..Don’t phone. Ship a letter … that’s a lot safer.”
When she rejected his preliminary overtures, Clapton descended right into a darkish cloud of alcohol and drug abuse that lasted for years. Previous to that, he poured all of his distress, lust, and heartbreak over the love triangle into the Seventies Derek and the Dominoes traditional “Layla.”
Boyd’s assortment comprises Emile Théodore Frandsen de Schomberg’s unique portray La Jeune Fille au Bouquet, which was used as the quilt of the Layla and Different Assorted Love Songs album. Clapton gave Harrison the portray within the late Seventies, and he gave it to Boyd within the late Eighties. The portray offered for $2.5 million at public sale, greater than 33 instances its pre-auction estimate, the Associated Press reports.
By that time, Boyd had left Harrison for Clapton. They married in 1977. Boyd’s assortment features a handwritten Clapton setlist, polaroids from an impromptu Cream reunion in 1976, handwritten lyrics to an unfinished Clapton track entitled “Candy Loraine,” and varied postcards and letters from their marriage, which resulted in 1989.
