GEORGE HARRISON’S $384 MILLION FAMILY FEUD
Ththe llate Bbeatle’sl’ sisteri speaks k exclusively to Woman’s Day about her fallout with his widow George, here with the other Beatles, died in 2001.
George Harrison’s sister has endured a secret 44-year feud with his widow, who cut her off from the star’s $384 million estate after his death.
Louise Harrison, 86, lives a simple life in California, US, and has never been close with George’s second wife Olivia, who met the Beatles guitarist in 1974 and married him in 1978.
After his death from lung cancer in 2001, Olivia cut off Louise’s pension. She had collected $2560 a month from her brother – who she had helped promote in the early days of his band – but it was stopped by his estate upon his passing.
In an exclusive chat with Woman’s Day, we asked Louise if she would like to be in contact with Olivia. “Not particularly. I didn’t know her before [George died],” she laughs.
Louise has previously told how George would never have
cut her offffff off if he were still alive. alive She now survives mainly from her meagre social security cheque and managing a Beatles tribute band. She also owns two modest properties in her former hometown in Missouri, a far cry from the 120-room Friar Park mansion Olivia, 69, calls home in England.
GEORGE’S DEATHBED
Louise remembers the last time she saw her brother – at a hospital in New York around a week before his death. She says they had a peaceful conversation about their childhood and how he was ready for his fate.
“It was around an hour,” says Louise of their last conversation. “We talked about when we were kids and funny things we did, going on holiday with Mum and Dad... He’d always been into self-realisation and so was I. The way he looked at dying was like in a computer game where you go from one level up to the next. He believed
he was going on to a higher level, the next step.” Louise hasn’t seen George and Olivia’s son, her nephew Dhani, since he was a child but she feels he’s been pressured into a showbiz career, after initially studying industrial design and physics at university.
She adds, “I stayed at Friar Park for quite a while when he was around four years old. We’d do treasure hunts around the house, leaving clues and finding things together. I feel kind of sorry for him, being forced into being his father’s replica.
“I don’t think he wanted to be part of showbiz. He studied physics, and I think he’d rather have been doing something like that. I think he’s reluctantly taken up the mantle.”
CONTACT WITH PAUL
Despite having no relationship with George’s family, Louise is still in contact with Sir Paul Mccartney and recently gave him a copy of her book My Kid Brother’s Band aka The Beatles! when she saw him perform in San Diego in 2014. She says Paul joked to her, “It was your kid brother’s band?”
‘We talked about when we were kids and funny things we did’
Skippy the Bush Kangaroo brought joy and wonder to generations of adoring Aussie kids – and their parents – and lives on today as one of our favourite TV stars, in what became a legendary success story.
Skippy was only filmed for three seasons, yet it was watched by a global audience of more than 300 million viewers in 128 countries each week, and all because of a rather remarkable roo and his best friend, park ranger’s son Sonny Hammond.
Skippy, or Skip as he was affectionately called, could understand Sonny and the rest of his human family and almost speak to them with his distinctive “click, click, click”, which he used to alert them to danger or calamity.
“Skippy is a lasting childhood memory for so many people,” says Ken James, who played Sonny’s big brother Mark. “It was wholesome. The goodies always won, the baddies always lost.”
The first Aussie TV show to be shot in full colour, Skippy and Sonny (Garry Pankhurst) fought thieves, animal smugglers and escaped criminals, and saved the fictional Waratah National Park from bushfires and other natural disasters.
Skippy became a hero to millions of children as she was able to open doors, tie and untie knots, operate a radio, play piano and drums, collect the mail and hold things in her pouch.
Inspired by the success of America’s favourite dolphin, Flipper, Skippy featured handsome chopper pilot Jerry King (Tony Bonner), Sonny’s ranger dad, Matt Hammond (the late Ed Devereaux) and housekeeper Clancy Merrick (Liza Goddard).
Producers insisted there was only ever one Skippy, but in fact nine to 15 eastern greys (some eagleeyed fans say they were wallabies) were used to make each episode.