Beatle George Harrison to be given posthumous star on Hollywood Walk of Fame
Apr 10 2009 by Staff Reporter, Liverpool Echo
GEORGE Harrison is to be honoured with a posthumous star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Harrison?s wife Olivia and son Dhani will accept the star, which will be unveiled outside the Capitol Records building on Los Angeles? Vine Street on April 14, near John Lennon?s star.
His will be the 2,382nd star on the world famous walk.
The Beatle, who wrote some of the Fab Four?s best-loved songs including While My Guitar Gently Weeps and Here Comes the Sun, died from lung cancer in 2001.
After the break-up of the Beatles in 1970, Harrison released successful solo albums including All Things Must Pass which topped the charts on both sides of the Atlantic, producing the number-one hit single My Sweet Lord.
The son of a bus driver from Hunts Cross he pursued an interest in Indian culture and, in 1971, 13 years before LiveAid, he organised the star-studded Concert for Bangladesh, to help the famine-ridden country.
In 1987 Harrison formed supergroup the Traveling Wilburys with Bob Dylan, Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison and Tom Petty.
He became involved in the film business in 1978 when he raised ?2m to save Monty Python?s The Life of Brian from being scrapped after original backer EMI dropped out because of the film?s satirical content.
Harrison went on to set up Handmade films and produced some of the most memorable British films of the 80s including The Long Good Friday, Withnail and I, and Time Bandits.
George Harrison?s close showbusiness friends included guitarist Eric Clapton, who married Harrison?s first wife, and Monty Python star Eric Idle.
A year after George Harrison?s death Clapton and Olivia Harrison organised A Concert for George at the Royal Albert Hall featuring his musical friends, including son Dhani, which raised money for charity.
The star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is the latest accolade in a life which saw Harrison honoured with an Oscar, an MBE, inducted into the Hollywood Hall of Fame, and named 21st best guitarist of all time by Rolling Stone magazine. He even had a planet named after him.
Harrison said of his MBE: ?After all we did for Britain, selling that corduroy and making it swing, all we got was a bit of tin on a piece of leather.?
Film director Martin Scorsese is currently making a documentary about Harrison?s life.
