Who is Olivia Harrison? Biography of the wife of the legendary musician

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:43

Olivia Harrison is the widow of George Harrison, who was the lead guitarist in the legendary Beatles. Many fans of this musician will be interested to know with whom he lived for many years and how his personal life developed. In this article, we will review the biography of Olivia Harrison.

See you George

Olivia Trinidad Arias - that was the name of D. Harrison's second wife before marriage. She was born in the capital of Mexico on 1948-18-05. Her father, Ezekiel Arias, was a dry cleaner, and her mother was a tailor. The family was big. In addition to Olivia, she raised two boys (Gilbert and Ron) and two girls (Linda and Chris).

At the age of 17, the girl graduated from Hawthorne High School (California). After some time, she was hired by the record company A&M Records, where she served as a secretary. It was here that they met George. The fateful meeting took place in 1974, when the musician signed a contract with this company. When recording the Dark Horse album, Olivia performed inthe role of a backing vocalist.

The wife of the legendary musician

The couple legalized their relationship in 1978, and before that, George managed to divorce his first wife Patti Boyd and have a child together with Olivia. The wedding took place near the Friar Park estate, which belonged to Harrison, in the town of Henley-on-Thames. Still, there were rumors in the media that Olivia and George never got married. Such information appeared after the wedding of Barbara Bach and Ringo Starr, where the Harrisons were invited. Olivia was seen without a wedding ring, which gave rise to such false rumors.

Remarkably, the musician himself very often called his wife Arias (by her maiden name). The same name was mentioned in George's albums. And even in an interview Harrison gave in 1991 with the Musician Magazin, speaking of Olivia, he called her "my wife Arias."

The couple have been married for about 23 years. But in November 2001, George died of a long illness, leaving Olivia Harrison a widow.

Their joint son Dhani, who was born in August 1978, followed in his father's footsteps and took up music professionally.

Charity activities

Olivia Harrison, whose photo is presented in this article, in the 90s of the last century was a participant in a charity event to raise funds for the poor children of Romania. Also participating in the Romania Angel Appeal program were Yoko Ono (John Lennon's wife),Linda McCartney and Barbara Bach (wife of Ringo Starr). The event raised several million dollars.

Life after husband's death

George and Olivia Harrison's relationship was very warm. The feeling of grief does not leave the wife of a famous musician. In many ways, Olivia was helped to survive this loss by Eastern religious teachings. It was faith that gave her strength to endure all the difficulties of life that she met on her way. George was diagnosed with cancer in 1997. There were several years of struggle with the disease. Harrison was treated in Swiss clinics, as well as in hospitals in New York and Los Angeles. In 1999, the family suffered another misfortune: an unknown man made his way into the home of the Harrisons and inflicted many stab wounds on George. Olivia was able to stop him by hitting the criminal several times with a poker.

In 2001, the he alth of the spouse deteriorated, cancer struck the brain, throat and lungs of George. Before such a problem, Olivia was powerless. On November 29, 2001, the legendary lead guitarist of the Beatles passed away.

In 2002, Olivia organized a concert in memory of her husband. The event was held at the Royal Albert Hall (London). The concert was attended by world celebrities: Billy Preston, Eric Clapton, two of Harrison's colleagues - McCartney and Starr, Tom Petty, Tom Hanks, as well as the popular British comedian group Monty Python and others. The son of George and Olivia also took part in this project. He played acoustic guitar in most concerts.numbers.

Olivia Harrison won a Grammy in 2005. It received the award in the Best Full-Length Music Video category.

In June 2009, she was invited along with fellow Beatles members and Yoko Ono to a press conference organized by Microsoft to coincide with the release of The Beatles: Rock Band.