“As acclimated as Nancy and I became to the Hollywood scene, a few figures still froze us in our tracks, neutralizing our normal gregariousness with their megawatt presence. One was George Harrison. You never get over the fact that a Beatle is a Beatle, even after he has stopped being a Beatle. Nancy and I met George in 1990, at an L.A. dinner party hosted by Dick Donner and Lauren Shuler Donner. I’d met Ringo Starr when he was on SNL, and later would work with Paul McCartney, but George seemed the most mysterious and reclusive of the surviving Beatles. To Nancy and me, there was something otherworldly about him.
We knew in advance that George was going to be at the Donner’ party. On the drive over, we played Rubber Soul over and over again, and Nan kept saying, ‘Wouldn’t you love to just corner him and ask him every Beatle questions you’ve ever wondered about?’ We both laughed, and I said, 'Yeah, boy, he’d sure love that, wouldn’t he?’ And then we went silent and just listened for a while to the genius music that George made with the three other guys in his old band.
There were ten other guest there that night, and when George walked through the door all I could think was, My God, he looks EXACTLY like George Harrison. George was perfectly friendly throughout the dinner — in fact, he brought along a tape of the still-unreleased second Traveling Wilburys album, which he eagerly played for all of us on the Donners’ stereo like a proud teen showing off his garage band. I found that sweet. But Nan and I maintained a cordial distance from him, fearful that the word 'Beatle’ would come out of our mouths in an involuntary, Tourette’s-like outburst.
After dinner, we all retired to the Donners’ screening room, where Dick had arranged for us to view an advance reel of The Hunt for Red October. I ended up sitting right next to George on the couch, with Nancy on my other side. Dick Donner, an outgoing, no-B.S. guy with a thick thatch of white hair, announced, 'Does anyone mind if I smoke a doobie?’ Then he pulled out a large joint, which he proceeded to light, his plans clearly not contingent upon anyone’s answer to the question.
As we watched The Hunt for Red October, the joint was passed around until it landed with Nan. My wife, who could never really handle any kind of smoke, took one puff just for the sake of sociability. She immediately started coughing and, as fast as she could, passed the Donner doobie to me.
I took a hit, and then it was my turn to pass the joint to George on my right. But all of a sudden I started to panic, wondering about the etiquette of it all: Do I pass this to a Beatle? Maybe I shouldn’t. Am I going to offend him? Gee, I wouldn’t want to offend him. Would the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi be pissed or elated? Or maybe it would be rude if I DIDN’T pass him the joint. Oh, what the hell. Probably best to just pass George Harrison the joint.
I gently nudged George, who was engrossed in the movie, and offered him the spliff. He looked at it, smiled, and in his best documentary-narrator’s voice said, 'Ah, the sixties!’ He happily accepted the funny cigarette and took several drags on it.
I looked back at Nan, and she was already fast asleep, her head bent back, her nose in the air. George, on the other hand, became totally amped, very gregarious and chatty, talking right over the movie. 'I have a hard time watching Sean Connery in a movie, a hard time accepting him in the part he’s playing,’ George said, his voice now rising to lecture-hall volume. 'Because he’s too bloody famous, too iconic — it’s like watching a Beatle.’
At that — George’s fortissimo pronouncement of the word 'Beatle’ — Nancy’s head shot up with a start. Not even quite sure where she was, she muttered, 'Who said that?’
Meanwhile Lauren Shuler Donner had been contemplating for the last minute or so whether or not it was okay to shush a Beatle. Now she concluded that it was. 'Guys,’ she whispered, 'shhhhh!’
George and I both went quiet like reprimanded kids in the fourth grade. After a moment, I turned to him and whispered, 'Way to go, asshole!’ The two of us burst out laughing, eliciting, now from the entire group, a new round of shushing.
For the remainder of the evening — away from the screening room — George and I enjoyed a rich, funny, fast-moving conversation. He was even familiar with some of the work I’d done, which I found incredibly flattering — but then he was a comedy aficionado, close to Lorne and Eric Idle of Monty Python. As we said our good-byes at the end of the night, George and I exchanged numbers, and we made a plan to have lunch the next day.
Nancy, having benefitted from a refreshing, head-clearing nap, said to me as we buckled into our car seats, 'Out of curiosity, how do you intend to have lunch with your new best friend George Harrison tomorrow, given that you’re flying to Boston first thing in the morning?’
Mother’s balls! I’d forgotten that I had a gig in Boston!
The next day, as early as I could without being rude, I telephoned George and told him I’d forgotten about my trip. He was gracious and told me that we’d make it happen another time.
Sadly, that other time never came. Our paths never crossed again, and George passed away in 2001.
Just a few months after his death, I was in Bungalow 8, a New York club that Paul Shaffer had dragged me to, when I noticed a skinny fellow who was the spitting image of George, only young George, coming right toward me. Before I could say anything, this young man embraced me in a tender hug. And then pulled back to explain himself. 'I’m Dhani Harrison,’ he said. 'One of the last things my father told me was that if I ever come across people who were important to him, I should give them a hug.’“ - Martin Short, I Must Say: My Life As A Humble Comedy Legend (2014) (x)
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