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Scared into near reclusion by Mark David Chapman's killing of Lennon in December 1980, Harrison spent most of his time meditating, music making, gardening and watching Formula One races on the telly at Friar Park, his extraordinary estate in Henley-on-Thames, and at his hideaway on the Hawaiian island of Maui. He ventured out occasionally to record and play with the Traveling Wilburys, a supergroup that included Dylan, Tom Petty and others. But various legal battles took up even more of his time. In 1976 he had to pay $587,000 for "subconsciously plagiarizing" the old Chiffons hit He's So Fine in his melody for My Sweet Lord. In 1991, he brought a seven-figure defamation-of-character suit when the tabloid the Globe published a story calling him a "Big Nazi Fan." And in 1996 he won an $11.6 million judgment against his former business partner in HandMade films, Denis O'Brien, for not assuming his agreed-upon share of the company's debt. That same year Harrison asked authorities to investigate a series of death threats.
None of those threats were proved to have come from Michael Abram, but it was Abram, a 33-year-old Beatle obsessive from a Liverpool suburb, who, in the dead of night on Dec. 30, 1999, got past the alarms and razor wire at Friar Park and broke into the Harrisons' mansion. George suffered an inch-deep stab wound to his chest before Olivia knocked Abram down with a bedside lamp. Harrison recovered, and Abram was sent to a mental institution.
While Harrison was able to survive the pressures of being a Beatle and an assault by a maniac, he couldn't beat cancer. But he made the passage to death easier for himself by believing so passionately for so long in a life after this one. Said his old friend Mia Farrow last week: "One of the things that was so inspiring was his lifelong search to know his God. And if God exists, I don't doubt that George has a place near him. " If she's right, Harrison is happy. He may have been scared of the adoring crowds, but he was not afraid to let go.