George Harrison with Pattie Boyd

After all, Scorsese is famous for making high-octane dramas peopled with big characters, such Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver or Tommy the psychotic mobster in Goodfellas. But there was nothing larger than life about George Harrison. He was “the quiet Beatle”, the one who played lead guitar but took a back seat, who who spoke the least when the Fab Four gave interviews together. John Lennon with his caustic wit and Paul McCartney’s baby-faced good looks were the more obvious pin-ups. Though he had his fans too, with his soulful dark eyes and chiselled cheekbones, George’s appeal was more subtle. After the group split up in 1970 he continued making music and diversified into film production but his post-Beatles career was the most low profile of the four.

George Harrison’s life, however, was anything but quiet. From the very earliest days when the group were deported from Hamburg because the 17-year-old George was underage to his narrow escape from being murdered by an intruder at his home, Harrison and turbulence were never far from each other. He married model Pattie Boyd, one of the most beautiful women of their generation only to lose her largely through his own carelessness; when George had an affair with Ringo’s wife Maureen, Pattie went off with his good friend Eric Clapton. Even Harrison’s long and apparently happy second marriage to Olivia Trinidad Arias was not the serene relationship it appeared to be, thanks to Harrison’s ever-wandering eye.

Olivia Harrison, who produced the film with Scorsese, which is on release next month, reveals how her marriage came under regular strain from “hiccups” – her word for her late husband’s extra-marital dalliances. “He did like women and women did like him,” she says. “It was hard to deal with someone who was so wellloved.” Paul McCartney confirms Harrison was a womaniser, saying, “I don’t want to say much because he was a pal but he liked the things that men like. He was red-blooded.” Featuring interviews with McCartney, Ringo Starr and Clapton as well Olivia, Scorsese’s documentary George Harrison: Living In The Material World reveals a man whose personality differed markedly from his public persona.

Contrary to common perception, Harrison was not shy. He auditioned for John Lennon’s Quarrymen (forerunners of The Beatles) when he was only 15. “And he was cocky,” says McCartney. Nor was he acquiescent. After his death Mick Jagger said: “He was quiet and funny but he could also be rather combative.” His first marriage to Pattie Boyd was a Swinging Sixties’ pairing of two beautiful people. He was 22, she was 21 and they had met in 1964 when Pattie – blonde, doe-eyed and long legged – got a bit part in The Beatles’ film A Hard Day’s Night.

In her autobiography Pattie recalled her first impressions: “John seemed more cynical and brash, Ringo the most endearing, Paul was cute and George was the best-looking man I had ever seen.’’ As for George: “Almost the first thing he said to me was, ‘Will you marry me?’ He was joking but there was a hint of seriousness.’’ They duly married in January 1966 and three years later his love for Pattie would inspire Harrison to write the song Something which Frank Sinatra said was the best love song of the past 50 years. In truth, however, the marriage was already in trouble. Harrison had returned from a trip to India in 1968 full of zeal for Eastern music and meditation.

He wanted to emulate the god Krishna who is usually depicted surrounded by maidens and told Pattie that he too needed concubines. And he took them wherever he found them. There was Eric Clapton’s French girlfriend who came to stay after they broke up. Harrison sent Pattie away to stay with friends and phoned her to tell her when the girl had gone. Harrison even suggested that he and Pattie go out with her sister Paula, who was dating Eric Clapton at the time, so that they could swap partners at the end of the evening. Clapton lost his nerve and the foursome never happened. As Pattie wrote in her autobiography, “No woman was out of bounds.” In 1970 Harrison and Pattie moved into Friar Park, a huge manor house near Henley with a 36-acre garden.