George Harrison MBE (25 February 1943 – 29 November 2001) was an English rock guitarist, singer-songwriter and film producer. He achieved international fame as lead guitarist in The Beatles, and is listed number 21 in Rolling Stone magazine's list of "The 100 Best Guitarists of All Time". Often referred to as "the quiet Beatle", Harrison embraced Indian mysticism, and helped broaden the horizons of the other Beatles as well as their Western audience. Following the band's breakup, he had a successful career as a solo artist and later as part of the Traveling Wilburys, and also as a film and record producer.

Although the majority of The Beatles' songs were written by Lennon and McCartney, Harrison generally wrote one song per side from the Help! album onwards. His later compositions with The Beatles include "Here Comes the Sun", "Something", "I Me Mine" and "While My Guitar Gently Weeps". After the band's breakup, Harrison continued writing, releasing the acclaimed and successful triple album, All Things Must Pass, in 1970, from which came two singles and a double A-side single: "My Sweet Lord" backed with Isn't It a Pity". In addition to his solo work, Harrison co-wrote two hits for Ringo Starr, another ex-Beatle, as well as songs for the Traveling Wilburys — the supergroup he formed in 1988 with Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne and Roy Orbison.

Harrison embraced Indian culture and Hinduism in the 1960s, and helped expand Western awareness of sitar music and of the Hare Krishna movement. With Ravi Shankar he organised a major charity concert with the 1971 Concert for Bangladesh, and is the only Beatle to have published an autobiography, with I Me Mine in 1980.

Besides being a musician, he was also a record producer and co-founder of the production company Handmade Films. In his work as a film producer, he collaborated with people as diverse as Madonna and the members of Monty Python. He was married twice, to the model Pattie Boyd in 1966, and to the record company secretary Olivia Trinidad Arias in 1978, with whom he had one son, Dhani Harrison. He was a close friend of Eric Clapton. Harrison died of lung cancer in 2001.

Early years: 1943–1959

Harrison was born in Liverpool, England, on 25 February 1943, the last of four children to Harold Harrison and his wife Louise, née French. Harrison's first home - 12 Arnold Grove He had one sister, Louise, born 16 August 1931; and two brothers, Harry, born 1934, and Peter, born 20 July, 1940. His mother, Louise (née French), was a Liverpool shop assistant, and his father, Harold Hargreaves Harrison, was a bus conductor who had worked as a ship's steward on the White Star Line. The family was Roman Catholic;Harry, The Beatles Encyclopedia, p 492. his maternal grandfather, John French, was born in County Wexford, emigrating to Liverpool where he married a local girl, Louise Woollam.