George Harrison Refused to Sign All the Contracts to Sell His Failing Company
George Harrison founded a film production company with his business partner Denis O’Brien in 1978. The company put out a number of films, some more successful than others, and Harrison remained involved with it for years. After a series of unsuccessful movies and the unpleasant revelation that O’Brien had taken advantage of Harrison’s finances, they sold the company. Harrison was so upset by the ordeal that he refused to sign more than one contract in order to sell his business.
George Harrison founded his film company with a business partner
In 1978, Harrison and O’Brien stepped in when the first backer of Monty Python’s Life of Brian pulled out. Eric Idle knew Harrison was a big fan of Monty Python, and the former Beatle was also the wealthiest person he knew. Because of this, he asked Harrison to help them.
“Eric said George had always been a huge Python fan, and Michael Palin and Terry Gilliam had become friendly with him,” producer John Goldstone told the LA Times. “So Eric said, ‘Why don’t we see whether George could help?’ We went to his house in the Hollywood Hills, and I can’t remember if we had sent him the script or if he had read it, but he said, ‘Yeah, I’ll do it.’ And that was it.”
Harrison used his home as collateral to finance the film and then produced many other films with his new production company, HandMade films.
George Harrison didn’t want to sign the many contracts required to sell his company
While the company had many successes and helped revitalize the British film industry, a number of flops put the company in a difficult financial position. Then, Harrison realized that he and O’Brien were not equal partners in the company. Instead, he was financially responsible for everything while O’Brien collected a check from HandMade. In 1993, the former friends dissolved their business partnership.
The following year, Paragon Entertainment Corp bought HandMade for $8.5 million in cash. Per the book Very Naughty Boys by Robert Sellers, Harrison wanted to be done with the company as quickly as possible and said he would only sign one document to sell it. When he arrived at the signing meeting, however, lawyers presented him with 20 separate contracts. He refused to sign them.
Eventually, the lawyers compiled all 20 contracts into one single document, allowing Harrison to only sign once. He quickly did so and walked away from the company forever.
He had a hard time dealing with some of the failures
Harrison had grown weary of HandMade long before he sold it. In 1986, the company produced Shanghai Surprise, their most expensive film to date and one of their least successful. Stars Madonna and Sean Penn fought on set, critics panned it, and it made little money. The failure stung.
“I have the feeling that George never quite recovered from that,” Michael Palin wrote in the forward to Very Naughty Boys. “He remained generous, but felt compromised and he began to draw back. Once that happened, the end was in sight. HandMade had many able people at the helm, but the spirit that drove the ship had to come from George.”
