Why George Harrison’s Son, Dhani, Gave Martin Short a Huge Hug Months After His Father’s Death
Something special compelled George Harrison‘s son, Dhani, to give comedian Martin Short a huge hug when they crossed paths months after the former Beatle died in 2001. George’s only interaction with Short was at a party in 1990. However, the comedian left a lasting impression on the guitarist.
The comedian and his wife met a Beatle at a party hosted by Dick Donner
In his memoir, I Must Say: My Life As a Humble Comedy Legend, Short wrote about meeting George. Although he and his then-wife, Nancy, had “acclimated” to Hollywood, some celebrities “froze” them in their tracks, including George Harrison.
“You never get over the fact that a Beatle is a Beatle, even after he has stopped being a Beatle,” Short wrote. The comedian and his wife met George in 1990 at a dinner party hosted by Dick Donner and his wife, Lauren. The former Beatle worked with Donner on 1987’s Lethal Weapon, where George contributed “Cheer Down.”
George “seemed the most mysterious and reclusive of the surviving Beatles. To Nancy and me, there was something otherworldly about him,” Short wrote. Driving over, Short and Nancy played The Beatles’ Rubber Soul and fantasized about meeting George.
“Nan kept saying, ‘Wouldn’t you love to just corner him and ask him every Beatle question you’ve ever wondered about?’ We both laughed, and I said, ‘Yeah, boy, he’d sure love that, wouldn’t he?'”
When the couple arrived at the Donners, they found only 10 other guests. “When George walked through the door all I could think was, ‘My god, he looks exactly like George Harrison,'” Short said.
The night was going to get even more awe-inspiring.
George Harrison surprised Martin Short throughout the night
Short wrote that George was “perfectly friendly” throughout the dinner. He told Conan, “He couldn’t have been more delightful, couldn’t have been more fun, and loose and immediately friendly and what you’d hope he’d be.” George even let them hear the new Traveling Wilburys album, The Traveling Wilburys Vol. 3.
“But Nan and I maintained a cordial, deferential distance from him, fearful that the word ‘Beatle’ would come out of our mouths in an involuntary, Tourette’s-like outburst,” Short wrote. Then, Donner showed his guests an advanced reel of The Hunt for Red October. Short found himself sitting next to George.
Then, Donner lit a joint and passed it down. Short took a hit and wondered if he should pass it to George.
“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,” Short wrote.
“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.”
George 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.'”
Then, Donner’s wife shushed them all. “George and I both went quiet like reprimanded kids in the fourth grade,” Short wrote. “After a moment, I turned to him and whispered, ‘Way to go, a******!’ The two of us burst out laughing, eliciting, now from the entire group, a new round of shushing.”
After the film, George and Short “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.”
Then, the new friends exchanged numbers and planned to have lunch the next day. However, Nancy asked her husband how he would pull off meeting with George. He had to fly to Boston first thing in the morning. “Mother’s balls! I’d forgotten that I had a gig in Boston!” Short wrote.
The following day, Short called George to tell him he couldn’t make their lunch and had forgotten about Boston. “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.”
George’s son, Dhani, later gave Short a huge hug
The comedian thought he’d never cross paths with another Harrison after George’s death. However, he was wrong. A few months after George died, Short was in Bungalow 8, a New York club.
Suddenly, Short noticed “a skinny fellow who was the spitting image of George, only young George, coming right toward me,” the comedian wrote.
“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.'”
George loved hugging his loved ones. Tom Petty said George was “the kind of guy who wasn’t going to leave until he hugged you for five minutes and told you how much he loved you.”
So, George’s son fulfilled his promise to his father by hugging Short. The comedian must have felt enormously flattered that George considered him important.
