At a Press Conference in 1987, George Harrison Didn’t Just Sign His Name on Autographs, He Signed All of His Fellow Beatles’ Names Too
George Harrison surprised fans at a 1987 press conference when he signed all four of The Beatles‘ names on autographs. The spiritual Beatle didn’t like the idea of autographs, but he relented that one time.
George Harrison signed all four of The Beatles’ names on autographs for fans during a 1987 press conference
During a 1987 press conference, George spoke about his legacy in The Beatles. “People think I did f***-all in the band,” he laughed (per Joshua M. Greene’s Here Comes The Sun: The Spiritual And Musical Journey Of George Harrison), “but it wasn’t true.
“I was tagged as somber because I did some spiritual things, and sang a lot of songs about God or the Lord or whatever you want to call him. . . . I’ve got a very serious side of me, but even with that I always see the joke, too.”
George told a reporter from People magazine, “I still believe the purpose of our life is to get God-realization. There’s a science that goes with that, the science of self-realization. It’s still very much a part of my life, but it’s sort of very personal, very private.”
Despite his almost cynical views of The Beatles, George surprised fans by signing his name and the rest of the band’s autographs.
Greene wrote, “Guests approached him for his autograph, and George obliged by signing not only his own name but also exact replicas of the other Beatles’ signatures as well. He even signed ‘Bob Dylan’ for one fan, leaving his admirer speechless.”
George said he and the band didn’t even sign some Beatles autographs
During a 1987 interview, a reporter on The Today Show mentioned to George that there was “phenomenal” interest in Beatles memorabilia, especially autographs.
George said, “It’s ridiculous, yeah. It’s got out of hand, actually, if you ask me. It’s out of hand. There’s Sotheby’s and Christie’s and Phillips in London, who like they have a sale like every month; one of them seems to be having a sale of all this stuff.”
However, according to George, some of the auctions might not have sold authentic stuff. On top of all the phony, fabricated autographs out there, George revealed that their roadie, Mal Evans, learned their signatures and used to sign the surplus of autographs for them.
“A lot of it is stolen property or stuff that disappeared, and a lot of its phony,” he told the reporter on The Today Show. “I mean, they sell-there’s some autographs and stuff which we signed on airplanes and things like that, but there’s a lot of autographs which our road managers used to sign.
“Used to sit there with all these pictures, and they learned how to do all our autographs, and they used to do them because otherwise, we’d be doing them all our lives, and so there’s a lot of our road managers autographs, which actually they’re probably worth more than the real Beatle autographs. But there’s a lot of junk in there, but they’re selling it.”
The spiritual Beatle was surprised by people’s interest in Beatles memorabilia
Genuine Beatles autographs have aged like fine wine, gaining in price throughout the decades. Having all four Beatles’ signatures on something can go for well over $100,000 and have sold for about a quarter of a million dollars. However, it’s tough to authenticate anything.
It might seem like those fans at the press conference in 1987 got a personal check from The Beatles. Since George signed all their names, it’s questionable whether they’d be able to sell the autographs for a huge sum. An authenticator might deem them authentic if George did a good job of his bandmates’ signatures and if it was unknown that he’d forged them.
Regardless, it’s still surprising that George would’ve signed anything. George said he was surprised by people’s interest in Beatles memorabilia. “It’s been going on now for a few years,” he said. “I get a little bit annoyed by it because, I mean, I could really clean up in that game. I suppose it’s nice in a way that if ever we were short of cash, we could sell up and go on holiday.
“I’ve got lots of bits of paper that everybody wrote on. I’ve got all kinds of things; Paul’s underpants from the Shea Stadium. Very cheap, $60,000.”
Auction houses haven’t stopped selling Beatles memorabilia. In April 2022, Paul McCartney’s hand-written lyrics for “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” had a starting bid of $450,000 (per TMZ).
