The final letter correspondence from George Harrison was to Mike Myers, thanking him for the Austin Powers trilogy.
Harrison had shied away from public life in his final years, though he did keep in correspondence with friends and family. One letter he wrote, though, was to comedian Myers, the voice behind Shrek and creator of the Austin Powers trilogy. Myers is an avid fan of The Beatles and has praised the group on several occasions, but hadn’t expected to hear from Harrison, not least in the quiet one’s final months alive. Myers suggested his parents were “eternally grateful” to what The Beatles had done for Liverpool, and said in an interview: “You don’t know what The Beatles were in my house. They were everything. Liverpool was poorish and it was rough and all of a sudden it was cool to come from this town, so my parents were eternally grateful.”
But Myers would confirm, in an interview with GQ, that he had received a letter from Harrison, who thanked him for Austin Powers. Myers recalled: “Yes. That’s mind-blowing, dude, for the son of a Liverpudlian, a person who worships the Beatles.
“The letter came on the day of Austin Powers 3 when we were shooting the scene where Tom Cruise, Gwyneth Paltrow, Steven Spielberg, Danny DeVito, Kevin Spacey are doing the Hollywood movie version of Austin Powers’s life as directed by Steven Spielberg, and it was the day George Harrison died.
“Then I got this letter on that day. I cried like a baby, and it’s prominently displayed in my house. He says ‘…sitting here with my Dr. Evil doll…I just wanted to let you know I’ve been looking all over Europe for a mini-you doll’.
“And he says ‘Dr. Evil says frickin’ but any good Scouser dad will tell you it’s actually ’friggin’ as in a ’four of fish and finger pie’, if you get my drift’. He said, ‘thanks for the movies, so much fun.'”
The Beatles would influence Myers further in his movie-making, with the last shot of A Hard Day’s Night having quite the impact on the funnyman. He said: “On the Anthology special I spoke about how I still get teary thinking of that last shot [in A Hard Day’s Night] with the helicopter and all the 8-by-10s, and it says B-E-A-T-L-E-S on the door and the helicopter takes off.
“I love the spirit of that film so much, that spirit got into Austin Powers and Wayne’s World, which is that it’s a party. And he said [in his letter] ‘I’m sorry I left you on the helicopter that day, I promise I won’t do it again’.”
Though Harrison was a legend, he didn’t look at his time in The Beatles all that fondly, at least not during the 1970s. Harrison, when asked about his solo tour and the distance between himself and his former bandmates, said: “I don’t think the Beatles were that good. I think they’re fine, you know.
“Paul is a fine bass player, but he’s a bit overpowering at times. To tell the truth, I’d join a band with John Lennon any day, but I couldn’t join a band with Paul McCartney. It’s nothing personal; it’s just from a musical point of view.”
