Most people who get stabbed 40 times don't live to tell the tale, let alone have the gall to joke about it. Clearly, George Harrison was not most people.
British author and renowned Beatles biographer Phillip Norman has recounted the tale of Harrison's run-in with his would-be assassin in an excerpt from his upcoming biography George Harrison: The Reluctant Beatle, writing of the guitarist's late-night altercation with intruder Michael Abram that resulted in Harrison's near-demise.
He "wasn't a burglar and certainly wasn't auditioning for the Traveling Wilburys," Harrison quipped of his assailant as soon as he had recovered enough to make a statement, referring to his supergroup with Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, Roy Orbison and Jeff Lynne.
In the excerpt published by the Daily Mail, Norman revealed that Harrison awoke to Abram in his house wielding a stone sword he'd taken from a statue in the yard and a kitchen knife in either hand.
"Get down here!" the man screamed at him. Remembering the previous break-in, George shouted back the first thing that came into his head: "Hare Krishna!"
The man ran up the sweeping staircase to the gallery. George tried to grab the knife and, after a brief struggle, they both fell onto a heap of meditation cushions, his assailant on top of him and stabbing him repeatedly in the upper body.
Harrison's wife, Olivia, kept Abram subdued until police arrived by smashing a lamp on his head.
Norman revealed that all Harrison thought to himself as he was bleeding out was: "I'm being murdered in my own house."
It was later revealed that Abram, who was found not guilty due to insanity and was released from a psychiatric institution just three years after the attack, was a crazed Beatles fan, just like John Lennon's killer.
British author and renowned Beatles biographer Phillip Norman has recounted the tale of Harrison's run-in with his would-be assassin in an excerpt from his upcoming biography George Harrison: The Reluctant Beatle, writing of the guitarist's late-night altercation with intruder Michael Abram that resulted in Harrison's near-demise.
He "wasn't a burglar and certainly wasn't auditioning for the Traveling Wilburys," Harrison quipped of his assailant as soon as he had recovered enough to make a statement, referring to his supergroup with Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, Roy Orbison and Jeff Lynne.
In the excerpt published by the Daily Mail, Norman revealed that Harrison awoke to Abram in his house wielding a stone sword he'd taken from a statue in the yard and a kitchen knife in either hand.
"Get down here!" the man screamed at him. Remembering the previous break-in, George shouted back the first thing that came into his head: "Hare Krishna!"
The man ran up the sweeping staircase to the gallery. George tried to grab the knife and, after a brief struggle, they both fell onto a heap of meditation cushions, his assailant on top of him and stabbing him repeatedly in the upper body.
Harrison's wife, Olivia, kept Abram subdued until police arrived by smashing a lamp on his head.
Norman revealed that all Harrison thought to himself as he was bleeding out was: "I'm being murdered in my own house."
It was later revealed that Abram, who was found not guilty due to insanity and was released from a psychiatric institution just three years after the attack, was a crazed Beatles fan, just like John Lennon's killer.
