McCartney Times

Just days before his tragic death, The Beatles guitarist and Fab Four member George Harrison wrote a letter to Austin Powers director Mike Myers expressing his admiration for his work. It’s a connection which would keep Myers happy to this day.

The letter, which would go on record as the final note ever written by ‘The Quiet Beatle’, was never mailed out to Myers but was subsequently passed on to the filmmaker who, coincidentally, ended up receiving the letter on the day Harrison passed away.

Myers, whose father was born in Liverpool, once said of the impact the band had not on just him or his family but the whole of Liverpool: “You don’t know what The Beatles were in my house,” in an interview with WENN news. “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.”

Later, in a wide-ranging interview with GQ, Myers was asked: ‘Is it really true that the very last letter George Harrison wrote in his life was to you?’ and, remarkably, it was: “Yes. That’s mind-blowing, dude, for the son of a Liverpudlian, a person who worships the Beatles,” Myers replied, gushing at the thoguht replaying over and over in his head.

“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.”

Myers also revealed that prior to that moment, he had never had any contact with the Quiet Beatle, making this correspondence really hit home. “Then I got this letter on that day. I cried like a baby, and it’s prominently displayed in my house,” the director explained. “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’,” Myers explained about the letter.

Detailing the content of the personal letter further, Myers explained: “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.’”

Myers goes on to explain how The Beatles inspired his decision to become a filmmaker: “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’.”

Source: George Harrison’s final letter was sent to Mike Myers