George Harrison, Ringo Starr, and Billy Preston, Bar One, 9 October 1990; photo by ‬The LIFE Picture

George Harrison, Ringo Starr, and Billy Preston, Bar One, 9 October 1990; photo by ‬The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images.

“Nancy and I met George in 1990, at an L.A. dinner party. […] George was perfectly friendly throughout the dinner — in fact, he brought along a tape of the still-unreleased second Traveling Wilburys album, which he eagerly played for all of us on the Donners’ stereo like a proud teen showing off his garage band. I found that sweet. But Nan and I maintained a cordial distance from him, fearful that the word ‘Beatle’ would come out of our mouths in an involuntary, Tourette’s-like outburst.
After dinner, we all retired to the Donners’ screening room, where Dick had arranged for us to view an advance reel of The Hunt for Red October. I ended up sitting right next to George on the couch, with Nancy on my other side. Dick Donner, an outgoing, no-B.S. guy with a thick thatch of white hair, announced, ‘Does anyone mind if I smoke a doobie?’ […] I gently nudged George, who was engrossed in the movie, and offered him the spliff. 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 […] [and] became totally amped, very gregarious and chatty, talking right over the movie.[…]
‘Guys,’ [Lauren Shuler Donner] whispered, ‘shhhhh!’
George and I both went quiet like reprimanded kids in the fourth grade. After a moment, I turned to him and whispered, ‘Way to go, asshole!’ The two of us burst out laughing, eliciting, now from the entire group, a new round of shushing. […]
Just a few months after his death, I was in Bungalow 8, a New York club that Paul Shaffer had dragged me to, when I noticed a skinny fellow who was the spitting image of George, only young George, coming right toward me. 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.’” - Martin Short, I Must Say: My Life As A Humble Comedy Legend(x)