Another Beatle gone - George Harrison dead at 58

LONDON - Former Beatle George Harrison has died in Los Angeles at the age of 58 after a long battle against cancer, a family friend said Friday.

Harrison, always known as "the quiet Beatle" because he lived under the shadow of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, died at a friend's home. His wife, Olivia, and son, Dhani, were at his side. He was 58 years old.

Longtime family friend Gavin De Becker said: "He died with one thought in mind - love one another."

McCartney said he was devastated by the news.

"He was a lovely guy and a very brave man and had a wonderful sense of humor. He is really just my baby brother," McCartney said outside his London home.

"I have known George forever and he's a really beautiful guy whom I love dearly."

Yoko Ono, whose husband John Lennon was gunned down outside their New York apartment building almost 21 years ago, said: "Thank you George. It was great knowing you."

"George has given so much to us in his lifetime and continues to do so even after his passing with his music, his wit and his wisdom," she added.

Harrison, whose many hits include "All Things Must Pass," first disclosed in 1998 that he had been treated for throat cancer.

"It reminds you that anything can happen," said Harrison, whose life was also threatened when he was stabbed by an intruder at his English home in 1999.

Beatle author Philip Hunter said: "Another Beatle gone. It's an awful thought - the group were an entity in people's lives.

"He was overshadowed by Lennon and McCartney and he was never really happy about that. There was a certain bitterness about him, but later in life he realized what good fortune he enjoyed."

The youngest member of the world's most famous pop group will be remembered for his devotion to Oriental mysticism. It was he who persuaded the other Beatles to fly to India and sit at the feet of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

The group conquered the world with 27 number one hits in the United States and Britain.

Harrison was just 27 when the band split in 1970.

Fellow pop star Bob Geldof said of Harrison: "He wasn't a reluctant Beatle. He knew that his place in popular culture was absolutely secure.

"When the Boomtown Rats (Geldof's group) started he came down to see us in Oxford. I was...shocked and stunned when he walked into the room...a living Beatle.

"He was very curmudgeonly about the fame thing and everything else...He was the one who wrote 'Taxman', another early Beatle classic, moaning about how much supertax they had to pay. But he was very gentle."

Referring to the 1999 stabbing attack, Harrison's biographer Alan Clayson said: "He was stabbed in the lung at around the time he was diagnosed with lung cancer. It had a psychological effect on him.

"After Lennon was assassinated (by a gunman in New York in 1980), he took a very fatalistic view. He was often seen drinking in pubs around Henley where he lived.

"This (stabbing) more or less finished him as far as being seen in public without a bodyguard."

The Beatles in Liverpool, the museum that tells the Beatles' story, said it would be playing Harrison's music all day as a tribute, and a spokesman expressed his "heartfelt sympathy and sadness at the tragic loss." A book of condolence was opened.

- REUTERS