Harrison's Doctor To Lose Beatle's Guitar Autograph

Illawarra Mercury

Monday January 19, 2004

WASHINGTON.- A guitar with an autograph from the dying Beatle George Harrison is to be ``disposed of" or destroyed under a settlement reached with his doctor, the New York Times reported.

The estate of Harrison this month filed suit against the doctor who had treated the Beatles guitarist, saying that Dr Gilbert Lederman had forced Harrison to autograph a guitar two weeks before the musician died of cancer.

Harrison died in November 2001 at age 58. In the last stages of his illness, he lived in a rented house in New York, where he came to be treated by Lederman.

The settlement says that the autographed electric guitar, which had been intended for Lederman's son Ariel, should be ``disposed of".

The paper said the Harrison estate wants the guitar destroyed.

The lawsuit alleged that the musician tried to resist the request by saying, ``I do not even know if I know how to spell my name any more".