Olivia Trinidad Arias was born on May 18, 1948 to Esiquiel and Mary Louise Negrete Arias in Los Angeles, California. Olivia has one older brother, Ronald, and three younger siblings, Linda, Gilbert, and Christine. Her father was a dry cleaner after working as a railroad worker as well as briefly a musician with his brothers and her mother a seamstress. In the 1950s, the family settled in Hawthorne, California and in 1961 until 1965, Olivia attended the same high school as The Beach Boys. She was a Beatles Fan, seeing them in concert twice in 1965 at the Hollywood Bowl and in 1966 at Dodgers Stadium. Olivia found work as a secretary with impressive shorthand and typing skills; by 1973, she was working at A&M Records.
In 1974, A&M Records won the bid to distribute George Harrison's Dark Horse solo records worldwide. During negotiations, George and Olivia spoke on the phone many times and George became curious about the woman on the other side of the phone and sent friends to check her out. Later that year, George and Olivia met face to face at a party and became inseparable and she accompanied George on his Dark Horse in America. George and Olivia welcomed Dhani on August 1, 1978 and they got married on September 2, 1978. Although they traveled and lived well, George and Olivia provided a private life for Dhani away from the public eye. Olivia was involved in charity and created her own project, Romanian Angel Appeal, to provide funds for orphanages and abandoned children's needs and well-being. In 1998, George was diagnosed with throat cancer and recovered. But he was soon diagnosed with lung cancer that spread to his brain; Olivia cared for him and researched for treatments from around the world. At the end of 1999, an intruder broke into their home, attempting to murder George and attacked Olivia, who managed to subdue the intruder until the police arrived. On November 29, 2001, George died with Olivia and Dhani at his side. Olivia and Dhani took on George's projects and updated his previous work to keep up with technology. Olivia met Julian in New York City while he was visiting John and May Pang; Julian went to George's concert at Madison Square Garden despite an earlier disagreement between George and John concerning the Beatles breakup legal documents and John's planned appearance during George's concert. It's not clear when Olivia and Cynthia met, however they last saw each other at the Beatles LOVE by Cirque du Soleil opening premiere in Las Vegas in 2006. In Cynthia's second book John, she wrote about George's fling with Maureen Starkey but Olivia made clear she won't respond to gossip on behalf of George. After Cynthia's death in 2015, Olivia and Dhani released a statement and a photo of Cynthia taken by George; in 2017, the estate acknowledged Cynthia's birthday on their annual 'On This Day’ tweet.
"Cynthia has just written a book about John. That's fine, I just want to appear where I have to. I don't need to say anything about George to present him or preserve him because that's not what he would have wanted. I'm just trying to finish what he started."
Olivia Harrison
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