It is undoubted that the biggest band the world has ever known is The Beatles, and their stature led to the Fab Four meeting some of the most significant musicians throughout their respective careers.

An interesting tale comes through the band’s meeting with the legendary Roy Orbison, which eventually led to a link with the actor Julia Roberts.

In the 1997 book Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now, the bass player and singer wrote, “We were starting to meet other musicians then, and we’d start to see other people writing.”

When the band met Orbison, he wrote his famous hit single ‘Pretty Woman’ aboard The Beatles’ touring bus.

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“On a tour bus with Roy Orbison, we saw Roy sitting in the back of the bus, writing ‘Pretty Woman’,” Macca continued. “It was lovely. We could trade off with each other. This was our real start.” It’s a lovely touch from McCartney to detail the origins of such a classic tune.

Of course, the song ‘Pretty Woman’ shares its title with the 1990 romantic comedy movie Pretty Woman, directed by Garry Marshall and famously starring Richard Gere and Julia Roberts.

It focuses on Roberts’ character Vivian Ward, a Hollywood prostitute who is hired by Gere’s Edward Lewis, a wealthy businessman, to accompany him to a series of high-end functions.

There’s admittedly another potential story behind the origins of Orbison’s ‘Pretty Woman’, though. The song’s co-writer, Bill Dees, said that Orbison’s first wife, Claudette, inspired the tune after she asked her husband to lend her some money so she could buy herself some clothes.

He told MusicRadar, “They walked off about 15 or 20 feet, and it was all kissy-kissy whispering and, when he came back to the table, I was standing up with a guitar, and I sang, ‘Pretty woman … don’t need no money’ and then he sang, ‘Pretty woman … walking down the street’. Within an hour and a half, we had it written.”

Perhaps the two stories are linked. Orbison was likely inspired by his first wife during that writing session with Dees and might have added the final touches on board the touring bus with The Beatles. Orbison would, of course, go on to play with the band’s George Harrison in the Travelin’ Wilburys.

Whatever the true origins of ‘Pretty Woman’, there’s an interesting link to the song and to the Julia Roberts film via The Beatles, and it featured heavily in its soundtrack. Check the film’s trailer out below.