Unpredictable and fiercely demanding in his physical needs, Mercury’s legendary libido would seem initially to have surprised Hutton. Once describing their sex as raunchy but not especially acrobatic, on the whole Mercury apparently preferred the less dominant role in their relationship. When unbridled lust turned to love, a special companionship developed between the two men, about which friends would later talk with much respect. Unlike Tony Bastin, who lasted two years with Mercury, Jim Hutton remained with him to the end of his life and came closest, among the star’s gay lovers, to rivalling Mary Austin in his affections. At this point Austin lived in a luxury flat in Phillimore Gardens close to Garden Lodge. She was involved in his business and daily life, and she and Hutton were quite quickly introduced to each other. Mercury revelled in the passion of a new romance. He enjoyed playing roles, even if they were short-lived and subject to sudden change. For now he was content with his latest affair, and liked to follow steamy love-making by lounging with his lover watching television on the sofa. Hutton saw to his every comfort, and the star felt pampered and cherished. Until, that was, he had to step out of this cosy domesticity and return to his role as egotistical performer; which colourful persona he was about to assume for Live Aid.
Queen’s slot was to start at 6 p.m. With satellite link-up, this meant they would be the first band to be seen on live TV in America. On 10 July they barricaded themselves in to the Shaw Theatre in Euston for three days of intensive rehearsal. Each band had been allocated twenty minutes, and to use this to best advantage Queen decided to restrict their show to their most famous hits. ‘Later such a fuss was made about how ingenious Queen had been, but to us it was the obvious thing to do,’ Edney recalls.
Mercury, though, was clearly proud of their strategy, as DJ Simon Bates recollects: ‘I interviewed him again just prior to Live Aid, and he was particularly proud of the hard work they were putting into the Queen set. He said to me, “Wait until you see it. You’ll be blown away!” And, of course, he was right.’
On Saturday, 13 July 1985, everyone at 12 Stafford Terrace was in high spirits. Mercury watched on TV as, at precisely 12.01 p.m., Status Quo took the Wembley Stadium stage before a packed audience and opened to the sounds of ‘Rockin’ All Over the World’. It was to be the first number of a mammoth sixteen-hour mega-gig, whose final line-up included Bob Dylan, Tina Turner, Bryan Adams, Paul McCartney and Dire Straits among other rock celebrities.
Mid-afternoon, dressed high-clone and wearing a silver amulet, Mercury left for Wembley in his limousine, accompanied by Jim Hutton. It was Hutton’s first live Queen performance. Arriving with an hour to spare, the star swept into the private enclosure and settled into his trailer. Simultaneously broadcast live to over one billion people worldwide, Live Aid was the first time a concert on that scale had been attempted. Consequently, nerves were fraught behind the scenes. It was a show that required state-of-the-art equipment, that included a revolving stage, split into three segments, one for the band in performance, one for the next band to set up their equipment and one for the band just finished to dismantle gear. Considering the logistics, it was surprising that six hours into the event, they were running only half an hour late.
Following David Bowie’s set, with Wembley hooked up to the JFK Stadium, Queen came on stage, introduced as ‘the next combo’ by comedians Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones. Within eighteen minutes, as Mercury predicted, they blew everyone away. All four played for all their worth, delivering a punchy, edited medley of their greatest hits, which got the Wembley crowd, Queen supporters or not, rocking on their feet. But, undeniably, Mercury, the star, shone the brightest.
He was nervous, but he disguised it well as he blasted into ‘Hammer to Fall’. During Brian May’s guitar solo, he dug the end of the microphone stand into his groin, pretending to play frantic lead guitar along its chrome rod. He took time out mischievously to torment a BBC cameraman filming from the wings; within minutes he had begun visibly to enjoy himself. By ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ he was bathed in sweat, and the sheer magnetism of his performance was so alluring that he had the audience enraptured and eating out of his hand. As he prowled the length of the stage, to the stirring intro to ‘We Will Rock You’, he knew he had taken control. ‘Do it!’ he ordered the crowd to sing to him, growling, ‘I like it! Sing it again!’ Then plunging non-stop into ‘We Are the Champions’, he had the stadium swaying in a sea of arms, a moving display of unity. Love him or loathe him, Mercury was untouchable that day, and the watching world now knew it, too.
Fellow performer Paul Young agrees: ‘I’d always liked Queen, but that was the night I said to myself: these boys really are fantastic. Their sound was amazing, and Freddie proved just what a showman he was.’
Leaving the crowd in a lather, Queen quit the stage. The second Mercury reached his trailer, he gasped, ‘Thank God, that’s over,’ and promptly downed a double vodka.
They’d done it, and they knew it, but never more so than when Elton John burst in shouting, ‘You bastards! You stole the show!’
It was a sentiment echoed by almost everyone and upheld years later when the event was rescreened on Live Aid’s tenth anniversary. Thin Lizzy’s Scott Gorham recalls, ‘Man, that was six hours of Euro wimp! Everyone was wondering, God, who asked them along? And then Queen came on, and there’s Fred stickin’ out his chest and daring the world not to like them. It was amazing, like the rebirth of Queen on the spot. When you’d seen those guys, who wanted to see the rest?’ In fact Mercury did. The party animal ignored the lavish after-gig bash and went home instead with Jim Hutton – to settle quietly in front of the TV with his cats and watch the American half of the show.
Live Aid’s effect was far-reaching. And the man in a sense responsible for it all was BBC newsreader Michael Buerk. ‘When the whole Live Aid thing got going I was in South Africa,’ he says, ‘the one country which couldn’t have cared less about the starving in Ethiopia. My original feeling, I must admit, was that it was a bandwagon thing which would die out in a week and wouldn’t achieve anything in effective terms. I didn’t see much connection with the pop world and dying people. Shows you how wrong I was.
‘I didn’t see the actual concert as South Africa didn’t show it. But it certainly increased the level of consciousness about the situation, which in turn placed pressure on governments and inter-governmental departments around the world, and that was a good thing. Two million people were estimated to be due to die in that famine and in the end 800,000 did, so Live Aid was at least, in part, responsible for saving over a million lives.’
There had also been spin-off benefits. For some acts, taking part had rejuvenated their careers. Others say that Queen’s appearance helped to redeem the band after the Sun City débâcle. What Live Aid certainly did was introduce Queen to a new generation of fans, and their popularity, worldwide, rose to an all-time high. Roger Taylor admitted to reporters on the eve of the event, ‘Of course it is a wonderful cause and will make a pot of money for that wonderful cause. But make no mistake. We’re doing it for our own glory as well.’ It worked. Queen record sales increased five-fold, and Mercury’s solo album Mr Bad Guy leapt back into the charts, tripling in popularity.
After Live Aid, Queen scattered again. Inspired by their triumph, their thoughts would turn to a major tour for 1986. They would be approached, too, about writing music for a Hollywood movie. At the start of July, Mercury had already released ‘Made in Heaven’, another solo single, and the next one was scheduled for some weeks away. But before all that he decided to take a holiday. He chose the Mediterranean island of Ibiza, an international resort notorious for its nightlife and lively discos such as Pacha, Amnesia and the Ku Club. This time, on Jim Beach’s recommendation, he stayed for the first time in Pikes Hotel. The luxurious complex was owned by Tony Pike and would come to feature regularly in the star’s life over the next five years.
Pike, with whom Mercury would become good friends, is a down-to-earth man with little pa
tience for any form of pretension. Pikes Hotel enjoys a worldwide reputation as an exclusive and relaxing hideaway, and its regular clientele includes such stars as George Michael and the former Real Madrid goalkeeper, now heartthrob crooner, Julio Iglesias. But if anyone comes to the hotel with the intention of swaggering around, they either have to come down to earth or accept that nobody there is going to be impressed.
‘We had one particular British TV actor staying here once who was so pompous,’ recalls Pike. ‘He was very strong on how great he was. On his arrival he immediately warned me that our main gates had better have strong locks on them because when word got around that he was there, the place would be under siege. It was a load of rot!’ With this experience of egomania, when Mercury first set foot in the hotel complex, Pike had his reasons to suspect that he had more trouble on his hands.
‘I first met Freddie just after Live Aid,’ says Pike. ‘I already knew Jim Beach through a mutual acquaintance, but I hadn’t met any of Queen. So this particular day Freddie and his party of friends were due, and I got word that they’d arrived. I went down to the courtyard to greet Freddie personally, who gave me the campest of handshakes with an equally camp “Hello” to match, and that was it. He didn’t say another word, and I thought, Oh, this one’s going to be difficult.
‘He had a whole entourage with him, which included Jim Hutton, Peter Straker and Peter Freestone. They were occupying the whole of the hotel’s oldest part for easier security arrangements, and without another word Freddie brushed past me and disappeared. I stayed in the courtyard talking to some people, and minutes later he appeared out on a balcony above, when I clearly heard him say, in a way that I took to be criticism, that the ceilings were all very low. I looked up, just as Freddie looked down, and our eyes met. A split-second later he called out, “Only joking!” and laughed, which made me laugh, too, and broke the tension between us.’
For Mercury this was a place to forget being famous and unwind – in a way that was impossible in other sumptuous hotels, where staff are forever chasing tips through five-star treatment. In the past, precisely this kind of fawning had suited Mercury perfectly. Now he valued different things, and Pikes was the only place where he felt he was able to be himself.
‘Freddie had such wonderful times,’ says Pike, ‘because he surrounded himself here only with friends, not paid employees but people who were with him because he liked them, and they him.’ Pike got to know the star well over the years, and he maintains, ‘The absolute truth is that he was a wonderful human being, very attentive to others’ needs, would always apologise for anything untoward happening and was eternally grateful to the staff for doing really only what they’re paid to do.’
Among those who invariably accompanied Mercury on holiday was Barbara Valentin, who, according to Pike, could be just as outrageous and funny as Mercury. ‘We had some wonderful, crazy times together there,’ Valentin recalls.
The length of his stay would depend on what else was going on in his life, but he enjoyed dinner parties, playing tennis – often partnered by Pike, who admits that Mercury was more of a poser than a player – and he could also be persuaded to entertain. ‘He’d be lounging by the pool,’ Pike recalls, and suddenly say, “Go and get the piano.” Well, I mean, a piano is a heavy thing, but, no matter, six or seven men would stagger down to the poolside with it, and Fred would play and sing for everyone – and that ended up including absolutely everyone in the hotel, not just his own set.
‘Sometimes he’d then get campy and start horsing around, throwing people into the water and generally having fun, which again would inevitably end up also involving other guests. But he never upset anyone who preferred to keep their distance from this kind of carry-on.’
About Mercury’s homosexuality Pike goes on, ‘In all the years Freddie came here, never in my experience did he push it onto anyone. Sure he loved to camp it up. He was gay, but he was very secure in that fact, and unless he was in the mood to caper, you’d never witness his homosexuality. In fact, most women that I saw found him very attractive indeed. He had a good physique and was a very masculine-looking man. He was also not one of those gay men in whose company you feel uneasy. I have experienced that, but never with Freddie.’
Although Jim Hutton always accompanied Mercury to Pikes, it was some time before Tony Pike knew the nature of their relationship. He explains, ‘It was about their third trip, when one day I said to him, “Where do you fit in, then?” Jim is a very quiet and reserved person, very masculine, too, and by this time I knew he wasn’t involved in music. There had been no demonstrative behaviour between them on any occasion, so I wasn’t being crass, and maybe he gauged that in the few seconds he took to answer, because he looked me straight in the eye then asked, “Don’t you know?” I shook my head, and he replied, “I’m Freddie’s man.” I felt a complete idiot and awful for prying when I hadn’t meant to.’
Pike developed a deep regard for Hutton. ‘He and Freddie never exhibited their love in public,’ he says. ‘No arms around each other or any other indication that they were lovers. Fred was so publicly the outrageous showman of rock, but in private I think Jim had a steadying influence on him. He was a very nice guy.’
On their return to London, Mercury set arrangements in hand gradually to move his belongings from his Stafford Terrace flat into Garden Lodge. He still wouldn’t take up residence there himself just yet, but when he did, Jim Hutton would move with him.
The film for which Queen had been asked to write the music was Highlander, to be directed by Russell Mulcahy on a $20-million budget. Queen had agreed to this on condition that one of their numbers was used as the signature tune. Drinking vodka and chain-smoking throughout, Mercury worked with the rest of the band in Musicland, Mountain and Town House Studios on the new album. His solo single ‘Living On My Own’, released on 2 September, had barely made the top fifty, and his aspirations were clearly much higher for Queen’s material.
All work was suspended, though, as he celebrated his thirty-ninth birthday with a spectacular party held at Hendersons in Munich. There was always a theme now to these parties, and this one was to be a black-and-white drag ball. During his stay in Germany he continued to dangle both Winnie Kirkenberger and Patrick on a string. He also flirted openly with other men, despite his clearly deepening involvement with Jim Hutton. Yet even with Hutton, perhaps at times feeling hemmed in, Mercury was capable of being imperiously dismissive. On occasions Hutton would leave Mercury on account of this, only to be repeatedly coaxed back.
Back working in the studio again, one track quickly emerged, written collectively by the band. It appealed strongly enough to everyone to become Queen’s first and only single of 1985. ‘One Vision’ was released on 4 November and, riding on the wave of their renewed popularity, it reached number seven in the charts. It would also feature on a future soundtrack album for Sidney J. Furie’s movie, Iron Eagle. A fortnight later yet another Mercury solo single came out, ‘Love Me Like There’s No Tomorrow’.
Critics attacked ‘One Vision’, viewing its lyrics as a Live Aid cash-in, but Mercury ignored the accusations. He concentrated instead on taking part in the fashion world’s charity event, Fashion Aid, held at the Royal Albert Hall. He had become involved through his friendship with fashion designer Elizabeth Emanuel, who, along with David Emanuel, had designed Princess Diana’s famous fairy-tale wedding dress in 1981.
‘I was originally introduced to Freddie through Wayne Eagling at the Royal Ballet one night,’ says Elizabeth Emanuel, ‘and from then on there was a whole crowd of us who often got together. We went to the same places, the same parties and so on. When Fashion Aid came along, David and I had a whole section to handle, as well as a ballet section, which Wayne was choreographing. We were to do outfits for Michael and Shakira Caine, Anthony and Georgina Andrews, John Hurt, Robin Cousins and others. Jane Seymour was to model a wedding gown of ours, and I asked Freddie if he would partner her. He was up for it at once.’
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sp; Mercury already had a stylish military-type black jacket of which he was proud, that he had worn at his recent birthday party. He opted to wear this again, and the Emanuels simply had to design a sash to accompany it. ‘He came along at the last moment, and it was all pretty chaotic. But he was a good sport to do it,’ adds Emanuel.
On the night itself Mercury and Jane Seymour made a stunning couple, with the star’s presence alone causing a stir. ‘He was very much the star that night,’ Emanuel recalls. ‘You couldn’t get near him for the crush. When I had first met him it was a bit like that – very much a magnet, swamped by people at every turn. But then I met him at the ballet when he’d go along to see Wayne dance, and he was a lot less formidable. When he got ill later, he often went quietly to the ballet, slipping in unnoticed at the back. He was a really nice guy and far removed from his flamboyant reputation.
‘The funny thing is, in the beginning when he behaved outrageously, I got the distinct impression that it was in a strange way so as not to let people down who expected it of him.’
At the end of the evening Mercury and Seymour left for a hotel where a party was to be held, still dressed as bride and groom. Astonished hotel guests recognised the couple and hastily photographed them, believing they had stumbled on a celebrity marriage. Mercury found it highly amusing and did nothing to disabuse them.
As the year drew to a close, more sombre matters preoccupied him. In October the American matinee idol Rock Hudson had died of AIDS, which revelation had sparked off an intense public awareness of a disease hitherto publicly unrecognised. Although the medical profession knew little about the illness, enough was known to ring alarm bells throughout the world’s gay communities. Three high-risk categories had now been identified: homosexuals, people who had unprotected sex with multiple partners and drug addicts. Mercury fell into the first two categories – and could have no way of knowing whether any of his innumerable one-night stands had been needle users. Clearly anxious, he secretly took an AIDS test, which proved negative. His huge relief, though, would be short-lived.
Freddie Mercury: The Biography Page 19
