Freddie Mercury: The Biography

by Laura Jackson

  Among Mercury’s friends, Sir Tim Rice said, ‘His death was a great loss to music.’

  While Wayne Eagling thought that ‘Freddie was always extremely brave in everything he did. He was never afraid to face up to the world and what was perceived as conventional. It was a great shame that he had to go.’

  But for Mike Moran it had gone much deeper: ‘Freddie was such a great loss to me that I still find it very hard to get over. It’s almost harder for me to get over Freddie dying than it was to get over losing my father. With parents, they’re older and in some ways you expect it. But not with Freddie.’

  A week later Roger Taylor and Brian May were interviewed on TV, during which they were invited to elaborate on a reference at the end of their joint press release – that the remaining band members hoped to plan a tribute to Mercury. All either would say at that stage was that it would perhaps take the form of a live concert.

  On 9 December, Mercury’s masterpiece ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ was rereleased, this time as a double A-side, along with the hitherto unreleased ‘These Are the Days of Our Lives’. As expected it stormed into the charts at number one and still stands as the only song to be number one twice over a Christmas period. It also sold in sufficient quantities by the end of the year to become the second bestselling single of 1991, behind Bryan Adams’s ‘(Everything I Do) I Do It For You’.

  This time Mercury was doing it for charity, as he had stipulated that all royalties should be donated to the Terrence Higgins Trust. With the singer released from all pain, the future of Queen had to be in serious doubt. Closer to home, for those he left behind still trying to cope personally with his passing, other ordeals lay in store.

  FIFTEEN

  The Legend Lives On

  Cynics say that in music it’s the greatest career move in the world to die – record sales rocket and legendary status is almost always guaranteed. Certainly Freddie Mercury had no death wish and could hardly have suffered a more agonising fate, but for the next year barely a month passed without either a Queen or a solo Mercury release.

  Queen’s Greatest Hits Vol I was already multi-platinum when Hollywood Records released ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’/’The Show Must Go On’ as a double A-side on 6 February 1992. All its royalties were donated to the Magic Johnson Aids Foundation. Days later, it was award time again.

  At the BPI Awards, held that year at the Hammersmith Odeon, ‘These Are the Days of Our Lives’ won the award for Best Single of 1991 – and Mercury took the posthumous award for an Outstanding Contribution to Music. Accepting this on the star’s behalf, Roger Taylor announced that they were to stage a huge concert in Mercury’s memory on 20 April at Wembley Stadium. It was to double as an AIDS Awareness Day, and all monies would go to charity.

  Within hours of going on sale next day, all tickets for this gig, already touted as potentially the biggest show since Live Aid, sold out. In theory it was the kind of tribute Freddie Mercury would have loved. Unfortunately, as plans swung into action to organise the big day, other schemes were afoot, which friends felt would have had the star spinning in his grave.

  Probate in Mercury’s estate was officially granted on 13 May, but the contents of his will were known to those concerned long before. Apart from generous legacies to selected friends and Jim Hutton, the bulk of his estate was divided 50 per cent to Mary Austin, with the remainder split equally between his parents and his sister, Kashmira. As expected, Austin was the principal beneficiary. Garden Lodge, together with all contents and personal possessions free of inheritance tax, was made over to her, as was other property. What has bothered some since is what happened to the people who had for years called Garden Lodge their home.

  Jim Hutton, Joe Fanelli and Peter Freestone were not kept in the dark for long. Immediately after Mercury’s death, Hutton was reassured. His lover’s wishes had been that he should stay on in the house for as long as he wanted. One week later, however, at a formal meeting he was advised that those wishes were not legally binding as they had not been reflected in Freddie’s will. Austin, as entitled under the will, was to move in to Garden Lodge. And the three men were given three months’ notice to quit.

  Acrimonious arguments, some reaching the press, broke out over Hutton and the others and their move to an adjacent property in the grounds. Arrangements were made to isolate Garden Lodge. All three live-in aides were to receive legacies of £500,000 each, and in Fanelli’s case, Mercury had already bought him a house in Chiswick. With a bequest of half a million pounds, Hutton could certainly find himself alternative accommodation before the ejection day of 1 March 1992. But in the eyes of some people, that was not the point.

  Tony Pike, who for years had known Mercury and Hutton as a couple says, ‘I was horrified to discover how it all worked out for Jim. I just know that Freddie would not have wanted that at all.’

  And Pino Sagliocco goes further, ‘It is impossible! He and Jim were like husband and wife. I cannot believe that Freddie ever wanted that.’

  Unfortunately for Hutton, the person Mercury treated like a wife, at the end of the day, turned out to be Austin. Feelings have run high about the quarrels after Mercury’s death, but it was the star himself who, if he had wanted his lover to stay at Garden Lodge, ought to have made proper provision for this in his will.

  It could perhaps have been foreseen how things would work out here, for Mercury himself once admitted, ‘All my lovers asked me why they couldn’t replace Mary, but it’s simply impossible. The only friend I’ve got is Mary, and I don’t want anybody else. To me, she was my common-law wife. To me, it was a marriage. We believe in each other. That’s enough for me. I couldn’t fall in love with a man the same way as I have with Mary.’

  During all this unpleasantness, progress continued on the Freddie Mercury Easter Tribute. A series of top acts were to be invited to take part, and as the show would go worldwide, the selection criteria was said to be based on those celebrities who had links with Mercury. However, Montserrat Caballé was glaringly absent, and Mercury had never even met some of the acts who were chosen to participate.

  The task of inviting these celebrity guests had devolved on the three remaining members of Queen. Def Leppard was approached personally by Brian May, as lead singer Joe Elliott recalls. ‘It was a proud moment for us to be asked,’ he says. ‘We felt honoured. I couldn’t believe that Brian was actually asking if we’d appear. Blimey! I’d have swum over for it!’

  While Roger Taylor had roped in heart-throb singer Paul Young: ‘I knew the guys socially anyway, and one day Roger phoned me at home to say he was putting some names together with a view to staging a tribute concert to Freddie and would I be interested in taking part. I said, yes, and a couple of months later it was confirmed.’

  The idea was for each act to take lead vocal on a Queen hit, with backing from the rest of the band. Rehearsals for this took place at Bray Studios in Berkshire, where Taylor, May and Deacon put various superstars through their paces.

  Easter Monday 1992 saw 72,000 people cram into Wembley Stadium. Many had camped overnight on the pavement to ensure getting in when the gates opened at 4 p.m. the following afternoon. It was officially billed as THE FREDDIE MERCURY TRIBUTE. CONCERT FOR AIDS AWARENESS, and on entry each person was supplied with a simple red ribbon to wear to symbolise their support in the fight against the disease.

  While the crowds flooded in at the front, the artistes were already milling about the specially set up bar backstage. The pre-gig atmosphere was a strange brew, according to Joe Elliott: ‘On the one hand it was light-hearted and up – very positive – and people were in and out of each other’s trailers all the time. Unusually there were no hangers-on, only the necessary people were there, and there was a great feeling of the occasion. But, on the other hand, it was definitely sad, and later it all got a bit emotional, which was understandable.’

  The show opened at 6 p.m. with a rousing address individually from Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon. Then the show kicked off with Me
tallica, followed for the next two hours by a succession of bands, including Extreme, Def Leppard, U2 and Guns N’ Roses, at which point the celebrity section took over.

  With a familiar explosion of smoke bombs May, Taylor and Deacon returned and plunged into their number ‘Tie Your Mother Down’, whose lead vocals Joe Elliott quickly rescued from Brian May. Thereafter, each turn came on, performed their chosen number and went off. The legendary Hollywood star Elizabeth Taylor made a guest appearance in her capacity as National Chairperson for the American Foundation for AIDS Research (AmFAR) to deliver an emotive speech about AIDS, despite a few hecklers, and there seemed to be something for everyone, from a Bowie/Annie Lennox duet of ‘Under Pressure’ to a revival of the old Mott the Hoople classic ‘All the Young Dudes’, performed by Ian Hunter and Mick Ronson – with additional backing from Joe Elliott and Bowie, who’d originally written the number, playing saxophone.

  As the evening progressed, clearly some found it hard to contain their emotions. No one doubts that the event was well intentioned, but for many people the concert fell flat – and not just because, through no fault of their own, none of the guest stars could sing on a par with Freddie Mercury.

  Says Bob Harris, ‘I thought it showed up terribly how all the acts struggled with Freddie’s songs. The only person I enjoyed was Ian Hunter. He got me up in my seat. But the others were clearly in trouble.’

  While Simon Bates believes, ‘It was very hard to take. They meant well, but it didn’t come off. I felt it was more for the fans than anything else, but how do you do that? Do you make it a memorial or a wake? I was there, and the audience weren’t at all sympathetic. It probably ended up more for the benefit of the remaining three band members. Elizabeth Taylor tried her best, but it was cringing, and Bowie was just awful.’

  During his solo spot David Bowie had announced that he wanted to say a prayer for a sick friend. Fish more than echoes Bates’s feelings on the incident. ‘When Bowie dropped to one knee and began praying it was really embarrassing,’ he says. ‘I cringed in my seat and thought, Oh, my God! The tribute was very disappointing, yet it could have been something sparkling. I believe that the initial feeling behind it was genuine, but I think it was corporately hijacked, which was a great pity.’

  It had nevertheless been an evening to say goodbye to one of rock’s greatest entertainers, and over 500 million viewers in close to seventy countries worldwide had joined in. When it came to the finale, in a choked voice Brian May announced one of Mercury’s all-time favourites. When Oscar-winning actress/singer Liza Minnelli appeared on stage, she was to lead the full line-up in a bluesy rendition of ‘We Are the Champions’. At the end, before finally looking heavenwards, she shouted, ‘Thanks, Freddie. We just wanted to let you know, we’ll be thinking of you!’

  The cheering, back-slapping and tears subsided, and when the dust had settled once more, as far as Queen as an entity was concerned, it was all over. For the rest of the band the sense of being suspended in a vacuum was real, and despite the feeling that they had sensed impending doom, the situation still left them bewildered. In his final interview, Mercury had confessed, ‘In the end all the mistakes, all the excuses are down to me.’ Certainly others have since expressed the view that, mingled with the band’s grief was a degree of anger over their lead singer’s reckless behaviour. This had cut short not only his life but also their careers – it had been a needless waste all round.

  Queen’s music had spanned almost two decades, but the announcement that they were to disband quickly followed the Easter tribute. Years before Mercury had declared, ‘If I suddenly left, they have the mechanism in them – they’d just replace me,’ but added, ‘Not easy to replace me, huh?’ Brian May, who once called Freddie Mercury the fire and glue that held them together, said at the time: ‘It would be wrong of us to go out with another singer, pretending to be Queen,’ he said. But, as had just been made painfully clear, no other singer could fill the niche that Mercury had so uniquely carved out for himself.

  One-time Old Grey Whistle Test producer Michael Appleton agrees, ‘You can assess Freddie’s strength by that tribute concert. With the exception of George Michael, I think it showed, when the other artistes tried to sing those songs, just how incredibly strong Freddie had been. It also showed how one person in a band can be taken very much for granted, so much so that no one realises it until something happens to separate them.

  ‘Freddie personally had incredible strength, ability and charisma, but still Queen aren’t quite up there with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Those bands came in the first echelon, and Queen came along later – but I’d definitely put them at the top of the second generation along with Bruce Springsteen and U2.’

  In the immediate aftermath of the concert, yet more records were released, and the AIDS issue had been given a substantial public platform. Hitherto the link between AIDS charities and the rock world had been weak, but quite quickly a number of new foundations sprang up, including the Mercury Phoenix Trust set up by Queen. Around summer 1992 the awareness brought about by Mercury’s death, however, had one of its most unusual effects in America. It centred on a Catholic school, and what started as a local storm in a teacup became a matter of national debate.

  Graduate students at the Sacred Heart School in Clifton, New Jersey, had selected Mercury’s rock anthem ‘We Are the Champions’ to accompany a slide show to be screened during a commencement ceremony. The trouble began when their choice was overruled by the principal, Donald Quinlan. Students believed the decision had been made solely on the grounds that Mercury, a self-confessed bisexual, had died of AIDS, and they promptly branded it discriminatory. By mounting protests, involving firstly the local press, they ensured that the story spread quickly – to state, then national newspapers, as well as reaching TV chat shows, with the satellite music station MTV covering the dispute daily. When AIDS activist groups joined in, and arrests were made, it fuelled a fire already out of control. The hysteria, however, did not reflect the whole picture.

  Donald Quinlan explains that ‘Freddie Mercury’s song had been selected in January, but then both the eighth grade and music teachers noted that some of the students thought Mercury was cool because he was bisexual. The teachers felt that these children idolised him, and the pupils involved began ribbing the teachers about it. I met with class representatives and asked them to write a brief summary of why a Catholic school might be opposed to this graduation song, as well as one showing why we should play it. I told them that following these write-ups we would sit down and come up with an acceptable solution.’

  Quinlan couldn’t have been fairer. But, instead of write-ups he began to receive visits from irate parents, supporting the students’ by now rampant conviction that prejudice was at work.

  The whole incident snowballed, as Quinlan admits. ‘In early June the first snippet appeared, and within twenty-four hours it became a major news story,’ he says. ‘Every TV station in New York City came to the school and stayed for weeks. Every local station came, too, and all the New York newspapers sent reporters. There were upwards of seventy media people around the school constantly.’ With headlines like HOMOSEXUAL RIGHTS UNDER SIEGE, and the rebellious pupils declaring that their school had an ‘eleventh Commandment’ – Thou Shalt Not Rock ’n’ Roll – the result was that the graduation ceremony was cancelled, and diplomas were temporarily withheld from selected students.

  Back in Britain, a month later Mercury made the news again when a Liverpool builder, John Boylan, accidentally found something of potential value. ‘I had been working at the city’s Sunnyside Mansions,’ says Boylan, ‘when boxes fell out of the ceiling leading to the cellar containing a great heap of singles. They were all of two separate numbers, but as I hadn’t heard of them I threw them into the skip along with the rubbish. A couple of days later our kid was listening to Radio Merseyside, and this question came up about what record was recorded under the name Larry Lurex. When the answer was “I Can Hear Music”,
and that the real singer had been Freddie Mercury, he came running to me saying, “You’d better get down and get those records back quick!”

  ‘The first thing I did was phone the Queen fan club, but they didn’t believe me, and I forgot about it. About three years later a mate of mine took two to a record fair and showed them to some people, and this guy said he’d been after them for years. All of a sudden my phone started ringing with press and other folk from all over the world. Then I got a call from Norman Sheffield (of Trident Records who owned the rights). He told me to burn the records. He said that if I tried to sell them he would sue me. I didn’t want any trouble.’

  Along with the demos, John Boylan found what appeared to be two master tapes. When he tried to have these authenticated by Sotheby’s auctioneers, however, their detailed findings, says Boylan, summarised that they were ‘inconclusive’. Three years later an acetate of ‘I Can Hear Music’ was sold at Christie’s for around £800, and Boylan’s find was deemed to be bootleg copies.

  But, for others, the opposite of making money out of Mercury had been preoccupying them for months. Mercury had once joked, ‘I want to be buried with all my treasures, like the Pharaohs. If I can afford it, I’ll have a pyramid built in Kensington. Wouldn’t that be fab?’

  On the eve of the first anniversary of his death, news emerged of two separate applications to the Kensington and Chelsea local authority to have, not exactly a pyramid, but a statue erected near Logan Place in his honour. Other monuments in the area ranged from those of Sir Thomas More to Peter Pan. As hundreds of fans still made the pilgrimage to Garden Lodge, the idea was to add a statue of Freddie Mercury in full voice as a focus for their devotion. One bid had been put together by a group of people fronted by Dave Clark, and supported by the Queen fan club. To assist his approach to the council, Clark had also involved the then local MP Dudley Fishburn.