Mercury and Me

by Jim Hutton

  Whenever Winnie appeared Freddie made a big fuss of me, while the dark German shot me piercing glances. Back home with Freddie that night I was tempted to tell him I wasn’t prepared to be a pawn in his game. But, as we got into bed, I decided to say nothing.

  The next day, Sunday, we pottered around the flat, cuddling on the sofa and watching telly. Then I flew home and, over the next fortnight, wrote to Freddie a number of times. He was now a large part of my life.

  The next weekend Freddie came back to London and introduced me for the first time to Mary Austin, a petite woman with shoulder-length fair hair, blue eyes and a fair complexion. Mary was reserved but very welcoming when we met. She worked as company secretary of Freddie’s private company, Goose Productions, which managed all Freddie’s personal affairs and paid his staff. Mary lived and worked about a hundred yards away in a flat owned either by Freddie or by his company.

  The following weekend, now well into a routine, I flew to Germany. A car met me and when I got to the flat Freddie was waiting to greet me. Then he slapped me in the eye: he said he was going with Winnie, out of Munich, up in the ‘Hills of Bavaria’ – and off he went. He didn’t come home at all that night. I didn’t let any of this upset me. Perhaps I was a little naive. I hoped the two of them were just tying up the loose ends of their failed love affair.

  The next morning the phone rang and it was Freddie, inviting me and Joe to meet him at Winnie’s place above his restaurant. We strolled through the city to Winnie’s flat and let ourselves in. Freddie breezed by and trilled: ‘Right, let’s go.’

  We strolled back the way we had come and dived into a pet shop where we fell in love with the kittens. Freddie bought tins and tins of cat food, in flavours you couldn’t buy in London, as well as little toys for his beloved Tiffany and Oscar.

  When we came out of the shop it happened. As we were crossing the main street, Freddie leaped up into my arms. If I hadn’t caught him he’d have crashed to the ground. He smothered me in wet kisses, and I was so embarrassed that I dropped him and ran off. He made a few more runs at me before he left me alone. I couldn’t handle this sort of thing in public, so I kept well ahead of him.

  We went back to the flat and Freddie was desperate to jump into bed for sex. His drive was amazing. Then we flaked out on the sofa, watching television. It was something we did an awful lot in our time together alone. On the sofa Freddie and I usually sat side by side. Sometimes he’d lie one way and me the other, and I’d massage his feet. He adored that. We rarely drank anything stronger than water or tea in the daytime, though we quickly made amends each evening.

  Freddie loved old black-and-white movies and the early Technicolor classics – stuff from the Bette Davis era. He also liked old comedies, such as Some Like It Hot and The Women. But his favourite was the Marx Brothers; he was a great fan of theirs, as the titles of the two Queen albums, A Day at the Races and A Night at the Opera, prove. In fact, the band had to seek permission from Groucho Marx to use the titles. Freddie told me his response had been warm-hearted and, as you’d expect, very witty. He replied: ‘I am very pleased you have named one of your albums after my film and that you are being successful. I would be very happy for you to call your next one after my latest film, The Greatest Hits of the Rolling Stones!’

  The following weekend, back at Stafford Terrace, Freddie was to reveal an unlikely secret. After breakfast on Sunday, several of his friends arrived – including Trevor ‘BB’ Clarke, a caterer; an artist called Rudi Patterson; and Mary Austin with Joe Bert, her musician boyfriend, formerly with Tom Robinson’s band Sector 27.

  ‘We’re going for a walk,’ Freddie announced to us. It was gloriously sunny and we strolled for about twenty minutes – about half a mile – until we came to a gate in a long wall. Freddie unlocked it and led us through into a magical secret garden.

  Garden Lodge, 1 Logan Place, is a large Georgian house set inside a large, mature English garden behind high brick walls.

  Freddie had bought the place at the end of the seventies from the Hoare banking family – hence its nickname under Freddie’s ownership: the Hoare House. He had gutted it, totally renovating and redecorating it just the way he wanted. That Sunday the last of the builders and decorators were about to move out; the place was almost ready for Freddie to move into.

  The front door of Garden Lodge leads into a large, light hallway with an elegant wide staircase. To the left and right, double doors lead to two spectacularly spacious rooms, parquet-floored with expansive windows gazing out over the garden. The room to the right was the most magnificent, a massive space with a minstrels’ gallery and tall windows. It had once been an artist’s studio, hence the windows. Behind this room were the kitchen and dining room.

  Upstairs, several rooms had been knocked into one to give Freddie a large master bedroom suite. From the landing you first entered a dressing room with a large plaster dome. On either side was a bathroom, each finished in Italian marble with gold fittings. The room on the left, decorated in veined white, grey and pink marble, boasted a jacuzzi bath big enough for three. The sleek bathroom on the right was decorated in black panels. Ahead were the large sliding double doors, which always remained open, leading to the bedroom. The walls were in a pinkish cream colour moire – water-marked fabric. Straight ahead were large windows opening on to a long balcony, and to the right a window which looked straight on to the garden. Freddie’s Queen-size bed was to the left of the room.

  The jewel of the house was undoubtedly the garden, which made the house totally private. We spent most of that first visit outside, sitting on a small mound, soaking up the sun and larking around.

  Freddie had mentioned Garden Lodge in passing, but the house was far more magnificent than I’d expected. But at that time, however beautiful the London house, Freddie still thought of Germany as his main home.

  Freddie would work on Queen albums in both London and Munich, and it was during one of what were to be many sessions that I met the members of the band for the first time: guitarist Brian May, drummer Roger Taylor and bassist John Deacon. They were immediately very friendly and struck me as down-to-earth. Roger had run a stall at Kensington Market with Freddie years earlier and they were clearly soulmates; they’d often sit together, giggling. Brian was very intellectual and meticulous about his music. But it was John Deacon I took to most. He was the silent member of the group – remarkably modest, quiet and unassuming. He and Freddie were the most closely involved in the business side of Queen when they started out, and John had doubled as the band’s accountant. Later, their success wildly escalated the demands of the job. His running gag was: ‘I’m only the bass player.’

  The next big event was Freddie releasing his new solo single, ‘Made in Heaven’. The video for the track was an incredible production, with a Dante’s Inferno theme boasting a 60-foot rotating globe, apocalyptic fires, raging storms and a ton of extras.

  Freddie invited me to visit the set after work, but I didn’t reckon on the reception I’d get. I went up to the security guy on the studio gate and asked for Freddie’s trailer. He pointed it out and I ambled over.

  When I opened the door, Freddie was very jumpy.

  ‘How did you get here?’ he snapped. Then he flew into a rage, insisting that security had to be made much tighter.

  When he calmed down, he told me why he was so jittery. Some time before, a man had broken into Freddie’s flat and tried on all of his clothes. He had been caught by the police and put behind bars, but the incident had upset Freddie enormously.

  The morning of the video shoot Freddie learned that the man had escaped from prison; his girlfriend had alerted the police that her man was out, armed, dangerous and probably looking for Freddie Mercury. The police were taking the threat so seriously that they had sealed off both entrances to his house in Stafford Terrace. After a while the drama passed; the poor man was caught by the police and put back in prison where he belonged.

  Filming the video lasted late into the
night, and when we got back to Freddie’s flat around five in the morning a couple of policemen were waiting for us. They said they wanted to make sure Freddie was feeling all right after his ordeal, and they stayed and joked for a while.

  And Freddie joked back.

  He pointed to a little antique Japanese lacquered box.

  ‘I suppose you’re wondering what’s in that box, aren’t you?’ he said. ‘It’s my drugs!’

  They burst out laughing.

  After they’d gone, by which time it was about six, Freddie said to me: ‘You go and have an hour’s lie-down. I’ll wake you for work, don’t worry.’

  An hour later Freddie woke me, softly, saying: ‘You’d better be getting off to work, darling. I’ve run the bath.’

  2

  MAKE YOUR MIND UP

  Back at the Savoy a week or so later I received an internal call from a woman asking to make an appointment for a Mr Jones. She wanted it to be as late as possible, which was 5.30pm.

  I would always allow clients to be ten minutes late, but when, at 5.40pm, there was still no sign of Mr Jones I rang and asked to be put through to his room. The woman who’d made the appointment answered and I created merry hell over her man being late.

  ‘We close soon. We close at six o’clock,’ I said. ‘He’ll have to come down now.’ A few minutes later he arrived: it was David Bowie. I didn’t recognise Freddie when I first met him, but I recognised Bowie at once. As Ziggy Stardust he’d triggered off a whole style era a decade earlier – a trend for Bowie haircuts, of which I’d done my fair share.

  When I finished cutting his hair, I asked: ‘You are who I think you are, aren’t you?’

  ‘Who do you think I am?’ he asked back.

  ‘David Bowie,’ I said.

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  And that was the only conversation we had.

  The next Saturday, 13 July 1985, was a sweltering hot day – set to be a very special day for Freddie and me. After finishing work at the Savoy I made my way to his flat. The place was buzzing. Freddie was in party mood. Everyone was absorbed in watching Live Aid on television.

  At about four in the afternoon Freddie turned to me and asked: ‘Aren’t you going to get ready, then?’ I was still in my suit straight from work.

  ‘What for?’ I asked.

  ‘We’re going to Live Aid!’ he screamed, and my mouth fell to the floor. I’d never been to a concert before, a fact that Freddie didn’t know.

  ‘I’ve got nothing to wear,’ I spluttered.

  ‘You don’t need anything,’ he replied. ‘Just get your jeans on and there are T-shirts in the wardrobe. Help yourself.’

  We swept to Wembley in the back of one of a fleet of black limousines. I was on my way to see Queen perform live on stage for the very first time. We arrived at Wembley with about an hour to spare. The special enclosure was awash with the country’s greatest rock performers. I was agog.

  Each member of the band had his own dressing room trailer and all three wives were there – Chrissy May, Dominique Taylor and Veronica Deacon, as well as the May and Taylor children.

  To be behind the scenes at Wembley that day was incredible: the atmosphere was electric. Freddie knew everyone: Paul McCartney, Status Quo, Sting, U2, Dire Straits. When we found Elton John I was introduced by Freddie as ‘My new man’. Phil Collins came up and asked for Freddie’s autograph.

  ‘For you?’ asked Freddie.

  ‘No,’ said Phil. ‘It’s for my kids.’ Freddie laughed and signed.

  He went to get ready. Queen would be appearing after David Bowie, who was on stage now. Freddie was going on in what he was wearing – jeans, white vest, studded amulet and belt.

  When David Bowie came off and headed into his own trailer, Freddie whisked after him, taking me with him. David was strange. He was sitting wet through in front of an electric fan, trying to dry his hair.

  ‘It’s about the only fan you’ve got, David, isn’t it?’ quipped Freddie. They laughed. Then Freddie said: ‘This is Jim. I believe you’ve already met.’

  David glanced up at me and looked blank: ‘No, I don’t know him at all.’

  ‘Well, who did your hair the other night?’ I said, but I don’t think it registered. Very strange.

  When it was time for Queen to go on, I walked with Freddie to the stage and, watching from the wings, witnessed the most magical twenty minutes of my life. The group tore into ‘Hammer to Fall’, ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, ‘Radio GaGa’ and ‘We Are the Champions’. (Later Freddie and Brian performed the moving Queen song ‘Is This the World We Created’, with all royalties going to the Save The Children Fund.)

  At last I had seen the real Freddie Mercury at work, whipping seventy thousand people into a frenzy. He gave everything to his performance; nothing else mattered to him. When he came off, he rushed to his trailer and I tottered behind like a puppy. His first words were: ‘Thank God that’s over!’ Joe ripped his wet clothes from him and dressed him. Adrenalin still overflowing, Freddie knocked back a large vodka to calm himself. Then his face lit up. The expression said: ‘Yes, we’ve done it!’

  As we stepped out of the caravan we met a grinning Elton John. ‘You bastards!’ he said to Freddie. ‘You stole the show!’ Then they hugged. Everyone backstage was converging on Freddie, Brian, Roger and John. Organiser Bob Geldof said later: ‘Queen were simply the best band of the day.’

  We stayed until the end of the show and met George Michael, but ducked the after-show party to celebrate at home and watch the American end of the amazing concert on television.

  When Phil Collins popped up in Philadelphia’s JFK Stadium, having opened Wembley and then dashed over the Atlantic by Concorde, Freddie shook his head in amazement. ‘Doesn’t that man ever stop?’ he asked.

  We sat around drinking, mulling over all the performances. Freddie’s favourites were Tina Turner and Mick Jagger singing ‘Private Dancer’.

  When we fell into bed that night, Freddie cuddled up and whispered: ‘Did you enjoy it?’

  ‘What do you think?’ I answered, hugging him tight. ‘It’s the first time I’ve ever been to a concert.’

  ‘You’re joking!’ he said.

  ‘No,’ I added. He was dumbfounded. I fell asleep knowing that for the first time I’d actually seen the real star Freddie Mercury doing what he did best – wowing the world.

  The next morning Live Aid seemed an age away to Freddie, but not to me. When I got to the Savoy on Monday morning it was still bursting out of my ears.

  I was soon back in the old routine. Every two weeks I would fly to Munich and be met at the airport. The first time after Live Aid I flew to Munich to join Freddie I was whisked direct to the Musicland studio, to watch him working on material for Queen’s new album, A Kind of Magic, which included tracks for the film Highlander. The spacious basement studio was on the outskirts of the city under a massive complex of flats which Joe nicknamed ‘Suicide Block’. Its best claim to fame was that Giorgio Moroder had written and recorded most of his greatest disco hits there.

  Freddie took me to the control room and introduced me to Reinhold Mack, his German producer. He was a tall, thin man in his late thirties – he looked like an ageing hippy and had shoulder-length hair. Freddie sat me down and disappeared to carry on recording.

  In the studio Freddie had a one-track mind – work, work and more work. I watched him through the glass, but he rarely glanced my way because he was so totally absorbed in his work. He chain-smoked or, rather, chain-lit Silk Cuts, and to boost his energy and adrenalin he slipped down slugs of Russian vodka. He only drank Stolichnaya.

  Freddie’s sense of drive amazed me. He had to keep on the go; it was part of his life blood. When he wasn’t singing he’d bounce into the control room and sit behind the banks of sliders to tweak the playback mixes himself. He was always in total control. At the end of a session I might mention that I liked this or that about a song, but I never knew if he took any notice o
f what I thought.

  Freddie worked until about eleven that night before calling it a day. We set off to a club in the Bermuda Triangle before heading home. Next day Freddie wanted to go back into the studio to work. As I was to learn, he had a habit of passing the studio saying he would ‘just pop in for five or six minutes’, but then stay five or six hours.

  Some weekends Freddie would beaver away alone; often he would work with Brian, Roger and John. When the other members of Queen were in Munich to record, they would stay in a hotel. In the studio, the boys liked to have their own teams around them to do odd chores, like making tea or coffee. Freddie had his two assistants, Phoebe and Joe; Brian had Jobby; and Roger had Chris ‘Crystal’ Taylor. In one corner of the studio there was an exercise bike which was in use from time to time whenever the going got slow.

  At the end of a session, the whole group would break off and we’d head off to eat together. We’d find a modest pavement café or restaurant nearby and have a simple lunch or supper.

  After hours working on the same track, the band developed a way of diffusing the tension of their work: they swapped the real lyrics for funnier send-up lines. Those off-the-record versions of Queen hits were always hysterically funny, and the whole studio would erupt in laughter.

  One night the band recorded one of the tracks destined for Highlander, ‘One Vision’. It came out as ‘Fried Chicken’! Later that night, when I was alone with Freddie, I said to him: ‘Come on, for Christ’s sake! The band is big enough. You’re bold enough.’

  ‘For what?’ he asked.

  ‘To put that line in. Fried Chicken!’

  He said nothing.

  Whenever Freddie came back to London he stayed at Garden Lodge. One weekend there in August we talked about what kind of party he should stage for his thirty-ninth birthday, on 5 September. I suggested that he should have a black-and-white party and he seemed to like the idea. Typically, Freddie transformed it into an outrageous and amazing event, a black-and-white drag ball.