Freddie Mercury: The Biography (34 page)

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.

‘It began when Dave Clark appeared in the House of Commons and put his name in,’ says Dudley Fishburn. ‘The morning-coated
doorman rushed up to me excitedly, saying, “Dave Clark of the Dave Clark Five is here to see you!” Dave explained that he
represented a group of friends who wanted to have a statue of Freddie Mercury erected in Kensington. I immediately thought
it was a great idea. I was always in favour of it, and still am, even though it all came to nothing. To me, Freddie was plainly
as great a figure as those nineteenth-century generals who have statues erected to them all over the place. Many’s the time
when I am walking through Kensington that I’ve been stopped by groups of German or Japanese tourists all wanting to know where
they can find Freddie Mercury’s house.

‘As the provision of a statue rests entirely with a local authority, I wrote to the leader of that particular authority on
behalf of Dave Clark, and there followed a considerable three-way correspondence. But the idea met with a democratic decision
not to allow one. I felt it was a particularly foolish decision, because although mostly these fall by the wayside through
lack of money, that wasn’t the case here. The finance was in place and amounted to quite a sum, so that not only would it
have been erected properly but safely maintained thereafter. Their refusal didn’t make sense.’

The other bid for a statue memorial came from Bill Howard, Mercury’s former neighbour, who didn’t have the support of any
MP, nor of the Queen fan club. But he did find public enthusiasm for his plans when he conducted a street survey about them.
His contention that Freddie Mercury was
the biggest credit to the Kensington borough in fifty years, however, failed to cut any ice with the council, and his application,
too, went into oblivion.

But the statue highlighted other problems with the suggestion that gay rights campaigners would be angered by any plans to
immortalise Freddie Mercury. According to one spokesman, Mercury was never any kind of icon in the gay community, for the
simple reason that he never came out. ‘They are likely to hold that against him for some time,’ he added.

These feelings were an extension of an ongoing debate over the timing of the announcement of the star’s statement, so near
to his death, that he had AIDS. While some hailed it a brave and honest act, others, including a few from the pop world, accused
Mercury of betraying the gay cause. They argued that the statement’s timing was far from courageous – and that he ought to
have admitted to having the disease long before, thus bringing it out earlier for open discussion.

Refusing to get embroiled in this debate, the rest of Queen concentrated on perpetuating Mercury’s legacy through commercial
releases. In late November 1992
The Freddie Mercury Album,
a collection of existing solo tracks, peaked at number four. Days earlier, the star’s old hit ‘The Great Pretender’ had been
revived, and the following month saw the single ‘In My Defence’ reach number eight. But it wasn’t until the following July
that of all the posthumous releases, Freddie Mercury would hit his first solo number one with the single ‘Living On My Own’.

Originally from his debut solo album
Mr Bad Guy,
the star felt the song was highly characteristic of himself. In one of his more maudlin moods, he once explained why. ‘I
have to go around the world living in hotels,’ he said. ‘You can have a whole shoal of people looking after you, but in the
end they all go away.’

Throughout 1994 there was much talk of a final Queen
album to include previously unreleased Mercury recordings. By early 1995 the word was that Brian May, Roger Taylor and John
Deacon were busy, either in Metropolis Studios or at May’s home studio, putting the finishing touches to Mercury’s lyrics.
They were using the same modern techniques as the three former Beatles were employing with previously unreleased John Lennon
tracks. The ex-Queenies were to add their contributions live in the studio to the material Mercury had managed to leave behind.

Anticipation was high among the band’s worldwide legions of fans, as well as in the music industry. When the first single
was announced, there was consternation when it emerged that it was to be ‘Heaven For Everyone’: a Roger Taylor number from
his solo band the Cross’s 1988 debut album
Shove It.
It had then featured Mercury as guest lead vocalist. Rerecorded, this time including input from Brian May and John Deacon,
on its release in late October it still went straight in at number two.

Two weeks later the long-awaited album
Made in Heaven
emerged, and it went straight in at the top, holding off Madonna, Oasis and Elton John among others. After a career of having
a tough time with the critics, it was largely acclaimed, with some reviewers even declaring that it was a pity Mercury wasn’t
around to enjoy what was being hailed as the best Queen album for years. It quickly went double-platinum. Despite strong competition,
the album survived in the top five, weeks into 1996, unlike, to the surprise of many, the hugely hyped
The Beatles Anthology 1,
which boasted Lennon’s much-vaunted unreleased recordings.

Singled out for special praise in
Made in Heaven
was the track ‘A Winter’s Tale’. Penned by the lakeside in Montreux, the ballad was the last song Mercury had ever written,
and it was released mid-December as Queen’s bid for the Christmas number one. But, for others, the album’s highlight was ‘Too
Much Love Will Kill You’, a Brian May solo single sung with great poignancy by Mercury.

In late 1995 both Roger Taylor and Brian May paid special tribute to Mercury’s last courageous working months. They revealed
how, doggedly determined to push his pain-racked body to the limit, he had sometimes needed to fortify himself with a few
shots of vodka before getting up to sing. The track ‘Mother Love’, on which the singer’s vocals soar to incredible heights,
was the last number he recorded.

Brian May marvelled, ‘This is a man who can’t really stand any more without incredible pain and is very weak. There’s no flesh
on his bones at all – and yet you can hear the power, the will that he’s still got.’ Mary Austin revealed that it had taken
Mercury a very long time to accept that he had AIDS, and May believes that, even to the last, the star, his friend, thought
a miracle might save him. But, of course, none had come.

When once asked how he would like people to remember him professionally, Mercury had flippantly replied, ‘Oh, I don’t know.
Dead and gone? It’s up to them. When I’m dead, who cares? I don’t.’ But the sleeve of
Made in Heaven,
undoubtedly Queen’s most personal album, had carried the legend: ‘Dedicated to the immortal spirit of Freddie Mercury’.

In the coming years, further honours followed. On 25 November 1996, in the Place du Marché, Montreux, Switzerland, overlooking
Lake Geneva, a three-metre-high bronze statue of Mercury in classic pose – legs apart, mike in hand and his right fist triumphantly
punching the air – was unveiled by Freddie’s father, Bomi Bulsara and the opera star Montserrat Caballé. The plaque on its
plinth read
Freddie Mercury Lover of Life – Singer of Songs.
The statue was the work of Czech sculptor Irena Sedlecka, and had been commissioned by May, Taylor, Deacon and Freddie’s
family and friends, some of whom attended the small dedication ceremony. Then, in 1999, the Royal Mail issued a Freddie Mercury
stamp as part of
their Millennium series. The entertainment category of this series also included stamps of the footballer Bobby Moore, actor
Charlie Chaplin and a Dalek from the TV series
Doctor Who.
But Mercury’s 19p stamp caused some controversy. It featured an on-stage, bare-chested Freddie in scarlet leggings but drummer
Roger Taylor could also be seen in the background. According to convention, the only living people permitted to appear on
a British postage stamp are members of the royal family.

Having considered himself very firmly a member of rock royalty, Freddie did not live to see his band enter the coveted Rock
and Roll Hall of Fame. Queen’s induction to this echelon took place on 19 March 2001 at the sixteenth annual dinner held at
the Waldorf Astoria in New York. Jer Bulsara accepted her son’s award at the glittering event during which fellow inductees
included Paul Simon, Aerosmith and Michael Jackson.

It was around this time that news broke in Britain that there was to be a West End stage musical structured around Queen’s
music, called
We Will Rock You.
The multi-million-pound musical, scripted by comedian and novelist Ben Elton and directed by Christopher Renshaw, opened
at the Dominion Theatre in London’s Tottenham Court Road on 12 May 2002. A smash hit, it has become the theatre’s longest
running show which, including additional productions staged around the world, is estimated to have been seen by more than
10 million people to date. A year later, Freddie’s father Bomi Bulsara died, leaving his mother and his sister Kashmira to
witness how his memory continued to be kept alive.

It was perhaps inevitable that the runaway success of
We Will Rock You
would whet the appetite among Queen fans to see the band perform live once more. In the aftermath of Freddie’s death there
was a widespread acknowledgement, if not assumption, that there could never be Queen without Mercury at its
helm. But by autumn 2004, rumours were circulating of a band reunion with one or two famous singers said to be set to step
into the void. In January 2005, that someone turned out to be former Free and Bad Company lead singer Paul Rodgers, a powerful
and distinctive rock front man. For diehard Freddie fans it was a bittersweet prospect – to have Queen revived as a live act
but without Mercury’s dominant presence. And indeed, they were big enough shoes to fill without Freddie having been voted
that year as the Greatest Male Singer of All Time in an
MTV poll.

The new band comprised Brian May, Roger Taylor, Paul Rodgers, keyboard player Spike Edney, guitarist Jamie Moses and Danny
Miranda on bass. John Deacon did not participate. With everyone keen to stress that Freddie was not being replaced and that
Paul Rodgers would continue to pursue a solo career, this line-up was billed as Queen and Paul Rodgers. Commencing in spring
2005, on and off over the next four years they toured or performed individual gigs around the world until, in May 2009, Paul
Rodgers announced that, for the foreseeable future at least, his collaboration with Queen was over.

Far from the limelight and in a very different way, time had run out for some people whom Freddie had once counted as friends,
lovers or just acquaintances, many of whom had sadly died fairly young. Freddie’s long-time lover Jim Hutton had reportedly
been battling cancer towards the end of his life. Succumbing to complications from broncho-pneumonia, just days shy of his
sixty-first birthday, Jim died in Ireland on 1 January 2010.

Nine months later, news of a more uplifting kind arrived when, after years of rumour and speculation, a big screen biopic
of Freddie Mercury was finally officially announced. Talk of this project had first surfaced in late 2006, when Johnny Depp
was tipped by the media for the lead role. But then again,
just months earlier, similar rumours had circulated that the versatile Kentucky-born actor was due to portray the late Michael
Hutchence in a biopic of the INXS front man. All Brian May could confirm in 2006 was that discussions surrounding a biopic
of Mercury were at an early stage. The meat on the bones came in September 2010.

The film was the result of a partnership between GK Films, Tribeca Productions and Queen Films and, it was revealed, the screenplay
for the untitled movie would be written by Peter Morgan. Nominated for an Academy Award for his work on both
the Queen
and
Frost/Nixon,
Morgan is currently considered one of the hottest screenwriters in the business. For some people, the startling news was
that the starring role had gone to Sacha Baron Cohen.

Born in 1971 in Hammersmith, London, Sacha Baron Cohen studied history at Christ’s College, Cambridge, before becoming an
award-winning actor, famous for his fictional comedic characters: rapper Ali G, Austrian fashion reporter Bruno and Kazakhstani
journalist Borat. According to Peter Morgan, it was Cohen who approached him to write the screenplay, a prospect that did
not completely grab him at first, as he thought he might be limited in how much of Mercury’s famously colourful life could
be encompassed with an actor in his late thirties portraying a star who had died aged forty-five. Further parameters kicked
in when Peter opted to steer clear of covering Mercury’s debilitating illness and harrowing death, effectively knocking out
the most poignant and drastically changing years of the star’s life. ‘I didn’t want to write about a man dying from Aids,’
Morgan flatly stated.

That said, Morgan identified a very fertile period of Freddie’s life that entirely energised him – from early in Queen’s career
up to the band’s legendary performance at the historic Live Aid concert on 13 July 1985 – a period that also
saw Queen embroiled in the controversy surrounding their 1984 appearance at the Sun City Super Bowl in South Africa and included
the creative conflicts that set in with the band, leading to Mercury breaking away to pursue his solo projects before returning
to the fold. ‘I’m essentially writing about the most painful time in the band’s history,’ Peter stressed to the media.