Freddie Mercury: The Biography

by Laura Jackson

  Although Mercury had stopped stalking the gay scene, he still couldn’t resist occasional clubbing. Sometimes he’d pick up a man and take him back for the night to his Stafford Terrace flat, while Hutton was at Garden Lodge. When Hutton found out about these assignations, his retaliation could lead to terrible rows. The star didn’t like the thought of being paid back in kind. Applying blatant double standards, on at least one occasion he threw Hutton out in a rage, although when he’d calmed down he always pleaded with him to return. Despite his sycophantic and elastic entourage and the genuine love of his select inner sanctum of close friends, Mercury had a fear of loneliness – and often dealt with this by spreading his options.

  He seems to have not been able to commit himself entirely to one person. It is clear from his own comments over the years that he was conscious of being in a very difficult position. To Mercury, dropping his guard and allowing someone access to his inner self had resulted too often in being, as he put it, ‘trodden on’. He declared, ‘Because I’m successful and have a lot of money, a lot of greedy people prey on me. But that’s something I’ve learnt to deal with. I’m riddled with scars, and I just don’t want any more.’ He once gave this as an excuse for some of his most outrageous behaviour.

  He wasn’t alone, however, when, soon after moving in to Garden Lodge, he hosted his fortieth birthday party there. Guests were invited to arrive at the ‘Mad Hat’ party wearing a hat, and a variety of silly, sometimes rude, confections turned up. Although Mercury had commissioned several special designs for himself, he ended up choosing none of them.

  Ten days later the ballad ‘Who Wants to Live Forever’ was released. Then, mid-October, Queen received an award from the British Video Awards for the best live-performance video for Live in Rio. Brian May and Roger Taylor went along to attend the ceremony – but without Freddie Mercury, who had his own reasons for not showing up then.

  On 13 October 1986 the News of the World ran a story, which the daily tabloids picked up the next day, revealing that Mercury had undergone a secret AIDS test at the end of 1985. The star was furious but not able to discover how the press had got hold of their information. Mercury was already edgy when he received an unexpected visit from John Murphy, the airline steward with whom he had remained friends after a one-night stand. Murphy’s current lover was dying of AIDS, and Murphy himself, looking cadaverous and frail, was also clearly ill with the disease. By the second week of November both men were dead.

  Trying to calm his rising panic, Mercury no doubt reminded himself how brief his liaison with Murphy had been. But this was cold comfort when just weeks later he received the news that his lover of two years’ standing, Tony Bastin, had also just died of AIDS. Too many gay acquaintances were dead and dying – or just scared and shaken. Mercury’s initial reaction was hardly to move from home. People who did meet him noticed that he seemed very preoccupied. He must have been terrified, but it was not a state in which he intended to stay for long.

  His solution to his anxieties was to distract himself with work. In January 1987 he began to record at the Town House Studios with songwriter/producer Mike Moran, who became one of his closest friends. ‘Freddie and I met in the early eighties,’ says Moran, ‘but the first thing we did together was when he recorded a couple of numbers for Dave Clark’s stage musical Time.’ That experience led Mercury to ask Moran to produce him when he wanted to record a cover version of the Platters’ hit ‘The Great Pretender’.

  ‘“The Great Pretender” was the first cover Freddie had done in his own name,’ says Mike Moran. ‘He had been attracted to the number, because apart from really liking it, it was very him. He was a terrible show-off anyway. After we put down the track, I said to him, “We really ought to think of a B-side,” and Fred replied, “Oh, bloody hell! I’d forgotten about that,” Well, it was very late one night, and we were the best part of a bottle of vodka down, when Freddie started playing flashy piano, and he suddenly turned and said to me, “Wouldn’t it be fun to do something classical?” “Exercises in Free Love” was the product of this. There aren’t any lyrics. It’s more like Freddie flexing his scales.

  ‘After that he asked me if I’d be interested in working with him on a bigger solo project. Typical of Freddie, he had no idea at that moment what it would be, but we booked a whole load of studio time just the same and started work. The first thing we wrote and recorded was the track “All God’s People”, which actually ended up on Queen’s album.’

  While all this was going on, events were at work that would eventually mesh with what Mercury and Mike Moran were doing. The Spanish leg of the Magic Tour had been handled by the top Madrid-based concert promoter Pino Sagliocco. It was Sagliocco who produced Ibiza ’92, the celebrations that led up to and included Spain’s role as host for the 1992 Olympic Games. Although others, including Mercury himself, later claimed the credit, Sagliocco was the man responsible for controversially bringing together Freddie Mercury and Spanish soprano Montserrat Caballé. Sagliocco’s connection with Queen had initially come through Roger Taylor who owned a villa in Ibiza, and it was while organising his part of the 1986 tour that he first met Mercury.

  ‘I tried to get Roger to convince Freddie to let me arrange an interview,’ says Sagliocco, ‘but it was a very difficult thing because he did not like to give interviews, and everyone told me he would not do it. Queen were in Spain in August, which is a really weak time to get promotion, and the programme I wanted Freddie to appear on was not to be shown until October – but it was called Sixty Minutes of Spain and to be seen on this show makes a big impact.

  ‘One night we were in a disco, and I was hassling Roger again to have another go at Freddie, and I don’t know if it was the vodka talking but suddenly Freddie said yes, he would do it.’

  Mercury’s interview was recorded at his hotel before Queen left Madrid and screened several weeks later. Sagliocco recalls, ‘When I watched this programme I was thinking of my main opening for a TV special to be held at the Ku Club in 1987. During the show Freddie was asked which Spanish singer he admired most and he replied, “Montserrat Caballé.” At that moment the idea came into my head, why not get Mercury and Caballé to perform together for the Olympic celebrations?’

  Driven on by the challenge of pulling off this remarkable duet, Sagliocco swung into action. ‘I sent a fax to Gerry Stickells in Los Angeles,’ he says, ‘who told me to contact Jim Beach – who would ask Freddie on my behalf. At the same time I contacted Montserrat through her manager.’ It was far from easy to get the two stars to say yes and as time passed an edge of desperation crept in – until Sagliocco was forced to bend the truth.

  He recalls, ‘Neither Freddie nor Montserrat would do it at first, and then Freddie said yes, thinking I had an agreement with Montserrat.’ It got to the point that Sagliocco was scared to admit to Mercury, by now fired up by the prospect, that Caballé hadn’t yet agreed. He admits, ‘By now Freddie’s only concern was that Montserrat would like his work so how could I tell him the meeting was not yet fixed?’

  It was late February 1987. ‘The Great Pretender’, produced by Mike Moran, had been released and had gone to number four in the UK charts, giving Mercury his biggest solo hit. He was already in buoyant mood when news from Sagliocco delighted him even more, as Moran recalls.

  ‘We’d left the studio late one night and gone home,’ he says, ‘when in the early hours Freddie rang me, very excited. He told me he had had a call from Spain that Montserrat Caballé wanted to meet him, and we were going over to Barcelona on Saturday. A little sleepy I sat up and asked suspiciously, “What do you mean we’re going to Barcelona?” He replied, “Well, I’m not fucking going by myself!”’

  According to Moran, the prospect of meeting Montserrat Caballé terrified Mercury. ‘He got himself worked into a right state,’ he says, ‘and was rushing about panicking. He kept saying, “First I’ll have to work out what samples of my work to take along. What can I take?” I grabbed hold of him and said, “Fr
eddie. You’re famous! You don’t need samples of your work,” but he insisted that he did. Eventually he said, “I’ll play her this thing,” which was the B-side to “The Great Pretender”.’

  The assignation took place at the Ritz Hotel in Barcelona. ‘We got there first,’ Moran recalls, ‘and Freddie was still fussing like a mother hen. He wanted the sound system set so that all he had to do was press a button. We waited, and then Montserrat swept in with an entire retinue behind her. The hotel staff were bowing and scraping, almost walking backwards before her, which made Freddie even more nervy – but she was really good fun and everyone, except Freddie, loosened up the more the champagne flowed.

  ‘All of a sudden, at a break in the chatter, Freddie burst out to Montserrat, “Well, can I play you this then?” The thing is she got the wrong end of the stick, because he somehow introduced the track by saying, “This is me, pretending to be you,” and he played “Exercises in Free Love”. She listened carefully, glancing quizzically at Freddie, and a few of us thought, what’s she making of this? Then when the track finished she asked, “You wrote this for me?” Freddie had now realised his mistake but made matters worse by saying, “If you want, you can have it.” He turned and asked me, “That’s OK, isn’t it?”’

  Confusion aside, the reality was that Montserrat Caballé liked the track very much. ‘She’s this grand diva, and here she was suddenly announcing, “I’m performing at Covent Garden next week. I will perform this number and you” – she pointed at me – “will accompany me.” And sure enough, in less than a week, we did it at Covent Garden. Freddie was more nervous on that occasion than at anything I’d ever seen, and he wasn’t even performing.’

  Moran reveals that ‘Before a gig you could never talk to Freddie. He would be so uptight and want to be alone. He’d bawl out anyone who intruded on him at this time. But at Covent Garden he was so nervous for me that he suddenly burst into my dressing room as I was getting ready and began flapping about, talking ten to the dozen. Eventually I snapped, “For fuck sake, Freddie, go away and leave me alone. You’re doing the same to me that you hate people to do to you!” It was nice, all the same, that he was thinking of me.

  ‘Montserrat had asked Freddie where he would like her to place “Exercises in Free Love” in her programme, and he hadn’t liked to suggest. She kept at him, though, and eventually he said, “Why don’t you do it for an encore?” And she replied, “Which one? I usually have eight.” Freddie just gaped at her.’

  Pino Sagliocco had also attended the meeting in the Barcelona Ritz, and he recalls that by the end of the night there was a chemistry between the two stars. After that Covent Garden performance, Caballé accompanied Freddie back for dinner at Garden Lodge. ‘Later the three of us grouped around the piano,’ says Moran, ‘as Freddie tried to teach Montserrat to sing gospel, which was a bit painful, but they became very good friends, and her parting shot was, “Do me a favour? I really enjoyed this. Would you and Mike write me a piece about Barcelona?” Freddie replied, “Oh, of course,” and promptly forgot all about it.’

  Soon after his glib promise to Montsy, as Mercury nicknamed the opera star, around that Eastertime he received some traumatic news. In the hope of allaying his mounting anxieties he had again undergone medical tests, one of which involved the removal of a small piece of skin from his shoulder. When the results had come back, he learnt from his doctors that he had AIDS.

  The implications were horrendous and hard to absorb. Mercury confided in very few people, and it seems likely that only Mary Austin and Jim Hutton knew at this early stage. Following consultations with the best available specialists, his treatment began straight away. Mercury told Hutton that he would understand if he wanted to leave him, but his lover opted to stay – and it was only at this point that they began to practise safe sex. Considering the growing awareness of the disease over the previous years – and the acute anxieties brought on by the deaths of two former lovers – it seems almost criminal that Mercury had not thought it essential before this point to use condoms. It was too late for the star now, but it was to be hoped that that was not the case for his lover.

  It must have taken an act of incredible willpower to show an untroubled face to the rest of the world, to those people close to him personally and professionally. But that’s precisely what he did. Although secretly undergoing a battery of further tests, Mercury understandably wasn’t ready to deal with such a harsh reality. He fell back on an ability he had cultivated as a child to conquer fear and block out emotional pain: initially he denied that anything was wrong. To do this he tried never to refer directly to AIDS again. He just got on with his life, throwing himself into a whirl of activity. Perhaps in that sense it was fortunate that Montserrat Caballé, oblivious of any problem, had been bringing some pressure to bear on him.

  ‘She had been calling Freddie from all corners of the world,’ says Mike Moran, ‘asking how he was getting on with the song he had promised her. Freddie eventually came to me and said, “Fuck sake! We’ll have to write this bloody song!” So we sat down and in pretty short order co-wrote “Barcelona”. To let her hear it, Freddie recorded both parts, and we sent her a rough tape of it. She got back to us instantly, saying she loved it.

  ‘Opera stars are booked about five years in advance, but because time was so short she cancelled a huge engagement – I think it was at La Scala – and whizzed over to London to stick her voice on “Barcelona”. It was all recorded in London, except for when I went to Spain to get her vocals on the B-side, “Exercises in Free Love”.’

  Before long Montserrat Caballé had visions of them recording an album together. According to Moran, ‘Freddie and I both thought, Oh, my God! And I just knew it wasn’t going to be an easy thing either to combine those two. We had originally, don’t forget, been going to work on a Freddie Mercury solo album, but this took up so much time. And then there were two Queen albums in the offing, Innuendo being the last one – by which time Freddie was very poorly. And so we never got to do his intended solo album.’

  Work began on the Mercury/Caballé album in April. Pino Sagliocco’s Ibiza ’92 festival was due to open with the TV special at the Ku Club the following month, at which Mercury and Montsy were to headline. But before that, in early May, Freddie was defeated again, this time when his former personal assistant Paul Prenter sold his story to the Sun.

  Prenter claimed that Mercury had recently rung him, panicked that he might have contracted AIDS. Prenter made other lurid revelations about the star during his wild days, including how he would drink two bottles of vodka a night and had shared lines of cocaine with a handful of other named superstars. He also blew Jim Hutton’s cover by naming him as Mercury’s current lover. Friends later swore that Prenter had always been a shifty character, who had spent years ripping off the star for money and drugs.

  Prenter was said to have been paid £32,000 by the tabloid to dish the dirt, and for that he had thrown in private photographs of a lasciviously grinning Mercury, entwined with a variety of previous male lovers. It was a three-day serialisation and aimed at inflicting maximum damage on his former employer. While Mercury, already struggling to hide from the truth of his illness, was devastated, his friends were furious; made more so by what they saw as not only Prenter’s gross disloyalty but also his ingratitude.

  The previous year Prenter had been made redundant after eight years in the star’s employ. Afterwards, when he had almost immediately fallen on hard times, Mercury had let him stay rent free at his Kensington flat. It was there that he alleged he had received a frantic call from his ex-boss in the early hours of one morning, during which, he claimed, Mercury unburdened his fears.

  Freddie Mercury had a reputation among friends for having a very forgiving nature. Presumably hoping to play on this, Paul Prenter tried ringing him at Garden Lodge in the midst of the exposé. But this time Mercury refused his calls and never spoke to the man again. Deeply hurt and very fragile, he left Britain and headed straight for the
sanctuary of Pikes Hotel. The Ibiza ’92 festival was due to kick off soon anyway, but he needed the peace and security that he could be sure of finding there – even with a Sun photographer hot on his trail.

  Roughly two weeks later, as Pino Sagliocco had dreamt, Mercury and Montserrat Caballé headlined at the Ku Club. Spandau Ballet, Duran Duran and Marillion also took part in the TV special. The opera singer and the rock star closed the show together by performing ‘Barcelona’ against a stunning backdrop of fountains and fireworks.

  But behind the pizzazz lay a sad reality. Fish clearly recalls how shocked he felt when he came across Mercury here. ‘I thought I’d go see him,’ he says, ‘and say “How ya doin’?” you know, and he was, like, really drawn. There were about three or four close friends in the dressing room with him, and it was like someone had fuckin’ died! I thought, Something really heavy is going down here, and I’m not part of it. So I got out of there fast.

  ‘At the time the people around him were saying things like, he’s got a kidney complaint or a liver problem – stuff like that. But having glimpsed some of Freddie’s excesses, it wasn’t so hard to put two and two together.’

  For those close to Mercury, there wasn’t a lot of guesswork required. The signs of his illness had begun rapidly to show with the usual development of Kaposi’s sarcoma, or KS, an otherwise rare cancer. It resulted in large dark red marks surfacing on the skin of his hands and face. Treatment for these early telltale marks is to neutralise them with special lasers. They fade, but slowly, and usually leave blemishes, which are best covered by make-up; in itself a giveaway sign. At the Ku Club Mercury had not been able fully to disguise these marks; something that Barbara Valentin remembers only too well.