Although in his later years he would wear a suit to a restaurant or the theatre, when he went out to bars and clubs he would dress in ‘the uniform’ of jeans and T-shirts and leather jacket. He wore trainers mostly and was never into heavy footwear. In the early days he had always worn clogs and in the last year of his life he couldn’t wear leather fitted shoes at all as they hurt his feet so much.
His restaurant tastes would encompass many foods including Chinese, Indian, Lebanese and Italian. He was very fond of the Zen group of Chinese restaurants and as far as Indian cuisine was concerned he was a regular patron of Shezan which, although now closed, was in Cheval Place at the bottom of Montpellier Square in Knightsbridge. He loved Indian food although after Shezan closed, he tended to eat Indian food as take-away only on the occasions when Joe and I didn’t cook it for him. The Lebanese restaurant on Kensington High Street attracted him because he wanted to “try something different”.
We also persuaded him into enjoying Thai food which was just emerging as the coming new oriental cuisine. We made up some soups using lots of lemon grass and chillis because he loved the hot Tom Yam varieties of thin Thai soups.
He also liked La Famiglia in Chelsea off the Kings Road which had been a favourite since the early days when he and Straker and Clodagh Wallace would often eat there. In Covent Garden he was very fond of Orso’s in Wellington Street and Joe Allen’s in Exeter Street where Jimmy played the piano and where many of Straker’s friends would gather after their West End shows.
As far as the bill at the end of the evening was concerned, Freddie generally wouldn’t even carry his credit card. It would be up to either one of us to make sure that we had remembered to bring his American Express Card. He never had any other credit card. He didn’t feel it necessary.
When he wanted to leave, we could generally guess by his body language that it was time to go and so I or Joe would call our waiter for the bill which we always checked and then handed over Freddie’s credit card. When the card came back with the docket, after adding the service charge if necessary, then we would pass the docket and a pen to Freddie to sign. He very rarely looked at the bills himself and only then if there was some obvious discrepancy which we had found. However, he always knew to some round figure what an evening would be costing him. Despite appearing to be cavalier, he was in fact very canny.
If he stayed in during the evenings he would usually ‘veg out’ and watch television. He would never work his life around television and only very rarely ask that we video something for him and then it would be a programme in which he had a special interest if a friend was appearing or if the programme was a live gig, a Prince concert for example. He had one video of a live Prince concert which he forced many people to watch, sometimes over and over again.
When Freddie settled down to watch such a three hour tape, it could take either fifteen minutes in which we watched only Freddie’s specifically edited highlights or six hours when he would play the same bits over and over again. It was either fast forward or play it again and again and again, Sam! These video sessions generally occurred at two or three in the morning after Freddie and entourage returned from an evening on the town. The Prince tape was immediately put on and Freddie had sole control of the remote and his guests were subjected to Freddie’s enthusiasm for said artist again and again and again. I managed to avoid ever seeing it but the sound of it haunts me to this day! I was lucky in that I had the excuse of constantly getting drinks for the guests which kept me out of the sitting room.
I think Freddie admired Prince because he was so similar to when Freddie was young. Extrovert on stage, thin, dark, hugely energetic and with that charisma which turns a diminutive form into a giant. Other performers who attracted Freddie’s attention were Aretha Franklin, who loomed large in his admiration stakes until she disappointed him with a concert she gave at the Victoria Apollo. I remember him frequently telling the story of how he went to the show and she sang maybe for a total of half-an-hour, perhaps forty minutes. When she went off, he was expecting her to return at least for an encore but no… That was it. But having said that, his appreciation of her voice never dimmed.
He very much liked black singers because also included in his pantheon of favourite stars were Michael Jackson, Dionne Warwick and Lionel Ritchie. Looking at these names, one notices that maybe they weren’t all quite so black. Somewhere in between maybe… Perhaps because of his own background he felt a bond with them. He would listen to music at home but he would always ask one of us to put the record on because he could never – surprise, surprise – really learn how to work the sound system although a mixing board in a sound studio desk was no obstacle. That he would have mastered by the end of the first afternoon. For a man with such musical genius, even he would admit that domestic electronics fazed him. That category of electronics included even the most simple kitchen microwave! Despite his star status, it was strangely obvious that neither his own record company EMI nor any others deluged him with their product and nor was he forever on to the company asking for records which other major stars have been known to do. If he wanted records which he had perhaps heard on the radio or about which someone had told him, he would ask us to go and buy them. On Freddie’s behalf as well as his own interest, Joe would also go to Tower records and pick up an armful of other people’s work which he thought that Freddie might find interesting.
But, and I’m sure this is typical of many artists, Freddie was only really, ultimately interested in his own work. As a musician and a composer, his work was his life. The two, work and life, can very rarely be separated. This doesn’t mean that he lived, ate and slept music. He didn’t have to ‘get a life’. But all the time something was unconsciously going on in his brain which would ultimately find form in a song. His work was therefore more important to him than other people’s.
In an entirely different genre, he obviously admired Montserrat and the three tenors before they even became the Three Tenors. In New York, when we lived there, Joseph Papp (he of Shakespeare in the Park) had already staged Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates Of Penzance which ran for ages on Broadway. Papp came up with the idea of doing Puccini’s La Bohème, along the same lines, in Central Park. Maureen McGovern had already been selected as Mimi and Papp then asked if Freddie would audition for the part of Rudolfo.
Three questions came immediately to Freddie’s mind: firstly, the audacity of the man, asking him to audition! Secondly, Freddie couldn’t convince himself that he could carry off the romantic lead in an opera. His final doubt was that he had already promised himself many years ago that he would never again do eight shows a week.
Eventually, the production came to nought and Freddie brushed the affair off and carried on with his going-out life.
Another of Freddie’s favourite New York encounters was with the distinguished photographer Annie Liebowitz whose work, notably for Rolling Stone magazine, had become legendary in the music business. She has since become the icon for many photographers and is much exhibited. Of course, Freddie hadn’t a clue as to who she was when she was brought to the apartment by their mutual friend Lisa Robinson. The four of us spent a pleasant afternoon chatting about nothing in particular which Freddie was very good at when he was relaxed. Lisa and Annie left after Lisa had persuaded him to give her an interview on television. Later that evening, ‘the daughters’ came round and upon asking, “What did you do today?”, Freddie just mentioned that his friend Lisa and some woman photographer called Annie something… Lee Nolan just couldn’t believe it. He out of all of us was the only one who appreciated who and what Ms Liebowitz was. He immediately demanded to know where she had sat, what she had said… Was Freddie going to see her again? But he was never photographed by her.
After Freddie settled down with Jim Hutton, his need to go out to the clubs and bars decreased and, of course, in the last year or so of his life he rarely went out to these pleasuredromes. However, in the days when he did, it was never Freddie on his own who
left the house. On a regular basis, there would have been Freddie, Paul Prenter, Peter Straker and whoever was driving Freddie. This was the core company which was augmented again on a fairly regular basis in the early days by Kenny Everett and his entourage, Wayne Sleep, Petra von Katze and Douglas Trout, Trevor Clarke, Rudi Patterson, Yasmin Pettigrew. Later, some were replaced in favour by Gordon Dalziel and Graham Hamilton and of course there were always the visitors like Barbara Valentin and other friends from Munich and New York.
Having assembled at the house, any excess passengers who weren’t in Freddie’s car would take taxis which would be paid for or they would follow Freddie’s limousine in their own cars. Although once, on one of its rare outings, we did get nine people in Freddie’s Rolls Royce, of which he was very proud, but it was not a feat I would recommend or which was ever repeated. I should also add that four or five of the occupants were ballet dancers, therefore very supple and able to perform feats of contortion to enable them to be squeezed in. Peter Jones was driving at the time. There was room for two small ones on my lap in the front passenger seat and five managed somehow to get into the back seat. Weird!
When I first knew Freddie, his favourite haunts were the Coleherne in Earls Court and Maunckberry’s Club in Jermyn Street. The Embassy Club in Bond Street then became the place to go and I can remember many happy evenings there with Stephen Hayter and Michael Fish. Legends then took over as Freddie’s nightclub of choice, although he stopped going to the Coleherne after a while. I cannot quite describe the difference between a sleazy gay leather bar in New York and the sleazy atmosphere of the Coleherne in London’s Earls Court except that there is a world of difference. There’s sleaze and there’s sleaze but the Coleherne palled quickly… I shall say no more.
The Copacabana in Earls Court Road opened and although it was a club as opposed to a pub, it replaced the need for the Coleherne and it became Freddie’s ‘local’. Although it was no more than three minutes walk from his front door, needless to say he never walked there. Or back.
Going to the upper end of these nightlife venues, our group tended to be a little more noisy and obvious. Anyone who was anybody used to go to these West End nightclubs and of course Freddie went out any night of the week, not just at weekends when perhaps an out-of-town element may have been there to gawp at passing stars. During the week, there was more room, we weren’t jostled constantly and we could enjoy being ourselves and still listen and talk over the sound of the music.
However, going to places like the Copacabana was quite different. The whole attitude of the group changed. We tended to be quieter and stuck closer together as we went in so as not to draw constant attention to ourselves. We never had to queue up to pay to get in as we were always allowed in free because the owners knew that apart from the kudos of having Freddie Mercury in their club, the waived entrance fees would be more than taken care of by Freddie’s bar bill. This, like the restaurant bills, was always taken care of by whoever on the Logan Place staff was in attendance.
When Freddie made it known to us that he wanted a drink, it was assumed by us that everyone in his party was to be asked if they too would like a drink. Rounds would very rarely come to less than twenty pounds and this sum refers to a time fifteen years ago. Now it would be nearer fifty pounds. Also, Freddie’s drinks were never small ones. Single was not a word in his bar vocabulary. His drink would always be a large vodka tonic which we would bring to him in ‘his corner’ where he would always stand.
It was a fairly dark spot but afforded him a good viewing position over the rest of the club. Not many people could be in the club without at some point passing before his scrutiny. Generally, one or two people would always be with him and he never ventured on the dance floor in London. Freddie would be quite obvious if someone caught his eye and he would send someone, Paul usually, over to start talking to Freddie’s intended and thus bring them into the charmed circle. It’s quite strange but people never entered the realm of the inner circle unless they were invited and very few tried to storm their way in.
People’s reaction to having a world famous rock star in their midst varied from club to club and from country to country. For example, in Japan he would be followed by a huge crowd, up to fifty people, but who would all keep a respectful distance, some twelve feet from their idol. Three or four people would be leading a whole trail of followers, like Halley’s or the Halebop comet and its tail.
In London, of course, the whole group was also part of the famous face phenomenon. A group of maybe six people acting like one entity, not paying specific attention to anyone so as not to attract attention even though we all knew we were being looked at. Everyone in the entourage tried desperately not to acknowledge the fact and those who noticed us tried desperately to appear nonchalant, as though no one special was in their neighbourhood. It was all like a well-rehearsed play with a dynamic all its own. How to try to be anonymous at the same time knowing that you are the centre of attention. Added to this of course was the problem of keeping an eye out for any possible trouble, that rare occasion when someone would decide to try and score points by blowing Freddie’s cover, storming the ramparts of privacy. But, as I said, it rarely happened and when it did, the situation was dealt with by us. Only once or twice was Freddie ever forced to leave anywhere because of unpleasantness. I only bear one tiny scar on my forearm where I was once cut by a piece of broken glass when someone was upset that Freddie wouldn’t talk to them in a bar in small-town America.
Speaking of America, our life in New York was very different. Whereas the people in London led lives which tended to revolve more around Freddie, his friends in New York had their own lives to live and yet were quite happy to fit in with him whenever he came into town. People like Thor Arnold, Lee Nolan, John Murphy and Joe Scardilli. Tony King, who worked for John Lennon and Yoko Ono, and thereafter Yoko and thereafter Mick Jagger and Jerry Hall was also a constant friend in New York as he was permanently resident there, as indeed was Freddie’s other constant New York friend, James Arthurs.
New York nights began generally with Freddie and I going out to eat on our own around nine o’ clock. A favourite haunt of his was a small restaurant in Greenwich Village called Clyde’s after which a fairly structured routine would be followed. Depending on which night of the week it was, any of Freddie’s friends would know where to find him and, of course, his oxblood-coloured car would always be parked some fifty yards or so from the entrance to whichever bar or club he was in and was another beacon for them to find him.
He hated being dropped off outside any club or bar in his car. He felt it was flashy and he always preferred to walk the last few yards to the door of the place. A restaurant was a different matter and in fact he insisted on being deposited right outside the door.
Depending on the club, he would either walk straight in at the front of the queue, for example at Studio 54, whereas if we were going to somewhere like the Saint, he would insist on joining the line, particularly if he saw people he knew queuing. In New York he tried as much as possible to behave like ‘an ordinary person’. His celebrity was always something of a double-edged sword.
But, try as he might, Freddie was no ordinary person. He never had been. Right from his youth at a boarding school in India, he would have had most of his needs taken care of by school servants and I can personally attest to this because I attended the same kind of school in southern India. At home in Africa, he would have had servants too and so, when he became a star, his life changed very little from what he had become accustomed to expect as normal. Freddie was used to rarely lifting a finger for his own needs. It was a completely natural state for him. Other people may have thought this behaviour strange, but he didn’t and it wasn’t. Also, I suppose his celebrity status itself would have naturally brought about this state of affairs. It was a lot easier therefore for Freddie to adapt when celebrity hit him.
However, I have to emphasise that he was not the sort of person to make any kind of a show. I
give you the example of his cars. In England, he used a black Mercedes which, should occasion demand, was used as a ‘smart’ limousine or, alternatively, could look like an upmarket taxi for there are indeed many parts of the world where smart Mercedes cars are used as humble taxis. In New York, where twenty-five foot limousines are common, Freddie owned a Lincoln Towncar Sedan and indeed thought the twenty-five foot limos exceedingly common and would use them only when required to in order to get to and from a Queen gig.
The one exception to his distaste for limos was the occasion of the great outing to Jones beach on the ocean just outside Manhattan where Freddie had heard that musclebound hunks paraded. There were six of us, me, Freddie, Thor, Lee, Joe and John plus a driver. We left the apartment at half-past-six in the morning, an unearthly hour for us and usually one when we were just returning from an outing rather than going on one. However, Freddie had been told you had to get there early to secure a spot on the beach and he thought he could always have a nap once he was there.
It seemed quite strange driving down 2nd Avenue as the streets were fairly empty but it didn’t stop a couple of exhibitionists on board opening the sunroof, standing up and waving to anyone they could see. Such is the madness that limos bring on! The boot (trunk for you Americans) had been loaded with picnic goodies and a cool box for the beers. Surprisingly, by the time we got there after a two hour drive it wasn’t easy finding a parking space for a saloon car, let alone a twenty-five foot long stretch limo. Eventually we found a place but it still meant us having to walk down the beach to find a suitable spot. I think Freddie was somewhat disappointed with the quantity of muscles. There were some beautifully bronzed bodies but not as many of his variety as he imagined there would be. I also remember being sent off to fetch ice cream for everybody. One person had to come with me to stand in the car’s space while I went off in the limo to get the ice cream. We returned to find our guardian of the car parking space being subjected to torrents of abuse from two other drivers who wanted to use the space.
Freddie Mercury: An intimate memoir by the man who knew him best Page 22