Mercury: An Intimate Biography of Freddie Mercury (45 page)

He spent the summer working on his house, converting the cottages he’d acquired in Logan Mews in Kensington, and planning a conservatory. It was as if, Jim remarked, he wanted to leave behind his own little bit of paradise. In September he returned to Pike’s on Ibiza for his forty-first birthday, accompanied by Peter, Joe, Terry, Peter Straker, and David Wigg. The other members of Queen were already on the island,
where Roger owned a secluded holiday home. The party at Pike’s was to have been a joint affair, shared with Queen’s former manager John Reid. But Reid withdrew at the last minute. An embarrassed Freddie was left to cope with the arrangements, including a dual-name firework display and a Gaudi-inspired chocolate birthday cake for two. “Fuck Reid,” was Freddie’s only comment. A chartered plane carrying dozens of his friends was due at any moment, and Freddie was not going to let Reid’s absence spoil his fun.

Roger, working on an album with his new solo band the Cross, invited Freddie to contribute to a track to be recorded at Maison Rouge studios in London. The track, “Heaven for Everyone,” eventually made it onto Queen’s
Made in Heaven
album.

“Of course, Freddie’s version is fantastic,” said Spike Edney, who also worked on the project. “But he wasn’t actually allowed to be singing on a Roger Taylor solo album, because of his own solo recording contract. So Fred couldn’t be credited in the notes. Consequently, on that first Cross album,
Shove It
, you hear this track called ‘Heaven for Everyone,” and it’s Freddie’s vocal . . . but when they put it out as a single, they had to release the Roger version!”

“Barcelona” the single emerged in Spain on 21 September. Ten thousand copies were purchased in under three hours. Released in the UK the following month, the first collaboration by a rock superstar and an internationally acclaimed operatic soprano, it stunned the critics and soared to Number Eight. It would later be performed at the ’92 Olympics, a year after Freddie’s death, when it would reach Number Two in the charts in the UK, the Netherlands, and New Zealand.

Christmas 1987 brought new housemates to Garden Lodge: a pair of kittens named Goliath and Delilah. For the latter, a beautiful tortoiseshell that would become his favorite cat, Freddie wrote an eponymous song. She soon took to sleeping at the foot of his bed. As Freddie’s illness took hold, his pets, which he adored as though they were children, brought him comfort.

He now worked only when he felt strong enough. In January 1988,
Queen reunited at Townhouse to commence their next album,
The Miracle
. All were now aware that Freddie was gravely ill. The signs were obvious. The extent of his illness was discreetly ignored at first, until to do so became impossible. Freddie sat Brian, Roger, and John down one day, and gave them the lowdown.

“First of all, he said: ‘You probably realize what my problem is—my illness,’ ” Brian remembered. “And by that time, we kind of did. It was unspoken. And then he said, ‘Well, that’s it. I don’t want it to make any difference . . . I don’t want it to be known, I don’t want to talk about it, I just want to get on and work until I can’t work anymore.’ I don’t think any of us will ever forget that day. We all just went off and got quietly sick somewhere.”

“Freddie knew his time was limited, and he really wanted to work, and keep going,” Roger said.

“He felt that was the best way for him to keep his spirits up, and he wanted to leave as much behind as possible. We certainly agreed, and backed him right up to the hilt . . . but
The Miracle
was an effort—a long album to make.”

“I think [work] was the one thing that gave him much happiness,” Mary Austin would explain after his death. “It made him feel alive inside . . . instead of things becoming dull, and life becoming painful . . . there was something else that he was working for. Life wasn’t just taking him to the grave.”

“Freddie felt safe in the environment of the group,” added Brian. “Things were just as they always had been. Probably we all tried too hard. But we tried to make things just very normal. It seemed to work.”

On 8 October, Freddie arrived in Barcelona for the huge open-air La Nit festival, before King Juan Carlos, Queen Sofia, and Princess Cristina of Spain, during which the city received the Olympic torch from Seoul. Freddie and Montserrat mimed to a recording of “Barcelona,” with the opera house orchestra and choir. It was an odd climax to a bizarre evening which had featured an eclectic lineup: José Carreras, Spandau Ballet, Eddy Grant, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Rudolf Nureyev.

The rest of 1988 was spent quietly on separate pursuits. The band reconvened in January 1989 to finish
The Miracle
album. Bitter creative altercation and fallouts when someone failed to get their own way having hallmarked Queen’s studio style, their working time together was at last harmonious. “I Want It All,” their thirty-second UK single, was released in May, followed by their sixteenth album.
The Miracle
went platinum within a week. Freddie and Jim left for Montreux and the Cygnets, the beautiful lakeside house he rented there, so named for its view of “Freddie’s swans,” which he would rush down to see as soon as he arrived. Freddie had renamed the place “the Duck House.” Roger went one better, with “Duckingham Palace.” Freddie would spend hours wandering along the water’s edge. The mountain air refreshed him. He felt more at peace in Montreux than anywhere else. Speculation about his health dominated the headlines back home. The band took a swipe in return with their single “Scandal.”

Voted “Best Band of the Decade” by the readership of
TV Times
magazine, Queen appeared on a television special, “Goodbye to the Eighties,” to receive their award from Liverpool’s much-loved pop singer turned personality Cilla Black, and her sidekick, a young Jonathan Ross.

Still restlessly creative, and ever anxious to augment his legacy, Freddie turned his thoughts to the promotion of Queen’s next single from the album, also called “The Miracle.” They should use child look-alikes of the band members, he suggested. The kids they wound up choosing were astonishingly good, and the video was mesmerizing. Over the New Year 1990, with heavy hearts, Queen gathered at Mountain Studios to begin recording
Innuendo
. The album, they thought, would probably be Freddie’s swansong. It wasn’t quite.

24

I’ve had upheavals and I’ve had immense problems, but I’ve had a wonderful time and I have no regrets. Oh dear, I sound like Edith Piaf!

Freddie Mercury

Certain people in this industry are not meant to grow old. Freddie was one of them. I could never see Freddie at seventy. Nor Michael Jackson. In any case, Freddie wouldn’t have liked the way albums are recorded today. He lived his life to the full. He died young, but he crammed in an amazing amount. More than most people could in five lifetimes.

Rick Wakeman

N
ew Year
, 1990. As Queen regrouped at Mountain Studios to begin work on the album
Innuendo
, Jim Beach entered challenging negotiations with Capitol to terminate Queen’s recording contract. Unbeknown to the band, a new American label was waiting in the wings. The entertainment lawyer who had negotiated Queen’s exit deal from the Elektra label was now president of the Walt Disney Company’s Hollywood Records and poised to sign one of his alltime favorite bands.

“A lot of people thought it was a stupid move, destined for failure,”
says Peter Paterno. “In fact, signing Queen was successful beyond all possible hope.”

“Despite all the negative commentary at the time, the deal was
not
risky. We’d get our money back in eight years. Did I know that Freddie had AIDS? I knew he was ill. He kept the details secret. But frankly, I knew I couldn’t lose. If he passed, we projected that we’d be even in three years. As it happened, the movie
Wayne’s World
came out, featuring that insanely brilliant “Bohemian Rhapsody” head-banging sequence in the car, and we were even in three
weeks
.

“Up until then, they were a dead issue in the United States, but huge throughout the rest of the world. I thought the
Magic
album was an amazing album, but it did nothing in the United States. Even so, I had a hunch. I sent Jim Beach a message saying, ‘I hear Queen are free.’ ‘Not only are they free,’ came the response, ‘but the entire catalogue is available.’ That’s how we got started.”

The complete output of Queen’s long career would now be digitally remastered and rereleased on CD, which was suddenly overtaking vinyl in popularity. It was a massive gamble on Paterno’s part, the band not having had a Top Twenty album in the States since 1982.

All was progressing well for the Hollywood Records president until someone tipped off Disney chief executive Michael Eisner that Freddie was dying of AIDS.

“Michael got hold of me and demanded, ‘What’s going on?’ ” remembers Paterno. “This was news that made him extremely nervous. He sensed that somehow we were being taken for a ride, that the deal would make Disney look ridiculous. He thought we should put a clause in the contract regarding what would happen if Freddie died. But I said, ‘If he does, as morbid as it sounds, that sells records, too. I’ve heard music from the new album, and I’m not worried.’

“It was a
very
expensive deal: ten million dollars. The Disney board at first turned me down, I had to argue my corner. Then I got my way, we did the deal, and it was one of my proudest moments.”

“I said to Jim Beach, ‘For ten million dollars, do I at least get to meet
the guy?’ I flew from Los Angeles to Montreux to spend just one memorable afternoon with Freddie Mercury. He was pleasant and gracious. Played me some of the album in the studio. We walked around the town, had dinner together. It was all a lovely experience, but you could tell that he was facing his mortality.

“Suddenly, Queen were
huge
here again!” Paterno exclaims. “My hunch didn’t fail me! Thing was, they’d never stopped putting out great albums. Had they started to sound like jaded has-beens, I wouldn’t have bothered. But they were still making terrific music, and I always thought they had a comeback in the States in them. How gratifying to have been proven right, even though the loss of Freddie Mercury is tragic.”

Having at last achieved an elusive BPI (British Phonographic Industry) Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music, and mindful that time was running out for Freddie, Queen cooked the calendar to make 1990 their twentieth anniversary. They hosted a celebration for 400 friends at London’s Groucho Club. The venue was chosen for its name, in homage to early Queen albums named after Marx Brothers movies. Liza Minnelli, George Michael, Patsy Kensit, Michael Winner, and Rod Stewart turned up. The celebration cake was in the style of a Monopoly board, with Queen hits pasted into the squares.

As bloodthirsty picture editors foamed at the mouth over gaunt, giveaway snaps of Freddie as he arrived at and left the party, the death rumors were denied by fellow band members, management, publicists, friends, and personal entourage.

“That was what Freddie wanted,” said Peter Freestone. “Those of us closest to him were even lying to members of our own families. We did it for Freddie. He never wanted a fuss, or to shock his parents. Other than that, he didn’t see that his illness was anybody’s business but his own.”

“There were a lot of people at that party, but curiously, not many people were talking to the band,” remembers Phil Swern.

“It was almost as if they were afraid to approach them. I found myself standing near the bar with Freddie, chatting for about twenty
minutes. I couldn’t quite believe that I was talking with this icon like we were old pals. He was very pale and quiet. I suddenly realized that I was shaking and nervous. Why? The aura. He had it. Who else? Frank Sinatra: I was once invited backstage at the Royal Albert Hall to meet him. Before I even set eyes on Sinatra, and even though my back was to the door, I knew the second he walked into the room. You felt it like a nuclear wave. Very few people have it. Not Paul McCartney. Not Mick Jagger. They’re too accessible. Barbra Streisand does: she’s ethereal, of another world. Not even movie stars have it. That wave brings you out in a sweat.