Freddie Mercury (19 page)

I think it was his almost total disinterest in drag which was the reason why the now famous hat party in 1986 for his fortieth birthday remained in fact just that. People were dressed just as they wanted but in outrageously flamboyant hats. Obviously, it never stopped Freddie camping around when the mood took him as do a large proportion of British men in party mood but he never entertained the remotest thought of wanting to be a man pretending to be a woman.

Day two of the schedule brought on the miners with the pit lamps on their heads and this cast was once again composed of willing fan club conscripts, both male and female. Generally, the fans, clad in their androgynous boilersuits, could not have conducted themselves more professionally. Considering they were in the presence of their heroes, they helped as much as possible with the filming by always being in the right place at the right time. There were surprisingly few who plucked up courage to come and ask the band for autographs but when they did, the band gave them freely.

As per many of the David Mallet/Queen productions, this was the video equivalent of the Hollywood epic, with casts of hundreds as opposed to thousands. Considering the number of videos he made, Freddie never considered himself an actor. The making of videos was just an extension of the making of records. Although Freddie would
certainly never have wanted to be Cleopatra, the idea of being the star in a biblical epic of Cecil B de Mille proportions appealed to him enormously. Perhaps that’s why the videos were always as they were. Even as a schoolboy in Panchgani for those long eleven months a year, apart from his family so far away, it must be remembered that Freddie was brought up on a diet of Hollywood films which were as readily available in India as they were in Indiana. Hollywood movies and Church of England pomp and ceremony was patently a heady combination in the heat of an Indian boarding school.

In the mining sequence, we see yet another scene of a bare-chested Freddie. Any time he’s seen with a bare chest in a video, it can be guaranteed that there would be Joe or myself very, very close by waiting for the word “Cut!” when we would run on and cover him up. Any space the size of a film studio always felt cold to Freddie, summer or winter. Freddie was not a cold person. He always liked his warmth.

The third section featured principals, soloists and members of the Royal Ballet company. It was also the section which was to cause almost as much legal trouble as the drag sequence caused public furore and outrage in the United States. It was this video which effectively killed off Queen in America. The general American public as well as quite a few industry movers and shakers in those days just couldn’t accept four grown men dressed up in women’s clothes.

The ballet sequence featured Briony Brind, the current prima ballerina sensation at Covent Garden and Freddie’s friend Wayne Eagling who specially choreographed and participated in this section. The inspiration came from many sources including
L’apres Midi D’un Faun
from which was taken the idea for Freddie’s Spock-like ears and the pan pipes which we see at the opening of the ballet sequence. It is Briony whom Freddie up-ends and turns and with whom he disappears into the mists at the end of the sequence. Gail Taphouse, the soloist, was the owner of the hair and the hand at the beginning of the sequence.

The whole exercise proved once and for all to Freddie that, while he thought himself reasonably balletic, real dancing was a very different kettle of ftsh. The dancers unintentionally made him feel as though he had two left feet. Nevertheless, he very much enjoyed filming this sequence. It gave him the feeling of being involved in the real thing.

The legal trouble caused was not because of the
L’apres Midi D’un Faun
section which was choreographed by Nijinsky but from the celebrated choreographer Sir Kenneth Macmillan who noticed that some of Wayne’s choreography and costumes were very similar, if not identical, to his own as included in his ballet
The Rite Of Spring.
Choreology can prove many things now and subsequently Queen Productions donated an undisclosed sum to one of Sir Kenneth’s elected charities, the Institute of Choreology.

‘Hard Life’ was directed by Tim Pope who had made his name by releasing a single entitled ‘I Want To Be A Tree’ and this was to be his only collaboration with Queen. He was certainly qualified to reproduce Freddie’s outlandish vision of the end product. It was filmed in the Arri film studios in the centre of Munich. Freddie had damaged ligaments in his knee inside the New York Bar in Munich in this year, 1984, as was widely reported in the international press.

The whole point of this production from the
Pagliacci
opening onwards was to create a surreal fantasy. From the eyes sewn onto his costume to the feathers on his back, Freddie achieves the look of that of a giant prawn in a palace of excess. The voluptuous images were often more akin to nightmare. Many of Freddie’s Munich friends were involved, Barbara Valentin as the seductive temptress and Mack’s wife Ingrid feature heavily as does a transvestite ballerina, Kurt Raab whom we also knew by the name of Rebecca.

The rest of the band were obviously somewhat bewildered which is maybe why it is so easy to play ‘Spot the Deliberate Mistake’. At one point, Roger is to be seen walking across the set in his trainers whereas in fact he should only have been in his tights. This incident indicates that not all the band were always in on the editing process. Had Roger been involved in this one, the mistake would probably never have been let through.

Towards the end of the video, on the scarlet staircase, Freddie visibly favours his damaged right knee as he inevitably sits down on the stair and the whole manner in which he lowers himself indicates the pain he was in. We were in the studio on that day until very, very late, after a couple of bottles of vodka and champagne were brought in. Only Freddie’s immediate coterie stayed on to drink as everyone else was completely exhausted.

Live performance film footage was used for the ‘Hammer To Fall’ video which was filmed just before the first show in Brussels on
The Works
tour in August 1984. It was directed by David Mallet.

‘Love Kills’ was Freddie’s contribution to the
Metropolis
project. It only utilised footage from the film itself but got to number ten in the UK charts.

All the following taken from Freddie’s own
Mr. Bad Guy
album were filmed in Munich and thus, it was Joe Fanelli who was ‘on duty’ for these schedules. ‘I Was Born To Love You’, ‘Made In Heaven’ and ‘Living On My Own’. This latter video used footage of Freddie’s black and white birthday party held in Munich. There was a camera set up on a rig on the ceiling and it continually revolved filming the crowd for the whole evening. Filming was also done two days later, returning to the Mrs. Henderson bar where Freddie could include specific set pieces, again involving friends from Munich who had once again to don the same costumes and make-up. It could have been a nightmare of continuity but because the whole concept was a party, if there were any mistakes they went unnoticed.

The occasion of Fashion Aid at London’s Albert Hall provided wonderful footage which shows Freddie dressed in a military-style tunic with solid silver chains and epaulettes, with a sashed pair of dark trousers all designed by David and Elizabeth Emanuel, who came to fame after designing Lady Diana Spencer’s wedding dress. Freddie portrayed the dashing bare-foot bridegroom opposite Jane Seymour’s stunning bride as the finale of the Bob Geldof/Harvey Goldsmith inspired Fashion Aid Show for Africa. Anyone who has not seen the footage has missed out. Freddie was totally relaxed and was having a marvellous time and, as usual, he put on a quite magniftcent show.

Dancers of the Royal Ballet danced in the Emanuel costumes designed for the Wayne Eagling ballet entitled
Frankenstein, The Modern Prometheus.
We had a sort of rehearsal in the afternoon at the Park Lane Hotel where Freddie met up with quite a few of his co-models on that evening’s bill. The Marchioness of Douro, his friend Francesca Thyssen, Fiona Fullerton, Selina Scott, Anthony Andrews, Michael and Shakira Caine and Richard Branson. Arlene Phillips had worked with Freddie on ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ before and they had known each other from the Seventies.

It is noticeable that Michael Caine was unamused as he watched Freddie’s outrageous antics, throwing the remnants of the bride’s bouquet to the assembled audience. It might have been outrageous but it was exactly the touch that the audience needed. It was a tricky manoeuvre guiding Freddie and Jane halfway round and a floor below
the oval Albert Hall for their final entrance. I had no idea where we were going. I had a barefooted Freddie on one hand and the petite Jane Seymour on the other, her huge wedding train thrown over my arm beneath which even six-foot-two of me almost disappeared. It was a case of the blind leading the blind as we hadn’t rehearsed this move before.

‘One Vision’ was filmed over an extended period of time at Musicland Recording Studios in Munich. There was minor criticism alleging that the band were climbing on the Live Aid bandwagon as this single was made and released very soon after they had made their conquering appearance on the televised charity marathon. Whether or not this is true I don’t think is relevant because if they hadn’t done a single we would never have had the subsequent albums ‘
A Kind Of Magic, The Miracle
or
Innuendo
which by anybody’s standards must contain some of Queen’s best music. Never forget, ‘One Vision’ reaffirmed the faith of the band in themselves.

A Kind Of Magic’ filmed in the Playhouse Theatre in Northumberland Avenue in London, once the home of many a BBC radio programme, was directed by Russell Mulcahy. Russell came over to the house and it was he who had the idea of the venue. Freddie and he then talked through the idea for hours and came up with the inspiration from the location. Because the Arches at Charing Cross was and is home to many of London’s homeless and people who sleep rough in the streets, that brought about the idea of Freddie being a magician who changes the reality for three down-and-outs (Brian, Roger and John) bringing them into the magic of the old abandoned theatre where he, Freddie, was once the star.

Magically, Freddie just appears and disappears with his retinue of cartoon backing singers. Only halfway through do the transformed tramps realise something might be wrong when Roger turns quizzically to the camera. Joe Fanelli accompanied Freddie on this shoot as we had started to take video duty almost in turns depending on our other work and commitments. While it might seem to be an exciting part of the job, let me tell you that there are many long and boring hours involved and it wasn’t unheard of to be on call for twenty-four hours on the trot. What sticks in my mind most were Freddie’s comments about how, “…fucking cold it was!” He didn’t realise it could be so cold inside a building but the Playhouse Theatre hadn’t been in use for many months and had had no central heating.
Considering the shoot was in March, the place had had a long winter in the freezing cold.

After doing the shoot on the
Time
set, Freddie had had a drink or two and stayed while the audience came in and he started giving the ice creams away from an usherette’s tray. The schedule was short. The video had to be shot in the morning and afternoon of one day before an evening performance at the Dominion Theatre in London’s Tottenham Court Road. Freddie enjoyed resting in the star dressing room that had been specifically renovated and tented in cream silks and satins for Cliff Richard. Certainly a dressing room appropriate for rock’n’roll royalty.

We were particularly amused!

I have to mention, purely as an aside, Freddie’s penchant for nicknaming people also involved Cliff who, because of his huge collection of silver discs amassed over such a long career, was immediately dubbed Sylvia Disc. Neil Sedaka suffered the same fate and was called Golda Disc.

‘Friends Will Be Friends’ was filmed in a Wembley studio with huge audience participation. Once again, a Joe day. I stayed at home. There were eight hundred and fifty ecstatic Queen fans who found themselves cast as the audience. As a fee, they were all given a T-Shirt proclaiming the legend: I AM A QUEEN FRIEND. AT-shirt!!?!!

‘Who Wants To Live Forever’ was filmed with Christopher Lambert to give continuity to the
Highlander
movie, in which he starred. This is another Mallet B. de Mille affair. The vast National Philharmonic and the forty unidentified choirboys give the authorship away. This was another of Joe’s video duty days. It was filmed in a warehouse at Tobacco Dock.

There are two versions of ‘The Great Pretender’ video, one to accompany the single and the second, the twelve-inch version. They were both generally available at one point but as to their current availability, I know not.

This shoot lasted three days and was filmed at two different studios. Straker was playing Cassius
in Julius Caesar
at the Bristol Old Vic at the time and Freddie, Joe and I had driven down with Terry Giddings to see him. Debbie Ash was cast by the production company to play the real female interest and Roger …Well, Roger was just one of the girls. Denny was the hairdresser, Carolyn Cowan did the make-up and Diana Moseley supervised the complicated wardrobe. Terry Giddings acting as
Sweeney Todd shaved various parts of the cast’s anatomies – i.e. chests and armpits!

Very few people knew the real Freddie. To show he was indeed a pretender, in the video he used many of the personae portrayed in Queen and solo videos. By assembling them all together, it showed that he spent much of his work life pretending… It was quite a difficult task assembling the various costumes, stored in several places including Freddie’s and Diana Moseley’s lofts, which he had worn in the past as he had to wear them all again for this shoot.

The twelve-inch version shows that while a five-minute promo takes three days to create, a lot of hard work goes into it but as is obvious from this footage, a great deal of fun can also be had. I suppose it’s the only way to keep the participants sane. Many people, including fans who have helped out by appearing in Queen videos, know that the majority of the time is spent sitting around getting exasperated. There is ten minutes of filming followed by four hours of rearranging the lights for the next shot. Is it all worth it? Answer, yes! Of course!