Freddie Mercury (35 page)

As far as employees were concerned, more often than not employeeship came out of friendship. Beginning with Mary, with whom he lived for six or seven years and who became employed by him. Joe Fanelli, who was his lover for a couple of years, became an employee. Jim Hutton, whom Freddie finally persuaded to give up his job as a barber at The Savoy, became an employee and in this way friendships and lovers both past and present were able to be maintained. People retained at least a semblance of independence.

Of course the main motivation for Freddie’s generosity in this matter was his own guilt. He always felt that he had disrupted people’s lives so much. In Joe’s case, Freddie had invited him to England in 1978 and away from his life, family and friends in Springfield, Massachusetts, and when Freddie fell out of love with Joe, he wouldn’t have dreamed of seeing Joe displaced in any way. Freddie was always involved every year in extending Joe’s alien’s residency status. In fairness, it was the same with Mary. Her expectations had, after all, been destroyed just by Freddie admitting his gayness and he never ever wanted to hurt her. But, don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that Freddie bought friendship. I am one of the lucky people whom Freddie allowed to get close to him and no amount of money could explain the feelings that any of the people close to him felt.

It’s so hard to explain feelings. Intense loyalty mixed with love, admiration… I would have done anything he could have asked of me, but he never asked. He never expected. Anybody involved with
him was held as if by a magnet, the magnetism of his personality, his spirit… Him. Sitting at home, curled up watching television, it’s very difficult to imagine the man on stage. You knew that he would have been unable to remain quiet and introspective for any length of time. He knew that there were two Freddie Mercurys. The one curled up on the couch watching
Countdown
and the one perched on that one’s shoulder. There was the person and there was the showman, each vying with the other to move the physical carcass around.

Generally the showman won. Deep down inside it’s what Freddie always wanted. He had always been a showman. In its latter stages, the disease killed the showman. The showman went first and without the showman, the person was unable to continue. Freddie was no longer in a position where he could hold his head up and know he could defend himself. When the showman died, there was nothing left to fight for. The final decision was his alone. His whole life had been brought about by what he had done. He had always planned on being a star. How he did so, he felt was not his concern. He had both the hardware and the software and Freddie, metaphorically, wrote his own programs.

As has been made clear to me, I think I can speak for all his friends and say that every single one of us took great pride in knowing him. There was no expectation on his behalf when he lavished friends with the gifts he bought. Because their friendship flowed back to him anyway, that was his dividend and the dividend always came. Friendship and loyalty meant more to him than anything money could buy and he was always the first to be loyal.

This loyalty could have a very protective manifestation. One example of this quality also illustrates that Freddie could argue with friends, sometimes fall out for a while but the underlying friendship still remained. I remember one evening when one of the company was a young man who had been seeing John Reid. In private, he had told a third person all the gory details of his friendship with Reid. Without thinking, the third party began to gossip and tittle-tattle, revealing some of these juicy titbits. When Freddie heard what this young man was saying, he turned and snapped at him, “What do
you
know about! Just fucking shut up and mind your own business. In fact, fuck off!”

This incident occurred even after the fiasco of the failed joint birthday celebration at Pikes in Ibiza which caused a lot of friction
between Freddie and John Reid. Freddie was no fickle friend. I can’t think of one short-term friendship he had. When you were Freddie’s friend, that meant for life. Unless of course Freddie’s character assessment proved false. Although he loved gossiping himself, ‘dishing’ as he called it, he never liked to hear vicious gossip about friends of his from friends of his. Those who did, ran their friendship with him very close to the wind and there were several who capsized.

Freddie’s attitudes to his professional advisors was much on the same basis as his friendships. He was very loyal to men like John Libson his accountant, Jim Beach, Queen’s manager and always to those like Robin Moore-Ede who worked artistically with him on his houses. The accounts office came to him rather than the other way round, as did the Queen Management. Appointments would be made and John Libson and Amin Salih would come to the house laden with accountancy paperwork. In fact they were prepared to go further than the house, for on many occasions Freddie would fly them and Robin Moore-Ede to wherever he was in the world. I remember one time specifically when they came to Munich for meetings in the Hilton Hotel, Robin laden with plans of work at Garden Lodge. Even though Freddie wasn’t in England, he was never out of touch. Although Freddie perhaps didn’t understand the finer details of accountancy and financial matters, he had a very clear knowledge of the overall picture. However, I very much doubt that he would have ever met his bank manager or that that person would have been the same bank manager whom Freddie would have had to have seen to get his first mortgage.

Mary was the link between Freddie and the institutions, acting both as private secretary and company secretary for Freddie’s companies between him and the accountants who would also have organised insurances etc. Freddie trusted Mary above anyone else where his finances were concerned. When Freddie needed cash for whatever reasons, he would sign a cheque presented to him by Mary who would then go off to Coutts Bank in Kensington High Street and draw the money.

As has been previously revealed, Freddie for many years had his own accountant rather than merely relying on Queen’s accountants for his personal business and as we know, John Libson ultimately became one of the two executors of Freddie’s estate. Although there were many occasions when Freddie, either directly or via John Libson, must have been approached to invest money in other
businesses and projects such as Shezan restaurant in Cheval Place, he never diversified his financial interests in anything other than Queen and their projects. Even Goose Productions, Freddie’s company which had recorded Peter Straker in the past, had long since ceased to function as a record company.

Freddie was never a person to turn down advice out of hand and trusted good judgement as is seen by his choice of executors. After all, there were so many other good friends he might have chosen but knowing he was leaving a working empire behind, rather than burden people less expert in the ways of international high finance and the complicated ins and outs of the record business, he chose to rely on the professionals.

One of the things he hated most was being called Fred. I just mention it because none of his immediate friends ever called him Fred. The straights, people like the road crew, tended to call him Fred because to them he was, ‘just one of the blokes’. However, the name never fell kindly on Freddie’s ears even though in his passport his name was Frederick Mercury, profession Musician. He never considered himself as anything else. He even once famously turned down a million dollars to appear in and write the music for an advertisement for Freixenet, the Spanish sparkling wine. He did not see himself as either an actor or a writer-for-hire.

As far as his management was concerned, whether personal, financial or business, he obviously felt more secure dealing with people he knew and upon whom he looked as friends. He always saw the value of management. While I was there, I saw the situation develop from Jim Beach being employed as the band’s business manager with Paul Prenter as the day-to-day personal manager to Jim Beach becoming the band’s manager. It took Freddie and the band as a whole quite a while to trust Jim completely. Considering what they had been through in the past with the Sheffield and Trident deal, they’d had their fingers burnt once and they weren’t about to again.

To a large extent, it was John Reid who had shown Queen how to manage themselves and Freddie learned a great deal from Reid and all the people who worked at South Audley Street. It was a business legacy which Freddie never forgot. Queen saw and understood how their own management company had to be set up – i.e. with proper PR, press representation, office management and co-ordinated fan club functions.

Queen Productions, when it finally fledged in Pembridge Road with Jim Beach in the John Reid role, was almost a carbon copy of John Reid Enterprises ten years before. In the meantime Queen had learned of the dangers in managing themselves and of what they should look out for and I think they were all four quite relieved when they relinquished their own management into trusted hands. Freddie trusted Jim and Paul Prenter to staff Queen Productions entirely as they saw fit and never interfered in any way. It is surely some testament to those employed at Queen Productions that people like Julie Glover and Sally Hyatt, who even now when Queen as a performing and recording entity no longer exists, are still employed by the individual ex-band members.

In both his former and his latter years Freddie regarded record companies and their representatives as a necessary blot on the landscape of his career. Freddie loved writing music. He hated having to prove to people sitting behind desks that the music was good. I have to point out that even in the twelve years I was with Freddie, we both saw the record business change dramatically. As far as I’m aware, the only British record executive with whom Freddie became friends was Ken East and his wife, the inimitable Dolly, who had been chief executive both at Decca and EMI. Freddie had formed a good relationship with Bhaskar Menon at Capitol but he very rarely spoke to any of the departmental staff at EMI. Freddie, it has to be said, was not a great communicator with ‘the little people’, as Leona Helmsley once famously uttered.

This
détente
in Freddie’s relationship with his record company was a great turnabout for at the beginning of his career he was greatly fond of men like Sir Joseph Lockwood who headed EMI and whose vision, like Freddie’s, was so gratifyingly eclectic. I suppose, come to think of it, it’s all down to Sir Joseph Lockwood that I can even write this book because without him there would have been no Freddie at the Ballet Gala and I might now be assistant wardrobe master at The Royal Ballet.

Freddie began to feel very alienated from the record companies when managing directors turned out to be younger than him. Also, when punk started to become so big, he felt that it was music that didn’t sound as he judged music was supposed to sound. Freddie understandably was not thrilled when other bands became temporarily more important than Queen at EMI, for he could never forget one of
his proudest boasts which was that in one particular year, Queen on its own had provided EMI with a quarter of its revenue.

To this day, EMI Publishing still looks after the collection of the royalties of the catalogue owned by Freddie’s company, Mercury Songs. I think Freddie looked upon EMI Publishing rather as he would his bank. It was where you got money. EMI simply became Freddie’s hole-in-the-wall.

He would meet up with PR people like Phil Symes and Roxy Meade both of whom he liked a lot. It’s another example of trust in a relationship. He knew that these people, in a way, had his life in their hands and it was right to ensure their loyalty. However, the meetings were usually not to plan something but to discuss events which had already happened. Phil and Roxy would always have an outline of PR strategy from Jim Beach and they would more often than not be present at any band interviews. Freddie however preferred not to have PR people present at his interviews, in fact he liked to be interviewed alone, just him and the interviewer in a closed room. This had been the situation when he met Judy Wade for an interview which appeared in the
Sun
on February 8, 1984. Because Freddie was naturally not a deceitful, deceptive or dissembling person, he always told more of the truth than was necessary and alone in a room with a reporter, there was no one there to keep an eye on what he was saying and to restrain him. When the interview appeared, it was half the length that he imagined it would be. When confronted, Judy Wade said that it would have been impossible to have printed the whole text. She said she was holding back for his benefit not for hers. Admissions such as, “I’m just going for a line I’ll be back in half-a-minute,” would not have done anyone any good. However, she was fully prepared to underline in her second sentence that admission of being a fully ‘out’ gay man, although this does now lay the later myth which was popular which claimed that Freddie had never admitted his gayness.

Where his own projects were concerned, such as the launch of
Mr. Bad Guy
or
Barcelona
, Freddie would say what sort of events he would agree to appear at in conversation with Jim Beach who would then go to Phil or Roxy who would come up with a plan which all three would submit to Freddie for his approval and input at a meeting at Freddie’s house. They would then explain to him what certain events he had not specified but which they had suggested he might do over
and above what he himself had first envisaged. As I’ve said, Freddie never spurned advice. He might not have taken it but he always listened.

I’ve already dealt with Freddie’s relationship with his parents and his sister, with whom he was always very guarded as he wanted to protect them from things which they either would not understand or would not accept. Also, he felt the less they knew, the less they could tell. Let me explain. He never wanted his parents to be door-stepped or trapped by a member of the media who might badger them with questions which they were afraid of answering. If they knew nothing, they could in all honesty and integrity say nothing. The Bulsaras were a very traditional Parsee family and Freddie instinctively knew the limits to which his family could go in being modern. He was very sensitive to them and never wanted them compromised. Also, by maintaining a distance from them, he was also able to protect himself from some of their censure.