Freddie Mercury: The Biography (31 page)

Eventually Mercury partially confessed: ‘I can’t carry on rocking the way I have done in the past,’ he told persistent reporters.
‘It is all too much. It’s no way for a grown man to behave. I have stopped my nights of wild partying. That’s not because
I’m ill, but down to age. I’m no spring chicken. Now I prefer to spend my time at home. It’s part of growing up.’

Over the next six months, four further singles emerged from
The Miracle
– ‘Breakthru’, ‘The Invisible Man’, ‘Scandal’ and the title track itself. The first and last of these spawned unusual videos.
For ‘Breakthru’ Queen were filmed playing aboard a speeding vintage steam train on the Nene Valley Railway near Peterborough.
Although the shooting lasted three days, Queen were there for just one of these. With the now familiar designer stubble Mercury
looked good, albeit a shadow of his former self.

For ‘The Miracle’, probably in an effort to involve the star on screen as little as possible, child actor band look-alikes
had been hired, who mimed to the song. All were well cast, but Ross McCall, who beat off stiff competition at auditions to
play Mercury, fittingly stole the show. So much so that when the band joined the kids on film, for the last minutes of the
track, Mercury found himself imitating McCall. He later quipped to Ross, ‘How are you fixed for doing a tour?’

While these releases kept Queen in the public eye, the band were busy on their new album in Switzerland and London. Mercury
had grown steadily weaker and could manage less time each week in the studio. He had been forced to give up smoking because
of respiratory problems, and singing exhausted him more than he allowed anyone to see. In December Queen released
Queen at the Beeb,
an album of early recordings made for the BBC.

But, it wasn’t the past the watching press was interested in. Having had their antennae tuned in for some time, they were
now seriously alert. Media speculation about what was wrong with Mercury multiplied by the week. The pressure on the band
was considerable. While the star himself had become adept at avoiding journalists, the other three band members were hounded
by the press at every opportunity. Forced to lie and say that Mercury was fine, each was burdened with the knowledge that
their lead singer’s plight – and their own – could only worsen.

Work on Queen’s new album, already ten months in the making, looked set to take even longer than
The Miracle.
In the end its production spanned the whole of 1990, too. But, with Mercury’s state of health dictating the pace, there was
nothing anyone could do. When it had come to the crunch the previous year, Mercury had shied away from admitting to the rest
of the band that he was battling against AIDS. Although it remained unspoken, each believed that this would be the last album
they would record together.

For close friends such as Mike Moran it was a hellish state of affairs that someone they cared for deeply was suffering so
much. Yet because of his decision not to discuss his illness openly they were not able to reach out to him. It was a very
painful time, as Mike Moran recalls.

‘Freddie showed immense bravery, and none of us really knew just how ill he was,’ he says. ‘He didn’t want to be a burden
to people and certainly didn’t want anyone to feel sorry for him. For about three years it was awfully difficult for us, but
we coped by going into denial – the way you do when you don’t want to face the fact that someone you love is dying. And there
were often times when we’d say to each other, “He’s looking a bit better today, don’t you think? Maybe, right enough …” We’d
semi-convince ourselves that
he was going to be OK. It was all a case of not wanting him to go.’

Apart from recording when he was able, Mercury now lived reclusively, and, conscious of his looks, the last thing he was likely
to welcome was any public engagement. But this year the British Phonographic Industry chose to honour Queen for their outstanding
contribution to British music, and in mid-February that meant being presented with an award at their ninth annual ceremony,
held at the Dominion Theatre. The evening was hosted by Jonathan King, and the band, in formal dinner dress, received their
award from BPI chairman Terry Ellis.

Mercury couldn’t win this time. Had Queen turned up without him – whatever the excuse – it would have provided the press with
more fuel to fire the rampant speculation about his health. Inevitably, when he did appear on stage, keeping well to the back
and watching as Brian May delivered the acceptance speech, his hollowed features and gaunt frame were so pronounced that it
sparked off a rash of new rumours.

Queen made a quick getaway that night, shunning the official BPI dinner for the attractions of their own special party at
the Groucho Club in Soho. They had celebrated 1981 as their tenth anniversary. For the purposes of this party, they decided
to make 1990 their twentieth. Mingling with over four hundred guests were celebrities and Queen employees past and present.
Many people were privately shocked – hardly able to recognise the star in their midst.

Mercury tired easily now, and looking drawn and feeling not very alert, he tried to slip quietly away from the party. A press
photographer lurking in the shadows outside had been hoping for just such an opportunity and snapped him leaving. Looking
haggard and preoccupied, Mercury’s picture was splashed across the front page of a national daily newspaper next day. Fans
and friends, already jittery, became downright anxious.

Mercury must have known that he was fighting a losing battle with the press, but again he tried to scotch the rumours. Publicly
he reiterated that he felt fine and categorically he denied that he had AIDS. He was clearly in no condition to go on tour,
but that didn’t stop journalists questioning him about the cessation of live Queen performances. All he would say on the matter
was that nothing was planned for the foreseeable future; that they had recording commitments in the studio. His private life
in Britain was becoming non-existent, and he quit London almost immediately thereafter for the haven of Montreux.

Returning to his rented Swiss lakeside house, he honoured his work commitments as best he could, but mainly he resumed his
strolls by the water’s edge. For some time he had been plagued with skin sores and weeping wounds, and when walking gradually
became too painful, he took to sitting by the lake and sketching waterfowl. Sometimes he would also write songs. The disease
made him extremely susceptible to infection and fatigue, however, and although he derived solace from these excursions, he
often felt too drained by them and had to cut them short. Soon afterwards he slipped back, undetected, to Garden Lodge. Around
this time Mary Austin, who had created a personal life for herself apart from Mercury, gave birth to a son.

Mercury’s own condition had lately taken another turn for the worse. He had been fitted with a small catheter on his chest,
which fed him his medication intravenously. He was experiencing the usual disruption in sleep and the ever present risk of
infection meant that he and Jim Hutton now slept in different rooms. He still celebrated his forty-fourth birthday lavishly
but surrounded himself with only a few well-chosen friends.

By the following month the Queen album had a title –
Innuendo
– and was scheduled for a Christmas 1990 release.
When this looked in danger of being pushed back, EMI were understandably annoyed. The album’s production had already taken
almost two years and to miss the massive festive market would prove costly. Across the Atlantic, their relationship with the
US label, Capitol Records, had been running into other kinds of difficulties. Jim Beach had been negotiating Queen’s way out
of their contract, and in the end Hollywood Records weighed in with a lucrative bid to sign them. The deal was clinched by
early November.

But business matters paled in contrast to the mounting personal pressures that were weighing down the band. The strain of
fielding the bombardment of questions from the press about Mercury’s health was wearing. The rest of Queen wanted to do right
by their friend, but it was becoming impossible to lie with any semblance of credibility. One day, cornered by a gaggle of
gossip-hungry journalists, Brian May admitted that Mercury was suffering from strain and exhaustion – and that the years of
hard living had finally caught up with him. But he denied that there was any truth in the rumours that the star had AIDS.

The next day the
Sun
carried the headline:
IT’S OFFICIAL! FREDDIE IS SERIOUSLY ILL
. They ran the story with a support picture that showed him staring-eyed and drawn. When Mercury saw this, he was very upset.
At Garden Lodge thereafter Jim Hutton, Joe Fanelli or Peter Freestone vetted all newspapers before they got to him – but his
torment didn’t end there. The press hounds now smelt blood and tightened their surveillance of the fading rock star. They
would tail him on his rare excursions from home and finally got what they wanted: a photograph of him emerging from the Harley
Street premises of a top AIDS specialist.

Mercury’s health was failing faster now. Only his stubborn determination to keep working kept him going. In early January
1991 he joined the band in Mountain Studios for a
gathering with a difference. He had suffered a great deal of pain throughout the recording of
Innuendo,
which was now complete, yet he wanted to get straight back into the studio. He had also decided finally to confide in his
three friends that he was dying of AIDS.

Typically, he invited no pity and simply said brusquely, ‘You probably realise what my problem is’ – which they did. He continued,
‘Well, that’s it, and I don’t want it to make a 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 any more.’

For those on the receiving end of this barrage of commands, it was hard to take. Brian May later revealed, ‘I don’t think
any of us will ever forget that day. We all went off and got quietly sick somewhere.’

A week later the title track ‘Innuendo’, an unusual number with its bolero-type rhythm, zoomed in at number one in the UK
singles chart. Then, on 2 February, Queens
Greatest Hits
re-entered the album charts, two days before
Innuendo
was finally released. Like the single, it soared straight to the top but any pride in this achievement had been lost when
they had filmed the video promo of a number entitled ‘I’m Going Slightly Mad’. The experience had been heartbreaking.

As the title suggests, the song’s lyrics centre on insanity and to reflect this on screen, all four band members were to portray
differing exaggerated forms of madness. The shoot took place at Limehouse Studios and was directed by Hannes Rossacher and
Rudi Dolezal. Mercury appeared with a bunch of enormous bananas on his head. He bounced on a pantomime gorilla’s knee, playfully
punching its nose and raced around in circles wearing winkle-picker shoes, with his arms arched mock-threateningly above his
head.

But a terrible sadness underpinned the filming. Mercury was now so ill that a bed had been set up nearby for him to lie
down on between takes. He looked skeletal – and that was with an extra layer of clothes under his suit. The marks on his face
were so pronounced that in order to camouflage them, his make-up was caked on. To hide his increasing hair loss, he wore an
obvious wig.

Mercury was also in acute pain. To the astonishment of the crew though, he continued to run through with them the story board
he had worked out for the shoot. They had been pre-warned that the star had muscle problems and, in particular, a knee injury,
but none of that rang true. In one scene he had to crawl along the floor in front of a long leather sofa on which the other
three were seated. That scene was agonising for him, but in the final cut no one would ever know this. He even took the trouble
to comfort one of the penguins that featured in the video, when it became distressed under the hot lights. For all onlookers,
it was hard to hide their emotions. Hardened hacks, by contrast, hung around outside the studios, hoping to catch someone
off-guard as they left. But everyone was tight-lipped, and the official word was that Mercury had thoroughly enjoyed himself.
‘I’m Going Slightly Mad’ was released a month later, on 4 March.

After the shoot Mercury retreated once more. Naturally, the atmosphere at home was oppressive. Joe Fanelli could see his friend
wasting away and was worried about his own future after the star died. When Mercury discovered this, he resolved to buy Fanelli
a house. But Fanelli wasn’t the only one to entertain anxieties. Clearly Jim Hutton was aware of potentially similar problems.
Hutton was under no illusions. He was aware that when Mercury died, the mansion would probably pass to Mary Austin. But at
the same time his lover had expressed the wish that he should continue to live there. Personally Jim Hutton was not so sure
that this was how things would work out.

Mid-May saw a third single release with ‘Headlong’. It was
followed at the end of the month by filming of the poignant ballad entitled ‘These Are the Days of Our Lives’. It would be
their last Queen promo. As in February, it was a distressing shoot, despite Mercury’s continuing bravery. Only Mercury, Taylor
and Deacon took part in the filming. Brian May had been touring America, promoting Queen’s new album, and he was filmed separately,
and his role later integrated in the editing room.

Simon Bates recalls that ‘Brian told me that when Freddie was making their last two videos he was so desperately ill that
he could hardly walk, yet his eyes still sparkled, and he’d be saying, do it this way or that way.’ Although almost cadaverously
thin, in baggy trousers, loose silk shirt and waistcoat, he managed to remain a stylish man. Despite everything, he was professional
to the end.

No one knew when the end would come. Back in Montreux, May, Deacon and Taylor were only a phone call away and ready to record
at a moment’s notice. Although their singer and friend battled on, he could not manage much time in the studio now. But work
remained important to him, as it was the best way for him to keep his spirits from plummeting – and offered something positive
to offset the sorrow of facing each day. Mary Austin later said, ‘I think that fed the light inside. Life wasn’t just taking
him to the grave. There was something else he could make happen.’