Mercury: An Intimate Biography of Freddie Mercury (50 page)

Halloween 1977: Freddie celebrating with Elton John and Peter Straker. Queen’s album
News of the World
had just been released.

January 1978, as Brian, Roger, Freddie, and John embarked on a major European tour. Freddie sports his favorite footwear: ballet slippers. Brian sports his: white wooden clogs.

New Year’s Eve 1978, Maunkberry’s Club, London. From left, actress Britt Ekland; Freddie; a friend; Ronnie Wood; and his wife, Jo.

David Wigg interviews Freddie in his dressing room.

Freddie rehearsing with dancers of the Royal Ballet, 1980.

Freddie with Elton John, celebrating the release of the
Flash Gordon
soundtrack, 1980.

Freddie with Ian Hunter, lead singer of Mott the Hoople, USA, 1982.

Freddie on set for Queen’s “It’s a Hard Life” video, 1984, in a costume designed by Diana Moseley. The getup became known as “the Prawn Outfit” because it made Freddie look like a giant cooked prawn.

Celebrated cartoonist Gray Jolliffe recalls a chance meeting with Freddie in Austria in the late 1980s.

Journalist, broadcaster, and friend David Wigg with Freddie at a Munich dinner party, 1984.

Freddie Mercury on the set of the Queen video “I Want to Break Free,” 1984.

Barbara Valentin, Freddie, and friends in a Munich nightclub, late eighties.

Cliff Richard and Freddie, New Year’s Day, 1985.