Freddie Mercury: An intimate memoir by the man who knew him best Read online

  The design team for The Works cover was changed and reduced in number to just one, Bill Smith. He came to the Pink House. Freddie must have got on with him. If he hadn’t, Mr Smith wouldn’t have had his name on the album cover. In any event, it was Bill Smith’s idea to use George Hurrell because on this occasion, Freddie’s starting point had been the idea of a photograph.

  Freddie learned a lot about the fine art of the photographer’s brush, used to paint away any imperfections on the plate. Hurrell still used what appeared to be amazingly old cameras because he found that the results they gave him were still the best and they were achieved in his own studio in Hollywood. Many shots were taken to try out different effects with the band in different tableau arrangements. Perhaps only one or two shots were taken of each tableau which was re-set like they were shooting an old-fashioned movie or an up-to-date video. It was all to do with lighting and was, obviously, a completely different experience for each of the band from the usual click-click-click of less exalted photo sessions.

  The session took place one morning. Hurrell wore cord trousers, shirt and waistcoat and Freddie behaved quite reverentially towards his hero. For a change, Freddie was prepared to be led by Hurrell every step of the way. Everyone has their idols whom they look up to and admire from afar. Being able to meet one and work with one brought about a very different Freddie whom I observed that day although he did contribute several ideas. He was not for once in total control and yet was pleased to be so. It was very much like being a child again and sitting for a family portrait in the studio of the local professional photographer. Freddie was on his best behaviour.

  The Works was the last but one album to be toured and it was the responsibility of tour manager Gerry Stickells to commission the design for the touring set. I think the only brief a designer would have been given for any Queen tour would have been ‘…something spectacular and memorable’ which is what all Queen shows were.

  An initial design was submitted for the band’s approval and if that was forthcoming, a model was made and also submitted. Changes always arose between model and final product and these, if problematic, were always ironed out with the help of Gerry’s silver-tongued diplomacy. These submissions were supposed to be made in committee but if one or the other of the band wasn’t available for joint consultation, a majority decision of approval was made with the verbal consent of the missing party. The first time the band would see the end product would be in the space where they were rehearsing. On this occasion, for The Works, the space was the film studios in Bavaria.

  A Kind Of Magic returned to the concept of an illustration on the cover which took the form of a caricature of the band. The art director was Richard Gray who was to remain with the band in this capacity until the end. Richard Gray worked freelance and commissioned Roger Chiasson. The characters Chiasson came up with were utilised in both the video for ‘A Kind Of Magic’ and also on the tour, when huge inflatable balloon versions of the caricatures were tethered on either side of the stage.

  For the cover of his own album Barcelona, he used the fashion and portrait photographer Terry O’Neill whom he had met several years earlier when the band were managed by John Reid. The shoot was at Terry’s studio and lasted all morning. Freddie and Montserrat arrived, had a quick discussion with Terry to discover what it was he was attempting and then the hard part for the pair began. “What should I wear?” I’d brought an assortment of clothes from Garden Lodge, everything from a full evening dress suit to various less formal clothes. Several bow ties had been thrown in. Montserrat and her niece Montsy had brought half-a-dozen different outfits and there was at least one change of clothes as can be seen in the accompanying CD booklet. During the ‘hard work’ that Freddie and Montserrat went through deciding what to wear, Terry’s two assistants were put into various poses for at least an hour so that when the stars came out after hair and make-up had been put on by Terry’s crew, they simply adopted the positions already decided.

  The Miracle heralded a sea change in the band’s idea of itself. All the tracks were credited as being written by the band as a whole which I think might have led on to the idea of creating the one face on the front of the album. Morphing as such was a very new concept and this computer generation once again ensured Queen were in the forefront of graphic design in the music industry.

  In the last couple of years of Freddie’s life, Jim Hutton bought him a water colour paints set and Freddie did use them a couple of times. However, he was so ill that he didn’t want to start anything that he wouldn’t be able to finish. The cover design for Innuendo was therefore Roger’s discovery which he found along with others of Grandville’s work in a magazine. The ideas contained in the collection were extended and used in the videos and again on the live album recorded on the Magic tour. The surreal content of Grandville’s work appealed to Freddie’s sense of the bizarre. Grandville must have been rather avant garde for his time, surrealism being, in the early nineteenth century, completely unidentified as an artistic genre.

  Freddie’s own taste in art was eclectic. His tastes varied and in the time I knew him, they ranged from Japanese woodcut prints through Erte and Dali to his last passion which was Victorian artists’ work, ending with the pre-Raphaelite painters. This was the context in which he met Rupert Bevan, the frame restorer whose expertise was often called upon to refurbish the frames of pictures Freddie bought at auction. Rupert’s expert touch was also used in renovating gilded and jesso-ed French furniture which had to have care lavished on it to restore it to its former glory. Very, very public school, Rupert and Freddie got on very well and Freddie enjoyed his friendship enormously. Freddie had great respect for people who had been through the British public school system, who spoke authoritatively. He saw that system as a perfect grounding for whatever expertise the person later developed.

  Freddie’s artistic endeavours weren’t solely to do with his recording and touring work but embraced his whole life. He spent his life collecting, whether it was people or pieces of art. Each had a place in his grand design. The culmination of a great deal of dedication was Garden Lodge. It was not only a home. It was a canvas upon which he painted his life and surrounded himself with his image of beauty. He put in a huge amount of work to the design aspect of the house to bring it back to its former glory.

  Once the house had been completed to his satisfaction, he then had to fill it with splendid objects and furnishings to complement the decorative scheme. His attention to detail was exhaustive and demanding on those who had to execute, for example, the mahogany and maple woodwork on the gallery overlooking the drawing room which was exquisite. This spirit of perfection was maintained throughout the house which was a masterwork. In a way, his masterpiece.

  Although Freddie bought Garden Lodge in 1980, it was a longtime in its transformation. When he first saw the house, it was in a sorry state, having been split in two in order to be occupied by separate households. It was his aim to restore it to one grand house, making his personal alterations along the way. I shall try and give as good an account as I can remember of how Garden Lodge looked in its heyday although I’m sure that it must be very different now.

  Garden Lodge started life as a two storey, eight-bedroomed property. There was a large room upstairs which the original owner’s wife – a sculptress – used as her studio. This, and two other rooms, Freddie transformed into his suite of bedroom, mahogany panelled and mirrored dressing room and twin bathrooms en suite. Into the dressing room and one of the bathrooms, Freddie incorporated his version of the ceiling in the Rainbow Room at Biba in the old Derry and Toms building, where I had first seen him. The rainbow effect was created by three hidden switches which when turned on operated concealed strip-lighting covered with various coloured film gels. The intensity of colour was varied by twiddling the knobs.

  This lavishly appointed suite was accessed from the raised landing via the dressing room through a normal-sized door. From the outside, no one would have had a clue w
hat was to come. It could have just been a door to a cupboard. Once inside, with the door closed behind, the dressing room displayed a series of mahogany panels, each of which was a door to either the bathrooms, closets or mere shelves. In the centre of the room there was an octagonal ottoman upholstered in a cream moire satin. It was impossible to know which of the panelled doors led to the bedroom except that opposite the entrance were the two largest panels and when slid back, the entrance to the bedroom was revealed. This room, with its balcony directly above the sitting room, overlooked the rose garden at the front of the house and the wisteria-covered pergola.

  Freddie had two bathrooms adjoining the dressing room, the smaller of which he used most. It was finished in the same wooden panelling as the dressing room and was the only room in the house which had no outside window. He used some Japanese tiles that he had found on one of his numerous visits to Japan which were randomly placed in the tiling around the bath. The walls were covered in a sage-green steamproof wallpaper.

  The second bathroom, opposite, was the larger which was finished in cream marble. This room contained the Jacuzzi which was recessed in a pillared alcove to which access was gained by a raised step. This bathroom also housed one of Freddie’s ill-fated showers as well as two oval hand basins set into a specially made vanity surface. Brass taps and fittings set the seal on the style. Gold taps didn’t figure too highly on Freddie’s scale of taste. Had it ever worked, the shower would have been a splendid affair. It was built into the corner of the rectangular room. The walls were of cream marble although the base was, strangely, a fibreglass tray. There was a large central brass shower rose and there were three brass pipes running vertically on the walls through which water jets also sprayed. Talk about sensurround! The sensation was truly Brut-al: “Splash it on all over!”

  The bathrooms were, like the rest of the house, crammed with objets d’art which Freddie had accumulated over the years from all corners of the earth. Bits from Japan, bits of France, bits of Germany as well as Tiffany artefacts from New York and souvenirs from South America. Scattered around were various bottles of cologne, eau de toilette and soaps. Among his favourites were Armani for men, Monsieur de Givenchy and the one he wore most in the last two or three years was L’Eau Dynamisant by Clarins. By reason of all its properties, this latter was his favourite.

  Also, one perfume which secured a permanent position in whichever bathroom around the world he used was L’Interdit by Givenchy. Apparently this was created for Audrey Hepburn and Freddie adored the perfume from the first time he smelt it. He didn’t care that it was originally designed for ladies. He just liked the smell. As far as shampoos were concerned, he was quite prepared to use any one that we bought from a supermarket. In the end he did quite like Johnson & Johnson baby shampoo which appeared not to irritate his sensitive scalp.

  He liked the soaps made by Roger et Gallet, again in their various perfumes but in the end he used Simple for his own purposes more often than not, keeping the Roger et Gallet for display. He loved going into the perfume departments of stores and occasionally would select a basketful to give as presents to friends. His wicked sense of humour came into play once in New York when from Bloomingdales he bought a bottle of Joy by Patou to give to Tony King (nickname Joy) and for his photographer friend David Nutter (nickname Dawn) he bought a plastic bottle of the washing-up liquid of the same name! We were much amused!

  Freddie loved towels and bathroom linen of all description; the bigger the towel the more he liked it. He found a great source in Munich. Barbara Valentin of course knew the best places to shop and Freddie found a large array of exotically patterned bath sheets, huge, almost the size of bed sheets. In the same place he also discovered some amazing blankets which he used to wrap around himself while watching television rather than putting them on the bed. He might not even have been cold but he just loved the blankets which were of a fluffy man-made fibre representing angora, patterned in circles, stripes and triangles of bright primary colours on a white background.

  I often think that had he not been a musician, he would have made his fortune in interior design. He had an amazing eye for structure and shape and I think this is also the reason why he bought the occasional property – like the Mews for example – just so that he could decorate it. He bought Garden Lodge at the beginning of the Eighties at a time when he was rarely in the country. I think it was part of the reason why it took so long to complete, because he insisted on being a part of all stages of the house’s decoration.

  He employed Robin Moore-Ede as his interior designer but Robin’s job was more to tell Freddie what he couldn’t do rather than do any constructive designing himself. This is not of course to deny that Robin came up with many original ideas which Freddie developed but Freddie would be more likely to say, “I want this, this, this and this…” and then Robin would consider and then say which of the wishes were feasible. It’s a good way of working if it can be achieved. Robin, of course, introduced Freddie to his builders, Messrs. Taveners, Mr Tavener being the father of contemporary classical composer John Tavener, one of whose works featured in the funeral service of Diana, Princess of Wales. At least Mr Tavener the Elder knew what he was in for regarding artistic temperament when he first took on what was going to be a very long job.

  Freddie’s bedroom incorporated not only his bed which was on the left of the entrance but also a sitting-room area on the right. The room was much more a boudoir, such as the room in Der Rosenkavalier where the Marchelin receives her callers. He had an assortment of furniture. There was an Edwardian chaise longue, a Louis XIV fauteuil and a modern two-seater sofa. It was a place where he could feel comfortable and still receive friends and visitors without people continually walking in and out. It was a room where one received. In those days, when Freddie lived in Garden Lodge, he accumulated a large collection of prints by Louis Icart and twenty-two of these decorated the walls which were covered in the same cream moiré satin which was used in all the drapes and soft furnishings.

  The bed’s headboard was built into the wall and continued the same wood-pattern as in the dressing room. On either side of the bed, he had had made two commodes, large bedside chests of drawers, whose veneers ran with the mahogany theme.

  There were five-foot high French display cabinets, bow-fronted on short legs from the mid-nineteenth century against the walls, containing various small pieces of porcelain, crystal and objets d’art, Lalique boxes and Japanese lacquer boxes. I often think that as far as these lacquer boxes are concerned, the smaller they were the more expensively they were priced.

  As with the rest of the house, where there was carpeting, it had been woven specifically to fit the room according to Freddie’s cream colour scheme. One of Freddie’s bedspreads will have been seen by anyone who watched the ‘Slightly Mad’ video. Made up of countless thousands of dyed multi-coloured ostrich feathers, Freddie wanted “… something colourful” for the video and found exactly what he was after lying on his own bed. It wasn’t actually in use overlong on his bed as the cats took a liking to it and showed their affection by trying to destroy it. I don’t know if this was because of the colours or the feathers.

  Access to Freddie’s suite via the raised landing was due to the extra height inbuilt into the north-facing drawing room below which was originally built by the sculptress’s husband as an artist’s studio. In fact, Garden Lodge was no more than a stone’s throw from the artists’ colony of houses begun by Lord Leighton at Leighton House and the various Norman Shaw-designed houses in Melbury Road.

  On the walls of the landing was the one common denominator between Freddie’s New York apartment, Garden Lodge and Stafford Terrace. He used up some of his supply of gold and platinum discs to form a wall-covering. We spent quite a few hours with tape measure, hammer and nails to ensure that none of the original wall-covering showed beneath the massed framed records. It can be quite frustrating taking into account that the frames were of different sizes and the hanging wires at th
e back of different lengths. The tape measure was in constant use. The master of course supervised and measured with the best of us.

  Off the main landing, there were several rooms. One was the library at the foot of the stairs leading to Freddie’s bedroom, decorated in wallpaper which Freddie had bought in Japan many years before. It was a room which Freddie made a library because Jim Hutton’s carpentry phase had been given full rein by Freddie, thus allowing Jim to build shelves in this room which Freddie ultimately intended to be used for books. Although Freddie was no reader, the shelves contained catalogues from auction houses and the standard books which all households contain, dictionaries, atlases, encyclopaedia as well as the coffee table books of cats, art and design which he would recycle as he was given or acquired new ones. From the window of the library, there was a view directly down the garden path to the front gate of the house in Logan Place.

  The next door along was a little door to a closet which, because it backed on to the hot water tanks, was used as the linen store.

  Next door to that was the entrance to the main guest suite which consisted of a large square bedroom and a connecting dressing room and bathroom which was furnished with beautiful pink marble. Freddie obviously had a fascination for moire as the walls in the guest suite were covered in a dusty salmon pink version of this fabric. The suite had a series of Dali prints of surreal subjects on the theme of Hades on the walls. This room was later to contain some Biedermeyer and Empire pieces of furniture and some that were made specifically for the room. Freddie spent a lot of time in Rupert Cavendish’s shop on the Kings Road in Chelsea. Whenever Freddie arrived at this shop, it didn’t matter how many were in his entourage, Rupert always made all of us very welcome and was very happy to talk about his latest acquisitions.