Freddie Mercury: An intimate memoir by the man who knew him best Page 2
In school days at Isaac Newton, my English composition homework was always done to the sound of Wagner overtures from our stereogram, a gramaphone and radio combined which was popular at the time. I didn’t have many records but was always drawn to classical rather than pop music, although where my love of classical music had come from I really cannot say. Wagner must have been particularly inspirational, full of drama and excitement and spurred me even to attempt my own version of Enid Blyton’s Famous Five tales. It was already clear that my life needed that little extra spice.
It wasn’t long before the tug of the Opera House overcame my already weakened ambition to be a Selfridges caterer and at the beginning of the new season in 1977, I joined the wardrobe department of the Royal Ballet full time. On Sunday, October 7, Derek Deane and Wayne Eagling of the Royal Ballet were organising an evening charity gala at the London Coliseum in St. Martin’s Lane in aid of the City of Westminster Society for Mentally Handicapped Children. Freddie, then at the height of his early career, had been asked by Wayne Eagling if he would be the special guest star at the end of the show. Sir Joseph Lockwood, the chairman of EMI records, Queen’s record company, had been the catalyst. Sir Joseph was on the board of directors of the Royal Ballet and had effected Freddie’s introduction to Wayne Eagling.
Thus it was that I was first properly introduced to Freddie Mercury in the Royal Ballet’s running wardrobe at the Royal Opera House, the department responsible for all costumes that were in use during the performances. Prior to the show, the new costumes would be the responsibility of the Production Wardrobe. My job was to effect the running repairs and the sequences of changes during the performmances. Hence, ‘running’ wardrobe.
Freddie came into our department with Paul Prenter in order that the wardrobe people involved in the gala could see what he would be wearing because his appearance involved a quick change actually on stage. There was no room for error. He had rehearsed with the members of the ballet company with whom he would be performing for some time beforehand at the Royal Ballet school and rehearsal studios at Barons Court but this was the first time he had made an appearance upstairs at the Opera House itself.
Freddie’s appearance in the show was not going to be announced until he actually came onto the stage, dressed in his leather biker’s cap and jacket to give the first public performance of ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’. As the song finished, the dancers then masked him from the public and with some assistance from them, he changed into a silver-sequined leotard in which he reappeared before the audience carrying out fairly intricate choreography which included him being man-handled and thrown into the air while singing ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’!
This was the first of many times that I was to hear these songs but never again in such a spectacular way because when he performed them live with Queen he was always playing an instrument, either guitar or piano respectively.
Because of my association with the ballet company, I was invited to Legends nightclub for the party afterwards. It was here that I actually spoke to Freddie for the first time, a conversation that lasted no longer than five words. I also got into a longer talk with Paul Prenter who was Freddie’s and Queen’s personal manager at the time. I must have made some impression.
Paul Prenter was an easygoing Ulsterman, although like many of his compatriots he had a very fierce and quick temper. I well remember a few occasions on which people got on the wrong side of Mr Prenter and came off the worst. However, I only ever personally experienced this wrong side once or twice.
Two weeks later, Paul rang up Michael Brown, the wardrobe master of the Royal Ballet enquiring as to the availability of anyone who could carry out a six-week British tour with Queen and when I offered my services, Paul remembered me and took me on. This was Queen’s ‘getting back to basics’ tour – the Crazy Tour. They wanted to revisit smaller venues, few of which held more than two thousand seats, culminating in their show for relief in wartorn Kampuchea on Boxing Day at the Hammersmith Odeon, as the Labatt’s Apollo was then called.
Having made the decision to volunteer and having been accepted, I panicked. I had no idea of even how many musicians were in the band called Queen, never mind what each of them looked like. I knew they had sung ‘Seven Seas Of Rye’, ‘Killer Queen’ and ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ but that was the extent of my knowledge of their repertoire. I had two weeks before the tour began to find out about my new employers.
On the first day I went to a rehearsal – I was driven there by one of Queen’s office staff – Paul Prenter met me and took me into one of the sound stages at Shepperton Film Studios in which Queen was rehearsing. This was one of the few spaces large enough for them to set up their full stage. I was stunned.
Not being an avid Queen fan, I never knew the extremes they went to in putting on their show. The band hadn’t arrived yet but just to see the amazing amount of equipment and lights set up on the rehearsal stage was awe-inspiring. The technicians were practising with the ‘pizza oven’ lights and the effects were staggering. This set-up was so-called because the colors, red, green and orange, brought to mind a Mediterranean flag, I believe, and as it was one massive bank of these colours, it wouldn’t have looked out of place in an infra-red bakers’ oven. Paul ushered me over to the vast, wheeled wardrobe trunks and told me to sort through them and make sense of them and said he would introduce me to the band when they had all arrived.
You have to realise that in the trunks at this point was an array of Zandra Rhodes originals screwed up carelessly into crumpled balls as nothing had been sorted out since the end of Queen’s last tour. There was also an assortment of make-up strewn here, there and everywhere, as well as a special French make-up remover by Rene Guinot, a pink gloop which Freddie used exclusively, cotton wool balls, hairspray, all the things you would expect to find in every gentleman’s going-away luggage. There was a special dry shampoo – basically talc-in-a-tube which soaks up grease instead of washing under a shower – for the rock star in a hurry. There was a whole array of boots and shoes, trainers and the special Brian May clogs in various colours. And hairbrushes. Hairbrushes galore!
Someone had thoughtfully opened the trunks before my arrival so most of the mildew smell had evaporated. The trunks had been packed hurriedly at the end of their last show with no thought as to what the state of the unwashed, unlaundered contents would be when next opened. There were also several costumes in both black and white PVC with all sorts of holographic pictures including the Statue of Liberty, The Stars and Stripes and the Empire State Building. These had been designed by an American and Freddie had worn the outfits on the last tour but was rarely, if ever, to wear them again. I think he wore the black jacket once or twice.
I had noticed a large number of people coming and going and bustling about but the only person who actually stood out in all this activity was the figure of – I was soon to learn – Jim Beach, then Queen’s business manager, who was walking around wearing a full-length wolf coat, presumably as a protection from the cold. Paul called me over to a small group of people and I was finally introduced to the band who had up until then been indistinguishable amongst the hurly burly. Freddie made me feel immediately at home just by saying, “Well, of course I remember you, dear.”
On that first day at Shepperton, Queen soon got down to the real business of the day. In the four or five hours that followed, I was introduced to Queen’s music in all its glory. There, for the first time and live, were all those songs that I’d heard over the years and never known who’d sung them. ‘You’re My Best Friend’, ‘Somebody To Love’, ‘We Are The Champions’ and many, many more. One thing that remained the same throughout the years I knew Queen was the effort and amount of work that they put into rehearsals. Practice makes perfect, which is what Queen shows were always intended to be.
They started each song and played it until one of them was unhappy with something. Then they would practise and practise until they were all satisfied. They would do this with each
of the songs in their set. They might be able to get through five songs in about twenty minutes but then one problem with one song could quite easily take them half-an-hour to correct to their collective satisfaction. At the end of the two-week rehearsal period, they would try to play through the set complete, without stopping, although, even after so much work, this didn’t necessarily happen each time.
However, for that, my first day, I merely collected the costumes which needed to be laundered or cleaned and when an available car was going back to London, I was in it with Gerry Stickells, the tour manager. Two days later I went back to the studios laden with clean, ready-to-wear stage clothes and that was the first day each of the band told me what their requirements would be for the coming tour. For John I had to get a pair of black Kickers, size 43, and two white T-shirts with round necks. For Roger, I needed half-a-dozen white wrist sweatbands and assorted black and white socks. Brian’s requirements were two T-shirts with a low neckline, one black and one white. He also asked me to look for a western-style shirt in black with white piping which I managed to get.
After having had all his clothes cleaned, Freddie then decided he was going for a new look. I had to buy three pairs of red PVC trousers, a couple of ties in red, one in leather and one in a shiny fabric as well as some thin black ties to act as belts. He also insisted on having skate-boarding knee pads and really lightweight white boots with black stripes, the sort that boxers wear. He’d decided to start the show wearing a leather jacket which he would then take off and perform in a T-shirt until that too came off and he would be left in just his trousers and boots at the end. Unfortunately, I couldn’t immediately get hold of the wrestling boots which he specified, although the assorted colours of T-shirts weren’t a problem and the braces in white and other colours, I found easily.
After two or three days hunting around the shops of London – Kensington Market and the nearby Slick Willy’s were two of them – I was prepared, or so I thought, for the first of the Queen shows which was to be in Cork, Ireland. Unlike the theatre, where all my previous experience had been, I found that Queen did not have a dress rehearsal. In the theatre, during the course of the dress rehearsal, you’re able to find the best times and places for changes and I would be able to plan my time during the show. Not knowing the band, I didn’t feel I could ask them when the dress rehearsal would be.
I was of course stunned when at the end of the final rehearsal I was told that, “That’s it. Next time will be the show!” However, I discovered that there was a general rule of thumb as far as Queen costumes were concerned which was: “If the gig is small, wear black. If it’s big, wear white.” Having now seen a lot of different shows, this was obviously a general rule with few exceptions.
The tour was to have begun by taking in Cork City Hall and then the Royal Dublin Showground venue at Simmons Court in Ireland. Although, the Cork concert was ultimately cancelled, the one in Dublin went ahead. I think I was dreading this, the first working concert with Queen, having had no trial run. I really hadn’t any idea what I should be doing. In the end, everything flowed fairly smoothly.
The routine with which I was to become so familiar ran something like this: I would arrive at the venue with the band for their sound check. While they carried on checking on their various pieces of equipment and the volume in the on-stage monitors, I got started in the dressing room. The band would go back to their hotel after the soundcheck, leaving me to carry on. I had brought with me the list of essentials which were: one powerful hair dryer, one iron, boxes of tissues, cotton wool balls, real sponges, body splash which I seem to remember for some reason was a herbal one by Clairol, dressing gowns, the indispensable electric torches, setting gel for hair.
An hour and a half before the band were due to arrive, I began to sort out what I thought they might want to wear. The crew had put the huge, hanging costume trunks in the band’s dressing room and after opening them, I removed an assortment of shirts which could possibly be worn by Brian, Roger and John and quickly gave these an iron so that each Queenie could have a choice from a range of two or three shirts, and I hung these at four points about the dressing room. Although Freddie had been more specific, the T-shirt selection was still in several colours and so I laid all these out for him to choose. Each of them only had one pair of shoes for the shows so the footwear department was easily served.
On a table with a mirror, I laid out the make-up which all of them used in varying amounts, a technique they had developed to suit each one of them over their nine years of performing together. Stage lights bleach colours from just about everything including performers’ faces. To accentuate features which would otherwise disappear, you have to highlight them. Freddie especially made use of eye-liner pencil so that the people in the back of the hall could see his eyes. Some people might say that this instinctive use of eye make-up was a throwback to his days in both Zanzibar and India where kohl is used by all women throughout society to accentuate their eyes, the mirror of the soul. The standard list of make-up I always needed was two Max Factor Number 25 pancake, Lancome Maquimat three-and-a-half mascara, Revlon all-weather Ivory number three, Clinique continuous coverage Vital beige …Well, call them the Slap Kings of the rock world!
As far as underwear was concerned, the rest of the band took care of their own, although Freddie always required a dry pair to wear after the show and these were my responsibility to provide as part of wardrobe.
I was more often than not in the dressing room when they arrived. The door would open and in they came, generally just to drop their bags before they went off again to the crew catering area to have tea or coffee or just a little snack to keep them going before showtime. Freddie generally remained in the dressing room and had a cup of Earl Grey tea with milk and two sugars or hot lemon and honey depending on how he felt his throat was holding up.
I suppose it was only natural but as soon as the band all returned to the dressing room, they immediately began comparing it to the last. Which feature was better, which one was worse. “There’s more seats here than they had in the last one…”; “This room’s a lot bigger…”; “That toilet’s disgusting!”
They usually started to get ready about an hour before the show. There were, after all, four of them and so even a five minute burst at the make-up table required twenty clear minutes. Freddie always put on his make-up first, having removed his clothes and applied his eyeliner bare-chested. Each of them had their own robes. Freddie would often, if the room wasn’t tropical temperature, wear his in make-up. While the others generally dressed themselves – sorting out shoelaces or ties empirically – Freddie required assistance. Two processes which took time were putting on his boxing boots and lacing them and getting whatever he was wearing on his torso over his head without spoiling the make-up; and back then he would have the hair dryer out making sure that every single hair was exactly in place. Although Paul Prenter, Jim Beach, the band’s partners and wives would be allowed access to the dressing room, when the final getting ready began, most of these left to find their seats and to allow the band a short and important time to prepare themselves.
The band would spend the pre-show hour sensibly discussing any failings conceded in the last show or sections which they all or individually thought could have gone better. Post-show discussions of course were the opposite. These were the times for shouting and screaming and acrimonious accusations in the heat of the moment. Pre-show, they might decide on a change· in the running order and half-an-hour before the start of the show, the road crew – Ratty, Crystal and Jobby – would come to the dressing room to see if there were to be any such changes. The band would get to talk to the sound people – Trip Khalaf, Jim Devenney – to discuss any last minute requirements like putting the drums up or bringing the vocals down in the monitors. To Trip, the instruction was always, “Make it louder!” I don’t know that Queen were happy with the volume of the sound at any of their shows. Always louder, louder, louder…
Tour manag
er Gerry Stickells, who had overall responsibility for the show and would have been in and out of the dressing room, would arrive to lead the band on stage surrounded by their security. Venue security personnel always guarded the door of the empty dressing room which was kept unlocked to cater for the eventuality of Freddie storming off stage and the person with the dressing room key being unavailable.
We would certainly not have been amused.
At the rear of the stage, we were all ushered into the ‘dolls’ house’. This was a small room made up of scaffolding and thick black fabric material which was positioned always – bar twice – in the same place upstage right at the very back of the stage area. This R and R station was used by every member of the band throughout the show as in it were drinks, anything from hot lemon and honey, through beers to vodka tonics. It was a place for the band to come and sit through Brian’s guitar solos and the playing of the ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ tape and where I had spare clothes that they could change into if they felt the need. This was also the place, particularly for the first tour I was on, where I would stand with a hairdryer and hairbrush to give Freddie his immaculately coiffed look for the last part of the show after he’d ripped off his sodden T-shirt and any other part of his costume which was uncomfortably soaked in sweat. He would sit down in front of the mirror and I’d give him a blow-dry in two minutes or whatever length of time Brian had chosen for his solo.
There were always five chairs in the dolls’ house and always a full-length mirror. I purchased one early on because of the number of times the promoters failed to provide one. The band got really upset at not being able to see themselves as the audience would see them before going on stage. There was always at least one light giving a warm glow and also an electric fan, as whatever the temperature outside, things could get very hot under all those lights on stage.