Freddie Mercury: The Definitive Biography

Lesley faces her task with the panache of someone who is writing a novel based on real facts. The chapters speak for themselves, 'Queen of the South', 'The Court of King Freddie'. Sometimes you wonder whether what the author is narrating actually happened or not. But that's the magic of a book about someone who did so much magic whilst alive.

The fact that I had not been willing to read any biographies about my favourite rock star was partly due to not wanting to break the legend, the myth and the mysticism that was created around him and that he never avoided increasing. Yet, I was amazed to see how capable I was of forgiving this man for being what we are primarily: human beings. That he was a star did not mean that he could never have tantrums or behave whimsically at times. Those are just traits of a personality that, as Lesley Ann-Jones put it, had problems trying to come terms with itself. It occurs to me that after all he used Queen to disguise the pain he was under, to display the voracious persona he could not bring himself up to showing to people and to hide away the fact that he was what most people hated, what society still hates: being gay.

Lesley Ann charts the history of the band using Freddie as the cornerstone of it, but she never ceases to give us details of the creative activities of the rest. Also, she does a lot of justice when she says that Queen, above all, was a band in the sense of musicianship, although their frontman was the one stealing the show most of the time.

I did not find any flaws in the book. When she could not give a definite answer, for instance, where Freddie's remains are buried, she would give people's own versions. That leaves space for speculation and eliminates the I-know-it-all impression that people can have when authors offer too much information on a particular subject.

All in all I enjoyed immensely the book and I would recommend it to anyone. It's rather cheap, something that amazed me, since the biography written by Jim Hutton, Freddie's live-in boyfriend, seems not to be as good as this one... I also enjoyed it for the fact that it teaches us that people have a right to their privacy and spying on another person's life is not only intrusive, but on occasions it causes a lot of pain and damage. A lesson those tabloids like 'The Sun' prefer to forget in order to make a few more bob.

Lastly all I can say to Lesley Ann-Jones is that it's a short step between what she wrote and a script. Any ideas, Ann?


Interesting. Compassionate, but doesn't sanitise subject   April 21, 1999
 24 out of 24 found this review helpful

This is the only biography of Freddie Mercury I have read so I'm not an authority. However - I do have a deep-rooted interest so here goes. I felt that the author was really interested in her subject and had definitely done a good deal of research. I am pleased that she doesn't try and present him as an angel (which he clearly wasn't, bless him) and some less flattering anecdotes are included as pointers to show the reader what a pain in the neck he could be when he chose. At the same time, some quite endearing memories balance this up - and if you liked the man to start with then you'll definitely still like him when you've finished the book. I think really it could have benefitted from some better photographs as these are an odd collection, some from childhood, including some old-looking photos of the area where he was born in Zanzibar, and these to my mind are not particularly interesting. The slant of the book is, I believe, that of finding out who Freddie really was by means of charting his course through life - so I suppose these are relevant - but perhaps not very exciting if it was the outrageous banana-on-head wearing, leather-clad party animal image that had prompted you to buy the book. However, with regard to the narrative, she has a nice style, and is at no time is waspish or accusatory. She deals particularly well with an interview with Barbara Valentin, one of Freddie's closest friends. All in all, one of my favourites and a pretty good read.