10-27-2002 – The Express On Sunday – Freddie’s story

THE MOST flamboyant living rock star, Elton John, is to celebrate the most flamboyant deceased rock star, Freddie Mercury, by making a TV mini-series about his life. Elton’s film and TV production company, Rocket Pictures, is developing a biopic of Mercury for American TV, I can reveal. It will be an affectionate portrait of the Queen frontman, w ho died of an AIDS-related illness in 1991. It also has the blessing of the surviving band members.

Like Elton, Mercury was a showman famous for his excessive living and extravagant parties. His 39th birthday party, featuring trolls, ballerinas, transsexuals and dwarves, was the largest, costliest rock ‘n’ roll party in history – until Elton’s 50th that is. And like the Rocket Man singer, Mercury kept his homosexuality a secret for several years.

The pair were close friends, although their friendship remained strictly platonic.

“Freddie liked chubby men but he never propositioned me, ” Elton has said. They also indulged in massive cocaine binges together.

“We’d be up for nights, ” said Elton. “Queen would be about to catch a plane and Freddie would be like, ‘Another line, dear?'” Rocket Pictures is run by Elton’s partner David Furnish, an accomplished film-maker. His documentary Inside Versace was screened on Channel 4 last week.

A spokesman for Rocket confirmed the series was going ahead and shooting is expected to start next year. It’s a change of direction for the company, which has thus far concentrated on feature films. Its first movie, Women Talking Dirty, with Helena Bonham Carter, opened last year and it is developing an animation of the Just So Stories.