FREDDIE MERCURY. This Wednesday, December 1, M6 broadcasts the film “Bohemian Rhapsody” on the occasion of the world day of the fight against AIDS and the thirty years of the disappearance of Freddie Mercury. The opportunity to return to the singer’s only marriage to Mary Austin.
[Mis à jour le 1er décembre 2021 à 19h10] This Wednesday, December 1, is World AIDS Day. Moreover, it’s been thirty years since Freddie Mercury disappeared. This is why M6 broadcasts this evening, at 9:05 p.m., the film released in 2018 Bohemian rhapsody, directed by Bryan Singer. This biopic looks back on the only marriage of Freddie Mercury, played by Rami Malek, with Mary Austin.
The couple first met in 1969 in a London store. Mary Austin was 19 at the time and was a sales assistant in this fashion store. Freddie Mercury is 24 years old. The couple will remain together six years, but Mary Austin will remain with her former husband until his death in 1991. It was she who hesitated from her home in Garden Lodge, London, estimated at 23 million euros.
Since her marriage to Freddie Mercury, Mary Austin has remarried twice and had two sons. Daughter of a housekeeper and an upholsterer, the one who grew up in a modest environment will also have been given the mission to disperse the ashes of the former leader of Queen in a place remained secret.
The film Bohemian rhapsody met with great success, despite the forced departure of the director, replaced by Dexter Fletcher two weeks before the end of filming, but also by some errors pointed out by Queen fans and wise observers.
Because if this feature film, which traces the fate of the legendary group and its singer, the latter is embodied by Rami Malek, created the event upon its release, it also surprised by some scriptwriting liberties taken by its creators. giving the screen rough approximations. Here are a few :
- The arrival of Freddie Mercury in Queen, which only happened after Tim Staffel left, despite several requests from the future leader of the group. A period reduced to a few simple minutes in Bohemian rhapsody.
- Several characters in the film have seen their roles changed, such as John Deacon who was Queen’s fourth bassist and not the first, or Ray Foster, who was actually invented for him.
- Freddie Mercury doesn’t have brown eyes, but blue eyes.
- The Queen singer only sported a mustache in 1980, not when he was composing We will rock you.
- Queen’s separation has never been official.
- Freddie Mercury discovered that he had AIDS two years after the legendary Live Aid and not before this show as it is told in the film. The Queen frontman did not publicly reveal that he was HIV positive two days before his death on November 22, 1991.
- Jim Hutton, boyfriend of Freddie Mercury has never worked for the singer.
This is a first on French television: the screening of the film Bohemian rhapsody on M6, this Wednesday, December 1, 2021 from 9:05 p.m. The opportunity for viewers to see or re-watch this feature film retracing the fate of the group Queen and its charismatic singer, Freddie Mercury.
Because in spite of the approximations and the criticisms of the press or the fans of Queen, Bohemian rhapsody It was a huge hit when it was released in 2018. The film, carried by a Rami Malek making everyone agree, attracted 4.3 million spectators and won four Oscars: Best actor, Best editing, best sound editing and best mixing sound. Bohemian rhapsody, also named in the category of best film, becomes the highest-grossing musical biographical film in history.
Who was Freddie Mercury’s wife?
Another aspect mentioned in the film Bohemian rhapsody, that of his little-known relationship with the one who will become his only wife. In 1970, Freddie Mercury met Mary Austin in a London clothing store. He begins a romantic relationship with the young woman. Four years after their meeting, the singer proposed to her. Despite this union, the leader of the group Queen maintains other relationships. His marriage to Mary Austin ends a few years later, due to his attraction to men.
The legendary singer of the Queen group, Freddie Mercury, whose real name is Farrokh Bulsara was born in Zanzibar in 1946. Passionate about music, he joined his first rock group, The Hectics. After his studies, he joined the group Smile and renamed it Queen in 1970. Farrokh Bulsara then took the nickname of Freddie Mercury. The group becomes a legendary group and meets international success. He died in 1991 of pneumonia, weakened by AIDS.
Farrokh Bulsara was therefore born on September 5, 1946 in Tanzania. Son of expatriate civil servants, he has a younger sister, Kashmira. In 1953, his parents sent him to continue his studies in India. Freddie Mercury is gifted in school and has a passion for sports and music. He began to take piano lessons and joined the school choir.
In 1958, Freddie joined the first music group, The Hectics, in his high school. The group takes up the rock’n’roll pieces of the time, like Elvis Presley. Freddie’s family then had to leave for the United Kingdom in the 1960s. He quickly developed a passion for singers such as Jimi Hendrix, Elvis Presley or John Lennon. He entered Ealing Art College in London in 1966 and graduated 3 years later.
During his studies, Freddie Mercury met young men who played in a music group called Ibex. He finally follows the group to do some performances and appears for the first time as a singer on August 23, 1969. A few months later, the group is renamed Wreckage. Freddie then writes the pieces of the group, until its separation for lack of representations.
After having made a rapid passage within the group Sour Milk Sea, Freddie dreams of being part of a music group that he has supervised for several years: Smile. His singer, Tim Staffell, had heard of Freddie’s growing interest in his band, and offered to replace him in 1970. Freddie accepted, seeing his dream come true. He renames the group Queen, and invents a new family name: Freddie Mercury. These are the debut of the legendary rock group.
The legendary rock group was formed in 1970 with Freddie Mercury, Brian May and Roger Taylor. The following year, John Deacon joined the quartet as bassist. In 1974, the group released a first album, eponymous, Queen. Initially, the style of the group is not unanimous. It wasn’t until 1975, with the album A night at the Opera that the group is propelled to the front of the stage, carried by the tube Bohemain rhapsody. Queen finds global success thanks to titles We are the champions and We will rock you.
The success of the group becomes international, Queen brings together a crowd of more than 130,000 people for a concert in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The group connects the tubes: Somebody To Love, I Want To Break Free, Don’t stop me now, A Kind Of Magic… In 1985, Queen performed at Live Aid at Wembley Stadium. Their performance is seen as “the greatest live performance of all time”. At the same time as his career with Queen, Freddie Mercury performed solo from 1985. He notably released the album Barcelona in duet with Catalan soprano Montserrat Caballé.
In 1987, his doctor told Freddie Mercury that he had AIDS. He decided to record his last songs with the group Queen at the beginning of the 90s. He made a last public appearance at the Brit Awards on February 20, 1990 and was awarded as the best English group of the 1980s. In his music video I’m Going Slightly Mad, we see him very emaciated. The singer does not communicate about his illness, but the rumor is circulating. The group denies. On November 23, 1991, Freddie Mercury is at its worst. His doctor, Gordon Atkinson, therefore decides to announce to the media that the singer has AIDS. He died on November 24, at the age of 45, weakened by pneumonia.
After the death of Freddie Mercury, the remaining members of Queen, Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon founded the Mercury Phoenix Trust, a charity that fights AIDS around the world. In 1992, they organized the Freddie Mercury Tribute, a charity concert to raise funds for AIDS research.
In 1992, Freddie Mercury was honored for “outstanding contribution to British music” posthumously at the Brit Awards. On November 21, 1996, a statue in memory of Freddie Mercury was inaugurated in Switzerland facing Lake Geneva. The singer and friend of the singer, Montserrat Caballé unveils the sculpture.