Even the biggest Queen fan would be forgiven if they hadn’t heard of Mary Austin before.
Freddie Mercury’s "common-law" wife is an extremely private woman, but has been thrown back into the limelight thanks to Bohemian Rhapsody, the new biopic starring Rami Malek.
The film follows the story of Queen from their origins to Live Aid, but mostly focuses on lead singer Mercury and his love life, career and struggles.
Mercury’s sexuality is well documented. He was a well know ‘gay singer’, but things were more complex than that – there was Mary.
"All my lovers asked me why they couldn’t replace Mary, but it’s simply impossible," Mercury once said.
"The only friend I’ve got is Mary, and I don’t want anybody else. To me, she was my common-law wife. To me, it was a marriage.
“We believe in each other. That’s enough for me. I couldn’t fall in love with a man the same way as I have with Mary.”
Mercury and Mary’s romance was a close one, he even left her half of his £75m estate, including his West London mansion where he died from Aids-related pneumonia in 1991.
They dated, and despite splitting up, remained friends until his death. He even proposed to her.
Mary, played by Lucy Boynton in the movie, wasn’t involved in the making of the biopic, but is said to have given her approval.
For a man who once said: “I’ll sleep with anything — man, woman or cat," this may come as a surprise to Mercury’s fans.
But Mary stood apart from the ‘rock life-style’. She was a sweet, working-class girl, brought up by her deaf parents and loyal to the end.
Critics have accused the movie of "straightwashing", but Mercury and Mary’s relationship was real – if undefined – and more complicated than that.
How did Mary and Freddie Mercury meet?
The couple met in 1969, five years after Freddie, 24, moved to England.
He had just finished art college and Mary, 19, was working in fashion boutique, Biba.
In the Freddie Mercury: The Untold Story (2000) documentary, Brian May said he and Mercury frequented the shop to peek at the "gorgeous" employees.
One of the girls was Mary, who May actually took on a date before she dated Mercury.
Mercury routinely visited over five months, until he finally asked her out.
Within another five months they were living together in a flat near Kensington Market, where Freddie had his clothes stall with fellow band member Roger Taylor.
It was when Queen took off that things started to change.
The celebrity life and fame was a far cry from Mary’s early life. Her father was a wallpaper trimmer, her mother a domestic servant.
Freddie – who had changed his name from Farrokh Bulsara – was focused on his rock career, which was something Mary had to compete with. He moved to Liverpool without her to join a band called Ibex, then later, when he joined Queen, he jetted around the world on tour.
All throughout their relationship Mary acted as a sort of buffer for Freddie. While he was camp on and off stage their relationship meant his sexuality wasn’t really questioned. He even dedicated his song Love of My Life to her.
But he continued to dodge and avoid questions of a personal nature in interviews.
Then, in 1973, he proposed.
Mary said: “I was speechless. I remember thinking, ‘I don’t understand what’s going on’. It wasn’t what I’d expected at all.”
The pair never got beyond the engagement though, Freddie never set a date and he ignored her questions and hints.
Freddie was faithful at first, but his attraction to men couldn’t be ignored for long and he began to sleep with people without her knowing.
Mary has said she had her suspicions, but never had the courage to confront him. She has previously said it was the last two years of their relationship that she felt things had got wrong – shortly after the band joined John Reid Enterprises.
Mercury was "avoiding situations" according to Mary, and she would sense when he was feeling bad about things. "I knew this man was not one with himself," she explained.
In 1976, things came to a head. Queen was an international name, and Freddie was at his peak.
The moment is included in Bohemian Rhapsody, when Mary and Freddie have a conversation his behaviour.
"I think I’m bisexual" he says. "No Freddie, you’re gay" Mary replies.
The scene has jarred for some, adding to criticism of how Freddie’s sexuality is treated, but they are the exact words that were said at the time.
"I’ll never forget that moment. I remember saying to him, ‘No Freddie, I don’t think you are bisexual. I think you are gay’" Mary said.
In the movie Freddie impresses upon her how important she is, that he wants her in his life: "We believe in each other," he says.
While their relationship was over, their love for each other wasn’t.
"I couldn’t fall in love with a man the same way as I have with Mary," Mercury is quoted as saying.
Mary moved into a flat nearby that Mercury’s company bought her for £300,000.
Freddie, now alone, was free to start up a string of relationships with a series of men.
His infamous sex parties are touched on in the film but they were more intense and more debauched than what is shown.
Male groupies walked around naked, dwarves and nude models were covered in chopped raw liver, champagne flowed and cocaine was snorted.
Freddie was, at this point, using cocaine and drinking bottle after bottle of vodka bottle every day.
His moods became temperamental but Mary stood by him. She even worked for his management company, booking hotels and limos for the band as they toured.
When Freddie dabbled in LSD and Heroin, Mary helped him kick the habit.
While Mary seems to have accepted the way things were, she was said to have asked Freddie to give her a child when they rekindled their romance in 1982.
“I still love you, but I can’t make love to you," he said. "I’d rather have another cat."
Mary now had a son by another lover, called Richard. Mercury became his godfather.
They were still close, but their relationship was even more complex.
Mercury had a series of other female lovers including Barbara Valentine, former Drifters singer Fay Treadwell, Mary Martin and Jo Burt.
None came close to Mary.
"Ours is a pure friendship but friendship of the highest standard," said Mercury at the time. "It’s an instinctive thing. I still love her. We’ll probably grow old together."
But while things were good between Mary and Mercury, he was hiding something. He was already infected by HIV.
There was no treatment for Aids at the time, and Freddie had bedded hundreds of people.
He was diagnosed in 1987.
What we don’t see in the biopic is that Mary was told about his diagnosis, in the worse way possible.
After numerous failed attempts at contacting Mercury, his doctors contacted Mary to share the alarming news – he was HIV positive.
"I felt my heart fall," Mary said.
By 1991 he knew he didn’t have long left, so he signed a will laying out half of his estate to the ever-loyal Mary. The rest went to his family.
His friends, including his lover Jim Hutton, were given £500,000 or a house.
It was that November, 24 hours after releasing a statement about the disease, that Mercury died of bronchopneumonia.
He died with Mary by his side, grasping his hand and whispering how she loved him.
“I lost my family, really, when Freddie died," she said later. "He was everything to me, apart from my sons. He was like no one I had met before.”
It led to one of the biggest secrets in showbiz.
Freddie, who was 45 at the time of his death, had asked Mary to secretly scatter his ashes and to never disclose the location, not even to his family.
No one knows where she took his urn, though fans have speculated – some say it’s Kensal Green Cemetery where there’s a plaque with his name on or by a cherry tree in their garden.
Mary has never said and never broken her promise.
Life after Freddie wasn’t easy for Mary either.
Her relationship with the rest of Queen was reportedly strained. Mary says this was down to jealousy as Freddie left her half his estate.
In 2013, she told the Daily Mail: "[Freddie had] warned me that the house was going to be more of a challenge than I realised. I’m grateful he did because I hit jealousy head on – like a Japanese bullet train. Very painful.
"I don’t think the remaining members of Queen have ever reconciled themselves to it. I don’t understand it. Because to me it’s bricks and mortar. I try never to be jealous or envy people."
Where is Mary now?
Mary went on to have other relationships, she chose not to marry painter Piers Cameron, who she had two children with, but married Nick Holford, who she later divorced.
Now 67-years-old, she lives a private life away from the public eye in the mansion Freddie left her – the ‘love of his life’.
Their love story has – until now – remained relatively out of the public eye, until now.
Bohemian Rhapsody thrusts it back to the forefront of Mercury’s story, painting Mary as his muse and true friend. One thing is for sure, while hard to define, their love for one another was undeniable.
Bohemian Rhapsody is out in cinemas now.
Source: Read Full Article