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Authors: Pamela Des Barres

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Eddie Cochran died at St. Martin’s Hospital on Easter Sunday from multiple head injuries. Some reports say that he lived sixteen hours. “He lived for eight hours,” says Sharon. “I kept going in and out [of consciousness] asking ‘How is he?’ ‘His condition hasn’t changed, it hasn’t changed, it hasn’t changed.’ At four o‘clock this stranger walked in my room, took my hand, and said, ‘I’m very sorry. He passed away.’ It’s not like in the movies,” she sobs. “You don’t scream. The scream is so deep in your guts that it won’t come out of your own throat.” Sharon starts to cry. “I remember like it was yesterday, and I want to say, ‘What do you mean he just passed away, for Christ’s sake?’ He was the kindest, most wonderful friend—not fiancé, not lover. He was my best friend and he just
passed away.
I wouldn’t accept that, but then I felt this chilling breeze go through the room. They pronounced me dead for four minutes, and I remember thinking, Oh God, this feels so good, but then I had to come back into this body that hurt and this heart that hurt.”
I ask sister Pat to recall how she heard the dreadful news. “Oh gosh, Pam,” she begins, “I remember that like it was yesterday. It was Easter Sunday. I got up and turned on the radio and the first thing I heard was Eddie Cochran was in a horrible accident, but they didn’t say he was dead. I called my brother Bill but he hadn’t heard anything, so I said, ‘I’m heading out to Mom’s. We were
all getting together that day—Eddie was coming home. By the time I got there, they had heard he was dead. The family never was the same. I always thought my family was invincible until that happened.” With thirty-five-year-old tears in her voice, Pat finds it hard to continue. “If I don’t expect it and turn on the radio and hear Eddie, it’s funny how it still affects me. But it’s part of life and you have to learn to live with it. I think if he had lived longer, Elvis would have had to move over a little bit.”
Gene Ridgio weeps when recalling that Easter Sunday. “That was it,” he admits. “The bottom fell out. I gotta tell you, dear, there’s still a void there. When I talk about him, it brings it back.” He sniffles. “He was too young. I don’t think he deserved to die that way.”
“Sometimes you wonder just how God is working,” says big brother Bill. “You have to take it and live through it, or you can drive yourself crazy.” He says with obvious difficulty, “I wrote a letter to Eddie. Maybe you can get a copy of that.” I called the Albert Lea Historical Society and they sent me a copy of Bill’s letter:
Dear Brother … You were my buddy and constant companion … . I remember I would lay beside you at “nap time” and hum, sing or whistle to the records “Beer Barrel Polka” or “Hot Pretzels.” You would hold my thumb and calmly go to sleep … . Just before I went into the service in 1942, I bought a guitar. You promised to take care of it while I was gone. I received letters from home saying how you would dust it off every day. Maybe this is when you took your first interest in the guitar … . Remember how you would confide in me about your problems, your hopes for your future and many things? Remember our last get-together just before your fatal tour to England? I will always feel honored and will cherish your love for me … . May the angels in heaven softly hum the “Beer Barrel Polka” as you rest in peace, baby brother … . Bill
When I ask Gloria about Eddie’s funeral, it’s hard for her to talk about it. “There was quite a few people there, but we didn’t publicize it,” she says softly, then, “Maybe we could go out and see the plaque.” But Ed is concerned about the condition of the gravestone. “The plaque isn’t very clean right now,” he reminds Gloria. I suggest we clean it off. Ed says he can pick up some cleaning fluid at Forest Lawn, and we head out to the neighboring town of Cypress. As we listen to Eddie wail, Gloria tells me her baby brother was one of the first to be interred. “They had just opened the cemetery up,” she says wistfully.
When I ask Jerry Capehart how Eddie’s death affected him, he chokes up. “It’s still very, very hard to talk about it.” After pulling himself back together, he says, “I just want to tell the truth, let the chips fall where they may. I was
the one who took him to the airport. None of his family went to see him off. None of ‘em. I’m the one who said good-bye to him. When he came home in that pine box, guess what? None of them were there to meet him. Not a one of ’em.”
As we walk through clumps of flowers in various stages of dying, Ed wielding a rag and some fluid, it’s hard for me to fathom what Capehart has told me. He’s got to be mistaken. “He’s over there,” says Gloria, pointing through some trees, and soon Ed is down on his knees scrubbing the bronze plaque honoring his uncle Eddie. Was it fun having a famous uncle? I ask. “Yeah, but I didn’t really think of him that way,” he says, scrubbing in earnest, his face getting red. “He was the older brother I never had.” I sense this is extremely painful for these simple people, and I’m just about moved to tears myself. “Before I ever thought about having Ed,” Gloria says, “Eddie asked me one day, ‘If you ever have a boy, will you name him after me? And he was so happy that I did.” Ed is holding back a sob. Gloria isn’t as successful. When Ed pulls away the weeds and shines up the bronze, I see a lovely plaque of Eddie holding his beloved Gretsch, and a touching tribute poem, written by brother Bob, who died of cirrhosis in 1978.
Heavenly music filled the air
That very tragic day
Something seemed to be missing tho’
So I heard the creator say:
“We need a master guitarist and singer
I know of but one alone
His name is Eddie Cochran
I think I’ll call him home.
 
“I know the folks on earth won’t mind
For they will understand
That the lord loves perfection
Now we’ll have a perfect band.”
 
So as we go through life: now we know
That perfection is our goal:
And we strive for this.
So when we are called,
We’ll feel free to go.
We head back to Bernice Circle so I can finally see Eddie’s legendary Gretsch and his .45 Buntline. I can hardly wait.
As I clumsily handle the cherished .45, trying to pick up the original owner’s vibe, I swear I can feel Eddie laughing at me. Does Gloria ever sense
the nearness of her baby brother? “I feel him pretty near all the time. I do,” she states with conviction. “Mother used to tell me that she would dream about him, that he was in the front room. It may sound silly, but for a long time you could walk in his room and it was just like he was right there with you. It was really something.” Ed comes into the room with the aging guitar case, opens it to reveal that vibrant orange Gretsch, and I realize my heart is beating fast. I pick the instrument up and it’s light as a feather. I want to hold it like Eddie did, to touch the strings. I put the original hand-tooled “Eddie Cochran” leather strap over my head and pretend I can play. For a brief moment in time I really do feel the presence of Eddie Cochran. I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and look up to see Ed and Gloria smiling at me.
Eddie Cochran took his Bible with him everywhere he went, says his sister Gloria, and written in Eddie’s handwriting on the inside cover, after the phrase “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son … ,” were the words “And Eddie Cochran.”
Eddie’s gravestone—a tribute from brother Bob. (COURTESY OF GLORIA JULSON)
FREDDIE MERCURY
F
reddie Mercury—Queen’s highly eccentric, outlandish diva-dervish front man—was the first major rock star to die of AIDS. After fifteen years of voluptuous, luxurious hedonism, Freddie startled those near and dear by becoming a virtual recluse, rarely leaving his divinely decadent six-million-dollar Kensington mansion, preferring the company of his beloved cats to carousing in London’s finest darkened dens of iniquity.
For several years the buzzing rumors invaded Freddie’s
very
private mystique, but he didn’t announce his dire affliction until twenty-four hours before his death on November 24, 1991. “Following the enormous conjecture in the press,” his final statement read, “I wish to confirm that I have AIDS. I felt it correct to keep this information private to date in order to protect the privacy of those around me. However, the time has now come for my friends and fans around the world to know the truth, and I hope that everyone will join me and my doctors and all those worldwide in the fight against this terrible disease.”
The son of devout followers of the Zoroastrian religion, young Farokh Bulsara grew up on the exotic, idyllic, friendly islands of Zanzibar and Pemba,
which lie in the Indian Ocean off the east coast of Africa. He attended boarding school in Bombay, where he studied piano and was exposed to the classics and opera, which would later become the oddly eclectic inspiration for Queen’s ornate, bombastic compositions. But when the family relocated to London in 1959, Farokh (Freddie in English) was teased by the British kids for his dusky skin, protruding front teeth, and clipped colonial accent. The only subject he showed any interest in was art, and at nineteen joined the throng of hip, swinging London teens heading to Ealing Art College, where Who maestro Pete Townshend had recently gotten his Mod band together.
Obsessed with Jimi Hendrix, skinny, velvet-clad Freddie painted copious pictures of his hero, his favorite showing the guitar god as an eighteenth-century fashionable dandy. A classmate recalls that Freddie was prone to the giggles. “When that happened, he would put his hand right over his mouth to cover up those huge teeth of his.” A female student remembers Freddie’s shyness. “I can’t remember him being particularly popular with girls. Freddie only stood out because he was one of only two boys in our class. He was terribly quiet and unassuming.”
Shyness aside, moody, mercurial Freddie gave himself the last name “Mercury” after the mythological messenger of the gods, and sang for two different bands before joining Smile with former dentistry student Roger Taylor and physics student Brian May. Although Freddie and Brian May had lived one hundred yards from each other for eleven years, the two didn’t meet until the group got together! After going through six bassists, the band finally settled on John Deacon as their fourth member in 1971. Freddie then bravely christened the band “Queen.” Years later he told
Rolling Stone,
“It was a very strong name, very universal and very immediate; it had a lot of visual potential and was open to all sorts of interpretations. I was certainly aware of the gay connotations, but that was just one facet of it.”
Shopping for outrageous androgynous garb, Freddie met petite blonde Mary Austin at the super-trendy London boutique Biba, and they lived together for the next seven years. Mary encouraged Freddie’s dramatic flair by teaching him how to tease his hair and apply makeup. She painted his fingernails black, helping to create his tarty early Queen image. Even after Freddie came to terms with his gayness and their romantic relationship was long over, Mary and Freddie remained amazingly close, and when they stopped living together, Freddie bought her a beautiful flat a few minutes from his new home. Their unusual relationship raised eyebrows through the years, but as Freddie lay dying, Mary kept a constant bedside vigil, and it was she who broke the news of Freddie’s death to his distraught parents.
In 1974 Queen’s third release on EMI,
Sheer Heart Attack,
included the first of many melodic monster smashes, “Killer Queen,” followed by the groundbreaking album
A Night at the Opera.
(The permission notice from Groucho Marx read: “I am very pleased that you have named one of your albums after
my film and that you are being successful. I would be very happy for you to call your next one after my latest film,
The Greatest Hits of the Rolling Stones.”
The album’s first single, a seven-minute operatic innovation entitled “Bohemian Rhapsody,” topped the U.K. charts for nine weeks—the longest run since Paul Anka crooned “Diana” back in 1957. The band spent many weeks in the studio with producer Roy Thomas Baker, during which time the song escalated into a grandiose operetta with more than 180 voices while still retaining a ripping rock feel. Despite the critics’ disparaging remarks about pretentious overproduction, “Rhapsody” brought Freddie and Queen to the forefront of the music industry. When the band missed a spot on an important British rock show, “Top of the Pops,” they made a film of themselves singing the song instead, starting a powerful new trend in the music industry—promotional videos.
Delighting pop audiences with their ingenious musical hat tricks, Queen followed with another album titled after a Marx Brothers film,
A Day at the Races,
a multilayered, hit-filled extravaganza. Then the band’s next album,
News of the World,
went platinum in America due to two bravura tracks, “We Are the Champions” and “We Will Rock You,” which became instant anthems in spite of the burgeoning anti-everything punk movement. When Sex Pistol Sid Vicious came across Freddie at Wessex Recording Studios, spewing vitriol and venom (“So you’re this Freddie Platinum bloke that’s supposed to be bringing ballet to the masses”), Freddie had an unruffled response: “Ah, Mr. Ferocious, we’re trying our best, dear.”
While the Pistols punished their audiences, Queen gave their fans royal pomp and pageantry and held lavish, bacchanalian bashes. Decked out in satin catsuits slit to the waist to reveal a froth of chest hair, fur coats, ballet pumps, and skimpy short shorts, Freddie Mercury epitomized the unstoppable rock-and-roll showman. With twinkling eyes, he once told a journalist with glee, “I like a nice frock.” He was a constant eye-catching vision.
The release party for Queen’s fourth album,
Jazz,
was held in New Orleans and featured voluptuous strippers who smoked cigarettes with their vaginas, a dozen black-faced minstrels, dwarfs, snake charmers, and several bosomy blondes who stunned party revelers by peeling off their flimsy costumes to reveal that they were, in fact, well-endowed men. And for the concert launch of
Jazz,
Queen employed fifty naked girls to cruise Wimbledon Stadium on bicycles.
Freddie’s campy madcap birthday parties lasted for days and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, featuring fireworks, flamenco dancers, ladies-of-the-night on the house, pills, powders, and vats of the finest alcohol. He once flew eighty friends first class to a Manhattan penthouse suite, where they consumed fifty thousand dollars’ worth of champagne and took copious amounts of drugs, heralding the birth of their most generous rock-star friend. Their host, Freddie Mercury, loved to party and was always on the lookout for Mr. Right (or Mr. Right Now!).
Certainly Freddie’s nearest and dearest knew he was gay—a fact he never divulged to the outside world, though speculation was always rampant. A man who didn’t like to be alone, Freddie had hundreds of flings and many affairs. On tour he reveled in his stardom, heading directly from headlining stadiums to the town’s gay area, which brought innumerable opportunities for wham-bang sexual encounters. He enjoyed straightforward, uncomplicated, and sometimes rough sex—and lots of it—but often complained of loneliness, especially at night. He enjoyed the idea of a true-blue relationship, but was unable to remain committed for very long. “I’ll go to bed with anything,” he told a friend, “and my bed is so huge it can comfortably sleep six. I prefer my sex without any involvement. There are times when I just lived for sex.” He found New York especially titillating. “When I am there I just slut myself,” he said. “It is Sin City with a capital S.”
And the man loved to shop. “I love to spend, spend, spend,” he admitted. “After all, that’s what money is there for.” Freddie could spend more in mere moments than many people made in a lifetime. Cartier jewelers in London would stay open after hours so the pop star could shop for gems and gold in peace. He collected Lalique glass and works by Victorian masters and by Russian painter Marc Chagall, but his all-time favorites were Japanese woodcuts. On one short trip to Japan he dropped $375,000 on art and antiques. Freddie’s exquisite twenty-eight-room mansion took almost five years to complete and was a masterwork of taste and extravagance. His ornate bedroom included a balcony with Romanesque columns surrounding his gargantuan bed. Above the bed, which had to be hoisted up to the top floor by a crane, was an immense domed roof hiding hundreds of colored lights designed to change the bedroom’s atmosphere to match Freddie’s moods. “I’m fortunate enough to be rich,” he confessed. “Sometimes I believe the only bit of happiness I can create is with my money.” In the year of his death Freddie created happiness for ten of his friends, spending over a million and a half dollars on homes for them.
Freddie Mercury dressed like a naughty housewife for Queen’s “I Want to Break Free” video. (SL/LONDON FEATURES INTERNATIONAL)
In the early eighties, when Freddie exchanged his long locks and androgynous
frocks for the macho-man mustachioed leather look, some of Queen’s fans turned on him: Razor blades were hurled onto the stage in protest. But Freddie was attracted to the rough, beefcake kind of man he emulated. When he noticed somebody staring at the bulge in his skintight trousers, he would say, “That’s all my own work. There’s not a Coke bottle stuffed down there or anything.” The backlash was inflamed in 1984 when Freddie dressed as a big-breasted woman for the video “I Want to Break Free.” Still he disputed press reports that he was homosexual. Some of his friends believe Freddie didn’t want to hurt his deeply religious parents; others feel that, as a brilliant businessman, he didn’t want to chance losing his fans with the revelation.
Queen’s image was further tarnished when they played Sun City in South Africa, breaking the cultural boycott against the racist regime. Though the band stated that they were antiapartheid, the damage had been done in the United States. Still, Queen was massive in other parts of the world, breaking attendance records all over South America and Asia. And in that summer of 1985, when the band took the stage at the Live Aid concert, two billion people were awestruck. “The concert may have come out of a terrible human tragedy,” Freddie said that day, “but we wanted to make it a joyous occasion.” The newspaper headlines reflected the crowd’s reaction: QUEEN ARE KING! The show’s organizer, Bob Geldof, concurred: “Queen were absolutely the best band of the day, whatever your personal preference.”
But sometime in 1985 Freddie must have found out he had AIDS. He stopped carousing and became more guarded than ever, spending a lot of time at home with close confidants. Queen’s final concert was at Knebworth Park in 1986, though Freddie continued to write and record until six weeks before his death. He even collaborated with Spanish opera diva Montserrat Caballe, which resulted in another hit album,
Barcelona,
in 1988.
The AIDS rumors started after Freddie had a blood test at a Harley Street clinic, which he vehemently denied. “Does it look as if I’m dying?” He told reporters that his nights of crazy partying had come to an end because he was forty years old, finally growing up, and “no longer a spring chicken.” In spite of his pale and haggard appearance, his Queen colleagues also kept up the facade. The band members weren’t even told of Freddie’s illness until a few months before his death. After he collected an award with Queen in 1990, standing back meekly as Brian May made the acceptance speech, Freddie Mercury sightings became rare indeed.
Nine months before his death, a pale and ravaged Freddie turned up at Wembley TV studios to work on a video for the band’s newest single, “I’m Going Slightly Mad.” The crew were told that the singer was having problems with his knee and would have to “take it easy.” A bed was installed in his dressing room, guarded by two security men. Freddie disguised his facial sores with thick white stage makeup and donned a black fright wig, plumping up his emaciated body by wearing clothing under his black suit. He wasn’t fooling anybody.
During his final months, Freddie was taken care of by his former girlfriend, Mary Austin. Though his doctors tried to comfort him, Freddie suffered from pneumonia, severe body aches, Kaposi’s sarcoma, and bouts of blindness. He used painkillers constantly but never complained of the pain. Many of his intimates came and went as the months went by, but it was only Dave Clark, former sixties idol and dear friend, who was by his bedside at the end. “He didn’t say anything. He just went to sleep and passed on. It was very peaceful. He was a rare person, as unique as a painting. I know he has gone to a much better place.”
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