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As a result of the publicity over OTT, we were invited to perform at Freddie Mercury's fortieth birthday party. He was then one of the biggest international pop stars. We went to Club Xenon in Piccadilly, London, and were in a dressing room the size of a large cupboard with another twelve acts. A Russian acrobat went on first, then a midget, then a mime act and then us.
There was a high window in the door of our dressing room and we had to hold up the midget to find out what was happening in the main club, because the organisers wouldn't let us come out of the dressing room to see all the famous people�: Freddie Mercury, Elton John, Rod Stewart, Princess Margareth.
We were all ready to go on, naked, when Freddie Mercury's manager appeared and said, 'You can't do the act'.
But at page 215 you can read too�:
While I was writing this book, I took part in an episode of a Radio 4 series called 'Sentimental Journeys'. After the broadcast, the producer received a letter from a listener, which he passed on to me.
It's good to be remembered!
'What do you mean�?' we asked. 'Why not�?'
'We don't want you to go on' he said.
'Why not�?'
'We don't want Freddie Mercury to be associated with anything that might be considered gay' he said.
'But we are not a gay act', I said. 'And, anyway, he is gay. He's got a pink suit on. The band's called Queen'.
The manager looked at me.
'It doesn't matter', I said. 'I don't care. But he
They wouldn't let us do the Balloon Dance, but they paid us anyway and we pocketed � 600. I said to the manager, 'Can we at least go to the party�?'
'No', he said. 'Not until Freddie's cut the cake'.
A few minutes later, a big pink cake was wheeled into the club. It was about twelve feet long and shaped like a Rolls-Royce with an FM-1 number-plate. They brought it in and laid it across three tables. Freddie Mercury posed with a knife for the photographers and stabbed at it. Then he buggered off into some other room. I said,�'Can we go to the party now�?'
Yes, we were told, we could go to the party - but we couldn't go to the bit where all the Stars were. I started to feel bitter. I had wanted to do the Balloon Dance. I couldn't. I had wanted to meet all the Stars. I couldn't. We ended up in this big room, where there were a load of hangers-on just hanging on and a pint of beer cost about three quid. I said to the other two, 'Let's fuck off.'
As we walked along the corridor towards the door, we saw Freddie Mercury's birthday cake. 'We'll have that�!', I said. Se we lifted it - heavy�! - up a few stairs and put it in the back of our van. We pushed it in as far as we could but about four feet of it stuck out of the back. I had to drive from Xenon in the West End all the way home to South East London with that cake sticking out of the back of the van. I lived in a top-floor flat and, when we got to my place, we couldn't even get it through the front door of the house. We decided to take it round to Martin's�: he lived on the ground floor. But the cake wouldn't fit through his door either and we had to take out his window.
At nine the next morning Louis Parker rang up. 'You bastards�! You've stolen Freddie Mercury's birthday cake�! It's worth four thousand and they've told the police.'
'Oh dear�!' I said. I was genuinely worried, especially with my record, but Martin's bright and he's a good lateral thinker. It was coming up to Christmas so he said, 'We'll give it to a local old people's home. Old folks like cake.'
We phoned up the Ranyard Memorial Nursing Home and offered them a big cake and they said they'd have it. Then, same thing in reverse. Window out. Cake in the back of the Luton transit. We drove off, gave the cake to the old people and I went back to my house and had a well-deserved sleep.
At about four that afternoon, two CID officers came to my door and said, 'You've nicked Freddie Mercury's birthday cake.'
'I haven't,' I said. 'Honestly.'
So then - and this is God's honest truth - they came into my house and crawled around the floor with magnifying glasses searching for crumbs. To this day, I haven't been caught.
I was very interested in the last episode with Malcolm Hardee in which he talked about the 40th birthday party for Freddie Mercury. His explanation of what happened to the cake has helped to clear up a mystery for me.
At the time of this party I was working as a chef in a Michelin-rated restaurant in Covent Garden, the Boulestin. The chefs at the Boulestin used to help out on occasion with the catering at Xenon, a night-club in Piccadilly. We were doing the catering on the evening of Mr Mercury's birthday party.
After Freddie Mercury had posed for photos with a knife held over the pink Rolls cake it was removed to the kitchen. We were then told to cut and serve just a small portions to the guests as the rest was going to be auctioned the next day for charity. After we had served the cake we moved it to the corridor, where it was cooler, and balanced it on the backs of two chairs.
It was some time later we found it gone, but assumed it had been removed for the auction. We didn't realise it had been stolen until the following Monday when the police turned up at the restaurant to ask questions to which we had no answers�!
I was glad to hear it went to a good home.
Two final points. The cake was only decorated on one side as it was delivered to me at Xenon undecorated, twenty minutes before it was presented, and after Malcolm had been told he could not do his act with balloons, two 'local' girls were found along with a lot of jelly and a plastic swimming pool�!
Yours faithfully,
Simon Gibbs.
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