Freddie Mercury: A World of His Own
artefacts are on display at Sotheby's from 4th August to 5th September 2023.
CAMP: "A cornucopia of frivolity, incongruity, theatricality, and humour." "A deadly, winking, sniggering, snuggling, chromium-plated, scent-impregnated, luminous, quivering, giggling, fruit-flavored, mincing, ice-covered heap of mother love." "The lie that tells the truth." "Ostentatious, exaggerated, affected, theatrical; effeminate or homosexual; pertaining to or characteristic of homosexuals."
Showing posts with label Freddie Mercury. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Freddie Mercury. Show all posts
Thursday, 3 August 2023
Wednesday, 2 September 2015
Three different faces, but in tight places, we think and we act as one
We bid a sad farewell on Monday to Joy Beverley, one third of Britain's favourite vocal harmony group the Beverley Sisters.
Facts:
- Born to parents who had a Music Hall act, Joy, together with her twin sisters Babs and Teddie, was helped on the way to fame and fortune with the support of none other than Glenn Miller.
- In the early 1950s, the Beverley Sisters were the highest paid female act in the UK, earning more than £700 a week at a time when the average weekly wage was £5; they were also the first British female group to break into the US top 10.
- The sisters (scarily) always appeared in public in identical matching outfits.
- Joy was one of the first "WAGs", famously marrying England football team captain Billy Wright in 1958, a move that led the trio into semi-retirement at the height of their fame.
- In the 1980s the Beverleys made a "camp comeback" of sorts, performing on the gay pub and variety club circuits.
- The sisters entered the Guinness Book Of Records in 2002, as the world's longest surviving vocal group without a change in the line up.
RIP Joy Beverley (born Joycelyn Chinery, 5th May 1924, died 30th August 2015)
FOOTNOTE
Such was the "camp icon" status of the girls, even Rod Stewart, Elton John and Freddie Mercury desired their "look":
[In 1978 the trio discussed] "...the possibility of the three of us forming a supergroup; the name we had in mind was Nose, Teeth & Hair, a tribute to each of our most remarked-upon physical attributes. The general idea was that we could appear dressed like the Beverley Sisters. Somehow this project never came to anything, which is contemporary music’s deep and abiding loss."
Sunday, 31 March 2013
Oh, to have been there that night...
Freddie Mercury, Cleo Rocos and Kenny Everett dressed Princess Diana in an army jacket, cap and sunglasses for a night out at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern gay pub in London in the late 1980s.
"When we walked in... we felt she was obviously Princess Diana and would be discovered at any minute. But people just seemed to blank her. She sort of disappeared. But she loved it," said Rocos, who co-starred in Everett's television show.
She said she did not know whether Diana was propositioned in the bar in her guise as a male model, but added: "She did look like a beautiful young man."
The presence of Mercury, Everett and Rocos diverted revellers' attention and Diana was able to order drinks undetected, Rocos recalled.
She made the claim her book The Power of Positive Drinking serialised in the Sunday Times.
Read my previous blog about The Kenny Everett Video Show
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)