“Certainly, close friends and acquaintances of Freddie, who knew him in his last years, testify to a man in many respects more placid and mature, I detected a change in him, whenever we ran into each other.

One night, he had gone to see his friend Peter Straker appearing in a play and he was wearing a beautiful suit and looked very elegant. He was so mellow. He wasn’t fighting for stardom and recognition because he already had those, he was peaceful. He was a charming, congenial man who enjoyed going to the theatre.

For me, he was a different person altogether and relaxed, perhaps not professionally but certainly personally. That time, I wasn’t meeting Freddie the rock star, but the sophisticated gentleman.”

(Tony Brainsby, early publicist for Queen)