I’m not sure who to thank on Tumblr, (please come forward with receipts so I can give you credit and proper gratitude!), but it was through there that I learned that Thor Arnold and Lee Nolan released a coffee table book about their friendship with Freddie!
This is not my first Queen-related impulse purchase, but it’s probably the only one so far that doesn’t have a slight bit of guilt and regret attached to it. But my thinking was to get it ASAP because these things tend to get REALLY expensive once they go out of print, and then stop being available altogether, and I wanted to avoid that.
Thor and Lee (christened ‘Kathleen’ by Freddie) don’t go super in-depth about anything that would be considered a gross invasion of his privacy, but instead have written vignettes - small glimpses of their adventures. And even then, genuine love and friendship is clear throughout. That makes sense, considering they were friends, and this book seems to largely be a response to the Bohemian Rhapsody film’s portrayal of Freddie as lonely and alone. The book starts and ends with scans of several notes written to Thor and Lee over the years from Freddie (mostly signing off as “Mother” or “Mama”), and there are TONS of amazing photographs that were taken by Lee throughout! (1981-1984, and some others taken in June 1991)
Freddie’s “New York Daughters” (Thor Arnold, Lee Nolan, John Murphy, Joe Scardilli) were not his only friends by a long shot, but they were important to him, and they clearly loved Freddie (and also Peter “Phoebe” Freestone!) first and foremost as a regular person.
