an entertainment package. He was vibrant, flamboyant, 'posturing' and 'strutting' if you will, but encompassing the whole stage and, through that, the entire audience. His movement and mannerisms made him encompass everyone so that when you watch him, you know he is including you, you know he is seeing you and is singing to you. Freddie is not a 'stand at the microphone and sing' sort of person who loses the audience like the speaker who looks down at his notes. Nor is he the face-microphone, choreographed dance MTV singer whose set moves are no more exciting and embracing then someone nervously moving from foot-to-foot when speaking. He moves to his own rhythms, he moves to his own needs to deliver his music and to allow his soul to reach out to the audience.

Without the posturing, without the movement and the costume, he becomes another singer in another band: albeit with a powerful and wide-ranging (apparently light tenor) voice. Each facet on their own does little, if anything, but when placed together, and held by a person who is strong enough to meld them into an entirety, the stage presence takes on a life of its own: the character becomes the person.

Unlike many, Freddie was able to make this person/character separate and distinct from his home life and in that, he became a strong, powerful performer. In order to do this, of course, he had to ensure that his home life was not in the public eye as they would expect him to behave in the way that his character did. Indeed, in the moments when his private life was in the public eye, such as during his parties, his character did appear and the costuming, and posturing, and excesses of the stage-bound Freddie emerged.

Queen used the titles of two Marx movies for their albums ('A Night at the Opera' and 'A Day at the Races') and Freddie's character can be seen as a modern day Harpo. The character Harpo was an excessive fun-loving mute one moment the 'bad guy' the next the angel (or cherub at least). The real Harpo Marx or Adolph Marx tended to be more serious and a private individual with little in common with his stage persona. When Freddie switched off his character, he was a shy person,