On 24 November 1997, a monodrama about Freddie Mercury's life, titled Mercury: The Afterlife and Times of a Rock God, opened in New York City. It presented Mercury in the hereafter: examining his life, seeking redemption and searching for his true self. The play was written and directed by Charles Messina and the part of Mercury was played by Khalid Gonçalves (né Paul Gonçalves) and then later, Amir Darvish. Billy Squier opened one of the shows with an acoustic performance of a song he had written about Mercury titled "I Have Watched You Fly".
Mercury cared for at least ten cats throughout his life, including: Tom, Jerry, Oscar, Tiffany, Dorothy, Delilah, Goliath, Miko, Romeo, and Lily. He was against the inbreeding of cats for specific features and all except for Tiffany and Lily, both given as gifts, were adopted from the Blue Cross. Mercury "placed as much importance on these beloved animals as on any human life", and showed his adoration by having the artist Ann Ortman paint portraits of each of them. Mercury wrote a song for Delilah, "his favourite cat of all", which appeared on the Queen album Innuendo. Mercury dedicated his liner notes in his 1985 solo album Mr. Bad Guy to Jerry and his other cats. It reads, “This album is dedicated to my cat Jerry—also Tom, Oscar, and Tiffany and all the cat lovers across the universe—screw everybody else!”
More InfoSince his death, Queen were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001, and all four band members were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2003. Their Rock Hall of Fame citation reads, “in the golden era of glam rock and gorgeously hyper-produced theatrical extravaganzas that defined one branch of '70s rock, no group came close in either concept or execution to Queen.” The band were among the inaugural inductees into the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2004. Mercury was individually posthumously awarded the Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music in 1992. They received the Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Song Collection from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers, and Authors in 2005, and in 2018 they were presented the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
More InfoA statue in Montreux, Switzerland, by sculptor Irena Sedlecká, was erected as a tribute to Mercury. It stands almost 10 feet (3 metres) high overlooking Lake Geneva and was unveiled on 25 November 1996 by Mercury's father and Montserrat Caballé, with bandmates Brian May and Roger Taylor also in attendance. Beginning in 2003 fans from around the world have gathered in Switzerland annually to pay tribute to the singer as part of the "Freddie Mercury Montreux Memorial Day" on the first weekend of September. The Bearpark And Esh Colliery Band played at the Freddie Mercury statue on 1 June 2010.
More InfoIn August 2019, Mercury was one of the honorees inducted in the Rainbow Honor Walk, a walk of fame in San Francisco's Castro neighborhood noting LGBTQ people who have "made significant contributions in their fields." Freddie Mercury Alley is a 107-yard-long (98 m) alley next to the British embassy in the Ujazdów district in Warsaw, Poland, which is dedicated to Mercury, and was unveiled on 22 November 2019. Until the Freddie Mercury Close in Feltham was dedicated, Warsaw was the only city in Europe with a street dedicated to the singer. In January 2020, Queen became the first band to join Queen Elizabeth II on a British coin. Issued by the Royal Mint, the commemorative £5 coin features the instruments of all four band members, including Mercury's Bechstein grand piano and his mic and stand.
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