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Mercury said, “Kenny shot mad zany footage of us doing a silly take-off of Greta Garbo.” The Queen singer’s most treasured Cukor film, however, was 1939’s The Women, the story of a sweet girl (Norma Shearer) losing her husband to the vampish Joan Crawford. In 1979, the British DJ and TV presenter Kenny Everett shot footage of Mercury in a London garden acting out parts of Cukor’s film Camille.

Mercury admired director George Cukor, who was a celebrated filmmaker ( Philadelphia Story, Gaslight, A Star Is Born) and a leading gay socialite in the Hollywood scene of the 30s and 40s. Groucho, who would spend hours practicing Rachmaninoff’s Prelude In C-Sharp Minor, impressed them with his skill. They were taken aback when he played a song for them on the guitar. Mercury and his fellow Queen bandmates Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon named two of their albums – A Night At The Opera and A Day At The Races – after Marx Brothers’ madcap comedy films, which they said “cheered up the band.” When Queen were in America in the late 70s, they met Groucho Marx, who had written to them praising their choice of album names. Like writer Ernest Hemingway, Freddie Mercury was a huge fan of Marlene Dietrich, and he particularly liked the film Shanghai Express, in which she delivers the memorable line: “It took more than one man to make me Shanghai Lily.” When photographer Mick Rock showed Mercury the iconic George Hurrell photograph of Dietrich taken during filming, the band copied the pose for the shot that Rock took for the artwork of Queen II in 1974. Listen to the best Freddie Mercury songs on Apple Music and Spotify, and scroll down for Freddie Mercury’s favorite films.