Queer Places:
14 Hereford Road, Seaforth, Merseyside L21 1EQ, UK
Pembridge Villas, Notting Hill W11 2SU , UK
Bristol House, 67 Lower Sloane Street, Chelsea SW1W 8DD, UK
91 Lexham Gardens, Kensington, London W8 6JN,
UK
Mortlake Crematorium Mortlake, London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, Greater London, England
Maurice James Christopher Cole (25 December 1944 – 4 April 1995), known
professionally as Kenny Everett, was a British comedian, radio DJ and
television entertainer. Everett is best known for his career as a radio DJ and
for The Kenny Everett Video Show.[1]
Everett was born in Seaforth, into a Catholic family as Maurice James Christopher Cole.[2] Everett attended the local secondary modern school, St Bede's Secondary Modern School in Crosby, now part of Sacred Heart Catholic College. He attended a junior seminary at Stillington, North Yorkshire near York with an Italian missionary order, the Verona Fathers, where he was a choirboy.[3] After he left school, he worked in a bakery and in the Advertising Department of The Journal of Commerce and Shipping Telegraph.
While working at a pirate radio station Radio London he was advised to change his name to avoid legal problems. He adopted the name "Everett" from American film comic actor Edward Everett Horton, a childhood hero.[2]
Everett married the singer and psychic Audrey "Lady Lee" Middleton at Kensington Register Office on 2 June 1969. By September 1979, they had separated, and in the mid-1980s, he publicly acknowledged his bisexuality. One of his first boyfriends, a waiter called Jay Pitt, was a match found for Everett by his ex-wife.[4]
Freddie Mercury and Everett became close friends after meeting in 1974 on Everett's breakfast radio show on Capital FM. Though the pair were never lovers, Mercury and Everett were a staple of the London nightlife throughout the 1970s. By 1985, the pair had fallen out over a disagreement over drugs.
Lee Middleton; Kenny Everett
by Lewis Morley
bromide fibre print, 1960s
11 3/8 in. x 14 7/8 in. (289 mm x 379 mm)
Given by Lewis Morley, 1989
Photographs Collection
NPG x38925
In 1988 Audrey "Lady Lee" Middleton published an autobiography with a foreword from Everett. Shortly after the publication and newspaper serialisation, Everett denounced the book for outing him. The fallout resulted in Middleton and Everett communicating only via lawyers; Mercury reportedly sided with Middleton.
Everett and Mercury reconciled their differences in 1989, when both were suffering with failing health.[8]
Everett was diagnosed as HIV positive in 1987, and he made his condition known to the public in 1993.[9] He died from an AIDS-related illness on 4 April 1995, aged 50. A traditional requiem mass was held at Church of the Immaculate Conception in Mayfair, and Everett was later cremated at Mortlake Crematorium.[10]
My published books:
