Queen’s iconic frontman, whose story was brought to life on screen by Rami Malek in 2018’s Oscar-winning biopic Bohemian Rhapsody, started life not as Freddie Mercury but as Farrokh Bulsara.
Mercury’s parents were born on September 5, 1946, on the island of Zanzibar off the coast of Tanzania, then a British protectorate. His parents were Parsis, followers of Zoroastrianism from Persia.
His father, Bomi Bulsara, was a High Court Treasurer for the British government, allowing him, his wife Jah, Farrokh, and their younger daughter Kashmira to live in cultural privilege, in contrast to much of the population of their home island.
In 1954, by the time his son was eight years old, he was sent to St. Peter’s Church of England School in Panchgani, India, near his parents’ hometown of Bombay (now Mumbai).
By all accounts, Mercury arrived at St. Peter’s as an extremely shy child, with a noticeable overbite that earned him the nickname “Bucky.” However, he soon began to blossom and develop his own tastes, and was given the more affectionate nickname of Freddy by his teachers.
“Freddie was very happy and thought it was an adventure because our friends’ children had gone there,” his mother told the Telegraph in 2011. “Freddie was musical from the beginning. Music was always on his mind. He could play any song. As soon as he heard something, he could play it.”
