My dad treated Elton like a son.. he couldn’t live with it when he turned on him. The court case cut his life short
my shoulder,” he says. “A psychologist friend told me that might be a form of apology, but he couldn’t actually verbally say sorry.
“I always felt he had trouble expressing his innermost feelings.
“Maybe he had a hard time after my father’s death feeling guilty.
“A letter or phone call would be nice, it would help me put it to rest.”
Dick and Stephen, who at 72 is just two months older than Elton, played instrumental roles in the creation of Elton John, yet feature little in Me.
Dick was also portrayed in Elton’s recent biopic Rocketman, produced by his husband, David Furnish.
He was played by Line of Duty actor Stephen Graham as a bad-tempered figure, much to Stephen’s horror.
The truth, he says, couldn’t have been more different.
Elton was 20 when he first came to the attention of DJM in 1967, after practising one evening in their recording studio without permission.
The bespectacled lad from Pinner, Middlesex, let in by a pal, was dragged in to see Stephen.
“He comes in shaking like a leaf, very shy. Quite nervous, almost like being like he was being called to the teacher’s study,” Stephen recalls.
Thankfully, young Reg’s recordings had caught Stephen’s ear. The lyrics were bad, but the compositions “interesting”, he said.
He took them to his dad and Dick told him to develop the unlikely star.
An advert was placed in the NME for a lyricist, and a teenage Bernie Taupin sent in some poems.
He and Elton hit it off and have remained songwriting partners.
But as Stephen and Dick started working with the talented pair, they struggled to make a performer of the painfully shy Elton.
Stephen recalls how his stage fright got so bad that some days he would not even get out of bed.
“He was shy, awkward, introvert,” he remembers.
“One occasion, when he was supposed to do a gig at Southampton University, he phoned at 10am screaming down the phone at me ‘I’m not going... stuff your f***ing gig’.
“I would say, ‘You will ruin your career before you get one if you get known as someone who cancels gigs’.
“It happened a few times, fear of going on stage and not going down well. I would send a girl in the office round to get him out of bed.”
Bpodgy,
ut Elton was happier after accepting his sexuality, and beginning a relationship with his manager, John Reid. Again, Stephen’s dad played a key role.
Stephen recalls: “Elton would come to the office and ask to see my father on his own, and he would discuss with him, a bit like a father, his sexual problems. He was struggling with his sexuality, not sure which direction he was going in.”
In those days, the drink and drug problems which dogged Elton after he left DJM in 1976 to set up his own label, weren’t overt. But Stephen suspected the star had begun to use.
“His behaviour was erratic, one moment being nice the next extremely aggressive and abusive,” he recalls.
He says he is glad Elton appears to have finally found contentment with David, and their two young sons.
“He needed the stability of a settled relationship, giving him the love he was craving,” he says.
“I think he would be an extremely good dad,” he adds.
“He wants to give them a life he doesn’t feel he was given as a child, with more affection and loving.”