Five Revelations From Elton John’s New Documentary, ‘Never Too Late’
We already know a lot about Elton John. Anyone who hasn’t followed at least some of the ups and downs of his 50-year-plus career as they happened can easily get the gist from the 2019 musical biopic “Rocketman” or his fascinating autobiography, “Me,” or untold thousands of interviews and articles.
Now, there’s even more of “me”: the new Disney+ documentary “Never Too Late,” which had its world premiere Friday night at the Toronto International Film Festival 1and will have a limited run in theaters beginning Nov. 15.
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Elton, now 77, teared up as he spoke about the film to the audience. “I’m having the best time of my life – except this fucking eye. I wish I could see you,” he cracked, who revealed earlier this week that he’s recovering from a “severe eye infection” that’s left him with limited vision.
Co-directed by his manager and husband David Furnish and filmmaker R.J. Cutler (Billie Eilish’s “The World’s a Little Blurry”), “Never Too Late” takes an intense look at the first five years of his career in the ‘70s and juxtaposes them with his recent “Farewell Yellow Brick Road” tour. We know he got his happy ending — a husband and two sons, Zachary and Elijah — although he certainly suffered in silence until he got there.
But “Never Too Late” is not about a quest for fame and fortune — it’s about his quest for love and family. “On my tombstone,” Elton told the audience. “I don’t want it to say he sold a million records. I want it to say he was a great dad and great husband.”
On the red carpet, Variety asked Furnish what he’d learned from making the film. He replied, “The way that the archival footage that I’d never seen before — and that Elton had never seen before — reveals the inside of what was going on in his life when he was creating some of the most iconic music of our time, that was very revealing to me. Elton’s not a nostalgic person, so he doesn’t sit around at home and talk about, ‘Oh, yeah, when I did [the 1972 album] “Honky Chateau,” I was going through a really hard time.’ He’s too busy looking forward, and so to get that insight into what the artist was going through at the moment of creation, to see the way that it impacted the music as it was created, was really exciting.”
What parts got him weepy? “I found it really hard at times to see the person you love at a stage in their life when they’re in so much pain — that was really hard.”
While the evening’s breaking news came when Cutler accidentally revealed in the post-screening Q&A that John and Furnish appear in “Spinal Tap 2,” here are five revelations from the film.
“Elton John” was an escape
In casting off his born name, Reginald Dwight, and embracing a new name and flamboyant persona, a shy and lonely young man invented a character to inhabit. He’d had an unhappy childhood, with physical abuse from both his mother and father, so he withdrew into music. He never even had a best friend — until he met lyricist and immediate co-writer Bernie Taupin. John told him he loved him, but he didn’t mean sexually, he clarifies. He pays homage to Taupin at virtually every show, and brought him onstage at his final North American concert at Dodger Stadium in 2022. Without him, he likely would not have been standing there.
Daddy issues
While he’s talked about it before, it never fails to astonish: Elton’s dad never saw him perform in concert. Millions of people saw him in concert, but never his own father. Elton says, however, that he retired from touring in order to spend time with his sons.
His transformation began with a Rolling Stone article
The filmincludes audio from the pivotal 1976 Rolling Stone magazine interview where Elton was asked about sexuality, first in a roundabout way, then pointedly if he was bisexual. He had never discussed it with the press before, even though it was common knowledge that he had lived with his manager John Reid (who also was abusive). He later married a woman (1984-88), which is not referenced in the film, and it was years before he came out as a gay man, but John does say that that cover story changed everything for him.
Why Elton and John Lennon would not open the door to Andy Warhol
John and Lennon were good friends — they partied together, recorded together and had lots of laughs. One story involves “mountains of coke” and a late-night knock at the hotel door, which turned out to be Andy Warhol. They did not let him in — he famously always had his Polaroid camera and they weren’t about to let their drug-fueled shenanigans get captured. John, who brought the Beatle out as a surprise guest at his 1974 Thanksgiving Concert at New York’s Madison Square Garden, says Lennon was so nervous he got physically sick. In the audience, unbeknownst to Lennon, was Yoko. Shortly after they rekindled their marriage and had their only child, Sean. John thinks that performance may have played a role in that reunion. Sadly, it was Lennon’s last major concert appearance.
He is a survivor
The abusive childhood, loneliness and substance abuse could have ended very differently. But Elton got sober, got honest with himself and did the work to come out on the other side. Yes, he is one of the biggest music stars in history, but he is also a survivor — a happy one.
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