Elton John was spied on by Soviet authorities during his 1979 visit to Moscow. And his producers believe the Communist regime wanted to trap him on some kind of criminal charge.
In their upcoming memoir More Than Likely, Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, who accompanied Elton on the first trip to the USSR by a western rocker, say they were "constantly under surveillance." Worse, authorities were eager to trap Elton, who was "assigned an assistant who was clearly gay, doubtless to lure him into some indiscretion." On top of that, two Bolshoi Ballet tour managers assigned to the entourage while they filmed To Russia With Elton were KGB spies.
Fortunately, Elton never ran afoul of the law in what was then a very strict dictatorship. He did get a measure of revenge, when after being told he could not perform the song "Back in the USSR," Elton performed it anyway "and got an ovation every time."
More Than Likely will be published in the U.K. on September 19th. So far, there are no plans to sell the book in U.S. stores. (Daily Mirror)