Harry Nilsson — The Murder at Flat 12, Mayfair

The apartment at 9 Curzon Place in Mayfair has the grim distinction of being the location where two major rock figures died, four years apart. Mama Cass Elliot of the Mamas and the Papas died there on July 29, 1974, of heart failure (not, as the persistent myth has it, from choking on a ham sandwich). Keith Moon of the Who died in the same flat, same bed, on September 7, 1978, also of heart failure from an overdose of Heminevrin, a drug prescribed to treat his alcohol withdrawal. The apartment belonged to Harry Nilsson, who was not present at either death but was deeply affected by both, particularly Moon's.

Nilsson was one of the most gifted songwriters and singers of the late 1960s and 1970s — John Lennon called him his favourite American artist — and his friendship with the more chaotic members of the rock world, particularly John Lennon and Keith Moon, was part of what made his later career so difficult. His Without You period (1971–72) was his commercial peak; the Lennon-produced Pussy Cats (1974) was a notorious lost weekend in Los Angeles. The deaths at Curzon Place haunted him.

The Curzon Place apartment building in Mayfair still stands. The address is occasionally noted in London music heritage guides but has no formal plaque. Mayfair, one of London's most expensive districts, is a short walk from Hyde Park Corner tube station.