David Bowie

British rock star and actor with an exotic image, producing shows that staged flash and glitter with weird, sensational effects. Charismatic, intriguing and seductive, his control of a show and audience is awesome and total. Bowie's bands evolved, along with his skill as he constantly reinvented himself. With his pale, androgynous beauty, he was the quintessential product of his age. During the '60s, the London hippie underground was bursting into costume and flower; everything was open and beckoning; sex that was homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual and unisexual, drugs that offered grass, coke, smack, horse, speed and acid; Bowie tried it all, at the epicenter of the pop culture, the flower children and the summer of love. He was born in middle-class Brixton to a dad who was a publicist and whose divorce was not final, so his parents were not married. He had a half-brother who was nine years older, Terry, also illegitimate, whom he idolized, who was diagnosed a paranoid schizophrenic and who threw himself under a train in 1985. At age eight Bowie declared his intention to become "the greatest rock star in England," and was given a saxophone that year to start his musical career. His folks moved to Bromley, South London in 1957, a social step up. Bowie's left eye was paralyzed in a 1963 fight at school. His dad died in 1969 of pneumonia. He studied art in 1963 before moving into the music scene. He formed his first band, "The King Bees," in January 1964 as the British rock explosion swept in. In 1965, he changed his last name from Jones to Bowie. In April 1966 his debut solo single was released, "Do Anything You Say." In July 1968 he formed a trio with his two-year-girlfriend Hermione Farthingale and John Hutchinson. They played London gigs before dissolving six months later. By 19, he had a male/female stance; he cut a sexual swath through both his boy and girl school mates. During the early summer of 1968 he first met Angie Burnett. On 20 March 1970 they married, an open marriage in which they celebrated with bi-sexuality. Their son, Duncan Zowie Haywood (who later went by Duncan) was born the following year, on 28 May 1971. For ten tempestuous years they traveled and lived the image of their era, mod, hip, fast and loose, promoting Bowie's music and generating headline-grabbing stories. He was a man ahead of his time, a catalyst of the powerfully emerging youth culture and fascinated by Jean Genet. By 1970 Bowie was making the charts in the UK. His RCA single in January 1972, "Changes," gave him a U.S. debut on the charts. In a magazine interview, he publicly declared his bisexuality at that time. In April, he played his first U.S. concert and he ended a lengthy UK tour in September. The following year, 1973, Bowie was topping the charts on both sides of the Atlantic, a hero to millions. In April 1974, Bowie moved to the U.S. where he lived and worked for two years. His first film was "The Image," and in February 1975 he signed to play an extraterrestrial in "The Man Who Fell to Earth," released on 18 March 1976. Three days later he was arrested for drug possession with Iggy Pop and others at a Massachusetts hotel, and released on $2,000 bail. On 1 October 1976, Bowie moved to West Berlin to live semi-reclusively for three years, at which time he withdrew from coke addiction. He continued to record and appear at concert gigs in the UK, the U.S., Europe and Asia. In 1979 he moved to Montreaux, Switzerland. There was another side to Bowie, one who battled inner demons, who feared the insanity that took his half-brother and an uncle, cold and paranoid, often vicious and strung out on drugs, teetering on the edge of self-destruction. He and Angela separated in February 1978, and when their divorce was final on 8 February 1980, he got sole custody of their son. Angela got a 30,000 pound settlement. In 1980, Bowie portrayed John Merrick, the "Elephant Man" in a successful stage production that won rave reviews. His music continued to excel, and on 27 January 1983 he signed a $10 million five-year contract with EMI America Records. His films include "Yellowbeard," "The Hunger" and "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence." On 24 April 1992, in Lausanne, Switzerland, his second marriage was to a tall and sleek pro model from the nation of Somalia, 36-year-old Iman. They married again in a church ceremony in Florence, Italy, on 6 June 1992. Their daughter, Alexandria Zahra Jones, was born on 15 August 2000. Bowie underwent an emergency angioplasty on 26 June 2004 in Germany. Three days prior he had cut short a concert in Prague for what he thought was a pinched nerve in his shoulder. On the 25th, just after his show in Scheesel, he sought treatment and doctors discovered that his pain was in reality caused by an acutely blocked artery. Bowie died at his home in Manhattan, New York on 10 January 2016 at the age of 69 after a secret 18-month battle with liver cancer. Link to Wikipedia biography