Original subtitles

[dramatic instrumental music]

- David Bowie has an announcement to make.

Let's now go over live by satellite

to beautiful downtown Burbank in Los Angeles.

It's nice to see you, David.

You look well.

What color is your hair?

- Which bit?

- The center bit at the top above where your nose would be.

- Well, what color is it look?

- [Russell] Well it looks a bit something out of

the end of Straw Dogs.

- Something out of the end of Straw Dogs.

- You've got an announcement to make

to us all, David, haven't you?

You are changing your plans for the future,

and you've got something up your sleeve for 1976?

- Yes.

I'm touring,

but I'm coming back to England in May

to play shows

and look at you and look at England

and be there, be English.

- Again?

- Well as always, but English in England.

- What's brought you back?

Are you short of money or are you short

of the feeding of live audience bit?

- I'm short of England more than anything else.

- [Russell] What, why?

I mean you do know that the England you left two years ago

is not the England you are going to come back to.

- Yeah, well this Thursday is nothing like last Thursday,

but it's just as important.

I'd miss it if it wasn't after Wednesday.

- You know that the pop scene at this end,

the pop world has changed somewhat since you left?

- No.

No.

- Have you heard of the Bay City Rollers?

- Yes.

- Well, you know that they are appealing to a kind of

large, mass-hysterical audience of young people

who wave a lot of stuff around?

Now I wonder what kind of audience

you are going to come back to face?

- I don't know, what do you think?

- You may have to create a whole new scene for yourself.

- No.

Can't qualify that, I'll just come back and play my songs.

[upbeat music]

- [Voiceover] One, two, three, - Yeah!

[rock music]

- [Voiceover] Few musicians have pushed the boundaries

quite as spectacularly as David Bowie.

During a career spanning half a century,

he was an innovator unlike any other.

[upbeat guitar music]

- I've been doing this for a whole century.

And I'm really very comfortable doing it.

It feels,

it's very fulfilling.

- [Voiceover] Pop star, composer, showman,

actor, producer,

David Bowie symbolized versatility like few musicians could.

The constant evolution of his style, sound,

and artistic persona had a colossal influence

on popular culture.

- David, hi, nice to meet you.

- Nice to meet you.

How very, very good to be here tonight.

I can't quite believe how much rubbish

I've written in my life. [chuckles]

'Cause you know when you go through all the tapes,

you find all the things you never wanted to release.

And you kind of find out,

it becomes very apparent why.

But, some of it's just too funny,

so I have to put it out.

- [Voiceover] He brought a theatricality to the pop world

which gave him a very strong image.

He thought very theatrically,

and he thought about presentation.

- It just won't stop.

My personal need to entertain has changed a lot.

I think when I was young,

I was about creating theatricality,

and creating a more artificial

kind of parallel reality onstage.

And as I've gotten older,

especially over the last five or six years,

I've really fallen into the comfort

of actually just interpreting the songs.

[upbeat instrumental music]

[cheers and applause]

- [Voiceover] If you want to cause a stir,

then wear a dress at a press conference in Texas

which is what David did.

- [Voiceover] He looked weird.

Everything about him was right to be a star,

against all odds in a way.

- As far as style is concerned,

I don't really think that I want to have a style.

Sort of, "Oh yeah, that's David Bowie's sound.

I'd much prefer to be sort of a free agent,

and move from one thing to another

as my enthusiams take me.

- [Voiceover] When you were thinking

about what to wear on this tour,

did you think of what it would look like

translated onto thousands of fans?

- I just wanted something very simple, simple outline.

- [Voiceover] Yeah?

- So, what we're wearing tonight.

[laughter]

- [Voiceover] The landscape of fashion has changed,

but it's changed because of people like David Bowie.

- [Voiceover] That concept of androgyny,

and the science-fiction look, and the colors, the dyed hair.

This was all red meat to designers.

Clearly, David was a genius in that area as well.

- Now, when you come back to England,

you're not presumably coming back

with the glamour and glittery Ziggy Stardust thing, are you?

- Uh-huh.

- [Russell] Are you coming back as that?

- Well, I don't know yet.

I haven't even worked on it.

I think it'll probably.

I'll be a lot more spontaneous.

- [Russell] You haven't planned your wardrobe?

You haven't planned a figure?

You haven't planned an image, whatever that may mean?

- I think the image I may adopt

may well be me.

I'm sort of inventing me at the moment.

- [Russell] You mean reinventing you?

- Yeah, self-invented.

- [Russell] [laughs] From the waist upwards?

- Yes, jolly uncomfortable.

- What you're going to wear?

Are you going to wear a little suit, a straight suit or--

- I know what songs I'm going to sing

which is the most important thing.

- [Voiceover] David Bowie didn't just entertain.

He intrigued and provoked.

After 50 years in the spotlight,

the legendary musician somehow managed

to retain a sense of mystery.

- I never really thought that I could do it,

but in a way, my band egged me on

to kind of be like this.

And so, it's been less and less theater,

more and more band and sing, sing, sing.

- [Voiceover] Along with The Beatles and Elvis Presley,

Bowie obliterated musical boundaries

and defined what pop music should be.

- Testing, we're back to rock and roll.

One, two, three, four, one, two.

- [Voiceover] We're talking about one

of the most influential 20th-century icons of all.

- Don't forget to tip your waitresses.

- [Voiceover] He left a permanent mark

on more than one generation.

- People I've talked to about you here

say you're very personal person,

if you know what I mean?

- People who go out with me?

- No, to work with you.

- I thought you said people who go out with me.

- You're a very, not secretive, but personal,

keep things to yourself.

- Quiet, yes.

- Do you think you're shy?

- No.

No, I'm not really shy.

I'm just a bit quiet.

- Do you think if you didn't keep things to yourself,

people wouldn't be surprised at what you did next?

- I never really thought about that.

I'll let you know after the show.

- OK.

- I have to do a show.

- [Voiceover] I think he got to where he wanted to be

which was a kind of Lennon plateau,

and it doesn't get any higher than that.

- [Voiceover] I don't believe that there've been really

any major artists that have had the creative portfolio

that David had.

- [Voiceover] Quite rightly, you would say that The Beatles

affected the way young people thought.

And I think the same with Bowie.

- [Voiceover] Here is one of the people who made

the greatest difference in our world in our lifetime.

Sounds like a mighty big claim, but it's true.

- [Voiceover] It took years of work for David Robert Jones

to emerge as one of the more influential figures in music.

Growing up in the austerity of post-war Britain,

he came of age in the swinging '60s.

He was born in the Brixton suburbs of London in 1947

to mother Margaret and Bernardo's charity worker,

Haywood John Jones.

- David invited me down to his parent's basement.

There I was at 14 with this kind of man

from another planet, as far as I was concerned.

It sounds silly now, but I'd never been

to a working class house.

I was in culture shock,

but that was my own limited upbringing.

His house which was tiny,

and the two main seats of the parents

who were there both facing the television.

And I remember the mother made us some tuna fish sandwiches,

but the parents didn't speak.

I'd never been into such a cold house.

This is what shocked me.

I'd never visited a house where people

didn't laugh and make merry and be joyous

because it was just, ugh.

It was like a walking around

with cement blocks on your shoulders.

- I loved his dad, it was sort of pretty bourgeois.

People say he was working-class,

but I don't think so.

It didn't struck that way to me.

- David said to me, "Then, I'll never forget this."

He said, "Whatever it takes, I want to get out

"of this place.

"I never ever want to grow up here."

[upbeat instrumental music]

- [Voiceover] David was introduced to rock and roll

at an early age through

his elder brother Terry's record collection.

The recurring theme of mental instability

in Bowie's early work connects to Terry

who was institutionalized with schizophrenia

and committed suicide in 1985.

[dramatic instrumental music]

- He did go and see his brother in the mental hospital.

I didn't realize the enormity

of the impact on the family actually.

And after that, he never mentioned his brother.

- Well, I never met the brother 'cause

he was institutionalized then,

but I did meet his mum,

and she was just a very average lady.

- I feel not quite sorry for the mother.

- She was very stiff, very starchy.

You didn't have no chance of getting to know her properly.

She was very reserved.

- Quite often, later on, several years later,

the mother would be ringing up

while David was starting to get more and more famous

and he would never, often didn't want to speak to her.

So, Angie, of course, being the perfect hostess,

would be the buffer to say, "Oh, he's busy,"

or "can't make it".

So, I don't know that he was that close with his parents.

- [Voiceover] By the time he was six,

the Jones family had moved to the suburban streets

of Bromley in Kent.

David attended Burnt Ash Primary School,

and showed aptitude in singing and playing the recorder.

[speaker drowned out by background noise]

- You're right, the most famous ex-pupil of the school.

20, 30 years ago, he was thought of as quite radical.

- David Bowie appeared in the film Labyrinth.

- Personally, I didn't understand him.

- [Voiceover] David Jones was recognized at school

as much for his vividly artistic dance

as he was for his vocals and flair for instruments.

- [Dana] I don't recall anyone having lessons.

He just listened to your records,

if he could get any from America,

and played along them or sang along with them.

- It was rather disturbing because when you're young,

you think so much is important, including oneself.

[laughs] But, as you get older,

I think you find less and less is important

apart from some very fundamental things.

One of them being a love for one's fellow man,

and a care for their survival,

and a care for one's immediate family,

then friends, and then wider like a circle

like ripples in water.

- [Voiceover] After failing his 11 plus exams,

David Jones attended Bromley Technical College

where he studied art, music and design.

He displayed an early interest in aliens,

creating a UFO magazine, and would later claim

to have seen battalions of alien craft.

- Angie and I, I think we were in England,

and Bowie rings up from America saying

he's just spoken to somebody who's been to Roswell,

the place where the aliens landed.

And he said, "I know that there's one there."

And he rang especially to say,

"You know this is definitely it.

"The alien has landed.

"It's in cold storage in some government bunker somewhere."

And he absolutely believed it,

and so did we because he'd said he'd seen it.

- [Voiceover] During David Jones' adolescence,

there was one indelible incident in 1962

which would forever change his image.

[dramatic instrumental music]

- [Voiceover] The incredible photogenic eyes were partly

a result of his being punched by his friend, George.

- It was an unintended damage

that I did to his eye when I was 15.

It was over a girl, and it was a silly thing.

And he said afterwards, "I'm sorry.

"I shouldn't have done it."

But, it was just one of those stupid things

you do when you're a kid.

And I didn't go around hitting people

in the eye as a hobby.

It wasn't something I did.

It was just once and that was it.

And I never ever wanted to.

I always felt awful afterwards.

You know, it's made him quite distinctive in the end.

Fortunately, he did say later

that I did him a favor.

- It just changed the look of the eye.

But, for fashion reasons, this is magnetic.

So bizarrely, he owed George for hitting him,

but they remained friends and that's the important thing.

- [Voiceover] David Bowie spent the 1960s

enduring a succession of false starts.

He would later steer music into new areas of exploration,

when despite becoming one of the most iconic musicians

of all time, he only performed because no one else

would sing his songs.

♪ I, I will be king

- I hate my singing voice.

I hate singing, really.

It's not an enjoyment.

Someone's got to do it.

I like interpreting songs.

I guess that's what it is about the whole process.

I like writing personally and foremostly.

I would give my right arm,

maybe not my right arm.

I would give somebody's right arm

if I could find somebody to sing one of my songs for me.

I really would.

- [Dana] I don't think singers hate

their singing voice.

It's only false modesty.

- [Mary] I don't think he had any ego at all

until he got into the cocaine trip,

which really did him in.

- He didn't have a great voice.

One of the things that attracted me to him,

he sang like Anthony Newley.

- Well, I always thought that he sounded

very like Anthony Newley, and I never knew

that he acknowledged that.

♪ Don't you realize we're living today

♪ I'm happy to say

♪ The good old bad old days

- [Voiceover] Today, Anthony Newley is a bit

of a forgotten name, but he was massive

when Bowie was growing up.

Continually on television, he was a renaissance man.

♪ Some people say they love for the old days

♪ To take them way back when

- There's hugely strong connection.

Anthony Newley was a massive inspiration

and influence over David in his early days.

♪ You're either up or you're down ♪

- [Dana] This was somebody that he did rate highly.

- [Bob] Newley, in fact, was a great actor.

- [Dana] He looked up to him because we both came

from the same era when the one cool television show

called something like My Old Life of Gurney Slade.

Tony Newley was the star, and anyone who was anybody,

and cool and hip, watched this program.

♪ Nevertheless, I guess we got to confess ♪

- If you check back to some of Anthony Newley's hits,

and then compare that with the Laughing Gnome,

and you'll see an absolute direct line

between the two.

- The crossover that Anthony Newley made

from the theatrical side into pop

would have made him slightly more visible

to artists like David Bowie.

- [Bob] Anthony Newley was involved in musicals

and the whole sort of dramatic thing

that he also represented.

That was part of the Newley package, if you like,

as far as David was concerned.

- I remember Tony Newley was doing something

in the Marquee Club.

It was something called Ready Steady Goes Live,

and he was there.

Bowie made quite sure that he was there too

to listen to him.

- [Voiceover] David Jones left school

with one O-level in art.

The late '60s saw him working his apprenticeship

as a musician and displaying early signs

that he was pursuing an identity.

First with blues-influenced bands

such as the Kon-rads, which he formed aged 15.

- When we first met, we were about nine years old.

We became best friends.

We stayed very close and formed the sort of bands together,

and I decided the music scene wasn't for me,

and I went back to finish art college,

but I knew David was destined for bigger things

'cause he was just extremely sharp.

I never met anyone like him.

- [Voiceover] After performing in a series

of unremarkable bluesy folk acts,

the aspiring artist went through several reinventions

on route to Space Oddity.

- It's obvious that he liked blues

from the records he made with his early group,

but nothing to suggest that he had anything

really original to offer.

- He saw himself as a folk singer,

and he was patrolling the folk clubs looking for gigs.

But, I think he didn't fit it in to any category.

- We did a gig very early on.

It was a very small gig somewhere,

before he dressed up as a girl.

And it could have been it was an early gig.

It could have been for whatever reason.

I just felt he was a bit lost and a bit tentative.

Didn't know what to with his arm.

- He was much better performing in a role.

I always felt that he looked much more comfortable

when he had, I don't know, some outfitty thing.

[upbeat rhythmic music]

- At that time, I felt he needed these various persona

to give himself confidence onstage.

- You can see why he said he didn't want

to go onstage being himself.

He was quite reserved.

He didn't seem the type of bloke

that would jump onstage and dress like Ziggy Stardust.

- I really enjoy just performing songs

and not having the commitment of having to be a character

which has made it less of a strain

than it normally is.

There's not so much artifice attached

to when I'm doing these thing.

I still like the idea of doing a theatrical thing,

and it doesn't so preclude me maybe doing one in the future.

- It must have been 1963 or four.

He came out onstage at the Marquee Club.

It was David Jones and the King Bees,

and he came out with his bright yellow lemon-colored hair

which was really unusual in those days.

Dressed in a slightly Sherwood Forest Robin Hood-look,

as in knee-length suede boots with tassels.

- This was reacting against a very monochrome background.

The rock bands arriving were pretty, you know,

still jeans and sometimes we'd get back

to the audience on long guitar solos and all of that.

I don't think anybody had really given

quite as much thought to the idea

of presenting their music as David was now expressing.

- He was a showman.

He knew how to impress people.

- I was amazed at how good he was

'cause I didn't realize how good a singer he was.

And what presence he had onstage.

- [Bob] There were no echoes

of "Oh, maybe I shouldn't do that," and hesitancy.

He just went for it.

- After the whole show was over,

he just comes up and says to me,

"Can I come home with you tonight?"

And I said, "Yeah."

We walked back to South Kent, 25 minutes walk,

and he stayed the night on my top floor.

In the morning, coming down at sort of breakfast time,

'cause I had to go off to school,

I introduced him to my parents

who were coming out of their bedroom.

And I said, my father told me afterwards,

they actually thought it was a girl,

that I'd just had a girlfriend to stay.

But no, when I said, "This is David Jones,"

they went, quite surprised.

He used to, I think, attract far more attention than me

'cause he used to sometimes come and pick me up from school.

And the girls in my class reminded me the other day

that they were all kind noses pressed to the window

looking at him.

Yeah, he was eye-catching.

[gentle instrumental music]

- [Voiceover] Enrolling in Lindsay Kemp's

London dance center, Bowie began to explore

the world of mime.

- What is the best thing you've done

on any stage anywhere that still lives with you,

that you measure, use as a measuring stick?

- Best, that's very hard.

One of the most exciting things I did

was work with old Lindsay, Lindsay Kemp,

back in the, what would it be?

I can't remember which theater we did it in, but years ago.

It was a combined sort of mixed media show.

That was very good.

- And it didn't have to be a big, glossy exciting thing.

It was a small, but something important to you.

- Well, yes.

- David was very into sort of this whole Lindsay Kemp thing

at that moment, Marcel Marceau, white face,

the miming.

- When he showed me a bit, he was very into

all that mime stuff.

- Definitely, he learned a lot from Lindsay,

but that was sort of a side thing.

- He taught David stagecraft.

David learned mime from him,

and he was very, very grateful to Lindsay

for what he learned.

- Lindsay always said that he often did his shows on acid,

which I thought was pretty good,

because it's quite hard to do shows on acid.

- Lindsay was absolutely besotted with David.

He was totally in love with him.

- David had been exploring

that whole sort of visual presentation thing,

and that whole thing about the face

and the eyes and the body movements.

And that's what drew me into Feathers.

- [Voiceover] Bowie toured with Lindsay Kemp

for a year before leaving to form the band Feathers

with Hermione Fatheringale,

the girl who inspired Life on Mars.

- [Laurence] The first time I saw David

was at an underground psychedelic club

in Convent Garden called Middle Earth.

And he was there with his group Feathers,

and his girlfriend Hermione.

It was sort of a mixed media group,

as they were called, at the time.

He wasn't doing much of the lead singing in Feathers.

He was much more the mime artist

and the person who was expressing the music.

- [Laurence] I had thought he was magnetic.

I really did.

[upbeat instrumental music]

- I rented this house 45 years ago,

and as one did, I put an ad in the paper

and Hermione Fatheringale rang,

and said she'd like to see the place.

She said, "The trouble is there are two of us."

And I said, "That's fantastic."

Anyway, she came and the boyfriend she had

was David Bowie.

David wasn't known then.

He held back.

He didn't so much mingle with the rest of us.

He used to borrow my clothes

because I was in the fashion business.

And anything that I had that was funky,

he would borrow and wear.

- [Dana] I would go with him to Carnaby Street in '64, '65.

He was a very trendy dresser.

He always was in a uniform, or in a look.

He didn't slop out in a pair of ripped jeans and t-shirts.

- Some years later, Hermione left David

because she was doing small-time movies,

and she fell in love with one of the actors in the movie,

and she left David.

And David was brokenhearted.

- Well, he was in love with her,

but he didn't treat her very well.

- David had a serious control over his heart

for many, many years.

His heart lay with performing, songwriting and music.

And if he thought his heart was broken,

it was only for a minute in time.

- He was a rascal, and of course,

the neighbors objected to us being so wild.

So, I didn't want to leave the house,

but David had to go.

- [Voiceover] Bowie considered leaving music altogether.

In 1967, he retreated to a Buddhist monastery in Scotland.

- I think a lot of youth find it very hard

to find exactly where it is that they're supposed

to fit in to this rather new terrifying world.

I think I would feel very much like that.

I think maybe I would shrink back into

wanting to find a more spiritual kind of life.

I think maybe I would maybe

backpack through the world and get to endure

and do all those things that my generation

tended to do in the '60s.

It would be a very hard choice,

but mind you, I would, yes, I would become a monk,

but a monk who played an awful lot of guitar.

- He went to Samye Ling Tibetan Center in Dumfries Shire

and stayed there for about a month,

and did some very intensive meditation practice.

And as a result of that,

I think at one stage, he did consider becoming a monk.

- [David] I'm still sort of wondering whether I should be,

if I've found God as a Buddhist or

[speaker muffled]

- He told me that he never really lost the music,

and that it was with him all the time,

on the cushion in the dining room,

out walking in the hills.

It was just buzzing through his head.

And he realized, I think eventually,

that he was not being true to himself

and so he packed up and went back

to London and show business.

- [Voiceover] David Bowie began 1969

as far from his pop ambitions as he'd been

throughout the '60s.

[lively instrumental music]

- Once, when we were both a bit broke,

we both went to audition for Hair.

You know, the musical where everyone in there

takes their clothes off.

We both got turned down. [laughs]

- He had a job in a copying office in London,

a place called Legastat.

But, he only did it about once a fortnight.

He hated it.

And he'd have the old gig here and there,

but, no, he was broke.

I supported him for quite some time.

- Everything that he had, he put to good use,

and occasionally, if it meant being

a bit slotty occasionally, or whatever,

you did what you had to do in order

to get to the next level in the business.

- [Mary] He was entirely, totally and completely focused.

- I think when you are driven,

when you've really got something to say,

then inevitably you're going to make sure

that you achieve that,

and that definitely applied to David.

- He was absolutely dedicated to his career.

Music was the focus of his life.

During the time when he was sitting around

the flat not doing very much,

he was constantly composing.

He was never idle.

- Are you being absolutely accurate and honest

when you say you're a disciplined person?

- Oh, yes.

- [Russell] You impose a discipline

on your own music writing and your own work?

You don't just get up when you?

You know what I'm saying to you?

A lot of people in your position,

they have a kind of repetition.

- Discipline doesn't mean that you make sure

that you have breakfast at 8:00 in the morning

and you're out of the house at half past 8:00.

Discipline is if you conceive something,

then you decide whether or not it's worth

following through.

And if it's worth following through,

then you follow it through to its logical conclusion,

and do it to the best of your ability.

That's the discipline.

Yes?

Whether there are areas in it

that are not to one's liking,

you have to go right the way through it and do it,

and that's what I do.

- [Voiceover] By the spring of 1969,

Bowie was living with journalist Mary Finnigan

in the London suburb of Beckenham.

- He was living in my apartment as my lodger,

but it was never a sort of

conventional landlady/lodger relationship.

He was extremely messy.

He never did anything around the house,

unless it suited his purpose.

He staged a very elegant seduction for me

by cooking me a very nice dinner

when I came home from a shift at the Sunday Times.

And then, he made a sort of nest of cushions

in his room, and he put big speakers

on either side of my ears,

and then played me his favorite music.

I was pretty broke, so was he,

and absolutely penniless.

So then, our lifestyle was unsustainable,

so he had the idea to start a folk club.

And we found a location in a pub in Beckenham,

and they gave us the back room.

And in the first week, there were only about 25 people.

Second week, there were 90,

and after that, it absolutely jam-packed

with never less than 120.

- He built an arts laboratory.

David based the whole idea of it

on the existing arts laboratory on Drury Lane.

- He took the psychedelic environment ambiance

out of central London and set it up in the suburbs.

And I think it was probably one of the first

in the suburban environment.

- [Bob] London was so vibrant in those days.

Everything was just exploding into this burst of color.

- [Mary] It is often said that how the fortunate people

who were young in the '60s had the best sex,

the best drugs and the best music.

- You've got new magazines, new newspapers,

new venues, new places to go,

a new order, this counterculture, as it was called,

was the reality, and David loved it.

- It was an arts laboratory.

It was art of any form or variety.

He compared it and he performed his own set,

and he got the confidence as a performer

week after week after week.

It was the bedrock of his rise to stardom,

his ascent to the stratosphere.

It was a brief slice of social history

which was really quite remarkable,

and I'm glad that I was part of that.

- I thoroughly enjoy looking at myself

and looking at the environment that I'm in

at any time with the eyes of someone who's not involved

in any particular line of the arts.

So, it comes out as a sort of eclectic manifestation.

I'm still a fan of everything,

fan of films, fan of records,

fan of rock bands and a fan of yours.

- [Voiceover] As one of the most

consistently great British songwriters of all time,

David Bowie's skills as a lyrical storyteller

remain unparalleled.

- I don't have a problem writing.

I do write a lot over the course of a year.

It's never really been hard for me to do that.

It wasn't painful in any way.

The only painful albums I've had, I think,

were way back in the '70s.

There are a couple of instances

where it was really hard for me to write

because I felt I was delivering great chunks

of my soul out there.

But, that was a state of mind, I guess.

- [Bob] The other thing in the sort of mix

of everything that sometimes gets neglected

is David's brilliance as a songwriter.

- David didn't write love songs.

A time when everybody was writing love songs,

that's what you did, he didn't write love songs,

and it was brilliant.

- We would often go to something called

the Gioconda Cafe which is in Denmark Street, Tin Pan Alley.

And he'd sit in this cafe

and he'd nurse a cup of tea for hours because at any moment,

anyone from the song publishing companies

would rush in say, "Oh, we need a bass player,

"or we need a backing singer."

And they would sit and wait till somebody

came and called you in for something.

So, he'd spend a lot of time there.

- We were looking for a comedy song for me to record,

so I went along and met David.

And I think it was just him and I.

And I would have been about 22,

and he'd been about 20, I think,

so he was a very young man and hadn't at this point

changed his name to Bowie.

And I was very struck by him.

He was very serious, 'cause I [laughs],

I'm not overly serious.

But, he was quite, I felt, intense for a young man.

I was beginning to wonder whether this man,

who seemed quite serious, would have

the element of comedy that was required

for the thing that I was looking for.

David had written this song called Over the Wall We Go.

♪ Over the wall we go

♪ All coppers are nanas

♪ Over the wall we go

- He played it to me, and I thought it was very funny.

I said, "Yeah, I think that's a good song.

"Let's have a go at that."

So, we went into the studio, recorded it.

He introduced a character

which was a slightly more camp chap. [laughs]

♪ Double three, four two seven

- David does a little bit in the middle

where he does a roll call.

♪ Double three, four two three

♪ I'm here

♪ Double three, four two four

♪ Hello

♪ Double three, four two five

♪ Hi

♪ Double three, four two six

♪ Double three, four two six, where is he ♪

- And it was very big.

It was very brash, very brassy.

It was well-arranged, and immediately got banned by the BBC.

It was felt it was too.

So, I feel quite proud to have been associated

with a song that was banned by the BBC.

I suppose that's the difference

between, I don't want to compare myself to him,

but I went off and had a fag and a laugh,

and he stayed with it.

[easygoing guitar music]

- 50 songs isn't enough, I've realized.

I heard, green with envy, Dylan's got like

147 songs he chooses from.

And I can see that you got to build up to that

because even when you got 50,

there are some that you're going

to fed up with faster than others.

So, that 50 becomes kind of the 30

with an unwritten 20 that you don't actually

want to ever play again.

So, you're back to 30 again.

So, I think you have to go for at least 100

to then end up with like 50 that you like doing. [laughs]

- [Voiceover] The root of Bowie's genius

lay in his ability to write classic pop songs

and lots of them.

- I take my work very seriously,

but I try not to let it topple over

into my psychological life too much

and tear me apart like maybe it used to.

- [Voiceover] So, is it very much work?

Are you able to kind of, what is it you do,

carry the whole thing with you forever period?

It is necessary part where you need

to forget it and have your personal life?

- No, no, no, it's always with me,

but not quite the same way that it used to be.

Probably the priority in my life

is my domestic and private life,

but it's reflected in my work.

- [Bob] The songwriting was the core of it all.

- It's his songwriting will be remembered.

- We're coming right back now to man and acoustic guitar.

So, you strip away all the other stuff

and just bring it back to that, voice and song.

And David was absolutely world-class.

His lyrics, if there wasn't any other lyric line

but to "see the mice in their million hordes

"from Ibiza to the Norfolk Broads",

you'd pin that as being one of the great lyric lines ever.

And David seemed almost able to pull this stuff out

almost effortlessly.

That was the extraordinary thing.

- I do see that the writing that I do

is very much in integral part of my for-real 24-day life.

I do write a little bit every day.

Some days I hate it.

It's an inconvenience, but it's just something

I have to do.

And some days, I can't wait to sit down and write.

- There was one which he wrote after Zowie, Duncan,

had been born.

♪ When you stay in my lover's story ♪

But, I was just thinking how sweet.

He'd written this for his son.

A lot of things he wrote with such heart.

- I have to be comfortable with what I'm doing,

and if I feel there's a kind of a,

as near to a truth or an integrity

about what I do and write, then that makes me feel

that I'm a successful artist, I guess.

- [Voiceover] Some of Bowie's lyrics

owned their composition to the cut-up technique,

popularized by the poet William Burroughs.

- You take a song, and there it is in its right order.

You cut it to pieces,

and then put it back together again randomly,

and you are going to get the same words.

They're just in a different order.

But, the ultimate meaning of the song remains the same.

He wasn't a sort of artist, chiseling away

at the coal face of creativity.

It just seemed to flow out of him.

- [Voiceover] In 1967, Bowie met his first wife,

Angela Barnett.

- She turned up one day after I'd been away,

and I discovered that she'd more or less

moved in with David.

I'm not quite sure why I allowed this to happen,

but I was ousted, and she replaced me as his lover.

- He was the first one to say to me,

"Look, I've met somebody I think who's really special.

"I think you'd get along well with her."

- I'm not going to bitch about Angie.

She was turbulent.

This can go on record.

She was turbulent.

She was a drama queen.

She threw wobblies quite a bit.

Some of them were just straightforward hissy fits.

Others were designed to focus attention on her,

and others to attract somebody

that she wanted to impress.

- Angie and I instantly hit it off.

We were instantly good friends,

'cause I never had issues with,

I was happy that he'd found somebody to be with him.

- I allowed them to stay in the apartment.

She was there pretty well all the time.

Why did I do it?

I wouldn't tolerate it for 30 seconds now.

They would have been out on their ear.

- [Dana] We'd go down there most weekends

and hang out with him and Angie.

- I was having so much fun.

I was enjoying it.

The activity that went on around the arts lab,

and the continuous party.

Our house became the court of King David.

- [Dana] Angie was amazing in those days.

You could literally give Angie a carrot and a potato

and an onion and she would make enough food

to feed everyone because she was that organized.

- She was very generous.

She bought her own food and took us out

to lots of nice outings.

- She was the perfect foil for him.

She was loud, but highly cultured.

She'd speak French.

She'd traveled.

Her parents were very nice,

and she was there always for him.

- We spoke French together,

which irritated David to no end.

We'd both been to school in Switzerland,

so we did quite in common back then.

- He would be in his room off and just lolling about

with his acoustic guitar or bits of paper

having ideas for songs.

Or sometimes he'd play a song to her.

She always was positive.

She would always say, "This is great."

- In September 1969, they found their own apartment

and they moved out, but we stayed friends.

My love for him had changed a little bit pretty quickly

because I was deeply pissed off

about what had happened.

I was sad for a while,

and then annoyed, and then resigned.

- I read Mary Finnigan's book where she said,

"She was devastated 'cause he was being unfaithful."

I didn't expect faithfulness from Bowie.

He was a musician for goodness sake.

The two don't go together.

- [Mary] I didn't know what he was up to

when he wasn't there, but I found that out

many years later.

- Women that thought their hearts were broken

were fools basically because you don't tame

a man like Bowie, especially not in those early years.

- Yeah, I was pretty upset,

but it didn't last for very long.

I got over it.

- [Voiceover] In August 1969, Bowie and Finnigan

organized a free music festival

which was held on the recreation ground in Beckenham.

- That was kind of a peak experience,

when about 1,000 people turned out,

and we hardly publicized it at all.

David was very sad.

He was grieving because his father

had died about a week earlier.

And he performed as a true professional,

and nobody who saw him performing would have known.

- Right from the start, I was aware

that David had a vision in terms

of what he wanted to do and how he saw himself,

and the kind of music that he wanted to make.

I was an aspiring DJ.

My whole job was to fill the dance floor,

and I'd invited David to come down with me

because I thought this might be an option

for him to play.

So, he'd just started going out with Angie,

and so, she came.

So, I remember her sitting on the edge of the stage.

David had a set of the backing track

of this single that he was working on at the time.

So, I introduced him.

We had been slamming out this really loud bass beat

and all of that, and David came out

with his little acoustic backtrack

which he then sang live over the top-off.

The volume difference between my dance music

and him was huge.

The floor cleared.

People got restless.

People were booing.

People started throwing beer,

and it just got absolutely chaotic within almost moments.

And David had to leave the stage,

and I strolled into the center of stage.

I was so furious.

I said, "You remember this night.

"This is David Bowie.

"Remember the name.

"He's going to be huge."

And I really knew it at the time.

They just wanted to party,

and this rather sort of kooky acoustic alien

that had arrived onstage was a bit too much for them.

- [Voiceover] Throughout his career,

David Bowie's style and image were inextricably linked

with his music.

- Bowie set trends.

He created his own styles.

His creative vision was about reinventing himself.

That was something that no one had done before.

Now, lots of artists reinvent themselves all the time.

We're very used to seeing that,

but he was the first person to make himself

the focus of his own kind of reinventions.

- Do you see the way the people out there,

how their appearances are changing during the tour?

When they first saw you.

- It's quite amazing because there's all seven characters

that I've created throughout this summer.

I see a Man Who Fell To Earth, and a Ziggy Stardust

and a Thin White Duke.

And at the moment, a lot of sailor's hats and things.

That's incredibly endearing.

- [Woman] Are you aware of the consequences

of things that you do and say?

Is it possible to be relaxed to act

in a spontaneous way when everything

that you were can be suddenly picked up by?

- Well, it is at the moment because

it's not that sort of outrageous really.

I mean, everybody wears plastic now.

- I cannot recall an artist who changed

his or her image so frequently and so completely.

This caused tremendous problems for his fans

who would turn up for his gigs

dressed in last year's image,

and at the interval, would look very sheepish

because they realized they were wearing the wrong costume.

- [Voiceover] Have you come on the train like that today?

- Yeah.

- [Voiceover] You came on the underground dressed like that?

Did you get a bit of stick from other passengers, I mean?

- Sort of, one way guy.

- Singularly, the most important artist

in terms of style and fashion.

You only got to look around at the audience

at a Bowie concert and it's a carbon copy

of what's going on inside.

- I was a compere on a few of the early tour dates,

so from the stage, you're getting a pretty unique view

of what's happening in front of you.

And gradually, you're beginning to see people arrive

looking like David.

Wow, I mean, you looked out at the whole audience

and they'd all made a massive effort

to kind of dress up and be Bowie.

- [Voiceover] Ziggy was his best character.

- [Voiceover] When you saw him do Ziggy onstage,

what made you decide to look like that?

- Just brilliant.

Just everything you could imagine.

- [Voiceover] What's your name?

- Ziggy Zowie.

- [Voiceover] What was it before?

- My real name is Mandy Laming,

but that's a bit boring. [laughs]

- Well, I've had the outfit for ages, really.

It's just built up from a tour a long time ago.

I just put it together when I saw his new film.

Then, I saw he got fed up with dyed hair,

and so he's matured.

Just carried on doing that.

- [Voiceover] You think he's ahead of time,

or he's just completely?

- Yes, he's about six years ahead of it, I suppose, yeah.

- I think he attracts the punks

because they like the idea of someone

who's in a constant state of change,

and also doesn't represent the hippie period.

- [Voiceover] Why do you think they want to look like him?

- Wouldn't you? [laughs]

- [Voiceover] You seem really happy onstage

to go through the old songs, and to do them in a new way.

And everybody, obviously, in the audience

goes along with it. - [David] Yes, I'm having

a very good time.

- [Woman] But, please tell me why is though

that your fans are happy to go along with your changes?

Do you know what I mean?

There are the performers that their fans--

- You have to ask them, I think.

- Yeah, they all seem happy to spend 300 quid

and come and see you on tour.

- Yes, is that how much my tickets are?

- No, that's how many concerts they're been to.

[laughing]

- I know, it's quite amazing, incredible.

[cheers and applause]

- [Voiceover] Bowie first tasted commercial success

in 1969 when Space Oddity was released,

as the world was transfixed with Apollo 11

and its journey of discovery.

- I just thought it was the greatest song.

Just most fantastic, fantastic original song.

- People don't realize what a slow burn

David was in the United States.

Space Oddity was not a hit on its immediate release.

It was only a hit after Elton had had Rocket Man in America,

and then Space Oddity became a hit,

early '73.

It's inconceivable to think

that the albums we consider classics

were not upon release, popular in the United States.

- I hadn't realized what an impact is was going to make,

'cause it did actually.

It suddenly put him out there

as a little bit of the alien

which has stayed with him forever.

- [Voiceover] The song was used by the BBC

for their coverage of the moon landing.

And although it reached number one,

success was far from assured.

For all its brilliance, the public thought of it

as a novelty record.

- Then, really not very much happening.

He sort of disappeared from certainly

any degree of success.

- [Dana] It wasn't that easy at the beginning

'cause he wasn't managed by anyone really good

until Defries, but he did what he wanted.

- That's how I did for management,

and I signed him for records.

And I think the greatest favor I ever did him

was he had no interference whatsoever

when he was recording.

No input from the record company.

And that gave him a huge amount of freedom

which artists didn't usually have.

They were just artists.

They came.

They went.

No one thought they were going to make history.

[electronic music]

- [Voiceover] Not everyone appreciated David Bowie's

songwriting skills.

- The first time I met Andrew Lloyd Webber,

Starman was on the radio.

And he said to me, "What do you think of this?

"He can't sing.

"I used to love rock.

"I loved the Everly Brothers,

"but I'm losing touch.

"I don't like this."

And of course, that was the change in his writing

away from Jesus Christ Superstar,

which had been a so-called rock opera.

- I was the first Mary Magdalene in Jesus Christ Superstar.

- And that was a very daring thing, Jesus Christ Superstar,

in those days.

Just to call Jesus Christ a superstar

offended a lot of people.

And we had a lot of people out front protesting.

- David and Angie came to see Jesus Christ Superstar,

and they left in the interval.

They hated it.

I was mortified.

I knew they wouldn't like it.

It's not his kind of music.

- Now, this is a mutual antipathy

because David left at the interval

'cause he didn't like that style of music.

Of course, the world was big enough for both of them.

- They should've stayed for the crucifixion.

It was brilliant.

- Paul Nicholas, who was fabulous,

I had to watch him being crucified

eight times a week for a year.

- I was particularly good in that bit. [laughs]

I didn't have to do a lot, mind you.

- [Voiceover] Artistically, Bowie was powering ahead.

In 1970, he formed a short-lived band called Hype

though the recruitment of Hull guitarist, Mick Ronson.

- [Bob] It's impossible to overstate, I think,

how important Mick Ronson was to everything that happened.

- Mick Ronson was a great guitarist, genius guitarist.

- If anything, Mick Ronson's contribution

to David's sound has been underplayed and under-recognized.

I think he was crucial, absolutely crucial,

to the sound and image.

- I don't think he was that comfortable

with all the kind of getting down on his knees

in front of David and all of that

'cause he's a straight guy from Hull.

- [Voiceover] A version of Hype would evolve

into the Spiders From Mars

and create some of Bowie's most groundbreaking work,

starting with the Man Who Sold the World

followed by Hunky Dory which introduced

the sexual ambiguity that would become

an important part of Bowie's imagery.

- [Bob] You had Space Oddity, and then there was

a lull for a moment, but then came Hunky Dory.

- There's David in a dress on the album cover, unheard of.

Tame by today's standards where everyone's

nearly naked on the pop video.

- [Bob] So, David is saying to gay people in the early '70s

"Don't be afraid.

"Be you.

"Look what we can do.

"Look at me."

- He was androgynous, gay.

He was outrageous.

He didn't know which way he was.

He didn't really care.

- He was already giving all the signals

that he was going to blur the lines.

- [Laurence] Marc Bolan started it for him, started it.

- Marc was kind of androgynous in a way.

He had this corkscrew hair.

He wore ballet shoes, and makeup,

and guys hadn't sort of done that before.

But, absolutely parallel with that,

David was developing the Ziggy persona.

- He questioned notions of gender

and of what masculinity is,

being a sort of performing artist

as opposed to a rock star.

But, have since become adopted

by a lot of other people since.

- [Dana] The bisexual thing, it was very well-timed.

Suddenly, to be gay was kind of cool in those days.

- Up until then, nobody was overtly gay.

Johnnie Ray, who was a huge star.

He was gay, but no one knew about it

because the fear was no one would buy his records.

And I said, "You know,"

and this was the perceived wisdom at the time.

I was [mumbles].

"Girls buy records and girls have their pop stars."

And he said, "You know, time to change it.

"Don't worry about it."

And he was so bright.

He glammed up and he wore the tinsel,

but he didn't say he was gay.

- He was always, in my opinion, far more hetero.

He was a real man, strangely enough,

although he had, when naked,

he had what I call childbearing.

His hips were bigger than his very thin shoulders.

He had a rather odd shape, actually, when stark.

- He made it OK.

You can be successful.

You don't have to hide what you are

or who you are.

And I think that influenced not only other artists,

but the public.

[cheers and applause]

- [Voiceover] One object of Bowie's admiration

was New York pop art icon Andy Warhol.

- Andy Warhol was a massive figure in David's life

in the late '60s, early '70s,

what the factory was doing in New York.

- He said, "Look, OK, I've written a song

for you Andy Warhol."

♪ Andy Warhol, Silver Screen

But, strangely enough, for me,

one of the weirder songs to give to me

'cause it's very abstract.

I don't sing abstract.

I sing about emotions.

I would rather die than have an Andy Warhol

can of soup on my wall.

But, I never felt that close to the song.

It was hard to put any emotion into that

because Andy Warhol is not, it's not an emotional song.

Then, he liked my version so much,

he did his own version on the Hunky Dory album.

♪ Andy takes a little snooze

♪ Tie him when he's fast asleep

♪ Send him on a pleasant cruise ♪

[rhythmic instrumental music]

- [Voiceover] Hunky Dory was received

with moderate success, but all that changed

with the Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust

and the Spiders from Mars.

During 1972, Britain was crippled by industrial action.

The mood of the nation was dark,

and the culture was conservative.

This is when Bowie unleashed Ziggy,

the leading figure in the glam rock movement

which turned pop in a new direction.

- It's very funny.

It's, again, it works a lot more

because of its mistakes than its intentions,

but it's great.

It's terrific.

The one thing that comes to me more than anything else

is how influenced I was by Japan back then.

It just screams from the screen.

It's the whole thing.

It looks like I'm stretching over to the East

for inspiration.

I never realized how much that was apparent at the time.

- The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust

and the Spiders from Mars, it's so amusing.

It's now, of course, a classic,

but it didn't even make the top 40

on its original release because American radio

considered him too weird.

- [Voiceover] Bowie was already planning fresh career moves.

In 1973, he stunned his audience

by announcing the retirement of Ziggy.

- I've had a really incredibly loyal audience

for so many years now.

Virtually since when I started.

They sort of, it doesn't really matter what I do

that they seem to follow my turns

and all those strange distracted things I do,

but quite loyally, you know?

Which I'll always thank them for that.

[upbeat instrumental music]

- [Voiceover] By the mid-1970s, David Bowie

had metamorphosed again, and was still

breaking new musical ground.

Station to Station provided a dose of synthetic funk,

and introduced Bowie's most toxic alterego,

The Thin White Duke.

- [Russell] Do you have any idea, at this stage,

apart from just getting out on the stage,

how you astound?

Or does it actually come to you

in the middle of the night before?

- Actually, it'll probably be a lot faster than I've been.

That'll be my.

No, I haven't any thoughts about that at all.

The impact of the show has to be the outstanding thing,

not the dressing of it.

Dressing of the show is just a dressing.

It's a sort of perfunctory sort of thing.,

but the content has to astound.

You can dress a show with a trillion dollars,

or trillion pounds worth of goodies,

but if the show is not a substantial,

they will be no impact.

- He was more into the craft of being

an artist onstage then any rock star I've ever worked with.

David did all the lighting onstage

as the show rolled.

Lights from the right, lights from the left,

and with a fill-in from the bottom.

This pose is essentially a cue to his lighting director

that when the hand went up,

the lights went down.

- I didn't really embrace him fully

until Station to Station, which I loved,

and then Low, really.

So, it was great working with him after that,

'cause I could ask him lots of questions.

He was a superstar, then went kind of more left.

And when he went to Berlin,

things like Low, what people saw as really experimental,

they were pop songs, but they were presented

in kind of a left-field way.

And that album wasn't really accepted,

but it was probably my favorite.

- For someone who claims not to be that good a musician,

why are you coming back to perform onstage?

Or are you a better musician, in fact,

than you would admit?

- I can't link those two parts.

If I'm not that good a musician,

why am I coming back?

- [Russell] Yes, yes.

- Well, coming back's got nothing to do

with being a musician.

- Do you think you're a better musician

after two years away from it? - [David] I don't say

anything on stage.

I'm a good performer

and I'm a good singer.

That has nothing to do with being a musician.

Does it?

- [Voiceover] The cocaine-fueled paranoia

that seeped through Station to Station

reflected Bowie's increasingly troubled state of mind,

exacerbated by legal and financial battles

with former managers.

- [Dana] He'd been through quite a lot of managers,

or damagers, we used to call them.

And he always said, "One day I know I'll find

"the right manager."

And the right man was Tony Defries

who had this company called main man.

- No one managed really Bowie's career.

He managed his own career.

Where Defries was smart, he would just stand in-between

Bowie and anybody who wanted to talk to him and say, "No."

And perpetuate the diva.

- [Voiceover] Tony Defries represented Bowie

through his rise to stardom, reputedly making

more money from deals than Bowie himself.

- He always said, "Right, in order to be successful,

"you must go to America."

So, he uprooted all of us to go and live in New York.

- They were inclined to have limousines

on-hand 24 hours a day.

They were inclined to charge the company

various subsidies he's going to make tea with.

- main man was five years of total madness,

glory, fantastic times.

Defries had said that "Everyone has to have limos,

"24 seven limos, a secretary."

I had a secretary who was fantastic.

We all had assistants.

The offices were on Park Avenue.

He'd got a grand piano shipped in.

And there were many nights Mick, as in Jagger,

who was staying the The Plaza around the corner

would turn up and we'd all be hanging out till the morning.

At one point, there were about 40 staff.

I don't think David ever questioned

where the money came from.

- The stage had to be whatever it was, 60 feet wide.

David Bowie would have it measured

and say, "It's three feet short.

"I can't go on."

And Tony would say, he wouldn't say that was stupid.

Tony would say, "Oh, three feet short,

"we're not going on."

And that's how it progressed really.

- So, David was just A, having a way every time

which didn't just mean partying actually.

It meant working and doing what he wanted to do

which was creating music.

Nobody thought about who was paying the bills.

[speaker mumbles]

- At one point, he said, "I can't handle

"the madness and David."

And I remember he had to book a telephone call

to break the whole contract up.

And it was only a thing because suddenly

David was getting wise to the fact

that he'd been working all these years.

He had five number ones.

He didn't actually have any money.

But, the reason was a lot of the money

that was coming in was fueling the costs

of running main man.

- At the time that they went off to America,

I was in for 75,000, as I recall,

75,000 pounds of my own money.

So, I said, "Look, for the next few years,

"you give me say half a million pounds."

You know, "Ha, ha, half a million pounds

"is more money than there was in the world."

And a year or so later, they sent me a balancing check,

and it was fine.

I was very happy.

- Musicians were just so grateful to,

"Sign here, you're going to get every musician you want.

"You're going to fly here and there.

"You're going to gigs.

"You're going on a great tour bus."

And suddenly, everything like the house of cards

came crashing down.

- He and Defries are falling out big time,

and RCA Records were not getting any product from David.

And we organized a summit in Los Angeles.

RCA paid for it.

This huge suite at the Century Plaza Hotel.

Berry had a suite with his people.

Defries had a suite.

I was with RCA, and it was like Kissinger

and the Vietnam Conference.

It was just silly.

I called them in.

I said, "All you other guys did for me."

It was only money.

And you're really being stupid because

"you're both intractable and if you both give a little bit,

"there's a chance you can resolve this.

"And if not, no records are going to go out."

And Demartin came out and said to me,

"Look, this is very embarrassing.

"David would like to sign a piece of paper

"saying you're not getting anything out of this."

And I said, "You tell David to go [beep] himself."

- I think at that point, David decided

to become a businessman.

- In later years, when I tried to contact him,

I couldn't get him.

I couldn't get him, didn't want to know.

[dramatic instrumental music]

[applause]

- [Voiceover] David Bowie will be remembered

for his astounding musical career,

but he pushed financial as well as musical boundaries.

- Gosh.

- A lot of artists don't even want to get involved

on the business side of things,

but David did, and successfully.

- I do the art and then I try and sell it. [laughs]

It's not much more complicated than that really.

But, while I'm working on the art itself,

I am 100% artist.

And when I'm trying to sell it,

believe me, I'm 100% businessman.

- [Bob] By doing so, reinforced the general impression

of himself as being a visionary.

That somehow he was able to see

what was going to happen next,

but before anybody else did.

- I wouldn't give you a comment on Napster.

I think it's very hard for artists

to have reached a certain level of economic means

to be take seriously when they start talking

about copyright issues and Napster.

I'll give you a scenario though.

Around six months time, record companies

will have banded together in some kind of club.

All the copyright difficulties with Napster

would have been solved just in time

for them to put in a fee so people have

to pay to use the site,

and then competition will spring up everywhere,

and then Napster will be one of many.

- He was very intelligent,

and he was very, very savvy.

- The other thing that he did

that was way ahead of everybody else was the Bowie Bonds.

- [Voiceover] In 1997, Bowie made history

by launching Bowie Bonds, which were as groundbreaking

as his music.

- [Paul] He was the first artist

to securitize his back catalog,

and these were 10-year bonds.

- He was saying, "Invest in me,

"and over a long period of time,

"you'll get the benefit by getting royalties back

"from work not written yet."

- [Voiceover] You've gone on with your plans to go public?

- Yes, we needed money.

- Evan Davis had jokingly said

after the financial collapse of 2008,

"Well, we should blame David Bowie."

But, we did make a profit after 10 years

on the Bowie Bonds.

Our society as a whole did not,

and we had the financial collapse.

- I'm watching this thing.

It's like it's crazy.

It's just crazy out there.

Most industries are a kind of in decline at the moment.

They really are.

Industries are having a really bad time,

but the main differences with price slashing like this

the record industry's so different

because they're the only industry

where their products is actually

also available for free. [laughs]

As competition to the price-slashing,

so it's a really peculiar situation.

- [Voiceover] Throughout his career,

Bowie remained creativity restless

and constantly innovative.

[easygoing guitar music]

- So, I've only got five words.

That was five.

[laughter]

Four more there.

That's three.

[laughter]

Two.

- [Voiceover] During the mid-'70s,

he transformed again in another unexpected career swerve.

He released Young Americans.

[cheers and applause]

- He released 15 albums in the 1970s.

So, blink and you missed it.

The one that made Bowie a mainstream figure

in the United States was Fame

which was an accident.

- He's in New York doing Madison Square Garden.

He called John Lennon up, said, "What's happening, John?

"I'm down the street here.

"Why don't you come in?"

John popped down to see him.

The guitarist, the three of them

were jamming on this riff that built,

and suddenly you've got a song called Fame

which catapulted David to the top of the American chart.

- [Voiceover] While others would have been happy

to stick to the soul template

that broke the US, Bowie would again change tack

and release some of the most uncompromising music

of his career, endlessly manipulating his public identity.

The weird aura around him was boosted in 1976

when he was cast as a stranded alien.

- [Russell] Now, you've finished making the film

called The Man Who Came to Earth.

- [David] Fell to Earth.

- Fell to Earth, I beg your pardon.

It's not an easy film to explain to people

who haven't seen it, and it's not yet finished, is it?

- It's finished in visual.

It's not finished in sound.

I've got to record the sound.

We've written a lot of it.

It's, I tell you, all I can tell you

is it's a love story more than anything else.

It's very, very sad, very romantic.

It brought a lump to my throat watching it.

And it's been a gas working on it.

- [Bob] The leading criteria of his professional career,

I think, was first the music.

- Tony Visconti said you've "put everything you had into it"

and you were totally professional as an actor.

- Cool.

- [Woman] Do you think that's a compliment?

- Yes, it is, very much so.

- [Woman] Do you see acting taking over more and more

of your time? - [David] No, directing maybe.

Let's behind that thing. - [Woman] Yes.

- [Voiceover] Bowie continued to progress as an actor

receiving strong reviews for the 1980 stage role

as John Merrick in the Broadway production

of the Elephant Man.

- Theater is something I enjoy very much.

But, I don't think I can generalize

and say theater is dishonest. [laughs]

I think theater tells a lot of truths.

It's just a different way of doing things.

I still like the idea of doing a theatrical thing,

and it doesn't preclude me maybe doing one in the future.

But, right now, I'm very happy just being a singer.

- [Voiceover] For the remainder of his career,

Bowie confined himself

to occasional supporting roles and cameos.

- We were asked to produce the music

for Absolute Beginnners.

This is the bloke who I thought was the best producer

in the world, and I'm asked to produce him.

It was a strange, scary experience to begin with.

We were supposed to meet at the James' Club,

and Al and myself were quite scared

'cause we weren't used to being seen

with rock royalty like that.

It was all kind of quite surreal.

Then, he played us the demo, which was amazing,

of Absolute Beginners.

He could have put that out.

So, I kind of was concerned,

and I think David was concerned.

It was like, "How are we going to better the demo?"

But, he had his own sense of criticism.

He was fun to work with,

or you had so much respect,

so you worked hard.

You concentrated all the time,

and things got done pretty quickly.

He was a very nice guy.

I had one of those relationships

which is very music busy.

You felt like you were friends,

but I think there was only a few people

who really knew what he was completely like.

And he could converse about anything,

and he was a very attractive person.

Powerful, but without showing off his power.

- I've got the cheek of the devil.

- [Voiceover] By the end of 1976,

Bowie had taken up residence in Berlin

accompanied by sometime collaborator, Iggy Pop.

- He called me up in New York in like November,

and said, "Hey, why don't you come over.

"I've got these demos I'm playing."

I said, "Great, I'll bring my demos."

And we were playing demos and he started listening

and went, "Mm, I like that."

And said, "We could do this.

"I could come in and write some stuff."

We didn't use anybody to kind of drive us around.

None of that.

It was all right out.

- [Voiceover] David Bowie was a roadie as well?

- Both of us, yeah, yeah.

The both of us also had helped having

producers who were both experienced

at getting things on the radio.

And yes, yes, I want my stuff on the radio.

Yes!

I deserve it, and I want it,

and I'm going to get it.

- I still have very fond memories of Berlin.

- [Voiceover] A bit violent, isn't it though?

- [David] Yeah.

- [Voiceover] Did that worry you at all?

- I think towards the end, it was something

that I felt I didn't really want any part

in my life too much.

It was getting more violent.

- What he did successfully in the 1970s

was so impressive because he gave Mott the Hopple

All the Young Dudes, which he produced.

He produced Lou Reed, Walk on the Wild Side,

and then, very impressively, Iggy Pop.

The Passenger is probably

the best known song from that period.

- [Voiceover] During this intensely creative period,

Bowie released three classic albums,

Lodger, Low and Heroes.

- Heroes isn't an album about Berlin,

but it reflects.

There a resonance of Berlin about the album Heroes

because that's where it was written.

And you can kind of feel that that's

the city is was written in.

- [Voiceover] In-between sessions, Bowie found time

to feature as a keyboard player on Iggy Pop's Idiot tour.

- I used to go some of the gigs on the road,

but, of course, David didn't like to fly.

He had this fear of flying.

Most people would get to a hotel after the gig

and fly the next day.

He would go straight to his huge limo

with a big Mack driver and go for hundreds of miles

across America sitting kind of slumped

in the back of the seat.

And somebody would always have to go with him.

I went a few times with him in the car,

and he, sleep wasn't really on his mind.

He got so drained, so tired,

that it was a miracle that he actually finished the show.

[solemn instrumental music]

- [Voiceover] Meanwhile, Bowie's relationship with Angie

had been disintegrating and they would divorce in 1980.

- It was excruciatingly public, very undignified.

- It's the worst I've ever felt in my life,

and it's totally and utterly thanks

to the great enthusiastic

behavior of Corinne Schwab

and David Bowie being a total and utter coward.

A skank coward because he couldn't even talk to me.

I felt like I lived at the bottom of a slave ship

with the rats and the extra men.

[gentle instrumental music]

- [Voiceover] After a decade as a major cult figure,

Bowie's stardom reached new heights in 1983

with the worldwide success of Let's Dance.

This was to be the most commercially successful period

of his career, and introduced him

to a whole new generation.

- [Voiceover] Is the record on a whole a dance record?

- Dance is so diversified now.

There's so many styles of dancing.

- [Voiceover] A lot of different dances to do on it?

- Absolutely, yeah, yeah. [laughs]

If you dance slow, there's a slow track on there.

- There have been rumors

that this might be the last hit tour.

Would you care to stem those?

- I doubt that.

I can't see that I'd be touring next year again,

but I've got no real feeling about stopping touring.

If this goes as happily as I want it to go,

then it would, I'd probably tour

a lot more frequently than I have.

- [Voiceover] Let's Dance propelled him

into that super-stardom, shopping mall sort of pop star.

- [Paul] It was a whole different phase for him.

That was the phase where American radio loved him.

- [Bob] In retrospect, it's interesting to see David

say that probably that time in the early '80s,

when he was having those massive hit,

Let's Dance, Shiny Gun, was probably

the least fulfilling time he felt

in his whole musical career.

- I've had big hit with albums I really despise really.

Albums I don't like, and they've done really, really well.

And it always has to be about material on the album

and whether, in hindsight, and pretty fast hindsight.

Hindsight within like a month or two

of having made the album.

If I can really look at it and say,

"This was definitely the very best kind of work

"I could've done at that particular time."

[steady rhythmic music]

- [Voiceover] 1988 brought a new venture,

and what many fans perceived as a new low,

Bowie's rock band Tin Machine garnered mixed reviews.

- Yeah, I had to let him sing,

be the singer on the first record.

So, now David can play a little guitar and I can sing.

- And a little saxophone.

- And some saxophone

- This big.

- Know what I mean?

- There were two reasons why the critics

didn't like Tin Machine.

One, 'cause the record was not very good.

Second, the concept of a major artist

trying to be the equal of people

who were not major artists.

- To me, the first Tin Machine album

was really good.

We were invited along to do the sound

for the one night in Corbin.

And I thought it was really good.

I didn't understand actually

what the backlash was all about

because amazing band, amazing rhythm section,

and a couple of really good songs.

- With David Bowie, he had to be David Bowie.

People did not want him to be part

of something else.

[electronic music]

- [Voiceover] After dissolving Tin Machine,

Bowie married Somalian model Iman,

who he had met 18 months earlier.

- I'm 47 years old.

My stars change on a constant basis.

No wonder I married David Bowie.

We both believe in change. [laughs]

- [Voiceover] The couple settled in New York,

and in August 2000, they had a daughter, Alexandria Jones.

- I've gotten so used to the luxury

of living anonymously, and my family.

And it is how we live in New York.

Nobody ever bothers you over there.

It really, unless you're a damn fool

and want to go live in LA or something.

And good luck to you.

You deserve it.

If you want, in New York it's not a kind of paparazzi haven.

- [Voiceover] So, you can walk--

- You can have a real life.

[laughs] Yeah, sorry but it's like you're

not just a product of the newspapers over there.

You can just get on with things,

and I like that.

I've gotten used to it.

What can I say?

It's a laziness, I guess.

If I came back to Britain, I'd probably

not opt to live in London, but I love London really a lot.

It would be really difficult for me

to go and live in Gloucestershire or somewhere,

as much as a love Gloucestershire.

I like to be in New York City.

It was great to come.

I wanted to catch up with folks and see what's happening.

See what my son's up to and all that.

[fast paced electronic music]

- [Voiceover] The new start in Bowie's private life

triggered yet another transformation.

He forever ditched his other worldly persona

in favor of conventionality.

- Hello.

I like being where I am now very much.

I much prefer it.

I feel a lot more free about what I can do,

and dare I say, what I can get away with musically.

- What he was doing in the '90s

wasn't registering with the mainstream audience.

He was experimenting with, again,

new and different musical forms,

and they didn't quite register.

The albums would always come in high the first week,

'cause fans would buy them, and then they'd go down.

His main achievement in the '90s

were that he was a pioneer in the internet

with his fan service BowieNet.

This was, again, being ahead of the curve.

It just wasn't musical.

- Not many people know this, but actually,

I was the first artist to take computers out on the road

in the early, very early '80s,

in fact, in the Serious Moonlight tour in 1983.

So, we were going online then

delivering all facts and figures back to home base.

So, my experience with computers does go back a long time.

- [Voiceover] Bowie continued to tour and record

until 2003, when he released Reality,

his 23rd album which many assumed to be his last.

- [Voiceover] It's a big tour you're starting now, isn't it?

- Yeah, it's going to go on for months and months,

but I think they're up for it.

- [Voiceover] What do you feel right now?

- Pretty relaxed.

I enjoy the songs a lot, so I'm going to have a good time.

[laughs]

It's a struggle to understand how I'm no longer 20.

I don't know anybody else this has ever happened to.

Most people, they get to 20, then they stay 20.

It didn't happen for me though.

I just went on and on and on,

and suddenly, I'm 56.

Isn't that weird?

We can't wait to bring our show to you,

whatever that show is.

It'll be fun.

All right, see you then.

- He had his first heart attack.

That was the reason he didn't perform anymore.

So, the people who were closest to him

didn't want you to keep pestering them with questions.

"Oh, when's he going to do another show?"

They just said, "He's had heart problems.

"They're afraid the exertion might kill him."

[dramatic instrumental music]

- [Voiceover] But, there was more to come.

After a decade without a studio album,

Bowie reemerged in 2013 with The Next Day

which propelled him back into the popular consciousness.

- It got to number two in the Billboard

which was his highest career peak at that point,

believe it or not.

And that set up Blackstar.

- [Voiceover] Until the last, David Bowie

was capable of springing surprises.

Releasing Blackstar two days before his death

saw him innovating until the end.

- He did the ultimate that every musician wants

which is you're dying, you got an album out

three days before your death.

How cool is that?

- I listened to the album the days leading up to his death.

So, trying to work out what it was all about,

and it was a bit down.

- It disturbed me.

I thought there was a message in it,

but I didn't know what it was.

I never imagined that it was a sort of goodbye.

- It was gloomy, initially,

then it all made sense.

I felt a bit conned.

He sort of conned everyone,

but I'd say it couldn't have been done better.

- He orchestrated it beautifully with taste,

the way he's always been.

- It was brilliantly done, if you want to be depressed.

Not one for the children. [laughs]

- Even in death, I think David was very aware

of what the public would think about it.

- The timing was so extraordinary.

New album, new show,

both about his death and he dies.

That is the ultimate performance artistry.

It's so brash and bold and brave,

and inconceivable, but he pulled it off.

[gentle instrumental music]

- [Voiceover] Even by the standards of an age

when fame and celebrity are excessively worshiped,

David Bowie's demise was an event

which generated worldwide wall-to-wall coverage.

In the wake of his death from cancer

at the age of 69, the media went into meltdown.

- [Mary] It was absolutely devastating.

- [Voiceover] It's very hard still to talk

about him in the past tense.

I'm just totally dumbstruck

that he's no longer here.

I really am.

It really upset me to the core.

- [Voiceover] I don't know if I've ever been this emotional

about a celebrity, an icon, dying.

His music means a great deal to me.

- [Voiceover] Just really heartbroken

as if, when you feel as if you really knew someone

and they really touched your life.

- For everyone, he's their David Bowie,

and he was my David Bowie for that nine-month period,

and I thought we had something going.

But, he had it going with millions of people.

- It's a sad occasion for us this morning

as we put this wreath here on the star of David Bowie.

What an iconic entertainer, rock star, songwriter,

performer, actor, you could go on and on.

- I didn't sleep all night,

and I cried last night, and then I found out.

It was like I lost a family member.

- Feeling devastated is a complete wasted emotion.

He wouldn't want it, so why should anyone else do it?

- [Paul] I think he achieved everything

he would've dreamt of.

- [Dana] People feeling sorry for themselves,

they should be thinking about him,

and he did everything a musician wants to do.

- From the Archbishop of Canterbury to George Clinton,

from the Vatican to the country of Germany,

with all these different records and styles,

he just touched an incredibly large number

of different populations.

That when you add them all together,

are the majority.

- I was filmed just outside of Radio Two

by Reuters' film crew.

I said to them, "When is this going out?"

And they said, "Over the next God knows how long."

I said, "Right."

And they then said, "In China, Japan, America,

"Germany, France."

And he looked at me, he said,

"David was big, massive all over the world."

He said, "We've never had a moment like this

"as far as demand is concerned."

- He's left so much music behind

that what could he do?

He couldn't go on till 200 years old.

He had to go at some point.

Obviously, one can feel sorry for his wife

and daughter and son, but when a child is born,

that's when you should cry

'cause you know they're going to have a life of hell

and pain and shit and everything.

When somebody dies is when you celebrate

and feel good because they've gone

to somewhere better of they've gone back to be stardust.

And I reckon he's stardust.

[solemn instrumental music]