With the launch of a new documentary, David Bowie: The Road to Fame, NME journalist Andrew Trendel decided to recreate the real life of the young man behind the myth and to interview his friends, lovers, and collaborators who knew him before he became Ziggy Stardust.
Text: Moonlight Daydreaming
Editor: Dogs
Although David Bowie jokingly declared in 1975, "I'm a crash star, I just need to add water and stir," the truth is far from simple. The impact of Bowie's music and art on 21st century pop culture is immeasurable.
The good news for many unfulfilled ambitions, though, is that he has experienced countless failures, rebirths, and weight-bearings like us before he became a legend.
Following "Five Years", which tells the story of Bowie's transition from the Ziggy Stardust era to the pop superstar of the 80s, and "The Last Five Years", which chronicled the creation of his last albums in 2017, the launch of David Bowie: The Road to Fame brought To a successful end to David Bowie's documentary trio.
To better understand how early David Bowie's family life, personal troubles, and career setbacks shaped his future, we went to interview close associates he knew before he became famous.
01
"I was so scared I thought I had blinded him."
George Underwood was not only a childhood friend of David Bowie, but also a member of the first band he formed, The Queen Bee.
Although the Queen Bee did not achieve much, Underwood added a lot to Bowie's mythology: he gave Bowie the alien eye of different sizes.
Underwood recalls that from the time they met at the age of nine, Bowie was a "confident" child with "advanced taste and talent".
"We were interested in anything that came from the U.S. or something different, and rock was just coming and we wanted to join in."
In 1962, they both fell in love with a girl named Carol. The arrogant David Bowie ruins Underwood's date: lying that the other person has changed his mind, even though she has been waiting for him outside a club door; and then taking advantage of the situation herself and hooking up with the girl.
"He played me around and I thought, 'You bastard!' Underwood laughed.
After a night of gas, the next day he heard Bowie flaunting his "record" on the bus. Unable to bear it, Underwood stepped forward and beat him up.
"A week later, my dad said to me, 'Why didn't you tell me you hit David?' His father just called me and he was taken to the hospital and may even be blind in one eye. I was so frightened that I rushed to the hospital to see him, and cried in front of his father. But in the end everything was fine, wasn't it? ”
Bowie's injuries—his permanently dilated pupils—made him look more like an alien.
"He later said I did him a big favor." Underwood himself became a well-known artist and accompanied Bowie throughout his life as a close friend.
02
"No personality... Not particularly interesting. ”
A recently discovered refusal letter from BBC Radio to David Bowie in 1965 described him as "strange-sounding" but "impersonal", "not particularly interesting" and "not going to get better with practice".
Bowie's early band or solo career was rife with percussions and disregards like this. Yet he seems to have been desperately eager to be noticed since birth.
"My childhood wasn't very happy," Bowie said as he recalled growing up in South London, "and my parents were very emotionally cold. They rarely give me hugs, so I always crave to be loved. ”
Documentary filmmaker Francis Wattley tells us: "His will was incredibly tough, especially in his early years – which made him stand out in the end. When he suffers setbacks, he is able to face the facts and realize that it is nothing more than an experience. In other words, anyone who didn't experience as much disappointment in his early years, these difficulties may have knocked them down. ”
The Road to Fame shows us Bowie's close relationship with his cousin Christine Amartius, as well as his brother Terry Burns, who introduced him to jazz.
Unfortunately, Terry was later diagnosed with schizophrenia and had to spend the rest of his life in a psychiatric hospital, committing suicide in 1985.
Bowie was deeply affected by these events, and mental health problems became recurring themes in his work. Terry's departure reinforces Bowie's sense of loneliness and desire to escape.
"I used to go to Brownlee to meet him," recalled Bowie's ex-girlfriend, actress and singer-songwriter Dinah Gillespie.
"When I first met him, he looked quite unusual, with long blond hair. It may seem like nothing now, but no one had that long hair back then. My dad thought he was a woman at first! ”
She continued: "I was only fourteen or fifteen years old and had never been in contact with working-class families. Walking into his cold home made me feel suffocated. Once when I went to his house, he said to me, 'I want to get out of here, no matter what the cost.' ’”
This is not an exaggeration. The "alien visitor" had to wipe the floor for someone else while waiting for the opportunity to audition.
"One of his bandmates told us that David would come to his house, treat his parents politely and help his mother clean up." Director Wattley said,
"Can you imagine David Bowie cleaning up?" What many people don't really know is that David Bowie did have to support himself by cleaning in the '60s. ”
03
"Letter to Hermione" – David Bowie's first true love
During the days David Bowie cleaned the toilet, he was living with his first true love, Hermione Fatingol. They met after being selected to participate in plays choreographed by mime master Lindsay Kemp.
Later, they formed a band called Feathers with guitarist John Hutchinson, and the trio's experiences performing music, art, poetry, and dance together paved the way for Bowie's later multimedia experiments as Ziggy Stardust.
Two years later, Hermione had to break up with Bowie for her role in the film Norwegian Song.
In The Road to Fame, Hermione reveals for the first time her deep affection for David Bowie.
"After all these years, it was very touching to be able to invite her to the camera and learn what she meant to him." Director Wattley said, "It was a post-adolescent love affair, and we all had such heartbreaking memories." He was also a mortal and had given mortal love to a beautiful woman. ”
The breakup of the two had a profound impact on Bowie.
On the 1969 album that bears his name, he wrote two songs about her, Letter to Hermione and Accidental Dreams, while on the 1971 album Hunky Dory he wrote the song Life on Mars. "The Girl with the Rat Gray Hair" commemorates her.
Years later, he was still making his comeback in 2013, MV, Where Are We Now? He appeared in a T-shirt with the words "Norwegian Song" written on it. As director Wattley put it, "Hermione was a beacon of David Bowie's life".
At a screening in London, Hermione told us: "[David Bowie and I] are soul mates and miss each other in every sense. We feel lonely when we are not together. These feelings are two-way. ”
So how did she react when she first heard "Letter to Hermione"?
"I didn't hear the song until a year later," she replied, "and three weeks later he was married to Angie." For me, this is not a letter asking for answers, but just a narrative. David's work has an extraordinary acumen and precision. His treatment of everything is so wonderful and to the point, and I appreciate it for that. ”