Off the Record is a production of I Heart Radio. It was forty minutes before showtime and David Bowie was missing. This was never a good thing, but especially not tonight. It was the final date of his Ziggy Stardust Tour, the sixteen month trek that had taken him from the sleepy English suburbs to America, Japan and beyond. The tour had begun on the back of a pub. Now he was playing the hometown hero at London's Hammersmith Odeon Arena.
The show is being filmed for posterity, and high profile friends like Mick Jagger, Lou Reed and Ringo Star were there to cheer them on. Thousands of fans had gathered outside the venue on the Summer's night in July. Many came dressed as their idol was spiky day glow hair, shiny sequined pants and dangerously tall platform heels. Their faces were decorated with glittery disco drew guy makeup and brightly painted lightning bolts. One of these fans was a thirteen
year old East London schoolgirl named Julie. Waiting outside, she spotted a pale figure pacing anxiously amid the garbage and an otherwise deserted alley behind the venue. He looked like just another Bowie clone, ready for the show. But then Julie noticed his mismatched eyes, and slowly it dawned on her this was no clone. She gingerly approached, eager to offer a few words of praise and thanks. As he beckoned her over, she quickly realized something was very wrong.
David was worryingly thin and dishoveled. His famous eyes were filled with tears. He fled his dressing room for a moment of solitude, but now he seemed relieved to have someone to talk to for a few precious minutes. The torment had been building for months, years, even, and he was desperate to unload. David didn't know who he was anymore. Was he Ziggy Stardust, David Bowie, David Jones. He called his latest character a Laddin sane for a reason. He
was heading towards the brink of insanity. A complete physical and psychological collapse seemed imminent. He could feel it coming. He was going mad. He in fighter to Julie as his nicotine stained hands drew another cigarette to his lips. Everything had gone right, but then all so wrong. His marriage was all but over. His finances were a mess. Louis didn't say it. His flirtation with cocaine is wreaking havoc on his nervous system. Something had to change and fast.
David spied some frantic roadies sent to track him down. It was time to go. He said goodbye to Julian, bounded back inside the theater, passed the guards down the hall, up the backstage stairs to a balcony overlooking the street. From there, he surveyed the scene, staring out at his fans waiting outside, the blessed who remodeled themselves and his image to them. He was a god and he was about to forsake them. But he had to. He had to save himself. His manager's and patient Bark brought David
down to his dressing room. He stared in the mirror as assistance touched up his makeup. The fragile face with the injured eye. It looked at him like a stranger. He knew what he had to do. David Bowie was about to commit murder on the stage. He was about to kill off his greatest creation, Ziggy Star dust Clock's ticking lights down Volume Up showtime. Hello, and welcome to Off the Record, the show that goes beyond the songs and into the hearts and minds of rock's greatest legends.
I'm your host, Jordan Runtup. This season explores the life, or rather lives of David Bowie. Today's episode looks at a Latin Saying, the American sibling of Ziggy star Dust. The character was born on the road. As Bowie embarked on his triumphant first pour of the United States, it seemed like everything he had worked towards was coming true. Yet David felt more confused than ever. With his face bisected by his trademark Lightning Bolt, the character reflects an
artist coming apart at the seams. The multiple identities David araft It had originally brought him personal and creative freedom. Now they threatened to tear him apart. As the name suggests, Aladdin Saying is a troubling self portrait of a man on the brink. It was all David could do to
pull himself back from the edge. Passengers aboard the Queen Elizabeth the second we're settling into the ship's fine dining room when a strange figure appeared in their midst David Bowie had made his entrance in fools Ziggy stardust regalia. It was a black tie version of one of his stage costumes, complete with wings protruding from his shoulders. It's certainly made an impression. Some people gasped, others coughed up their soup. They're all looking at me, David complained to
his dinner companions. Well what did you expect? Came the reply. For the remainder of his journey, David took his meals inside his cabin. It was September. David was en route to New York to kick off his first tour of the United States. Rather than take the relatively quick flight from London, he and his if Angie had opted for a costly, yet refined week on the high seas. It was quite literally the only way to travel. By this point,
David had developed a serious phobia of flying. It began during a recent vacation to Cyprus, when his plane had been in an electrical storm and struck by lightning. Soon after, his dead father appeared to him in a dream and advised him never to fly again. That was enough for David. If it flies, its death became his familiar mantra. His fear was so intense that for a time he refused to stay in hotel rooms higher than the fourth floor.
David's manager, the cigar chomping compulsively fur coake clad Tony to Freeze, saw David's phobia as an asset. It made great copy, adding to the eccentrical lure of his most important client. Rockers like Led Zeppelin and Elton John could keep their private jets. Ocean liners were a throwback to the glamour icons of the nineteen twenties and thirties, making it the ideal mode of transport for his rising star. And make no mistake, David was a star, even if
no one else knew it. Yet for years, British acts wanting to crack the United States had to start from scratch, schlepping around small venues and playing third on the bill the homegrown American heroes. Eventually, if they were lucky, buzz would start to build. Tony DeFries planned to skip the whole toil and obscurity part. David Bowie would arrive on American shores as an a list. Soon enough, everyone else would have to catch on. De Freeze insisted that David
would never open for anyone, but always headline. He wrote outrageous clauses into his performance contracts, demanding the largest grand piano in the city for each gig. Anything less than nine ft long would result in the show's immediate cancelation. If a venue didn't have a private walkway from the entrance to the dressing room, they would have to construct
the wall so David could remain unseen until showtime. In return, David was expected to act like a headliner to freeze book David into weekends at high end hotels so he could get used to v I P treatment. A big and brooding Yorkshireman named Stewie George was hired as David's personal bodyguard, and together they rehearsed sprinting out of venues into one of three vans left idling outside. They've grown up with scenes of Beatlemania. Now they were planning for Bowiemania.
So far, only the fab Forward pulled off such an ambitious Atlantic crossing. Tony DeFries planned to do it again with Bowie. To announce the upcoming US tour, he flew over top American journalists from Rolling Stone and Playboy for an all expense paid Deluxe Weekend. The scribes were wind and dyed at the Dorchester Hotel before being greeted by Bowie himself, who encouraged one and all to call him Ziggy.
Lou Reid and Niggy Pop were on hand for an added dose of chaos before they all trucked over to the Friars Club to watch Bowie and concert. The cocktails or Derve's and hotel suite set to freeze back some twenty thousand pounds, but it was a small price to pay for column inches A blood of glowing magazine features made David one of the most talked about performers in the States, and he hadn't even played a note there.
To aid in his American assault, Defrees set up a field office in New York City for his newly formed management company. It was called MainMan. David loved the name, naturally, assuming that it referred to himself, but it soon became obvious that Defrees saw himself as the MainMan, which would lead to some flashes down the line. The expensive offices in Midtown Manhattan functioned chiefly as an opulent stage set
designed to project strength, importance, and above all success. The rooms were decorated with elegant leather armchairs and framed portraits of David. Desks were piled high with expense charges written on custom MainMan stationary. He looked amazing, but the suggestion of immense wealth was purely a facade. DeFreeze took a similar approach with his employees, who were hired more for
their flamboyant sense of style than any professional skills. The New York man Man office was staffed with an outrageous cast of freaks from Andy Warhol's factory scene. Tony Zanetta, who become friends with David the prior year when he performed in the war Hall stage play Pork, was installed as Mainman's president. Fellow Pork veteran Lee black shoulder As was taffed as vice president, and Cherry Vanilla filled out
the ranks as publicity officer. Cherry was the only one with any business experience, but that didn't seem to bother anyone. In fact, that was their selling point. They were wild rule breakers, capable of causing a sensation and looking absolutely fabulous while doing it. This was much more in mine with the image to Freeze was trying to convey. The MainMan staff were urged to act and look like a million dollars. This involved pretending that they had a million dollars.
They returned loose with company credit cards and encouraged to pay for lavish meals with enormous groups of in destry insiders. Man man have their own expense account. At Max's Kansas City, the late night haunt of the downtown Elite, a fleet of limousines were kept on constant call on top of their hundred dollar a week salary. Staffers had their rent paid. So did a group known as the f O d s or Friends of David, people who had no tangible role within the company. This was all part of the
Frieze overarching philosophy. You have to spend money to make money, But whose money was it? Where was it coming from? It was a question that nobody bothered to ask. They were too busy launching a star. In an effort to build an extra layer of mystique around David, DeFries turned down nearly all interviews. Instead, requests were forwarded the Cherry Vanilla, who took a somewhat unorthodox approach to her role as
David's public relations officer. Once she flashed the crowd at a press conference, another time she bit the rear end of a female reporter. And then there was the time she went on American radio and told listeners that David was not only gay, but a communist to boot. But war Hally and MainMan staff knew little about David's actual life, so they felt free to embellish when appropriate, and also inappropriate, sex was usually a talking point. Cherry Vanilla frequently described
David two reporters as quote the sexual Antichrist. During one high profile radio interview, she claimed that David made a point to sleep with everyone who worked for him. The following day, Mayman offices were flooded with job applications. By the time he ducked in New York in early September, the city was buzzing for Bowie. Members of the press were on hand to cover his arrival. Profiles ran in Time, Newsweek, and Rolling Stone, the ladder of which included this memorable description.
His hair dyed bright carrot sticks straight up above the brow. His smooth white skin is stretched from bone to bone in his face like telegraph wire along poles. He changes the expression constantly, as wind blowing across a lake. Instantly a static electricity. Everything about his appearance is extreme. Advertisements for Bowie's album and tour towered over the streets and avenues. Brick walls bore chalk scrawls bearing the words Ziggy Rules.
Considering David's toward begun in the back of a pub six months earlier, this was all pretty far out. David had some serious business to attend to. As he settled into his plush suite at the Plaza Hotel, it was decided to supplement his backing band, now touted as the Famous Spiders from Mars, with a new keyboard player, and they had just five days to find one. Mike Garson came highly recommended, with a background and avant garde jazz. He logged time backing the likes of Mel torm A,
Nancy Wilson, and Martha Reeves. Now he was eking out a living in tiny tourist clubs for five bucks a night. He had begun to think, Man, I think I really need to go out on the road with a famous rock star. Soon his wish was granted. That's September, he got a call from Maine Man asking if he wanted to do audition for the Ziggy Stardust tour. Garson had never heard of Ziggy or Bowie for that matter, but it was either that to go back to teaching piano lessons.
He showed up at the r c A Studios, where Bowie's guitarist and de facto musical director Mick Ronson plays sheet music on the piano. Garson's site read it on the spot, adding jazzy flourishes as he went. He only played about seven seconds before Ronson stopped him. He had the gig. Garson would become a crucial component of bowie sound over the next few years, mastering classical, jazz, pop, gospel, pretty much everything but rock, and that's what Bowie loved
about him. Garson, who was rumored to have practiced eight hours a day for ten years, brought a studied intensity to the band. Bowie referred to the keyboardist, who was a devout scientologist at the time, as Garson the parson. After some quick rehearsals, Bowie was finally ready to make his American debut. It had been scheduled for September twenty two in Cleveland, the Heartland rock capital, where a local kid had formed the first US Bowie fan club. Due
to David's no fly policy. The band and crew made the long trip from New York by bus. De Frieze had drafted Tony Zenetta to act as tour manager, but the title meant nothing to him. What does the road manager do, Zenetta asked the Freeze. Just make sure they find Cleveland. Came the impatient reply. De Frieze was busy doing battle with the Cleveland promoter, who had failed to provide a properly huge baby grand piano. De Frize was
ready to pull the plug on the show. Before the concert, organizers borrowed a suitably enormous set of keys from the city's Symphony Orchestra. A sold out crowd of thirty two thou people packed into the Cleveland Music Hall to watch Ziggy Stardust live and in the flesh. The screams were so loud that Mike Garson resorted to stuffing cotton in his ears in the ends. The audience couldn't contain themselves
and invade at the stage. Afterwards, David met a twenty one year old fan from acron name Chrissy Hind, future front woman of the Pretenders. She and her friends show Feurdom around in her mother's oldsmobile to get a meal. How's that for some good old fashioned American hospitality. David's first concert in America had been a resounding success, but the real test was still to come in New York City. If he could make it there, he could make it anywhere.
He was booked to play Carnegie Hall. The Beatles had been the first band to rock the hollowed venue on their triumphant American debut in nineteen sixty four. Eight years later, David was hoping for similar luck for all of their promotional fireworks. His records weren't selling in the States. It was crucial that he went over this media mecca. The main man Warhol contingent were tasked with distributing tickets to the great and good of the New York literati, most
of whom had never even heard of David. Seats were given to True and Campody, Jackie Kennedy's sister, Lee Razzwell, Todd Rundren, and the New York Dolls. Cherry Vanilla would later say, we peddled David's ass like Nathan sells hot dogs. The show was hyped into the social event of the season. Andy Warhol was limited to just two tickets and Atlantic Records Chief Ama Dagon reportedly couldn't get his hands on any made Man received four hundred applications for the one
hundred press seats available scalpers on Seventh Avenue. We're making upwards of fifty dollars on tickets with a face value of six bucks. On the night of the concert, Kleague lights on the steps of Carnegie Hall lit up the sky like a classic Hollywood film premiere. The Marquis bore the words fall in love with David Bowie. It was
a declaration fulfilled. Any semblance of New York cool had melted away by the end of the show, as newly minted Bowie fanatics were dancing and Carnegie Hall's historic aisles. Despite being feverish with the flu, David earned a rapturous five minute a vation. The press were equally enthusiastic. A star is born. I've always wanted to write that in review, and now I can, gushed one reporter. Another declared the
sixties are well and truly over. The publicity led to an influx of requests from promoters, and soon the eight date tour swelled to include an additional eight weeks. Bowie Mania was beginning d C. Boston, Kansas City, Indianapolis, St. Louis, Salt Lake City. David's torbus barreled down the long stretches of highway past the ever changing landscape. Cities turned to forests,
which turned to deserts. David was living out his cherished fantasies of Jack Kerouac's character is in On the Road, the book that had liberated his imagination as a young boy. As is so often the case, the fantasy doesn't always equal the reality. On his first journey to America the year before, a man in Texas way at the gun at David for wearing a dress. This trip featured similar
hostilities as he struggled to connect in the South. Members of the Ku Klux Klan came out in droves to pick at his gig in Nashville, objecting to David's bisexuality and supposed Communist sympathies. David arrived at ten thousand ced arenas in St. Louis, Kansas City and Miami, only to find that a few hundred people had bothered to turn up. Ever the pro he gathered the small crowd into the front rows and performed an intimate cabaret style set just
for them. Dates and Dallas and Houston sold so poorly that the Freeze had to cancel them completely. Even if the shows were a bust, they had fun as they made their way through the American heartland. David and his band loved to crash the sleepy hotel, cocktail lounges and full ziggy stardust makeup and costumes just to see the open mouth stairs of the usual clientele. Sometimes they had too much fun. One morning, road manager Tony Zanetta got
a frantic call. David was miss sing. The crew was packed up and ready to go, but their star was nowhere to be found. A short time later, Zanetta got another call. It was David. He had no idea where he was. I'm in a house. There are trees everywhere. I think I'm in the middle of a forest somewhere. Somehow, a bell hop at the band's hotel was able to work out David's location based on that sketchy description, and
disaster was averted. This time. The partying came to a head in late October when the Ziggy start Us tour pool in the Los Angeles. By then, the entourage had grown to forty six people, including an assortment of drug dealers, groupies, a professional palm reader, and diggy pop. Just for the hell of it, all were booked into the ultra lux
Beverly Hills Hotel at our sier's expense. Most spent their days lounging by the pool and ordering huge meals of lobster thermidor for themselves and random horus they met strolling Hollywood Boulevard. All were welcome, just send the bill to our c A Records and Tapes. David liked l A. It suited his lust for glamour, insatiable hedonism, and compulsive
need for chameleonic character changes. He was surprisingly sober during this time, wanting to keep a clear head for the pair of make or break dates at the Santa Monica Civic Center. His chief outlet was sex. His bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel hosted a parade of local groupies, visions and glitter and platforms. His latest serious fling was with Andy Warhol's newest factory girl, nineteen year old Surrender Fox, who would later go on to marry aerosmith Steven Tyler.
David liked her so much he called her into his room. The chat when he was in the middle of having sex with other women. This was quite a compliment. One night, she, David and Angie had a threesome involving a bathtub, Lady Godiva, Wig and lots of pearls. Stories of David's seduction are endless. Once at a party, he's at his side on a woman dancing with music producer Kim Fowley. David sidle up to Fouley and politely asked, are you in love with this woman? Or may I take her into the bathroom?
Receiving no objection, David approached the woman with a well honed pickup line, how do you do? I'm David Bowie. I'd like to discuss life at the Universal whatever my dear. Hand in hand, they went off in search of a restroom. A gang of jealous drag queens followed in hot pursuit, all eager for their private moment with Ziggy. David's sexual prowess, to say nothing of his impressive physical attributes, has been widely commented upon. He was a romantic, described as a
tender yet aerobic lover and an excellent kisser. To quote Cherry Vanilla is one time pr manager and occasional romantic partner. It never felt like we were just having sex. It felt like we were really making love. He was either a fabulous actor or a man whose emotions ran deep. David's voracious sexual appetite was slightly frightening to some members of his inner circle. He seemed down for at any time, anywhere, in the limo, in the bathroom, on the sidewalk in
front of the hotel. Back in his days as a student that promptly TechEd, David used sex as a power play to capture attention. His newfound fame only amplified this tendency, and the effect was startling. Cherry Vanilla, who shared a bed with him on more than one occasion, believed he was a sex addict. Another intimate would describe him less charitably in this period as quote screwing everything that moved
and quite a bit that didn't. The crew joke took on a scary realism one night at his hotel when a sinister member of the Hollywood show business elite offered to procure a dead body for his pleasure, still warm if he liked, David was deeply horrified and rejected the
indecent overture. However, there is the troubling claim of Laurie Maddox, a member of the so called Baby Groupie's Click of teenagers that hung around with visiting musicians who roamed the Sunset Strip Clubland at night, also known as Lori Lightning. Maddox is perhaps most famous for her tempestuous relationship with Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page when she was a miner. Prior to that, she said she lost her virginity to David Bowie during the Ziggy Stardust tour when she was fifteen
years old. Her version of events is varied considerably over the years and occasionally features historical impossibilities, leading some to doubt her story, but she's repeated the general just for decades and tells her tale with utmost fondness. The way it happens was so beautiful, Maddox said, I remember him looking like God and having me over a table. Who
wouldn't want to lose their virginity to David Bowie? To this day, Maddox claims that her experience with Bowie was not only consensual, but also a cherished memory, creating a thorny moral quandary for herself and also Bowie's fans. If twenty six year old David had sex with a minor, it makes the claims of his supper was as sex addiction all the more serious and concerning. Yet Maddox always
rebuffed those who sought to label her a victim. Well, she admits that her perception is shifted following the rise of the Me Too movement, She still denies that she was ever taken advantage of by Bowie. We were friends, she says, it was all pure fun. It was a different time in rock and roll. In that era, some of the world's most famous rock stars shamelessly engaged in relationships with young girls. Some of these women have no regrets,
while others remained scarred by their experiences. At the time, it was just an accepted part of the Hollywood music scene, which was becoming increasingly dark and menacing. As rock and roll became a billion dollar business, a sense of darkness has started to creep in the Dayvid's life. There were days when he could barely rouse himself from his bed. He often stayed in his hotel room, writing, reading, or
just staring at the television. He was described in this period as a frail, chalk white figure with almost vampiric tendencies. Maybe that was the effect David was going for. When a friend asked why he wasn't soaking up the Southern California son by the hotel pool, David solemnly replied, all melt below lows seemed like the logical inverse of his performance highs, both sexual and musical, but it was also
something deeper. The public persona of David Bowie, overlaid with even more outrageous siggy stardust alter ego had caused the boy from Bromley's identity to fracture. He'd later say, in Los Angeles, I was surrounded with people who indulged my ego, who treated me as ziggy Stardust, never realizing that David Jones might be behind it. His biggest fear was coming true.
His grip on reality was starting to slip. With the curse of his familial mental illness claim him too, like it had claimed his beloved half brother Terry, David found himself paying an enormous psychic price for his fame, and the financial one too. Their stay at the bear A Hills Hotel cost a hundred thousand dollars, including twenty thousand dollars in room service bills alone. DeFreeze sole attempt at cost cutting was the decree that groupies be sent home
without breakfast. The seventy one day tour lost four hundred and eighty five thousand dollars or seven thousand dollars a day. The silver tongues Defriese talked our Cia into paying off the debt, a move that caused the cancelation of the label's annual Christmas bonus that year. In exchange, our c would recoup its losses from Bowie's future record sales. In other words, our ci a would pay now, but Bowie
would pay later. It would take some time for David to realize that he was footing the bill for this traveling circus and to freeze increasingly ambitious schemes. Our Cia didn't have to wait long for new Bowie product, America did wonders for his creativity. A new album began to take shape, Inspired by David's cautious embrace of the country that had embraced him so warmly. His Jubie first visit the previous year had planted the seeds of ziggy stardust.
Now a portrait of Ziggy's disturbed and paranoid sibling began to emerge. David had seen the real America from his vantage point on his tour bus. It thrilled him, but it also frightened him. When I was a boy, we were all fascinated by America, he glumily told the journalist. But now that I'm here, I've forgotten why I wanted to come. His personal on the road adventure in the United States of Richard Nixon didn't match up to the
one Jack Carowac had presented. David had expected freedom and opportunity. He found it, but he also found urban decay, addiction, violence, and death. If I'm in a very light mood, I find everything in America so kitch, he explained. It's wonderful and I love to have it all hanging in my bedroom. If I'm in a bad mood, I find it terribly repressive and heavy. He declared the United States to be the loneliest place in the world, and the people insecure
and in need of warmth. Perhaps the fundamentally shy man who never got enough hugs as a child, recognized himself among the Yanks. His thoughts crystallized As he sailed home to England that December. He spent most of the sea voyage curled in an over stuffed armchair in his suite, thumbing through a copy of author Evelyn Walls Vile Bodies. It was a futuristic novel about a hedonistic society of bright young things living a life of decadent deprevity and
the eve of an impending World War. Wall's tale of frivolity on the brink of catastrophe resonated with Bowie. To him, this wasn't sci fi, but a chilling reflection of reality as he saw it. If the Ziggy start Us opening track five years as any indication, David really seemed to think that the planet Earth wouldn't survive into the eighties. Setting aside his copy of Vile Bodies, he reached for the spiral notebook on the small mahogany table at his side and began to write the words to a new song.
It's my interpretation of what America means to me, he'd say. It's like a summation of my first American tour, his schizophrenic impression of the country, to say nothing of his preoccupation with the mental illness that blighted his family inspired his new character a Laddin Sane. He was welcomed home on British shores like a triumphant war hero. Bowie's back trumpeted the full page ads that filled the music papers. Shows for his upcoming UK tour dates had already sold out,
and he had big things planned for nine. David managed to carve out time to celebrate Christmas with his wife Angie and toddler Zoe at their house, Hadden Hall. It would be the last holiday they'd spend that their beloved home, and more or less the last they'd spend together as a happy family. During the final dates of the Ziggy Stardust tour, a fan snatched David's way sting bracelet off his wrist, twin to the one worn by his wife Angie.
The theft was highly symbolic. Barely into its second year, their marriage was, in David's own words, pretty much over and all but name they would see less and less of one another in nine Jealousy played a sizeable role in the disintegration of their union. They had always enjoyed an extremely open relationship, but many in their circle felt that David was overdoing his freedom just a bit. Angie
was inclined to agree. She would later say that David was quote nailing everything that moved, and characterized him as having quote the morals of a bisexual alley cat. As a result, Angie kept her distance. This was generally encouraged by Bowie and his coterie. They acted more like business partners than lovers, staying in different suites and generally living
separate lives. For Angie, the tour was nothing but a string of increasingly humiliating incidents, sometimes in private, sometimes painfully public, but always involving her husband and groupies. Andie got her revenge by flaunting an affair with David's bodyguard. Never shy, they hooked up one night while skinny dipping in the motel pool. Motel management took a rather dim view of this sort of thing. David smooth things over before rounding
on Angie. She'd humiliated and before like the night she performed oral sex on a friend in the middle of a closed but not empty hotel bar. But this was the final straw. The next day he booked her a one way ticket back to England. Aside from special occasions, and she was never welcomed on as tours again, she had been banished from his inner traveling circle. The betrayals weren't just sexual, after all, they were bonded not just by love and lust, but also by mutually shared ambition.
As far as Andie was concerned, David broke a promise they had made when they were both struggling and penniless. The plan was, once they made David a rock star, they turned their attention to her career, building her up into a world famous performer in her own right. Andie felt she'd done her part by styling David, encouraging him, and serving as a dedicated creative collaborator. But David hadn't
kept up his end of the deal. He was too caught up in the whirlwind of his own success to reciprocate. David felt heed outgrowner, Angie felt there wasn't any room for her. She felt frustrated, even used, so she resorted to attention grabbing stunts, like sex in a public swimming pool to assert herself. This succeeded only an annoying David, who pushed her even further away. Andrew didn't mind the
space at first. Her acting ambitions kept her busy. She even auditioned for the role of TVs Wonder Woman, ultimately losing out when she refused to wear a braw for the screen test. But before long she'd get a call from David. There was a new problem to solve, a new door to kick down, a new idea he wanted to run by her, or he just missed her. Sooner or later she'd be drawn back into the Bowie orbit
and her plans were put on hold. So the cycle continued, but it was clear there wasn't room for two prima donnas in this marriage. In the midst of this marital turmoil, David re recorded a song called The Prettiest Star, written three years earlier as a tender ode to Angie. He first played it for through the telephone as part of his marriage proposal back in nineteen sixty nine, and released
it as a single soon after. His decision to revisit the song in late nineteen seventy two, when the relationship was well and truly on the rocks is a puzzling one. Perhaps it was his way of apologizing, or maybe it was his way of saying goodbye. It was an anomaly on his album in Progress, A Laddin Sane, which was written mostly while on tour in the United States. In a loose sense, the record was a sequel to Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, lacking any kind of narrative,
The general theme was Ziggy Goes to America. The record was a travelog by a stray You're in a Strange Land, observations from an alien traversing the country in a chartered Greyhound bus. Each song served as a musical postcard from abroad. On the track list, place names were included next to each title, notating the location where each song was composed. The first of these was conceived somewhere between Cleveland and Memphis.
During a bus ride jam session. Bowie, his old friend George Underwood, and Mick Ronson beat out an impromptu version of Bou Didley's I'm a Man, which soon morphed into an original song called Bustin. The song got new words a few weeks later, when Bowie visited his tour flings Surrenda Fox. Over discussions of the author Jeanine, Bowie twisted the bluesy stomp into gene Genie. He recorded the song and just one take days later at our c A Studios in New York, My first New York song, he'd
remember proudly. In just ninety minutes he had his new single, Another New York Song was watched that man. Inspired by the American characters who crammed into his suite for a particularly rowdy party at the Plaza Hotel, the senior minded David of Evelyn Wall's Vile Bodies passionate, bright young things partying while the world teetered on the brink of disaster. Drive in Sunday, on the other hand, takes place after
the apocalypse occurred. David was intrigued one night while gazing out at the desert vistas from an observation platform on a train journey through the Southwest. Strange lights on the horizon gave him visions of a world after a nuclear catastrophe. David being David, he added sex and media to the plot. The songs set in twenty three, when humans have forgotten how to reproduce need to watch old pornographic films as
teaching tools. Panic in Detroit required less imagination. It was taken largely from the mouth of his friend and MotorCity native Iggy Pop. When the Ziggy Stardust Tour passed through Detroit. Iggy kept David up all night by regaling him with tales from the nineteen sixty seven riots, a time when teenage revolutionaries joyously discussed the day when the system would be obliterated by machine gun wielding kids. When Iggy finally left the room at daybreak, David peered out that the
decayed urban ruined from his hotel suite. Slowly, the lyrics started to take shape. Cracked Actor was pure l a a portrait of the sleeves and menace, barely masked by a thin facade of glamour. The track was written during David's week in the City of Angels, inspired by strolls up and down Sunset Boulevard, an open market place for hookers and dealers to ply their wares. Even more intriguing to David were prostitutes of the legal variety, older producers,
preoccupied with sex, drugs, and money. They were quite strange, looking, quite charming, David would recall, but thoroughly unreal. The lyrics examined their debauched desires and sinister motivations. One only needs to look at the album's title track, Aladdin saying to understand the toll his globe trotting venture was taking on David's psychological equilibrium. He was a man divided. On one hand, he wanted nothing more than to perform his songs for
increasingly expansive audiences. On the other, the life of a rock and roll gypsy was beginning to wear on him. He found himself surrounded by users, sycophants, and drug casualties whose grasp on reality seemed even more tenuous than his own. As he would say, there were some very mixed up people on that tour, including myself, and I didn't like myself very much at that time. Psychological subdivision through his many alter egos left them confused about exactly who was
earning this mass adoration. It was clear that Ziggy was in charge. It was he who the crowd cheered for, who the interview was clamored to talk to, who the labels wanted more product from. For the first time, David began to realize the downside of a hit on the scale of Ziggy, Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. When he was effectively a nobody, he could explore creatively to
his heart's content. Now there was an expectation the artists arch enemy I felt for the first time and the only time that I was working for someone else, He'd say, A Laddin. The same is effectively continuation of Ziggy Stardust. David hated doing sequels, but he seated to the label pressure in popular demand. The split was apparent in the album's cover, shot by legendary photographer Brian Duffy. David's face
is bisected by a flashy lightning bolt. Makeup designer Pierre Laroche borrowed the symbol from Elvis Presley, David's birthday twin, who used it as a personal logo for himself and as Memphis Mafia for the King. The lightning meant taking care of business and a flash. In David's case, it represented his fractured psyche. Following early sessions in New York, David entered his familiar creative home at London's Tried and Studios in January n to complete the album. Recording was rapid.
The day the sessions ended, David boarded a ship bound for America for another string of US concert dates designed to top his show from just a few months earlier. Everything about the nineteen seventy three US concerts were bigger, grander, and more outrageous. The Freeze had booked venues that were twice as large as the last tour. David had started integrating costumes into his performance, bringing the characters of Ziggy and a Laddin Saying to life with masks and clothes.
He racked up as many as seven outfit changes per show, sometimes performing tearaway quick changes right on the stage. He brought along Pierre Laroche to oversee his elaborate makeup, which took between two and five hours each night to apply. In addition to the thick lashings of eyeliner and silver lipstick, David adopted a gaudy silver disc painted in the center of his forehead, a version of the so called love jewel worn by his former friend Calvin Mark Lee in
the waning days of the sixties. Even the band was augmented with the additions of guitarist John Hutchison, a pair of sacks players, and backing vocalist Jeffrey McCormick, a childhood friend of day VID's. The expansion allowed David more freedom to move around the stage, but it also caused friction with the original Spiders from Mars, who feared that they were being relegated to the thankless roll of a solo stars anonymous backing band. The breakneck pace of recording and
touring was taking a toll on intergroup relations. Gone was the all for one, one for all hippie spirit from their days sleeping on the floor at hadden Hall. Sessions for a ladd and Saying had been particularly tense between David and drummer Woody Woodman's, who had refused to blindly yield to David's creative whims. But the real schism occurred on the eve of the tour, when the original Spiders found out how much new boy Mike Garson was being paid.
It happened in the most painfully awkward way. Woodman's was thumbing through a magazine and he saw an advertisement for a flashy Lamborghini. Wouldn't it be great to have one of those? He daydreamed aloud to Garson. Why don't you buy one? Garson replied, you must be able to afford one by now? Would He assured him that it was still way out of his budget. Garson was confused. After
some hemming and hawing, the men compared salaries. That's when they learned that Garson was making ten times the salary of the original Spiders. The revelation led to a full scale mutiny before the nineteen seventy three tour kicked off in New York City, Tony DeFries playcated Mick Ronson with the promise of a main man solo deal, but Woody and bassist Trevor Bolder were on strike. No pay, no play. This is a joke, they complained to Defrieze. Even the
roadies are getting more than us. Defrieze snapped back, well, I'd rather give the money to the road crew than you. Things were eventually smoothed over, but the damage had been done. David view the mutinyous tantamount of treason. Relations between him and the rhythm section were never the same again. David took the stage as scheduled on Valentine's Day at Radio City Music Hall. The six thousand seat venue was loaded with everyone from Andy Warhol and Salvador Dolly to Alan
Ginsburg and Truman Capote. David himself made an unforgettable entrance by descending fifty feet from the ceiling to the stage in a literal gilded cage, a propy borrowed from the Rockett stage show. The audience had a great time, but the show wouldn't rank among David's favorites. Makeup man Pierre Laroche had doused him with glitter for the first time, which mixed with David's sweat and ran into his eyes.
I did the whole show almost blind, he complained. Then, as he delivered his rock and roll suicide finale, a fan leapt on stage and planted a kiss on David's cheek. David was so startled that he fainted, collapsing center stage. His timing was so impeccable that even the band thought it was just the new bit of drama for the song's climax. It wasn't until he was bodily carded off the stage that they realized anything was amiss. Blinded by
glitter and smothered by fans. As far as almens go, these were not the best for David's new tour, but the nineteen seventy three American track generally went off without much of a hitch. It was the greatest Hits reel, consolidating the successes of months earlier. He followed back to radio city shows with an astonishing seven concerts in Philadelphia plus two in Memphis. Two in Detroit and two in l A. After taking Hollywood, he continued west all the
way to Japan for a ten date tour. If Ziggy Started Us was a success in England in the States, it made an even bigger splash with the Japanese. The album had been selling non stop in Japan despite almost no promotional effort, ultimately remaining in the charts for two years. Though mocked by the highbrow Japanese press, Bowie had earned a passionate following with teenagers and college students. The attraction was understandable. Their culture was a major part of Ziggy
Start Us. D n A. David had been drawn the Japanese styles, colors, and textures while designing Ziggy's costumes, crafting a look that was in every sense alien to Western audiences. The clothes, the makeup, the choreography. To the Japanese, Bowie was a rocked up, larger than life reflection of their own cultural heritage. They illustrated the point quite literally by welcoming Dave it with a massive ninety ft poster of his face, the largest poster in the world at the time,
hung from a Tokyo skyscraper. The tour allowed David to delve deeper into Japanese drama. He was particularly intrigued by the theatrical style known as kabuki, a word meaning song, dance, and art characterized by elaborate makeup, garish costumes, and physical expressionism. It's easy to see why kabuki would appeal to David in many ways. It was the Eastern counterpart to the mime work he'd done with Lindsay Kemp in the sixties,
but kabuki allowed for even greater freedom of expression. Exclusively male Kabuki actors portrayed both men and women, sometimes in the same scene, rapidly changing costumes to express this change of personality. For David, a man who swapped personas like clothes, this notion was especially compelling. His latest shows incorporated an ever growing number of costumes crafted by Japanese designer Kansai Yamamoto.
David met up with the Future Fashion Icon upon his arrival in Tokyo to collect the nine outfits he commissioned for the Aladdin Same tour. They were kabuki costumes with a sci fi twist. Many could be torn off with a dramatic flourish to reveal a second outfit. Underneath. Some of these were done in more traditional modes, like the white satin Komono cape decorated with black and red Chinese
letters that spelled out David Bowie phonetically. Less traditional was the Space Samurai costume, a quilted one piece made of lustrous black, red and blue fabric and lined with rows of black sequins. David would call on Yamamoto and at least one occasion during his stay to repair the damage to his clothes inflicted by over zealous fans. David was equally enthusiastic about Japan and its culture. When he wasn't performing, he explored the country, visiting bathhouses and fish markets, sampling
sake and admiring Kiyoto's famous cherry blossoms. He took in theatrical performances, fashion shows, and sumo wrestling competitions. He even went further afield of the outlying provinces, where he marveled at the into temples and elaborate dance rituals performed by the villagers. In a rare moment of unity, Angie and Baby Zoe had come along for the tour. Together. They attended a tea ceremony at the Imperial gardens. For a fleeting moment, they were just an ordinary family on vacation.
Zoe would treasure the memories. He would be his last trip with both his parents. It would also be his first time seeing his father perform. The two year old was dressed for the occasion in a tiny kimono. It must have made quite an impression, as if seeing his father transform and the ziggy Stardust wasn't memorable enough. The
audiences in Japan were unusually ardent. At one gig, they stomped so hard that they bent the enormous steel girders holding up the floor of the venue, which nearly caused the ceiling of Bowie's dressing room and collapse. David tried to give as good as he got, assuming that the Japanese fans couldn't understand the word of his lyrics, He delivered the most physically demanding shows of his life, activating
his songs with his hands and body. Due in part to the exertion, he began performing part of the show and what was essentially a red sequined jockstrap. The sight of this whipped the crowd into an even greater frenzy. David was certainly appreciative of the attention, sometimes signing autographs in his hotel room and to the early morning hours.
With the outpouring of affection bordered on dangerous. Once he was forced to barricade himself in his dressing room for hours after a show due to a transport mix up. But love was simply too much. Emotions reached the breaking point during the final show of the tour when fans in Tokyo began to riot. Japanese authorities blamed Angie, claiming as she intentionally sparked the hysteria by swinging chairs and screaming. Angie claimed she was trying to rescue young fans from
heavy handed security guards. Regardless, Japanese officials demanded she and MainMan executive Tony Zanetta turned themselves in the police. Instead, they fled the country, hopping a flight to Hawaii. Whether or not she was actually at fault, David was furious with his wife, declaring her a virtual idiot who possessed all the tact and finesse of a mack truck. Just a few years ago, they've been partners. Now there was an ocean between them, and it still didn't seem like enough.
David took the long way home from Japan, crossing half the world by ship, rail and even hovercraft before completing the eight thousand mile journey to England. He arrived home just in time to learn that the newly released A Laddin Saying had gone the number one in Britain. It was the best selling album there since The Beatles had stormed the sales charts. His older records, even the ones that had sank without a trace upon their initial release,
were selling in vast quantities. His new single Drive in Saturday, was peaking at number three. Everything he'd worked for had come true. David should have felt on top of the world, elated, overjoyed, but he didn't. He felt lost. David we through a homecoming party in early May after more than three months on the road. He was grateful to settle in at
Hanton Hall. Old friends like George Underwood, designer Freddie Baretti, mime teacher and former Lover Lindsey Kemp and Ziggy Stardust producer Ken Scott all came out to welcome him back with wine, chicken and then the Laddin Saying themed cake. But ultimately David didn't feel much like partying this night. A year and a half of grueling, repetitive touring he left him emotionally and physically wiped. His stage costumes were coming apart at the seams, held together with some tape
and pins. David was in similar shape. He was suffering from exhaustion and his weight had fallen to barely a hundred pounds for the first time in his life. He just wanted to stay at home and watch TV, but in just a few days he had to go out and do it all again. Tony DeFreeze had booked him to play sixty concerts in fifty two days across Britain. David and the other Spiders grumbled that they were worked the bone. It was one of the few things they
agreed on. Ever since the pay dispute, the camaraderie of the band's early days had evaporated. They were no longer a gang of doerd I rock and roll drugs sharing a home, a van, on a stage. Mick Ronson was kept happy with a solo deal on man Man, but drummer Woody woodman Z and bassist Trevor Boulder barely exchanged words with David. During their concerts in Japan and the States. They had initially boycotted these new English dates until Mick
Ronson begged them the return of the fold. They agreed, but were noticeably absent from David's party. It's doubtful they were missed. One person who did attend was Tony Visconti, David's friend and former Hadden Hall housemaid. They had seen little of one another since Visconti had produced the frustrating Sessions for The Man Who Sold the World three years earlier. He found David a change person. I recognized him, but he really wasn't the same man he'd remember. He was Ziggy.
David had created an alter ego, and it had completely taken over his life. Like a cancer. It grew and grew, threatening to kill of the host audiences, journalists, label executives, even his own entourage. They all wanted Ziggy, not David Jones. So David simply played Ziggy at all times. He became lost in the fantasy. The doppelganger and myself were starting to become one and the same person, he'd recall. Then
you start on the trail of chaotic psychological destruction. David was locked in a battle for his identity and his soul. He was insulated from normal daily life by a coterie of handlers, security guards, and assorted sycophants, all of whom treated him like an alien in need of constant protection. As a result, David lost touch with reality. He began to doubt his own sanity. The madness that he spent all his life trying to keep it bay now felt
dangerously close. The UK tour did little to elevate morale. It got off to a rough start when David was booked to be the first rock act to play Earl's Court, a massive exhibition hall traditionally used for fairs and trade shows. All of the eighteen thousand seats had sold out in three hours, making it David's biggest audience to date. It should have been a triumph, but the gig was a disaster.
The band's inadequate sound system, coupled with the poor acoustics of the venue, ensure that almost no one could hear the music. Poor seating arrangements meant that few could actually see David's elaborate stage show either. This, combined with a lingering smell from a recent horse competition, made for a less than optimal concert experience. The show had to be halted midway through his hundreds of raucous fans stormed the stage,
kicking and punching each other as they went. Boie pleaded for calm while drunken revelers fought and urinated in the aisles. He and the band hid backstage for more than fifteen minutes until order was restored. Routiness became something of a theme at his recent concerts. A show in Glasgow made headlines when couples were caught having sex in their seats
as He's saying, Oh, you pretty things. David thought this was fabulous, but he was less than thrilled in Brighton when fans tore out an entire row of theater seats, resulting in David's permanent band from the venue. David caused damage to himself at another gig when he took a flying leap off a five foot speaker, only to face plants on the stage. He performed the encore confined to a chair, singing a cover of chuck Berries round and round through the pain of a sore ankle. Well David
was sacrificing his body on the stage. Tony Dufries was scheming yet another trip to the United States, David's third and less than a year, he claimed to have thirty eight North American dates lined up, with plans to double the number. He also had gigs and far flung regions like China and Russia. He claimed the proposed concerts would be even more elaborate than anything Broadway had ever seen.
In fact, they would challenge the laws of physics. David's technical director dreamed up a method to cover the stage with a giant two layered plastic bubble gases pumped into the bubbles double wall could make Bowie seemed to grow larger or smaller, then turn him shades of orange, blue, or red. At least that was the story Tony de Freeze put around, But he was faced with a problem. For all his talent for getting good press, the Freeze had violated the first rule of show business, always leave
them wanting more. David's many trips to the States had all but eliminated demand to see him. American seats were going unsold, and promoters worried about making a return on their investment. As main man executive Tony Sinetto would explain, david stardom was more in the press. It didn't translate into real numbers. The American tours had never made any money. They increased David's fame, but decreased his bank account. This has been de freeze planned from the start, but the
spending was spiraling out of control. The dinners, limos, first class hotel suites. It all added up to say nothing of the astronomical production costs of the concerts themselves. Recent tours made back barely a quarter of what they spent. David's refusal to fly limited the number of shows he could do to recoup expenses. Our c A Records, still furious at footing the bill for the last US ROMP, refused to underwrite another tour. Main Man didn't have the
resources the amount the tour themselves. The organization was hemorrhaging money, losing upwards of a thousand pounds a week. Bowie himself certainly didn't have the cash. Despite his stardom. He was forced to borrow money just to survive. Once he and Angie arrived home to find their door padlocked shut by creditors, Little Zoe was sent to stay with friends just to ensure he got fed. Simply put, the price of touring was just too much, too much money, too much energy,
too much of everyone's sanity. David just didn't have anything left. His enthusiasm for the road was rapidly growing thin as he felt like a slave to his manager's ambitions. We're gonna do another tour of America this year, he sighed to one journalist. I might die, but I have to do it. Tour or no tour. A showdown between David and Ziggy was imminent. It boiled down to a choice.
Would he do what was expected, demanded, even or would he satisfy himself and his own creative curiosity Aladdin saying had been the closest David had ever come to repeating himself creatively. Would David remained the singing Martian forever? Would he continue cranking out spacey pop tracks for the rest of his career. For David, the thought was untenable. He was bored to death of the whole Ziggy concept and eager to write for a different kind of project. He
had to move on. It became clear that he had the phase out Ziggy before Ziggy phased him out. In times of crisis, we returned to our base instincts. The survival skills and coping mechanisms set in places frightened children desperate to protect ourselves through fear, we become who we were. As David struggle for spiritual balance, a memory revealed itself, barely on the threshold of his consciousness. He was a boy, maybe four or five, in his Brixton childhood home. He
was screaming that he was dying. His parents leapt into action. Ordinarily they were so stoic and still, but in this moment their faces were twisted and worry. For once David knew they cared, he felt their love. An ambulance came tearing up the sleepy lane, drawing neighbors to their windows to see what all the fuss was about. At the Jones house. They mirrored his parents concern. Of course, David didn't die that day. Doctors found nothing wrong, and that's
because there wasn't physically. But the stunt had given David exactly what he needed. It suspended all expectations and responsibilities in his everyday life, and it brought him the attention and sympathy that he craved. After that, the ambulance made frequent trips to the Jones residence. Another false alarm came, the inevitable grumble, but it wasn't completely fake to David, it was a genuine cry for help. The words were simply beyond him. Now an adult, David found himself having
similar thoughts. What if he died, or rather, what if Ziggy stared us died? David would kill him off or perhaps just retire him? Best to keep his options open. It seemed the perfect solution to all of David's personal and professional headaches. In the short term, it would excuse him from the upcoming American Tour, which was shaping up to be a poorly attended financial disaster. By canceling these dates for creative reasons and not economic ones, he could
save face. It wouldn't look like a failure, quite the opposite. It would bolster his reputation as an unclassifiable artistic enigma, restlessly evolving before his audience's very eyes. Who else would abandoned their star making persona which was, as far as the public knew, wildly successful. The move made him look daring and adventurous rather than exhausted and overexposed. Retirement was a stroke of public relations genius. It offered David creative
freedom and the well deserved rest. The Frieze loved the idea the Beatles had retired from the road during the peak of their career, why not David. Arrangements were made for Ziggy's Final Bow, which would occur on the final date of their UK tour, a sold out gig at the Hammersmith Odean on July three three. The plan was top secret and kept strictly between David and de Frieze. Not even Angie was told of the retirement, an indication of just how estranged she and her husband had become.
Mick Ronson was one of the few to be given a heads up, but he was sworn to secrecy. The rest of the band wasn't informed that after three years of living together, traveling together, and reaching the highest echelons of rock fame together, their services with David were no longer required. Legendary documentary and d A. Penny Baker was hired to capture the proceedings on film. Our c A also sent a mobile recording unit for a proposed live album,
ensuring there were no second thoughts. News of the retirement was leaked to a handful of trusted journalists at the last possible moment. Headlines trumpeting David's retirement were headed to the printing press as the audience were still taking their seats. The crowd was packed with huge names including Mick Jagger, lou Reid, Ringo Star and Tony Curtis, and also a young girl named Julie. Guitar god Jeff Beck appeared as a special guest on Jeane Genie and Round and Round.
Other than that, the show was mostly business as usual, just another gig as far as the band was concerned. But David had asked the musicians the way to beat before launching into their trusted finale rock and Roll Suicide. Being the last night of the tour, they figured David would give a little speech marking the occasion. They had no idea what was about to happen. They were about
to be fired in the most public manner imaginable. Having thanked the road crew in the band, David paused, cowed by the gravity of what he was about to do, and then he plunged the knife into his most successful creation and into the backs of some of his closest associates. Of all the shows on this tour, this particular show will remain with us the longest, he said, because not only is it the last show of the tour, but
as the last show will ever do thank you. The spiders shot quizzical looks at one another as they struggled through the lengthy end of Rock and Roll Suicide. Did David say something about retiring? It was hard to hear over the dismayed cries of the crowd. Trevor Boulder mouth to Woody Woodman's he sacked us. That's when it's sunk in what he considered storming off in the middle of the song, but somehow managed to keep his composure and
play through. After taking their final bows, they looked in vain for David, desperate for some kind of explanation, but he was gone, vanished, nowhere to be found. The press reaction to David's news was monumental. Headlines across the globe blared variations of bowie bows out. Most reports quoted a main Man press release issued the day after the concert, which dramatically stated that David was quote leaving the concert
stage forever. It would take weeks before it became clear that it wasn't David himself who would never perform again, but Ziggy. By that point a few cared to make the distinction. The impending US tour had gone up in smoke. David was free almost a year to the day after his star making appearance on Top of the Pops. David had carried out the self emilation for told in the Ziggy Stardust narrative, a real life rock and roll suicide.
Ziggy had transcendent fantasy, becoming so real that he threatened to consume David. Through the act of killing Ziggy, David put the master stroke on his most enduring work of art, but it also meant saying goodbye to a part of himself and life as he knew it. After that night, the Spiders would never play together again. Within months, David and Angie would leave Hadden Hall. Their long time home was now overrun with fans. Some of these well wishers
just wanted a hello. Others broke off door knobs and shingles as souvenirs. A few even found their way inside, prowling the halls in search of the object of their desire. David couldn't stay. He had a family to think about, but even that seemed tenuous as he drifted further and further from Angie. It's telling that David's next musical endeavor
was a covers album called Phin Ups. It's a collection of British pop songs from the mid sixties, a time when David was struggling to find his musical voice with an endless stream of failed bands. Revisiting these hits from his frustrated youth allowed them to rewrite his own history as a full blown superstar. By laying claim to these songs, he could recast them in his own image and retroactively make himself a part of the London rock scene that rejected him all those years ago. It gave him a
sense of closure. One by one, the links to his past were severed. The future was wide open. Some would say that David's retirement was a business decision, a hackey and opportunistic show business trope, but his true feelings about Ziggy were far more complicated. David would say of his creation, He's a monster and I'm Dr Frankenstein. He's my brother and God I love him. His death hit him hard.
After taking his final bows at the Hammersmith Odean, David returned to his dressing room, collapsed on the vanity and wept. He wept for Ziggy, for his disintegrating marriage, for his half brother terry, institutionalized and lonely for his father dead far too soon, and for himself. Then his tears turned to rage. He uncorked the furious emotions that he bottled for years, and they erupted out of him in a violent frenzy. Chairs, tables, lamps, windows, wine bottles, and flowers
all were kicked, thrown and spat on. Then he turned the violence on his real target, himself, clawing his neck and face. When it was all over, he stared into the shattered mirror. His mismatched eyes that stared back at him were bloodshot and his cheek was bruised. Ziggy Stardus was dead. David Jones was alone again. For him, that was the scariest fate of all. Off the Record is a production of I Heart Radio. The executive producers are Noel Brown and Shan t. Tone. The superbusing producers so
Taylor Skyn and Tristan McNeil. The show was written and hosted by me Jordan Runtag and edited, scored and sound designed by Tristan McNeil. If you liked what you heard, please subscribe and leave us a review. For more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the I Heart radio, app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Thanks so much for listening to Off the record. We've reached the midpoint of the season, so we're gonna take
a brief pause in the story. Next Monday, we're gonna have an interview with Ken Scott, co producer of Ziggy Stardust, A, Ladin Saying, and Hunky Dorry. Throughout the course of his legendary career, he's also worked with the Beatles, Elton John and Pink Floyd, among many others. You won't want to miss this. We'll be back to the next chapter of David Bowie's life on Monday. Mark J.