VH1 LEGENDS: DAVID BOWIE (TV)
Summary
One in this series of biographical documentaries profiling the influential artists of the day. This program explores the life and career of musician and actor David Bowie. Born in Brixton in 1947 as David Jones, Bowie was introduced to elements of artistic culture by his half-brother Terry Burns, though Burns soon began to suffer from hereditary mental illness and spent many years in an institution. Inspired by Little Richard's band, Bowie took up the saxophone and played with a number of different bands. In 1962 he was struck in the eye by a friend whose girlfriend he had attempted to steal, leading to the permanently expanded pupil that would later become one of his trademarks. He and his band the Manish Boys eventually toured with the Kinks, including notorious womanizer Dave Davies, and he adopted the stage name "Bowie" when Davy Jones of The Monkees became famous. His self-titled first album sold poorly, and he began studying acting and mime, later appearing in a student film, "The Image." He met and fell in love with Hermione Farthingale, and their breakup, combined with the influence of the film "2001: A Space Odyssey" (1968), prompted Bowie to write "Space Oddity," which became his first hit and was used by the BBC during their airing of the 1969 moon landing.
Bowie then won an award for record production, though he was crushed by the premature death of his father shortly thereafter. He embraced an electric sound for his music and began to develop a "stage persona," and in March 1970 he married Angela Barnett, with their son Duncan Jones arriving the following year. Bowie traveled to New York and befriended artist Andy Warhol, and "Changes" became his first American hit. In 1972, he developed the iconic "character" of Ziggy Stardust, inspired by kabuki imagery, and performed as the flamboyant alien character with his backup band, The Spiders From Mars. He declared himself to be gay in a newspaper interview, a startling announcement for the time, and his 1972 album "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars" performed well in America. He made his debut American performance at Carnegie Hall and performed sold-out shows on the coasts, though Middle America was largely unaware of his music, and went on to produce friend Lou Reed's 1972 album "Transformer." Bowie soon grew exhausted with the "mass hysteria" surrounding Ziggy and took a risk by "retiring" the character in 1973. He attempted to write a rock opera based on George Orwell's "1984," though failed to secure the rights, and encounter financial trouble when his label, Mainman Records, used his earnings to finance other artists.
Despite his mounting cocaine addiction, Bowie launched the Diamond Dogs tour in 1974, drawing inspiration from William Burroughs for its lavish, psychedelic sets. He incorporated a soul sound into his next album after visiting Philadelphia and received sage advice from John Lennon about the pressures of the limelight, and the two then collaborated on "Fame." Further changes to the Dogs tour placed him further in debt, but he eventually sued Mainman and gained financial and creative control over his own work. He played the lead role in 1976's "The Man Who Fell to Earth" and attempted to "tone down" his public image with appearances on chat shows, though he and Iggy Pop were soon arrested for drug possession while on tour. A 1976 album of his greatest hits sold well and, having resolved to straighten out his life, traveled to the "divided" city of Berlin with Pop. He collaborated with Brian Eno and his "ambient music" on three albums, known as "The Berlin Trilogy," though he opted not to promote the first of them, "Low," and instead toured with Pop to promote his album "The Idiot." "Heroes" represented his desire to move away from the '70s – and from drugs – and he soon divorced Barnett and gained custody of their son. His leading performance in "The Elephant Man" on Broadway drew strong reviews, and "Ashes to Ashes," from the album "Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)", closed out the saga of Major Tom.
Bowie turned his focus to painting and acting, and then collaborated with producer Nile Rodgers and guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan for the album "Let's Dance." The Serious Moonlight tour was a massive financial success, though he found himself uninspired by his new role as a mainstream -- and heterosexual -- pop star and "yuppie king." His half-brother committed suicide in 1985, though he did not attend the funeral out of a fear of press attention, and he fell into a personal and creative low point. Bowie then formed the band Tin Machine, whose hard-rock sound divided critics, and in 1989 released the "Sound + Vision" retrospective, allowing fans to vote by phone for the tour's set list. He was cited as an influence by many emerging artists of the early 1990s, and his album "Black Tie White Noise" was inspired by both his 1992 wedding to Somali model Iman and his brother's death. Further releases included the television soundtrack "The Buddha of Suburbia" and "Outside," for which he reunited with Eno, and he was considered to be "back" on the music scene after an unconventional tour with Nine Inch Nails and the success of 1997's "Earthling." Bowie celebrated his fiftieth birthday at Madison Square Garden with an all-star concert and, thanks to his "Bowie Bonds," or asset-backed securities of current and future revenues, officially became Britain's richest rock star. He portrayed his old friend Warhol in the 1996 film "Basquiat" and launched several other business ventures, including a publishing company and an Internet service provider, BowieNet. Bowie concludes by saying that he does not feel obligated to maintain "integrity" to any one style, but instead prefers to be experimental with his creative personas, in part simply to "irritate people." Commercials deleted.
Details
- NETWORK: VH1
- DATE: September 27, 1998 10:00 PM
- RUNNING TIME: 0:44:26
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: B:59930
- GENRE: Music
- SUBJECT HEADING: Music and musicians; Biography
- SERIES RUN: Vh1 - TV series, 1995-2001
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- Bill Flanagan … Executive Producer
- Mary Wharton … Producer, Writer
- Mark Strigl … Associate Producer
- Michael Vasquez … Writer
- Eddie Izzard … Narrator
- David Bowie … Interviewee
- Angela Barnett
- Terry Burns
- William Burroughs
- Dave Davies
- Brian Eno
- Hermione Farthingale
- John Hutchinson
- Iman (see also: Iman Mohamed Abdulmajid)
- Davy Jones
- Duncan Jones
- The Kinks
- John Lennon
- The Monkees
- Nine Inch Nails
- George Orwell
- Iggy Pop
- Lou Reed
- Nile Rodgers
- Tin Machine
- Stevie Ray Vaughan
- Andy Warhol