- He spent his childhood near the prison in Brixton. From an early age, he sang in the choir and surprised teachers with his artistic abilities. At the age of 15, he created his first rock band, which played rock and roll at weddings and various holidays.
- A short story about myself: “Went to school in Brixton, then moved to Yorkshire, in the north of England. Lived on a farm there. So I did a pretty good job of exploring the terrible slums of Brixton with a bunch of black people, and village life in all its simplicity. I was a child, so both of these experiences influenced me, moreover, they gave my attitude to life a certain schizoid. I think the fact that I had seen so much was confusing at first, I couldn't deal with a bunch of pressing issues."
- Since his youth, David Bowie's right pupil has always been dilated. The fact is that Bowie had a fight with his friend George Underwood because of a girl.
- On youth: "I was terrible when I was young."
- Dropped out of technical college and immediately told his parents about his intention to become a popular musician.
- About his hobby: “When I was young, after reading Kerouac, I began to study Buddhism. I attended the Tibetan Institute of Buddhism and ended up getting involved with an organization helping refugees from India. In this country, people are dying like flies. I almost became a monk, but two weeks before the initiation, I spat on everything, went to a pub, got drunk and never returned to this institution.
- Bowie's height was 178 cm.
- In 1969 David Bowie married. Later, he spoke about his non-traditional sexual orientation and by the end of the 70s announced that he was bisexual. In 1990, he met the model Iman Abdulmajid, who charmed the musician. Bowie once said that when he first met his passion, he already came up with the names of their future children.
- Brian May on co-creation: "In one place gathered four precocious guys and David, even more developed than all of us put together."
- About his character: “I am absolutely cold and indifferent to everything. But in that case, I ask myself, where does this stormy source of creative energy come from? I do not understand. The songs of David Bowie do not belong to me - I just release them through myself into this world. Then I listen and am amazed: their author, whoever he was, at least experienced strong feelings! I don't get to know them. I am constantly in a state of inner numbness, wandering through life completely insensible. I'm not a man, I'm a piece of ice."
- He visited Russia three times - twice as a tourist during the Soviet era, and once in June 1996 with a concert.
- Was arrested along with Iggy Pop for marijuana use.
- “Now I have become more balanced, that's for sure. But to achieve this, I ate a million pills.”
- Pro the song Man Who Sold The World: "After the concert, the kids come up and say, 'It's great that you're doing a Nirvana song.' And I think: “Fuck you, teenage nerd!”
- About America and clothes: “I never wanted to become an American to the end. Therefore, everything I buy and wear is made in Europe.”
- "I consider myself fully happy man. Unlike many, I took advantage of everything that was allowed to me.
Image copyright EPA Image caption The number of art objects around the world inspired by Bowie's death is incalculable
According to a vote 13 years ago, David Bowie was above all other living musicians at that time in the list of "100 Greatest Britons". Now that the "chameleon" from the world of music has left us after a year and a half cancer control BBC correspondent Mikhail Poplavsky recalls the most amazing of the artist's life.
1) David Robert Jones was born on January 8, 1947 - exactly 12 years after the birth of the "king of rock and roll" Elvis Presley. During the period of passion for astrology, adult Jones (of course, Bowie) will compare himself with him more than once - according to Chinese esoteric teachings, both singers were born in the year of the Boar.
2) At the age of 12, young Dave learned to play the saxophone: during his career, this instrument came in handy more than once.
3) Subsequently, Jones will master such instruments as electric guitar, twelve-string guitar, keyboards, piano, harpsichord, harmonica, synthesizer and a number of drums.
4) Bowie's multi-colored eyes "got" in a fight with classmate George Underwood at the age of 15 - so his left eye turned green due to retinal deformity, and his right remained blue. Contrary to popular urban legend, David never lost his sight, but his damaged eye had color problems. It is noteworthy that Bowie and Underwood remained friends after the incident.
5) David Jones adopted a pseudonym for the bowie variety of hunting knives when he was 19 years old.
6) Bowie was taught in the late 1960s by Lindsay Kemp, the choreographer who would later choreograph Kate Bush's movements in the 1978 music video that made her famous. Wuthering Heights("Wuthering Heights").
7) The height of the musician in adulthood was 1 meter 78 centimeters - exactly the same as that of his second wife Iman Abdulmajid.
Moondust Cover You from Bowie's Hallo Spaceboy
8) At the dawn of his career, David recorded a deliberately comedic song The Laughing Gnome("The Laughing Dwarf"), which had an amazing fate - in 1967 it did not make any impression on the public, but six years later, when Bowie was already a superstar, it suddenly soared to sixth place in the British charts. For real bad joke this song played with the artist in 1990: then, the innovation lover arranged a telephone vote among fans for songs that they would like to hear on his Sound + Vision greatest hits tour. Thanks to the flash mob launched by the music publication NME, "Gnome" was in first place. In defiance of promises, David did not sing it on that tour - which cannot be said about other hit-leading votes.
9) Bowie's first wife Angie, who was married to the musician from 1970 to 1980, called him Nama - whatever that means.
10) Bowie and his first wife decided to name their firstborn Zoe Bowie - where the name would mean a reference to the word "life ("zoo"). The grown-up boy decided to reduce the amount of eccentricity in his personal data and became known as Duncan Jones - already in adulthood he will become famous as the director of the films "Moon 2112" and "Source Code". The father never appeared in his son's films.
11) After a huge success album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars Bowie repeatedly made evasive comments about his sexuality: in the 1970s he regularly spoke about his bisexuality, but in 2002 noted that part of his then confessions were intended to shock the conservative public.
12) David has an interesting relationship with foreign languages- so, barely waiting for a breakthrough at home with a song from 1969 Space Oddity, a young musician recorded its Italian version Ragazzo solo, ragazza sola, whose text had nothing to do with the drama of Major Tom's spacewalk. Subsequently, David recorded a French and German version of his hit Heroes - Heros and Holden respectively. Last in 2007 quail Rammstein vocalist Til Lindemann accompanied by Finnish cellists from Apocalyptica.
13) Bowie's fascination with the East also found its reflection in the linguistic plane - his song Seven Years in Tibet received an unexpected doublet on Mandarin dialect of Chinese. In addition, there is a recording of David in Indonesian.
14) Bowie's acting career was quite diverse: he starred in more than 20 films. At the same time, his game received a variety of ratings: for example, "Beautiful Gigolo, Poor Gigolo" received virtual tomatoes from a mass of critics - David later said that in this role he had absorbed all "32 Elvis films" (Presley really starred unsuccessfully in films) . Moreover, Marlene Dietrich, who played her last role in Gigolo, did not come to Germany, where the shooting was taking place, on principle, so the scene with her had to be filmed in Paris. On the other hand, Bowie's roles in the fantasy drama The Man Who Fell to Earth, the vampire erotic horror film The Hunger, and the military drama Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence received high marks from the film community.
15) In the case of the 1986 film "Labyrinth", where Bowie appeared before the public as the goblin king, he himself recorded the soundtrack - one of his most critically condemned works.
16) In addition, David more than once happened to play the roles of historical and other famous characters: in The Last Temptation of Christ, he played Pontius Pilate, in the Basquiat movie, Andy Warhol, and in The Prestige, Nikola Tesla.
Image copyright getty Image caption In addition to the Bowie song Fashion, models with dedications to the deceased musician also appeared on the catwalks.17) Not stopping at the film industry, Bowie also shone in the theater: in the early 1980s, he played in Bertolt Brecht's play Baal. Not without his participation and the theatrical production of the book by Frederick Treves "The Elephant Man".
18) During his career, David has sold more than 140 million albums - excluding singles.
19) Bowie has 28 of these studio albums, including the Suburban Buddha soundtrack and two albums with Tin Machine.
20) The aforementioned Tin Machine group had a short life: it lasted from 1989 to 1992 and came under heavy fire from critics. Both of her albums did not find understanding among music experts, but the public did not accept Bowie as a "soloist of a rock ensemble"; in addition, fashion magazines did not fail to note how little attention - in contrast to David - was paid to their appearance by the rest of the group. However, after its breakup, guitarist Reeves Gabrels worked with Bowie until 1999's "Hours..." album.
21) The character of Major Tom, who grew out of Space Oddity, was mentioned in two more songs by the multi-genre musician - his 1980 mega-hit Ashes to Ashes and a radical reworking of the 1996 single by the Pet Shop Boys duo hallo spaceboy.
22) Perhaps the most striking version of Space Oddity appeared three years ago: Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield performed "Cosmic Obscurity" onboard the ISS.
23) Space and loneliness are themes that the musician carried through his entire career: from the hit mentioned above and the 1969 album of the same name to his last release blackstar released three days before his death.
24) The musician gave his name to the first musical financial bonds in the history of banking - Bowie Bonds ("Bowie bonds"). Immediately after the release in 1997, these financial papers had a yield of 7.9% per annum, which is 1.5% more than the US Treasury in the late 90s. By 2004, however, Moody's rating agency downgraded their status from "very stable" to almost "junk". However, the launch of iTunes and online song sales was able to restore investor interest in such bonds.
25) Brooklyn American became Bowie's most loyal producer Italian descent Tony Visconti: He contributed to both the 1969 breakthrough album Space Oddity and the last two opuses, The Next Day and Blackstar, including the famous "Berlin Trilogy" in the late 1970s.
26) Bowie's first US No. 1 hit - Fame- Appeared in 1975. The co-author of the song, in addition to David himself and guitarist Carlos Alomar, is also former Beatles member John Lennon.
27) The musician recorded the first British #1 hit a couple of years before - it turned out to be a re-release of the same Space Oddity.
I'm already five years older, I'm already in the grave from Bowie's The Hearts Filthy Lesson
28) By his own admission, in the "Berlin period" of 1977-78, the musician's diet largely consisted of milk, cayenne pepper and cocaine. However, Bowie has more than once happened to be cunning in conversations with reporters.
29) Bowie was on the territory of present-day Russia three times: in the late 70s, he traveled along the Trans-Siberian Railway by train from Khabarovsk to Moscow, a year later he walked with Iggy Pop along Red Square, and in 1996, finally, he reached Moscow with a concert - however, the musician assessed his own as a "catastrophe" and decided to refrain from repeated Russian tours.
30) On the same tour, in support of the industrial rock album Outside, Bowie made an unexpected decision: to play all the songs at concerts with the luminaries of the genre of the American "one-man band" - Nine Inch Nails, dividing the repertoire "for two". This demarche caused confusion in the ranks of the fans of both artists, but Trent Reznor is the only one permanent member Nine Inch Nails - remained on very good terms with David and subsequently played Bowie's mystical stalker in the video I "m Afraid of Americans.
33) In 1985, Bowie's half-brother Terry, who suffered from schizophrenia, committed suicide by jumping in front of a train. The musician was worried about the death of his brother, because he greatly influenced him musical tastes. Eight years later, David dedicated an aged blue colors clip jump they say("They say: "Jump"), where he played a hunted paranoid businessman.
34) Single released in 1996 Telling Lies("Telling Lies") was the first high-profile online music release. To mark the song's release, Bowie hosted a Q&A session in the form of an online chat in which he wrote nothing but the truth, and two of his assistants gave fans false answers ("were telling lies"). When the fans who took part in the interactive session were asked to rate which of the three respondents was David himself, the real musician received the fewest votes.
35) In 1996, Bowie was inducted into the American Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and 10 years later he received a Grammy Award for his contribution to the arts.
36) For his 50th birthday, the musician gave himself a gift in the form of a dedication concert in New York's Madison Square Garden with a huge number of guest stars - from Lou Reed to the Smashing Pumpkins, from the Foo Fighters to the Cure. Many of the artists then specially learned the parts of David's freshest album at that time - Earthling - on which the musician, who dyed his hair red, crossed drum and bass with hard industrial rock.
Image copyright AP Image caption For 50 years, Bowie gave himself a luxurious gift concert37) The album "Hours..." in 1999 is notable for being created simultaneously with the computer game Omikron, which had characters from both David and Iman.
38) The right to write lyrics for one of the songs from the same "Hours ..." was played separately: a certain Alex Grant turned out to be the lucky one, and the resulting track was called What's Really Happening?
39) In 2000, David refused a knighthood.
40) In the same year, his only daughter from Iman, Alexandria Zahra, was born.
41) Bowie's first single, Liza Jane, was released in 1964. David Jones was 17 at the time. Subsequently, the artist will release about 100 singles.
42) One of the most unexpected acting challenges faced Bowie in 2007: then he had to voice Neptune in the animated series "SpongeBob: Squarepants".
43) In the 70s, the artist happened to experiment with language: for this, David tried the technique of the writer William Barrows, which consisted of cutting and mixing pieces of paper with words; so the lyrics were born Subterraneans.
44) Iman has a tattoo of... a bowie knife!
"What heavy news this morning. One of the immortal #AshestoAshes [Ashes to Ashes]" Stephen Fry, actor, writer and TV presenter
45) AT recent times The couple lived alternately in New York and London.
46) At the beginning of his career, David changed eight groups, then the mentioned Tin Machine and the ephemeral Tao Jones Index formed in 1997 were added to them; thus, Bowie visited 10 bands.
47) In addition to music and cinema, Bowie also actively tried his hand as a painter and sculptor.
48) During his career, the musician has recorded dozens of duets with various artists, including participating in the last lifetime recording of American singer Bing Crosby Peace On Earth/The Little Drummer Boy.
49) In the early 1970s, Bowie attended ballet performances to get an idea of stage lighting used in ballet.
50) German electronic pioneers Kraftwerk mention Bowie's name in song Trans Europa Express. However, the band declined Bowie's request for a possible collaboration.
51) In 1977, David was the last invited guest on a personal television show of another glam rock star, Marc Bolan of the T-Rex group. Bolan died two weeks after the broadcast was recorded.
52) In the feature-length prequel to David Lynch's "Twin Peaks" series, Walk Through the Fire with Me, Bowie appears for a couple of minutes as a hologram of agent Philip Jeffries.
53) In his entire career, David Bowie had the only album consisting entirely of reprises of other people's songs - 1973's Pin Ups. It reached number one on the UK charts.
Image copyright EPA Image caption There is a Bowie wall in Brighton. Now their number around the world can increase dramatically.54) Supermodel Twiggy was featured on the cover of Pin Ups.
55) The soundtrack to the 2001 film Moulin Rouge has a unique combination: artist Beck quail bowie hit Diamond Dogs, while David himself performed the jazz standard nature boy.
56) Bowie has said more than once that he hates being called "darling".
57) Despite a long-term interest in Eastern spiritual practices, towards the end of his life, David described himself in interviews as either an agnostic or an atheist.
58) American minimalist composer Philip Glass has released orchestral arrangements of albums from Bowie's Berlin Trilogy.
59) In 1998, the film "Velvet Goldmine" was released, named after a song by a musician from the early 70s. Despite the obvious resemblance of the film's protagonist to the young David, the artist himself extremely negatively assessed the tape's script and did not give the go-ahead to use his songs in the film's soundtrack.
60) In 2011, the artist's unreleased tracks "surfaced" on the Internet, which were supposed to be included in the Toy album - a 2001 project that never saw the light of day. Instead of refining those tracks, David chose to focus on recording the Heathen album.
61) At a concert in Oslo in 2004, a lollipop from a fan flew into Bowie's eye. The artist escaped with minor injuries.
62) When asked how he manages to maintain such an excellent physical shape after 55 years, the musician noted with a smile that he does not miss the opportunity to box. "Boxing is hard, but that's the point," said David.
63) Towards the end of the tour in support of the 2003 album Reality, the musician began to have health problems: chest pain, initially identified by doctors as a pinched nerve, turned out to be an arterial blockage and required surgical intervention. The remainder of the tour had to be cancelled; Bowie never went on a world tour again.
Something happened on the day he died, the spirit soared a meter up and retreated, someone else took his place, boldly shouting: "I - black Star! I'm a black star!" from Bowie's song ★ (Blackstar)
64) Long-term treatment and fatigue from show business led to the longest album break in the artist's career: after Reality in 2003, his next studio LP - The Next Day - was released only in 2013.
65) A number of well-known actors starred in the videos for the singles from The Next Day: Tilda Swinton, Gary Oldman and Marion Cotillard.
66) In 2013, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London hosted a unique biographical exhibition about Bowie - more than 300 exhibits were on display.
67) Bowie's last disc - ★ (Blackstar) - was released on the artist's birthday.
68) For his birthday and the release of the album ★ - January 8 - the musician also released a video for his latest single - Lazarus("Lazarus"), in which there is a line: "Look up here, I" m in heaven "(" Look here, I'm in paradise "); at the end of the video, the singer closes the closet door from the inside.
69) On the page, launched a few days before Bowie's birthday by Vietnamese and Norwegian programmers, the user who entered his age into the search box is told what the musician was doing at his age. When you enter a number above 69, the machine says: "He is an astronaut. Or an extraterrestrial being. Or something that we cannot comprehend."
Childhood of David Bowie
David Robert Jones was born in Brixton, one of the districts of London, in 1947. His parents, Margaret Mary Peggy (Barnes) and Hayward Stanton John Jones, formalized their relationship eight months after David's birth. The boy's mother, Irish by birth, worked as a ticket clerk in the cinema, and his father was a clerk in the human resources department of a charity organization. The Joneses lived on Stansfield Road, which separated the two southern districts of the British capital - Brixton and Stockwell.David attended Stockwell Prep until the age of six. Teachers described the boy as talented and smart, but at the same time a bully and a brawler.
Since 1953, the Joneses have changed their place of residence - the family moves to Bromley, a suburban area of London. There David enters primary school. At school, the boy studied well, studied in the school choir (rather mediocre, according to teachers), was a member of the school sports team football and was fond of playing the flute.
From the age of nine, the future musician begins to attend the musical and choreographic circle that appeared at the school, where his teachers called his ability to interpret as "brightly artistic, amazing, phenomenal." Soon David heard for the first time musical compositions Elvis Presley - on records brought by his father. The American musician impressed the boy, and after that he begged his father to buy him a ukulele, and he also made a bass himself to participate in skiffle sessions with friends. At school, David began to learn to play the piano.
Passion for music had a negative impact on his studies - David Jones could not pass the final exam, which forced him to continue his studies at Bromley Technical College in 1958.
College
In college, David met Peter Frampton, the son of one of the teachers of the institution. Owen Frampton, Peter's father, encouraged the study of languages, art and design. He actively advised his son to continue his musical career with David, whose talent he immediately appreciated. Peter Frampton and David Jones even started a collaboration, but it turned out to be short-lived. Subsequently, college friends will begin joint creative activities, but this will not happen until 30 years later.David Bowie - Space Oddity Original Video (1969)
In college, David preferred to study printing and printing. At the same time, the future musician discovers modern jazz, is fond of the work of John Coltrane and Charles Mingus. At the age of fifteen, an unpleasant incident occurs in David's life - because of a girl, a conflict arises between him and his best friend of that time, George Underwood. The conflict escalated into a fight, during which Underwood seriously injured Jones, hitting him in the face with a ring in his left eye while punching him in the face.
David was forced to leave training for four months and go to the hospital, where doctors performed a series of operations to prevent blindness. The doctors failed to completely restore the lost vision, and David was left with lost color perception in the injured eye for the rest of his life. Everything around David sees with his left eye in brown. Due to the mydriatic pupil after the injury, the impression of a different eye color was created. Despite all the consequences of the fight, the friends did not quarrel and continued to communicate closely and collaborate later on creating David's albums - George illustrated Jones's early albums.
By the time he graduated from college, the musician could play the saxophone, guitar, keyboards, electric guitar, harpsichord, harmonica, piano, mellotron, stylophone, ukulele, xylophone, koto, vibraphone, percussion instruments and percussion. Despite the fact that David is left-handed, he uses a regular, right-handed guitar.
David Bowie's failing streak
At the age of fifteen, David assembled his first band - "The Kon-rads". The group mainly played rock and roll at weddings and parties. The group lasted a year, after which the ambitious David left the team and joined The King Bees. While playing as part of this group, Bowie plucked up the nerve and wrote a letter to millionaire John Bloom with an offer to earn another million by signing a contract with the group. The millionaire did not ignore the offer, passing the letter to Leslie Conn, one of the publishers of the Beatles. Leslie Conn and signed the first contract with David. 
At the same time, Jones' pseudonym appeared - David Bowie, taken by the musician in order to avoid confusion with Davy Jones from the Monkees group. The origin of the pseudonym is connected with the passion for the work of Mick Jagger. Finding out that "jagger" means "knife" in Old English, David adopted the pseudonym Bowie (this is the name of a type of hunting knife invented by tracker Jim Bowie).
Leslie Conn took over the promotion young musician, initially unsuccessful commercially. By then, Bowie had left The King Bees. next group David became "Manish Boys", with which the musician released a single, which also did not receive recognition. Bowie again changed the group, joining the "Lower Third". The single recorded with them became equally unsellable and Conn's contract with Bowie was terminated. The single released with the group "Buzz" was also unsuccessful. This was followed by the debut album and the sixth single, which traditionally did not hit the charts.
After that, Bowie gave up trying to record for two years and took up the study of mime and circus art, meeting the mime Lindsey Kemp. Lindsey brought David together with his first serious love, Hermione Farthingale, with whom Bowie collaborated in the creation of poetic minuets, and subsequently Hermione and David played in the same band, but not for long. For about a year, the couple lived together in an apartment in London, after which Bowie and Farthingale broke up.
David Bowie's first success
The first success came to Bowie seven years after the start of his career. The single "Space Oddity", released at the same time as the first astronauts landed on the moon, entered the top 5 in the UK. The song from the single was used as musical background for reporting on the landing on the moon of astronauts and on the flights of Apollo 13 in 1969-1970. Soon David's self-titled album was released, which was a success both in Europe and in the USA. Almost simultaneously with this, the third disc was released - "The Man Who Sold the World", in which Bowie moves from acoustic compositions to hard rock and heavy metal. Subsequently, the album was called by critics "the beginning of the era of glam rock." 
Later, Bowie travels to New York, where he meets The Velvet Underground, whose unusual style inspired David to create the rock band Hype. In February 1972, Bowie gave his first big concert, speaking under his new, but never taken root pseudonym Ziggy Stardust. The concert created a real sensation and became the impulse that brought fame to Bowie. Inspired by the success of the performance, David went on a large-scale tour of the country, during which Bowie laid the foundations of his concert artistic style - creative unusual costumes, the legendary fiery mullet.
Bowie later went on a US tour, beginning with a performance at the famed Cleveland, Ohio Music Hall, now home of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Bowie's albums, meanwhile, hit the top five, and then the top three of the English charts.
Bowie's next LP, Aladdin Sane, went into rotation in April 1973 and became number one in Britain. The next albums of the musician invariably entered the top ten in the English and American charts.
David Bowie addiction
By 1974, David Bowie had become addicted to drugs. It is with drug use, to which Bowie became addicted in the United States, that many associate the peculiarity of the non-integral rhythm and the emotionally disconnected sound of the new album of the star. Several overdoses within a short period of time clouded David's mind by his own admission. The musician began to rapidly lose weight and increasingly weakly perceive the surrounding reality.In 1976, Bowie, despite all the problems with health and consciousness, goes on the next tour, commercially successful, but politically scandalous. During the tour, David Bowie made several shocking statements in support of fascism and Adolf Hitler, was detained by customs for transporting fascist paraphernalia, in London, Bowie greeted the crowd with a gesture close to the Nazi salute.
Bowie subsequently apologized for his fascist remarks and other incidents, explaining that he was out of his mind after several unsuccessful hard drugs. As a result, drug addiction, along with an interest in German music, led to a move to West Berlin, where David Bowie rented an apartment with his friend, Iggy Pop, who was also being treated for drug addiction. During his three years in Berlin, Bowie not only recorded three of his albums, but also produced Iggy, helping him with the recording of his first two solo albums, as well as joining Iggy's band during her tour of Europe and the United States in 1977 as keyboardist and backing vocalist.
David Bowie - Life On Mars?
Three of his own albums, recorded in Berlin, were called the "Berlin Trilogy" and were among the best Bowie albums, not to mention the invariable hit in the top 5 of the British and top 20 American charts. In support of the "trilogy" in 1978, Bowie went on a world tour with a group of musicians, which included visits to Australia and New Zealand. The following year, the musician recorded the album "David Bowie Narrates Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf", which was based on the work of Sergei Prokofiev "Peter and the Wolf".
David Bowie - Megastar
Since 1980, David stops using drugs, and also divorces his wife Angela, thus ending the era of creativity, called by critics the era of the “Exhausted White Duke”. The next album, inspired by life in Berlin, has clear hard rock notes. Recorded in 1981 with Freddie Mercury and the Queen group, the composition "Under Pressure" becomes the musician's third release to reach the top of the British hit parade. At the same time, David starred in an episodic birth in the film “We are the children from the Zoo station” produced in Germany, which tells the story of the life of a thirteen-year-old German girl with a drug addiction, who earns on drugs by prostitution and soon dies. In the same years, Bowie participates in several theatrical productions and writes music for films. 
All of Bowie's albums and singles released in the 1980s would instantly top the charts, turning Bowie from superstar to megastar. Bowie also continued his theatrical and film career, actively toured the world and participated in charity concerts and promotions, instantly increasing donation collections by several dozen times. Of the most notable roles in the cinema of that time, it is worth noting the role of Pontius Pilate in Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ (1988).
In the early nineties, Bowie organized a permanent group "Tin Machine", with which he released two albums and went on several world tours, and also met his future second wife, Iman. The acquaintance took place at a party dedicated to the birthday of their common hairdresser. Soon David and Iman began dating and eventually formalized their relationship in 1992.
Experiments of the nineties
Since the early nineties, David has been experimenting with new styles and genres of music such as white soul, industrial, AOR and jungle mixed with influences from heavy metal, jazz and hip hop. During these years, Bowie was finally assigned the status of a “chameleon of rock music”, constantly changing his image, musical genres and trends, the theme of songs, but nevertheless retaining his individual, easily recognizable musical style. 
One of the most interesting, conceptual and at the same time ambitious albums of these years can be called “1.Outside”, released in 1995, in which the influence of industrial is intertwined with other areas of electronic music. The album was recorded together with Brian Eno, a recognized guru of this direction. In 1996, David Bowie was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In the same year, as part of a world tour, David visited Iceland, Japan and Russia for the first time.
Neoclassicism
Since 1998, Bowie has been writing soundtracks for animated films and computer games, and is also working on recording a new studio album. The record, called "Heathen" (Pagan), was released in 2002 and became Bowie's last great success in the British and world charts. The last studio album of the artist was released in 2003 and was called "Reality". During the tour, Bowie felt pain in the chest area. The medical diagnosis was an acutely blocked artery, as a result of which the tour was interrupted, and Bowie went to a hospital in Hamburg, where he was operated on. 
In early 2004, the musician was discharged from the hospital. The previously scheduled and postponed tour has been postponed indefinitely due to the star's failing health. The musician returned to the stage only in 2005, performing at a concert with the Arcade Fire group. In 2006, Bowie was awarded the Grammy Award for his great contribution to the development of music.
In August 2011, the musician announced his retirement, but in January 2013, David released a new single "Where Are We Now?" and announced plans to release a new album with the working title "The Next Day", the lyrics for which, according to Bowie, he wrote under the impression of the history of modern Russia. The album was released on March 11, 2013 and topped the charts in forty countries around the world, and also became Bowie's fourth album to reach the top of the British charts.
Personal life of David Bowie
David met his first wife Angela Barnett in the late 60s at a party with mutual friends. Angela's love for shocking and the ability to look stylish influenced the stage image of David Bowie. In 1970, the couple formalized the relationship, and a year later they had a son, Duncan Zoe Haywood Jones. After ten years of marriage, the couple separated. 
David Bowie married model Iman Abdulmajid in 1992, and their daughter Alexandria Zahra was born in 2000.
Death of David Bowie
David Bowie - one of the cult musicians of the 20th century - died on January 10, 2016 in a circle of people close to him. The cause of death was cancer, which he had been battling for the last 18 months of his life. In spite of terrible disease David Bowie continued to be creative. Shortly before his death, on January 8, 2016, the last album of the musician was released. A little earlier, David Bowie presented a video for the song Lazarus.Latest music video David Bowie - Lazarus
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He took 39th place in the prestigious top edition Rolling stone("100 the greatest performers rock music of all time"), sold more than 136 million discs, he shocked and surprised, inspired and changed styles - from the "alien" and androgyne to the aristocratic decadent. Biography of David Bowie is unique, and on his 70th birthday British author songs and a rock singer, we will recall its main milestones.
Biography of David Bowie
School chorister and fidget
David Robert Jones (this is the real name of the musician) was the son of Londoners, his mother worked in a cinema, his father worked in the personnel department. The Joneses' only son was born on January 8, 1947. At first, the family lived in the Brixton area, then moved to Bromley. Even then, going to school, David surprised everyone with his desire for self-expression. He was a school chorister, enthusiastically took part in concerts, but he didn’t really like lessons, he was known as a fidget and a fighter.
He heard the voice of God
David Bowie's life changed when he started buying vinyl records and listening to rock musicians, Elvis Presley especially struck him. It was then that the Briton decided that he would also become a singer, he called Presley's voice "the voice of God." David began to learn to play the guitar, and as a young man he mastered acoustic and bass guitars, piano and ukulele. He would later become an outstanding multi-instrumentalist. His first musical group appeared at school - in 1962, the guys performed at parties. Bowie tried to go to college, but after the first year he left there, dreaming of devoting himself only to music.
Androgynous messiah Ziggy
Where did the pseudonym "David Bowie" come from? It's simple: one David Jones already reigned on the rock scene - it was the lead singer bands The Monkees, so our hero began to look for another sonorous surname, and found: "bowie knife" means "hunting knife."
David didn't go off the beaten path, he invented own direction, which was later dubbed "glam rock". Already in the mid-1960s, he appeared on stage in unusual outrageous images, and his music was innovative, sometimes psychedelic, sometimes glamorous. The experiments were successful and not so good. So, in 1972, Bowie asked everyone to call himself "Ziggy Stardust" and said that this is a science fiction character designed to save our world. The most famous album of this androgynous hero was called The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.
The era of the White Duke
But the image of the “Exhausted White Duke” became more famous, then Bowie was really exhausted and very addicted to cocaine. The album (and the single of the same name) "Young Americans" falls on this period. It was probably a tribute to the American singers that David listened to as a teenager. In 1976, the musician went to travel around Europe and stayed in Switzerland and Germany, where the Berlin Trilogy was born (three discs released in 1977 and 1979).
The army of fans grew, as did the influence of the singer's transformations and creativity on his colleagues. In the early 1980s, the album "Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)" was wildly popular, it brought the vocalist an incredible income. At the same time, in the biography of David Bowie, there were more performances with colleagues - he collaborated with many, starting with Iggy Pop, ending with Cher and Tina Turner. The "White Duke" was forgotten, as were the drugs.
He could have been Chapman's victim
Bowie was greatly crippled by the murder of John Lennon, especially since the psychopath Chapman targeted David as the second victim. Even in his testimony, the offender emphasized: if it had not worked out with John, he would have shot David. So at that time, David Bowie's death was bypassed.
The singer continued to experiment, used soul in compositions, saturated them with electronic sound, tried hip-hop, jungle and drum and bass. This is especially noticeable in his concept album "1.Outside" (it was supposed to be the first in a series, but something went wrong).
After the release of the disc "Reality" ("Reality") in 2003, during a promotional tour to promote it, Bowie felt bad. David was taken to the clinic and had an operation (an artery was clogged in the area of the shoulder). The singer took an indefinite vacation, some decided that creative biography David Bowie is over. But after a couple of years he returned and toured a lot. True, the release of the new album was delayed - until 2013.
Alien, Gigolo, Vampire, Goblin King, Pilate
Throughout his musical career, Bowie has acted in quite a lot of films, although he himself joked that he was often invited to strange roles - from aliens to drag queens. Indeed, David's debut on the big screen is the role of the alien Thomas in the fantasy "The Man Who Fell to Earth", released in mid-1976.
But, for example, the image of the military Paul in the drama "Beautiful Gigolo - Unfortunate Gigolo" is quite "human". By the way, this movie latest work Marlene Dietrich, she played the owner of an underground brothel for old rich women, and Bowie's character was one of her "call boys".
Tony Scott's decadent fantasy drama The Hunger made a lot of noise. This art-house painting was about a couple of vampires (Bowie and Catherine Deneuve) who faced a problem: John Blaylock suddenly began to age, although ghouls are immortal. And then his passion found new toy- a pretty doctor (Susan Sarandon).
One of the most bright roles David Bowie's acting biography included the role of Jareth, the goblin king, who kidnapped the little brother of the young heroine Jennifer Connelly (excellent gothic fantasy Labyrinth). The exquisite costume and long-haired wig made Bowie a charming and irresistible monster. For this tape by Jim Henson, the musician wrote no less beautiful compositions.
In controversial adaptation scandalous romance"The Last Temptation of Christ", carried out by Martin Scorsese, the singer unexpectedly appeared in the image of Pontius Pilate.
Joker in the deck of fate
They say that Tim Burton wanted to invite an Englishman to play the Joker in his film "Batman", but still settled on the candidacy of Nicholson. But Bowie worked with David Lynch (thriller "Twin Peaks: Through the Fire") and with Christopher Nolan. In the thriller The Prestige, the singer portrayed one of the most enigmatic scientists of the Victorian era - he played Nikola Tesla.
Bowie's thirtieth studio disc "The Next Day" was released in January 2013, and exactly 3 years later - to the same day - the Blackstar disc was released. It was dedicated to the 69th birthday of the author. It turned out to be the final "joker" in David Bowie's life deck.
Everyone discussed the stunning clip of the British "Lazarus" (later the video will be called a terrible prophecy). And 3 days after the 69th anniversary of the glam rock icon, the world learned the terrible news about the death of David Bowie. It turned out that for a year and a half the singer struggled with cancer, liver cancer.
Personal life of David Bowie
Stormy youth
Despite the constant rumors about the bisexuality (and even homosexuality) of the singer, he married twice. David Bowie's first wife Angela lived with him for 10 years. It was a turbulent time, and when the singer decided to settle down and give up cocaine (in 1980), he divorced Angie.
They have a joint son, Duncan Jones, born in 1971 (he is a well-known director who made Warcraft). Later, the singer lamented how little time he devoted to his son, but when Duncan grew up, the two got along.
Beautiful Iman and little Lexi
The divorce from his first wife took place in 1980, and in 1992 the musician again went down the aisle - it was a very magnificent ceremony in Florence. The second wife of David Bowie is the famous model Iman (full name - Iman Abdulmajid), a native of Somalia. The couple lived in the USA (in New York, Manhattan), then in London.
The singer was very happy and lavished compliments on his soulmate, calling her the most beautiful in the world - and not only outwardly.
Thanks to this new round in his life, David Bowie once again became a father, quite late - at 53 years old. The daughter was named Alexandria - Lexi.
David Bowie: short biography
Called the musical chameleon for his ever-changing looks and sound, future rock star David Bowie was born in London on 01/08/47. The real name of the British singer is David Robert Jones. He showed an interest in music from an early age and began playing the saxophone at the age of 13. David was greatly influenced by his step-brother Terry, who was nine years older and brought him into the worlds of rock music and beat literature. But Terry was not well. He suffered from a mental illness that forced his family to commit him to a psychiatric hospital. This haunted David all his life. Terry committed suicide in 1985. The tragedy formed the basis of the Bowie song Jump They Say.
After graduating from Bromley Technical School at the age of 16, David began working as an artist. He continued to play with a number of bands and formed his own under the name Davy Jones and the Lower Third. Then several singles came out, but none of them gave the necessary young performer commercial momentum.
Carier start
Out of fear of being confused with Davy Jones of the Monkeys, the aspiring artist changed his last name to a knife named after 19th-century American folk hero Jim Bowie.
In the end, David began to perform alone. But after an unsuccessful solo album, he temporarily left music world. As often happened in his later life, these years proved to be experimental for the young artist. For several weeks in 1967 he lived in a Buddhist monastery in Scotland. Bowie later formed his own mime troupe called the Feathers.
Pop star
By early 1969, Bowie was back to music again. He signed an agreement with record company Mercury Records and released the single "Cosmic Oddity" in the summer. Bowie later admitted that the song came to him after watching Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. The composition quickly resonated with the public, in large part due to the fact that the BBC used it during coverage of the Apollo 11 moon landing. The track was also a success upon its release in the US in 1972, climbing to number 15 on the charts.
Bowie's next album, The Man Who Sold the World (1970), brought him even closer to fame. The recording featured a heavier rock sound than previous tracks and included the song "All Crazy", dedicated to his brother Terry. The next work "Hunky Dory" (1971) included two hits: the title track, which was dedicated to Bob Dylan, and the Velvet Underground, and "Change", which became the embodiment of David himself.
Ziggy Stardust
As celebrity status rose, so did Bowie's desire to constantly keep fans and critics at bay. In an interview with Melody Maker magazine in January 1972, he claimed to be gay and then introduced the imaginary rock star Ziggy Stardust and his backing band, the Spiders from Mars, into the pop world. The 1972 album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars made him a superstar. Dressed in a costume from some wild future, the British singer ushered in a new era in rock music that seemed to officially herald the end of the 1960s and the Woodstock era.
Was David Bowie gay? The biography of the singer is full of conflicting facts. In September 1976, in an interview with Playboy magazine, he declared that he was bisexual. According to his first wife, Bowie had an affair with Mick Jagger. However, in a 1983 interview with Rolling Stone, he said that he had always been heterosexual.
More change
David Bowie, whose biography is marked by a frequent change of images, just as quickly changed the image of Stardust. The singer took advantage of his popularity and produced compilations and Lou Reed. In 1973, he broke up Spiders from Mars and shelved Ziggy. David Bowie musical works in the style of glam rock collected in the collection Alladin Sane (1973). The release included the songs "Jean Jean" and "Let's Spend the Night Together", which were the result of his collaborations with Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. Around the same time, he showed his passion for English fashion and released Pin Ups, an album of cover songs popular bands, including Pink Floyd and pretty things.
Conquest of America
By the mid-1970s, Bowie had undergone a full makeover. Outrageous costumes and flashy sets are a thing of the past. In just two years, he released the albums Diamond Dogs (1974) and Young Americans (1975). The first of these went to number one in the UK with hits Rebel Rebel and Diamond Dogs, and number five in the US. Promo tour North America ran from June to December 1974. The big-budget production was accompanied by theatrical special effects, but was overshadowed by the mental disorders that David Bowie suffered from. The documentary film Cracked Actor, directed by Alan Entob, depicts a pale and emaciated singer suffering from severe drug addiction. The album Young Americans featured a young Luther Vandross as backing vocalist, and the song "Glory", co-written with Carlos Alomar and John Lennon, became Bowie's first American single to reach number one on the charts.
After moving to Los Angeles, David Bowie recorded the song Station to Station, which made the plastic soul of the Young Americans collection more avant-garde, the track became a hit. Bowie soon decided that the city was too boring for him and returned to England. After arriving in London, he greeted crowds of fans with a Nazi throw-up of his hand, a manifestation of the drug-addicted singer's growing disconnect from reality. The incident caused a huge scandal and Bowie left the country to settle in Berlin, where he lived and worked with Brian Eno.
In Berlin, David came to his senses, began to draw and study art. He became interested in German electronic music and Eno helped record their first joint album Low. Released in 1977, the release was a stunning blend of electronic music, pop and avant-garde. Although the compilation received mixed reviews, it proved to be one of the most influential albums of the late 70s, as was the follow-up Heroes released the same year. In 1977, Bowie not only recorded two collections of solo compositions, but also produced a recording of the Iggy Pop tracks "The Idiot" and "Lust for Life" and toured anonymously as his keyboardist. In the same year, David resumed his acting career, starring in the movie Just Gigolo with and Kim Novak. He returned to the stage in 1978, starting an international tour, the recording of which was released as a double album Stage.
In 1980, David Bowie, whose biography was again associated with New York, released the collection Scary Monsters. The release received positive reviews and included the single "Ashes to Ashes", a kind of new version of the earlier composition "Cosmic Oddity". The release was accompanied by a number of innovative videos (Fashion, DJ, Ashes to Ashes) that became the basis of early MTV.
Three years later, Bowie recorded the album Let's Dance (1983), which had numerous hits such as "Modern Love" and "Chinese Woman" and Stevie Ray Vaughn's virtuoso guitar playing.
Film work
Of course, music is not the only thing that David Bowie was fond of. The biography of the singer is marked by his participation in many feature films. The love of cinema helped him get the lead role in the 1976 film The Man Who Fell to Earth. In 1980, Bowie appeared on Broadway in the play The Elephant Man, and his performance was positively evaluated by critics. In 1986, he starred as Jareth in the fantasy adventure Labyrinth directed and produced by George Lucas. The actor performed with a young Jennifer Connelly and dolls in a picture that became a classic of the 1980s. Just a Gigolo (1978), Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, Hunger (1983), Linguini Incident (1991) - paintings starring David Bowie. Films in which he played cameo roles are The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) and Zoolander (2001). In addition, he participated in several television series, as well as documentaries about his career.
On the decline in popularity
Over the next decade, David Bowie tried to combine films and music, which negatively affected his popularity. Musical career the artist went into decline. His side project with musicians Reeve Gabrels and Tony and Hunt Sales, known as Tin Machine, produced two self-titled albums in 1989 and 1991, which were flops. The hyped 1993 compilation Black Tie White Noise, which David Bowie called wedding gift for his new wife, supermodel Iman Abdulmajid, also struggled for the attention of music lovers.
Oddly enough, David's most popular creation of this period was bonds backed by royalties from his work until 1990. Bowie issued the securities in 1997 and made $55 million from their sale. The song rights were returned to him when the bonds expired in 2007.
Last years
In 2004 Bowie suffered a heart attack while performing on stage in Germany. He made a full recovery and returned to work with Arcade Fire and American actress Scarlett Johansson on her album Anywhere І Lay My Head (2008) - a collection of cover versions of songs by Tom Waits.
David Bowie in 2006 was awarded the Grammy Award. He remained silent for several years until the release of the 2013 album, which soared to number two on the Billboard charts the next day. The following year, Bowie released a greatest-of-songs collection, Nothing's Changed, featuring new song"Sue". In 2015, he starred in the rock musical "Lazarus" starring Michael Hall, which refreshed the image of his character from the movie "The Man Who Fell to Earth".
Bowie released his last album, Blackstar, on January 8, 2016, when he was 69 years old. A critic from The New York Times commented that it was "weird, brash and ultimately useful work with a mood created by the bitter awareness of mortality." It wasn't until a few days later that the world learned that the album had been recorded under difficult conditions.
Death and posthumous awards
The pop music icon passed away on 01/10/16, two days after his own 69th birthday. A post on his Facebook page stated that the singer had passed away quietly with his family after a year and a half battle with cancer. Without a husband and father, David Bowie's wife Iman, his son, daughter Alexandria and stepdaughter Zulekha Haywood. The legacy of the musician was 26 released albums. His producer and friend Tony Visconti wrote on Facebook that Blackstar was a "parting gift".
David Bowie's death shocked his friends and fans. Iggy Pop tweeted that his friendship was the light in his life. He had never met such a brilliant person. " Rolling Stones remembered him as a "beautiful and kind person" who was "truly original". And even those who did not know him personally felt the influence of his work. Kanye West tweeted: "David Bowie has been one of my biggest inspirations." According to Madonna, this great artist changed her life.
In February 2017, Bowie's latest work won the Grammy nominations for Best Artwork, Best Engineering, Best Rock Performance, Best Album Alternative Rock” and “Best Rock Composition”.
David Bowie: biography. A family
In the late 1960s, the British singer met American top model Angela Barnett. Their wedding took place on 03/19/70, and on May 30, 1971, the couple had a son. In 1980 they divorced. Bowie's son is now known by his real name Duncan Jones.
April 24, 1992 in Lausanne, David married the American-Somali model Iman. The wedding took place on June 6 in Florence. In August 2000, the couple had a daughter, Alexandria Zahra Jones. The couple lived in New York and London, and owned apartments in Sydney.
July 10, 2016, exactly 6 months after the death of David Bowie, his grandson was born, whose father was Duncan.
