David Bowie: singer's pale appearance reignites health fears - Telegraph Celebrity news David Bowie: singer's pale appearance reignites health fears He used to be known for his flamboyant outfits and outrageous personas, but David Bowie now cuts a pale shadow of his former self. David Bowie has been almost invisible since suffering a heart attack in 2004 Photo: REX FEATURES/SPLASH NEWS 8:09AM BST 18 Oct 2012 The reclusive singer has been pictured in New York on a rare public outing dressed in grey cap and hooded top, bearing little resemblance to the fashion icon of the 1970s. Bowie, 65, whose alter egos have included the alien-like Ziggy Stardust and the dapper thin white duke, lives in a large Lower-Manhattan apartment with his ex-model wife Iman and daughter Lexi. He was pictured picking up a takeaway lunch from the Italian Bottega Falai Café in New York. Rumours about the health of the former heavy smoker and drug addict have been circulating ever since his ill fated 2004 tour.

The problems began with an incident in Norway when a fan threw a lollipop that hit Bowie in the eye, causing him to storm offstage. Related Articles David Bowie and Mick Jagger's long-rumoured love affair revealed in new book 10 Jul 2012 A few days later, he cut short another performance, believing he had pinched a nerve in his shoulder. The muscle pain was due to a clogged coronary artery and at his next gig, in Scheeßel, Germany, he delivered a final encore of Ziggy, went backstage and collapsed. Since recuperating from the heart surgery, Bowie has reduced his musical output, making only one-off appearances on stage and in the studio. He attended the opening of his son Duncan Jones' film Moon in 2009 but has made few public appearances since. He resurfaced earlier this year in order to distance himself from an exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. More than 60 of the singer’s classic stage outfits, among them his Ziggy Stardust space-traveller suits and the oversized Yamamoto kabuki ensemble, went on view along with hundreds of artefacts including handwritten lyrics and artwork.

Responding to an erroneous report that he would be the co-curator of the show, the polymorphic rocker took to Facebook to deny any direct involvement. “Contrary to recently published reports relating to the announcement by the V&A of an forthcoming David Bowie Exhibition,” he stated, “I am not a co-curator and did not participate in any decisions relating to the exhibition". He has not released a studio album for nine years or performed live since 2006. A controversial biography 'Mick: the Wild Life and Mad Genius of Jagger', released earlier this year by author Christopher Andersen alleged that Mick Jagger and David Bowie were once lovers in the 1970s. “He has consciously dropped out of sight,” said Paul Trynka, author of a well-received Bowie biography, Starman, published last year. David Bowie: 4 Ways He Influenced Musicians Today Artists like Lady Gaga, St.

Vincent, Janelle Monáe and Adam Lambert say he was a major influence + READ ARTICLE In the wake of David Bowie’s death , his longtime collaborator Tony Visconti called Bowie’s final album —released last week on the musician’s 69th birthday— “a parting gift” from an iconic musician who had been diagnosed with cancer 18 months prior. But talk to pretty much any musician from the past 40 years about Bowie’s influence, and they’ll tell you that this parting gift was just the latest of many. His decades-spanning career and frequent musical reinventions have deeply shaped today’s pop-music landscape, and his legacy is apparent in even artists whose music sounded nothing like his. Below, a look at what Bowie will be most remembered for—and its lasting influence: His androgyny and sexuality. Bowie declared himself bisexual in a Playboy interview in 1976, and while he would later back away from the label, his androgyny and sexual fluidity—especially at a time when those ideas weren’t as accepted as they are now—would help inspire a generation of performers who played with similar boundaries.

American Idol alum Adam Lambert called Bowie a “key inspiration” writing for Out in 2013. “It was about the androgyny of mixing it up, and that was what was so incredible about his concepts—he was one of the first rock stars to really push the idea that sexuality was not black and white but an exploration,” Lambert wrote . His ever-changing image. The fashion world has often paid tribute to Bowie’s colorful style, and his various alter-egos and stage personas—Major Tom, Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, Thin White Duke—have influenced the work of top designers as well as pop stars like Lady Gaga. In her early days, she used to paint a thunderbolt on her face to pay tribute to Bowie, and the recent Golden Globe winner also referenced him when she posed on the cover of V magazine in 2013 as one of her own alter egos. “I see this girl as the first incarnation of me…the Bowie superfan, playing with glitter and reflective materials, like doing a jigsaw puzzle,” she explained . According to Gaga, his impact had to do with more than just clothes. “He’s sort of like an alien prince,” she said in a TV interview .

“He still runs my universe as well, like, every morning I wake up and think, ‘What would Bowie do?’ …the things he created, it was self expression for him, but also a sense of protection for who he personally is as David.” His theatricality. “Bowie is so often cited as an influence by people, but that’s almost like saying that food is an influence,” St. Vincent wrote in the NME in 2013. The musician remembers seeing footage of Bowie’s 1974 appearance on The Dick Cavett Show and deciding to bleach her hair. “He’s so theatrical—I almost think of it as a Shakespearean thing, so it doesn’t surprise me that he caught on in Britain when he did,” she wrote in the same essay. “If there’s one thing I got from David Bowie, it’s that you can be a shapeshifter and never be pinned down; if people get the same thing from you every time, that’s actually disappointing.” His sci-fi spirit.

The way Bowie incorporated storylines about outer space and extraterrestrial beings into his music on albums like The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars paved the way for artists like Janelle Monáe, of whom Bowie was reportedly a personal fan. Her retro style and pop songs about androids and dystopian futures have their roots in her Bowie fandom, she explained in 2014, when she covered Bowie’s 1977 classic “Heroes.” “Bowie is a part of my musical DNA in so many ways…he’s transcendent,” she told Rolling Stone . “He’s a true time traveler, and I think that that is a part of who I am and the legacy that I want people to remember. I will never expire.

Nor will David Bowie.” David Bowie: Aladdin Sane, Ziggy Stardust, The Thin White Duke, The Goblin King, and Major Tom - Arts & Collections Gaudí, Mucha, Lalique and Tiffany: exploring Art Nouveau David Bowie: Aladdin Sane, Ziggy Stardust, The Thin White Duke, The Goblin King, and Major Tom On January 10 2016, the world woke to news that one of the most influential musicians of his era died peacefully following a courageous, and private, battle with cancer. The world mourned the loss of the glam-rock icon, with an outpouring of emotional tributes from other celebrities (Lady Gaga at the Grammys , Lourdes at the BRITS ) and shrines erected by fans in David Bowie 's child hood home of Brixton, Southwest London. Two years before his death, in March 2013, David Bowie shocked the world by releasing The Next Day, his first no. 1 album in the official UK charts since Black Tie White Noise in April 1993.

The production of the album was kept in complete secrecy, and Rolling Stone magazine had described the release of the new songs as ‘the best kept secret in rock’. The release of this secret album coincided with the opening of the Victoria & Albert Museum ’s most popular exhibition to date, ‘David Bowie is’. More than 42,000 advance tickets were sold when the retrospective first opened in 2013, more than double the advance sales of previous exhibitions at the museum. The Victoria & Albert Museum was given exclusive access to the David Bowie’s personal archive to curate the first international retrospective of his extraordinary career. The touring exhibition, ‘David Bowie is’, explores the creative process of Bowie as not only a musical visionary but also a cultural icon, tracking his pioneering style and reinvention across five decades. More than 1.3 million people have visited the touring show, which has since visited Toronto, Berlin, Chicago, Melbourne and Paris. V&A curator Geoffrey Marsh explains that David Bowie offered curators full access to his enormous and impeccably kept archives, but declined to talk to them. The exhibition is, instead, the curators take on his life: ‘He was very generous and, in a curious way, quite self-effacing.

I think he was genuinely interested in what someone else might make of it all.’ See also: ‘EXHIBITIONISM’: The Rolling Stone Hijack London's Saatchi Gallery The exhibition, which is made up of over 300 objects from his 50-year long career includes films, fashion, photography, set designs, music videos, drawings, handwritten song lyrics and his legendary costumes—such as the Ziggy Stardust jumpsuit that David Bowie wore in 1972 when he performed Starman on Top of the Pops . One item missing from the exhibition is a Bakelite Grafton saxophone given to a 13-year old Bowie (who was then known as David Robert Jones) by his father, Haywood Stenton Jones. Marsh explains that Bowie declined the request to lend the saxophone, possibly because it was quite delicate but more so because it meant so much to him: ‘it was very poignant. Apart from that, he lent everything we asked of him.’ The exhibition does include other personal items, including never-before-seen storyboards, handwritten set lists as well as Bowie’s sketches and diary entries, which reveal the progression of his ingenious concepts.

Included in the exhibition is one of the most recognizable album covers, not only of David Bowie’s but also of any musician’s, Aladdin Sane (1973). The cover image features Bowie with a flame-coloured mullet hairstyle and lightening bolt painted across his face, shot by photographer Brian Duffy . The album introduces one of David Bowie’s many flamboyant alter egos, Aladdin Sane (a pun on ‘A Lad Insane’), although technically considered an extension of Bowie’s predecessor alter ego (and the one that propelled him to his international fame), Ziggy Stardust. Bowie described this kind of ‘schizophrenia’ as wanting to be on stage performing his songs, but ‘not wanting to be on those buses with all those strange people’ [in reference to his time spent in America]. The schizophrenia is conveyed by the makeup; the lightning bolt represents the dichotomy of the mind, and the teardrop placed by photographer Brian Duffy. Bowie told Rolling Stone that the lightening bolt was, ‘an electric kind of thing. Instead of, like, the flame of a lamp, I thought he would probably be cracked by lightning. Sort of an obvious-type thing, as he was sort of an electric boy.

But the teardrop was Brian Duffy’s, he put that on afterward, just popped it in there. I thought it was rather sweet.’ See also: Sting and Trudie Styler's Collection Up for Sale The image has been emulated many times since: the covers of both British Vogue in 2003 and Vogue Paris in 2012 had Kate Moss as the cover model with the iconic red and blue lightening bolt across her face, and her hair styled in a mullet. Lady Gaga also channeled the look in her debut video for Just Dance in 2008, which sees her wearing a blue lightening-bolt sticker beneath her eye. The singer has since had a tattoo of the Aladdin Sane image on her ribs, as a tribute to the man who she claims changed her life, ‘when I fell in love with Bowie, when I was living on the Lower East Side, I always felt that his glamour was something he was using to express a message to people that was very healing for their souls’, she said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter , conducted shortly before Bowie’s passing. Following his death, the singer performed a tribute at the 2016 Grammys in Los Angeles .

The tribute, which opened to an image of Gaga dressed as Aladdin Sane, consisted of a multi-song medley of Bowie’s best known songs: Space Oddity, Changes, Ziggy Stardust, Suffragette City, Rebel Rebel, Fashion, Fame, Let’s Dance, and concluded with Heroes which earned her a standing ovation. Bowie’s work has both influenced and been influenced by broader movements in art, design, theatre and contemporary culture, and the colossal popularity of the exhibition both before and after his death shows Bowie’s impact, his innovative style and reinvention cements him as an icon to all generations. As Marsh explains, ‘there are very few performers who engender that kind of love. There are lots of bands that people really like and admire, but the intimacy people feel with Bowie is something very, very rare.

And the fact he kept doing it for 50 years is extraordinary.’ The ‘David Bowie is’ exhibition is touring internationally at the Museo d'Arte Moderna di Bologna (MAMbo), Bologna, Italy, from 14 July to 13 November 2016, and then at the Warehouse TERRADA G1 Building, Tokyo, Japan, from 8 January to 9 April 2017. stumbleupon Email Comment These alter egos presented to the public and brought to life by the celebrities have started to become a common occurrence. Many artists will create hilarious, and inventive characters that bring a dynamic change to their show. Fans and spectators become awed at the transformation and will either find the creation a great change of pace, or ask: “What the heck just happened?” Crazily enough, many of these fictional twins become more popular than the actors/singers/dancers themselves. So welcome to the list of top 11 celebrities with self-made doppelgangers that seriously has our attention. Sacha Baron Cohen He is more known for his roles in his movies than he is as an actor, but his interpretation of the characters he was portraying quickly made him famous.

Cohen is responsible for bringing to life the characters of Borat Sagdiyev, Bruno Gehard, Ali G, and Admiral General Aladeen. Starting with Da Ali G Show, Cohen starred as Ali G, a gangster-like talk show host. The show also contained cameo appearances by Borat and Bruno. Both Bruno and Borat got their own feature films, and Cohen continued on to have the lead in The Dictator. His ability to convincingly portray 4 completely different personas is what made this actor so well known. However, you tend to hear “the Borat guy” more often than his actual name. Lady Gaga Originally just someone that was created to see how much she and Nick Knight could get away with, Jo Calderone was developed for the modeling world. Appearing in Vogue Hommes Japan, Calderone made a huge impression, especially since his biological gender was omitted when the photographs were sent. By doing this Gaga and Nick had successfully managed to convince the editors that Jo was a male model. His looks were sold as the next big thing and went on to have a cover in the magazine.

Afterwards, Nick Knight persuaded Lady Gaga that Jo Calderone should also be able to sing, and so he did; his first performance being at the 2011 VMA’s. Beyonce Why would someone with so much stage presence, feel that it would be necessary to separate herself from her job by creating an entirely new person for her job? According to Beyonce , her alter ego, Sasha Fierce, was created to be the stage performer that Beyonce’s conscience just couldn’t let her be. Fierce, as the name states happens to be the exact opposite of the bubbly character that everyone loves, and instead possesses the nature of a strong woman that takes no sass from anyone. While at work, Sasha Fierce is responsible for making the money, and once the job is done, Beyonce makes her appearance. By creating Sasha, Beyonce can completely separate her work life from her personal life, and while she strongly dislikes her own self-made alter ego, Beyonce has thanked her other self. She has even recently made the move to completely combine the two personas into one single amazing artist. Eminem Eminem , in the past few years, has made a complete 180 in his music and subject matter.

Beginning with his debut in 1996 and the birth of Slim Shady with his Slim Shady LP, Eminem made an intense entrance into a dominantly black culture. While Slim Shady was the source of controversy and showed Eminem’s abilities with wordplay, the artist’s other ego, Marshall Mathers, sheds some light on the inner demons and sensitivity that plagued the other side of Eminem’s subconscious. Slim Shady was the barricade between the world and the hip-hop artist’s feelings, and Mr. Mathers was the wound that remained forever open, allowing his feelings to spill out into the incredibly haunting album, The Marshall Mathers LP. In 2004 Eminem came out with Encore, which has been named the mark of his downfall, as the album was dominated by his Slim Shady persona, and contained songs that were nothing but bland. After 5 years, the two-part album, Relapse and Recovery, marked the rebirth of Eminem, with Recovery topping the music charts, and Eminem essentially killing off Slim Shady. Miley Cyrus The dream of teenage girls everywhere: being famous for singing while also having a normal life.

Rather than starting her career by being herself on stage, Miley Cyrus became known for being Hannah Montana, the blonde 14 year old who could own the stage. The alter ego was started for the Disney show of the same name, but was later inducted into Miley Cyrus’ concert performances, most notably for her Best of Both Worlds tour. Hannah Montana was meant to be the pop-superstar to Cyrus’ down-to-earth personality. Miley Cyrus officially killed off her alter ego in 2013 with her We Can’t Stop music video, marking the end of her loveable tween image. Nicki Minaj The artist is truly a master of creation, with a taking on more than 10 different alter egos. Her most note worthy and most utilized in interviews and music, would be The Harajuku Barbie and Roman Zolanski. Others include Martha Zolanski- the mother of Roman as well as the Godmother in her music video Moment 4 Life– and Nicki Lewinsky, who was primarily active when Minaj was an underground artist. Her creations are often for the roles needed in her music videos, or if she feels like the situation calls for it.

Rosa, who is Minaj’s Spanish alter ego, was created for an interview on Lopez Tonight because of the Mexican origins of the host. Christina Aquilera In 2002, Aguilera decided to rid herself of her wholesome image, releasing an album rightly named Stripped. The album marked the birth of her alter ego Xtina , who did away with the majority of her clothes and instead added a whack load of piercings. The drastic image change in character shocked fans and left them with mixed feelings. Dirrty, the top song on the album was considered not her best, while the music video completely did away with the underperformance of the song, and made it skyrocket straight to being too much ‘sex’. The failure of the album led to the making of Back to Basics and Bionic, both attempts to make everyone happy, but left fans feeling a little bored. Christina Aquilera considers Xtina to be more of her true personality, and went so far as to tattoo her alter ego’s name onto the back of her neck.

Mariah Carey Instead of creating a persona that was completely different from what the public perceives the celebrity to be, Carey introduced the public to Mimi – her childhood nickname ad what she considers to be closer to who she truly is. Although her earlier two albums failed to perform the way that had been hoped, with the public showing of a new playful side of Mariah Carey, the album The Emancipation of Mimi, brought new life to her music. David Bowie Unleashing his acting and performing talents, David Bowie has introduced the world to a number of alter egos. His characters ranged from the androgynous and colourful alien Ziggy Stardust, to the transitioning persona of Aladdin Sane, to the suave Thin White Duke. Once Ziggy Stardust lost his sparkle in 1974, Ziggy made the move to Aladdin Sane, which Bowie called “Ziggy in America”. The Thin White Duke made his debut in 1976, seeming far more normal than Bowie’s other creations. His stylish, smart, cabaret-style looking wardrobe hid his alarming personality, which had been heavily influenced by the amount of cocaine that David Bowie had been introducing into his system.

Bowie went through a few more alter egos and music styles before he managed to get to where he is today with his newest album being The Next Day. Garth Brooks Considered one of the boldest career moves in rock history, country musician, Garth Brooks, made the shocking change to alternative rock artist Chris Gaines . Originally, the character of Gaines was written for the movie, The Lamb, that Brooks was supposed to star in, but due to his tiredness of his 90’s country stardom, Garth Brooks decided to write an album entirely as Chris Gaines. The artist went so far as to create an entire backstory for his alter ego. Unfortunately, though the album didn’t sell terribly, the movie was scrapped due to the poor response from the public. The alter ego was also tossed aside soon after. Steve Coogan Alan Partridge was born in 1991, a sports commentator who knew nothing about sports, but had the ability to catch the ear of everyone who heard, with his hilarious inanity. Beginning with the radio show On the Hour, within a year Partridge and the radio show had completely changed to fit the small screen on The Day Today.

By 1994, Partridge had evolved into the careless, awkward, chronically self-unaware broadcaster that we all know today. Steve Coogan had gotten to the point where people would go “Ah Hah!” when they saw him on the street, recognizing him as only Alan Partridge and not Coogan himself. The actor had developed a strange love-hate relationship with his alter ego, and went on to act amazingly in many other films including Night at the Museum, Our Idiot Brother, and Hamlet 2. Alan Partridge continues to make appearances in movies and TV shows. Alter egos can be used to protect our actual personalities from the scrutiny of the public eye, as well as help separate two parts of our lives. Other times, they are meant to show off our amazing creativity and imagination, and keep our lives fresh and interesting. Many other celebrities have brought to life new characters for a new twist in their work including, Katy Perry, Barry Humphries, and Leigh Francis, these and many more, creating new personas to show off their amazing talents.

ShareOn Facebook David Bowie dies of cancer at 69: 'He gave us magic for a lifetime' | Music | The Guardian David Bowie David Bowie dies of cancer at 69: 'He gave us magic for a lifetime' The legendary musician known for musical innovation and experimentation with his image died 18 months after being diagnosed with cancer Caroline Davies in London and Edward Helmore in New York Monday 11 January 2016 03.55 EST First published on Monday 11 January 2016 02.04 EST Close This article is 1 year old David Bowie , the iconic rock star whose career spanned more than half a century and whose influence transcended music, fashion and sexuality, has died aged 69. The singer’s death was confirmed in a Facebook post on his official page: “David Bowie died peacefully today surrounded by his family after a courageous 18-month battle with cancer.

While many of you will share in this loss, we ask that you respect the family’s privacy during their time of grief.” Writing on Twitter , Bowie’s son, the film director Duncan Jones, 44, said: “Very sorry and sad to say it’s true.” The news came as a shock to some, who were initially sceptical, but Bowie’s publicist, Steve Martin, told the Reuters news agency: “It’s not a hoax.” Duncan Jones (@ManMadeMoon) Very sorry and sad to say it's true. I'll be offline for a while. Love to all. pic.twitter.com/Kh2fq3tf9m January 11, 2016 Bowie’s 25 albums produced a string of hits including Changes, Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes. He was known for experimenting across diverse musical genres, and for his alter egos Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane and the Thin White Duke. He also had a notable acting career. His latest album, Blackstar, was released last week to coincide with his 69th birthday, and had received widespread critical acclaim.

Blackstar was the first Bowie release not to feature a picture of him on the cover: instead, a stylised black star heralded a darker work. On re-examination, there is much in Blackstar to suggest Bowie was saying goodbye, particularly in Lazarus, and the video for the title track, which opens with the image of a dead spaceman . Lazarus video from Blackstar album Tributes were paid on social media. In a heartfelt Facebook post, Tony Visconti, who produced a series of Bowie’s albums, including Young Americans and his seminal Berlin trilogy, Low, Heroes and Lodger, wrote: “He always did what he wanted to do. And he wanted to do it his way and he wanted to do it the best way. His death was no different from his life – a work of art. David Bowie: the man who thrilled the world Read more “He made Blackstar for us, his parting gift. I knew for a year this was the way it would be. I wasn’t, however, prepared for it. He was an extraordinary man, full of love and life. He will always be with us.

For now, it is appropriate to cry.” An hour after the news broke, fans began to gather near his apartment on Lafayette Street in the Soho district of New York. The first, Kate Corman, left a candle and flowers. “First Lou Reed, now David Bowie. It’s so sad. Unbelievable. New York is really over now,” she said. ‎At Puckfair, a bar across the street from Bowie’s apartment andfrequented by the singer, the barman played a string of his hits – Jean Genie, Let’s Dance and Heroes. “It’s hard to put into words what he gave us in his songs,” said late-night drinker Bill Marlborough. “If you don’t feel it, I can’t explain.” Pinterest Flowers are laid at the entrance to Bowie’s apartment building in Soho, New York. Photograph: Louis Lanzano/AFP/Getty Images Flowers and tributes were also laid at a mural on a wall in Brixton, south London, where the singer was born, and a candle was placed outside a property in Stansfield Road, thought to be his childhood home. Bowie had been absent from public view for a decade.

After a heart attack while touring in 2004 there were only a few low-key live appearances – his last at a charity show in New York in 2006 when he performed alongside Alicia Keys – and an acting role in the film The Prestige the same year. He was said to sit quietly in his apartment, or at the house in upstate New York near Woodstock, which he purchased with the supermodel Iman, whom he married in 1992 and with whom he had a daughter, Alexandria, 15. Paul Trynka, his biographer, told the Press Association the decade between his 23rd album Reality in 2003 and The Next Day in 2013 gave Bowie time to be “a family man”. “He walked Lexi [his daughter] to school every day – something he had missed with Duncan [his son] which was something he deeply regretted”. Ricky Gervais, the comedian and actor who convinced the famously private Bowie to star as himself in an episode of the 2006 sitcom Extras, wrote: “ I just lost a hero. RIP David Bowie ”.

The rock guitarist Joel Madden, quoting Changes, wrote simply: “ Turn and face the strange ”. The rapper Kanye West said : “David Bowie was one of my most important inspirations, so fearless, so creative, he gave us magic for a lifetime.” Mick Jagger said: “David was always an inspiration to me and a true original. He was wonderfully shameless in his work. We had so many good times together ... He was my friend. I will never forget him.” Bowie was born David Robert Jones on 8 January 1947 in Brixton, south London, to mother Margaret “Peggy”, a waitress, and charity worker Haywood “John” Jones. His older brother’s record collection introduced him to rock music at an early age. Pinterest David Bowie at the Theatre Workshop in New York to attend the premiere of the musical Lazarus. Photograph: BR/Dana Press/PA The family moved to south-east London and he graduated from Bromley technical high school at 16, when he was busy forming a number of bands and leading a group. He called himself Davy Jones, later changing his name to David Bowie to avoid confusion with Davy Jones of The Monkees.

The name was reportedly inspired by a knife developed by the 19th century American pioneer Jim Bowie. He released three singles as a solo artist for Pye Records, and a debut album David Bowie, but did not achieve huge success and retreated to a Buddhist monastery in Scotland in 1967. After returning to London he started the arts troupe Feathers in 1968, then helped organise the Free Festival, a day-long free music event in Beckenham, southeast London, in 1969. That same year he released Space Oddity, which went on to be his first UK No 1. The release the following year of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars made him an international star, and he conquered the US with his theatrical stage show. He produced albums for Lou Reed and Iggy Pop, as well as writing All the Young Dudes, which he gave to Mott The Hoople who had a massive hit with it. In the late 1970s he produced a three-album collaboration with Brian Eno, known as the Berlin trilogy.

Pinterest David Bowie pictured with a fan in the 1970s, in his Ziggy Stardust phase. Photograph: Michael Ochs/Corbis Bowie combined his rock career with appearances in films. His acting career took off with his performance in Nicolas Roeg’s The Man Who Fell to Earth, followed by roles in films such as Labyrinth, The Last Temptation of Christ and Absolute Beginners. More recently, he appeared as himself in the film Zoolander. Bowie officially retired Ziggy Stardust in 1973, making the announcement during a London gig. But the hits kept coming, with albums including Aladdin Sane, Diamond Dogs and Pin Ups. He changed direction with the soul-inspired Young Americans. His first US No 1 was a collaboration with John Lennon on Fame, which topped the charts in 1975. He continued to sell millions of albums and pack out stadiums with the rise of the New Romantic scene in 1980s Britain. He embraced pop, finding chart success with songs such as Let’s Dance and Queen collaboration Under Pressure. Pinterest David Bowie performing as Ziggy Stardust at Radio City Music Hall in February 1973.

Photograph: Neal Preston/Corbis Friend and collaborator Iggy Pop described him on social media as “the light of my life”, while singer Madonna tweeted: “Talented. Unique. Genius. Game Changer”. The Rolling Stones hailed his as “an extraordinary artist and a true original”. The rock group Queen, with whom he collaborated on Under Pressure, tweeted a link to the video of the song, with the words: “This is our last dance....” Prime minister David Cameron, speaking on an engagement in north London, said: “Musically, creatively, artistically David Bowie was a genius”. Bowie once said that he was bisexual, although he later suggested that his sexual interactions with men should be seen in the context of his wider cultural experimentation. “I was always a closet heterosexual,” he told Rolling Stone magazine in 1993. In 1970 he married Angie Bowie, and the couple had a son named Zowie Bowie, now known as Duncan Jones. They split in 1980. He settled in New York one year after marrying Iman.

Bowie continued to record and tour until 2003, when he released Reality, his 23rd album, which many assumed to be his last. “I am not a natural performer,” Bowie said in a rare interview in 2002. “I don’t enjoy performing terribly much. Never have. I can do it and, if my mind’s on the situation, do it quite well. But, five or six shows in, I’m dying to get off the road and go back to the studio.” In the same interview, he said: “My entire career, I’ve only really worked with the same subject matter. The trousers may change, but the actual words and subjects I’ve always chosen to write with are things to do with isolation, abandonment, fear and anxiety, all of the high points of one’s life.” Friends and collaborators recall singer’s last interactions with them amid a re-examination of Blackstar, his final work Published: 11 Jan 2016 From glam to neo-soul to his mysterious final album, David Bowie remained one step ahead throughout a prophetic career that pushed sexual and social boundaries.

Alexis Petridis salutes a brilliant enigma Published: 11 Jan 2016 From suburban London schoolboy to a musical colossus, snapshots of David Bowie’s kaleidoscopic life Published: 11 Jan 2016 From Aladdin Sane’s jumpsuit to the Thin White Duke’s suits, Bowie’s distinctive outfits have influenced designers from Jean Paul Gaultier to Hedi Slimane Published: 11 Jan 2016 1000+ images about Bowie's In Space on Pinterest | David bowie, Ziggy stardust and The thin white duke Forward This is the biography of David Bowie. If you haven't read anything about David Bowie, this is the book to read. He truly does have different colored eyes, and his marriage to supermodel Iman has lasted a long time for a rock musician.

See More David Bowie: 25 of his most iconic fashion moments | Stylist Magazine David Bowie: 25 of his most iconic fashion moments 25 Comment As the world mourns the loss of one of the most pioneering artists of our time, David Bowie – who died aged 69 following a battle with cancer – we take a look back at some of his most iconic fashion moments. Bowie was a maverick of reinvention, creating alter egos including the flame-haired Ziggy Stardust and the melancholy Thin White Duke. Bowie pioneered gender-bending in fashion, wearing tight, androgynous bodysuits and make-up. His flamboyant dress sense was inspired by artists and designers alike, defying the status quo and presenting a figure whose public image was inseparable from the music he created. We’ve selected just a few of his numerous brilliant fashion moments for which he will always be remembered. Rest in peace, you fashionable genius. BestThinking BestThinking Blog in Trending Topic Celebrity Alter Egos Eleven Weirdo Rock Star Alter Egos Source: LA Weekly Throughout musical history, before Lady Gaga, Beyonce, and Katy Perry, many artists had turned to showcasing their alter egos.

While some have gained international fame, others have not been as popular. From Garth Brooks to Bono, artists of all genres have turned to different personas, either to gain fame or to truly express what is on the inside. Here is a collection of some of LA Weekly's "weirdest rock star alter egos." Something about achieving major fame in music seems to drive creative artists to assume new personae. Whether it be fodder for an epic concept album, a stab at a different genre or just plain boredom, many of our favorite stars have conjured up characters in order to explore and indulge their fancies. In fact, many current superstars (Lady Gaga, Nicki Minaj) have skipped building their careers under their own names and gone straight to the made-up pop confections. In honor of these brave and often foolish attempts, here are Eleven of the Weirdest Rock Star Alter Egos: David Bowie (The Thin White Duke) David Bowie has the most colorful cast of alter egos in rock history, including Major Tom, Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane and the gay trenchcoat guy who covered "Dancing in the Streets" with Mick Jagger. The creepiest, though, was the Thin White Duke.

While touring behind 1975's Young Americans, Bowie began to move away from that album's "plastic soul" funk stylings into a newer, elegant phase. Unfortunately, that phase included bizarre pro-fascist comments, Nazi imagery and silos of cocaine. The persona informed much of 1976's excellent Station to Station, but dismayed many of Bowie's fans and embarrassed him for years after. [...] David Johansen (Buster Poindexter) David Johansen was best known for being the outrageous frontman of the classic 1970s glam/protopunk group the New York Dolls. He released a few more rock-tinged solo records before re-emerging in the '80s as both an actor (Scrooged, Let It Ride) and a bizarre, calypso-obsessed lounge singer named Buster Poindexter. Most famous for office/limbo/depressing wedding party staple "Hot Hot Hot," Poindexter and his various backing bands actually explored some interesting territory musically. However, Johansen himself even regretted his big hit single, as it overshadowed what is a fine career of worthwhile tunes.

Garth Brooks (Chris Gaines) Easily the weirdest alter ego in the list (which is saying something), Chris Gaines is an Australian pop sensation who resembles Trent Reznor and was to star in a biopic about himself entitled The Lamb. Except for one thing: Chris Gaines was actually zaftig American country music megastar Garth Brooks. Makes sense, right? Well, no, actually. Released to a confused public, The Life of Chris Gaines actually managed a Top 5 hit in "Lost in You" and a dire Youngbloods-sampling radio single "Right Now" and went to No. 2 on the album charts. The album was pretty mediocre overall, and both the movie and Gaines persona were quickly abandoned. Bono (The Fly/MacPhisto) U2 were the biggest rock group in the world through most of the 1980s. They started off the '90s with Achtung Baby, one of their most successful albums both musically and in sales.

They reinvented themselves into an electronica- and world music-savvy postmodern pop group for the record and ensuing Zoo TV tour that went on for about 12 years afterward, and Bono was inspired to take on an "identikit pop star" personality in response. The Fly was an ironic, self-obsessed maniac with a messianic complex (read: Bono with new sunglasses). Over the course of the tour, the Fly morphed into MacPhisto, who was basically Satan-as-rock star and did such "naughty" things onstage as ordering 10,000 pizzas, calling a phone sex line and repeatedly trying to reach President George H.W. Bush. Sadly, it was far scarier/funnier when Bono actually met with his son Dubya at the White House to discuss debt relief and AIDS. [...] Marshall Mathers (Eminem/Slim Shady/Ken Kaniff) Ah, three for the price of one. Working-class Detroit white boy Marshall Mathers became Eminem on the local hip-hop circuit in the early-1990s, but his career really took off with the invention of his Slim Shady persona.

Shady was the vodka-swilling, chainsaw-wielding id to Eminem's dour ego, and he pushed every boundary (and button) uptight America had. The act started to get a bit tired as time went on, as did Mathers, whose partying would take its toll physically and artistically. On the more playful (but still offensive) side, Eminem would add short, effeminate asides on each album as Ken Kaniff, a fan obsessed with baiting Em sexually. Originally played by one of his buddies, Mathers would soon take over the Kaniff character, leaving him in the unusual position of hitting on himself. Which takes us to our next artist. Harry Lives On Dumbledore's Army, clad in gold embossed “DA” shirts, joined hundreds of fans costumed in witchcraft and wizardry gear last night at the premiere of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2. The DA members shifted in their seats, eagerly anticipating the finale of an adventurous series. You may... Misinformation and the Spread of Rumors The constant cycle of rumors and spread of misinformation through the many curious and nosy minds are as familiar to a college student as they are to any politician and/or actor.

What accounts for the spread of this misinformation and why does it always seem to exist? Such a situation is similar to... Singer David Bowie dies at 69The Tico Times From: To: A portrait taken on May 13, 1983 shows British singer David Bowie during a press conference at the 36th Cannes Film Festival. He died Sunday of cancer. Ralph Gatti/AFP David Bowie, the self-described “tasteful thief” who appropriated from and influenced glam rock, soul, disco, new wave, punk rock and haute couture, and whose edgy, androgynous alter egos invited fans to explore their own dark places, died Sunday. Bowie had turned 69 on Friday, the same day he released his latest album which was entitled “Blackstar.” The cause was cancer, said a representative. With his sylphlike body, chalk-white skin, jagged teeth and eyes that appeared to be two different colors, Bowie combined sexual energy with fluid dance moves and a theatrical charisma that mesmerized male and female admirers alike. Citing influences from Elvis Presley to Andy Warhol – not to mention the singer Edith Piaf and writers William S.

Burroughs and Jean Genet – Bowie was trained in mime and fine arts, and played saxophone, guitar, harmonica and piano. A scavenger of musical and visual styles, he repackaged them in striking new formats that were all his own, in turn lending his dramatic, gender-bending aesthetic to later performers such as Prince and Lady Gaga. With “a melodic sense that’s just well above anyone else in rock & roll,” the singer Lou Reed once wrote , “David Bowie’s contribution to rock & roll has been wit and sophistication.” His output between 1969 and 1983 made up “one of the longest creative streaks in rock history,” according to Rolling Stone magazine. A Jan 19, 2006 photo shows Lou Reed, left, and David Bowie attending the opening of the Lou Reed NY photography exhibit at the Gallery at Hermes in New York City. AFP/Getty Images North America/Andrew H. Walker By the height of his fame in the early 1980s, Bowie had enacted his own death repeatedly, in the form of characters and ensembles he would create, inhabit and then discard.

“My policy has been that as soon as a system or process works, it’s out of date,” he said in a 1977 interview. “I move on to another area.” The practice, which extended to friendships and professional partnerships, could be jarring. The Spiders From Mars, his band during his glitter-rock Ziggy Stardust years, learned that they were being fired when Bowie announced it onstage at the end of a 1973 tour. To fans as well, Bowie’s rapid transitions could feel like whiplash. In the space of five years he was a curly-haired folk singer; a Lauren Bacall look-alike in an evening gown; a vampiric creature with a red mullet, shaved eyebrows and a skintight, multicolored bodysuit; and a coked-up dandy in a tailored suit, suspenders, fedora and cane.

Some of these looks had alter egos associated with them, such as Ziggy Stardust, a fictional rock star who is ultimately ripped to pieces by his fans, or the Thin White Duke, a spectral, disaffected figure dressed impeccably in cabaret-style evening wear who throws “darts in lovers’ eyes.” As much curator as inventor, Bowie lifted melodic motifs from blues, funk and standards and presented them in such a way that many fans had no idea that the catchy “Starman” was a version of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” or that the melancholy “Life on Mars” was “My Way” in disguise. Other musical borrowings were more obvious, such as the opening bass line of “Jean Genie,” taken from “I’m a Man,” or the “On Broadway” reference at the end of the title track of the album “Aladdin Sane.” Stardom gave Bowie his pick of talent.

He hand-selected virtuoso session players to help define each musical phase: Mick Ronson’s guitar solos, Mike Garson’s dissonant piano improv, Carlos Alomar’s funky rhythms, and the techno sounds of guitarists Adrian Belew and Robert Fripp that permeated his work in the late ’70s and set the stage for the European electronica of the 1980s. Bowie’s voice was similarly labile – gliding between ragged cackle and haunting croon as he sang about decaying cities and alienated rock stars. Fellow musicians marveled at his ability to seduce a crowd with a look or a gesture. “He’s the total artist,” said Nicholas Godin of the duo Air. “The look, the voice, the talent to compose, the stage presence. The beauty. Nobody is like that anymore. Everybody is reachable; he was unreachable.” A photo taken on July 12, 2002 shows British musician David Bowie performing during a concert in Cologne, western Germany. AFP/DPA/Cartensen Ever-changing identities David Robert Jones was born on Jan.

8, 1947, in Brixton, a working-class south London neighborhood scarred by World War II bomb blasts. His father, a publicist for a children’s charity, was a failed music hall impresario; his mother was a former waitress and model. An older half-brother, Terry, was diagnosed with schizophrenia and institutionalized when Bowie was a young man. For many years the rock star worried about his own mental health, and the theme of insanity runs through his early songs. “I used to wonder about my eccentricities, my wanting to explore and put myself in dangerous situations, psychically,” he told Esquire magazine in 1993. “I was scared stiff that I was mad, that the reason I was getting away with it was that I was an artist, so people never knew I was totally bonkers.” His family moved to the middle-class suburb of Bromley, where young David attended Bromley Technical High School and found a mentor in art teacher Owen Frampton, father of the future pop star Peter.

At 14, in a fight with a friend over a girl, David was punched in the eye, resulting in a permanently dilated left pupil that would add to the otherworldly appearance he would later cultivate. After a few lessons on a plastic saxophone purchased on a payment plan, he began playing in local bands, finding that he liked singing and the female adulation that came with it. To avoid confusion with Davy Jones of the Monkees, he renamed himself after the 19th-century American frontiersman and the hunting knife associated with him. Fascinated by musical theater, Bowie joined a mime troupe led by the dancer (and, briefly, his lover) Lindsay Kemp, who taught him the extravagant, stylized movements he would later bring into his own stage performances. Although his first two albums received little notice, in 1969 Bowie had his first hit single with “Space Oddity,” a song about a disaffected astronaut who decides to remain “sitting in my tin can, far above the world,” rather than return to life on Earth. Released five days before the Apollo 11 launch, it reached No. 5 in Britain.

That year he also met Angela Barnett, with whom he would enter into a 10-year marriage and have a son, Duncan Zowie Haywood Jones, born in 1971. A shrewd manager of her husband’s early career, Barnett tolerated his blatant philandering and gave him the spiky-on-top, long-in-the-back haircut that would become his signature look through the early 1970s. The hairdo – and the accompanying glittery bodysuits, platform boots and face paint – was intended as a statement against the peace-and-love, denim-clad hippie imagery dominating rock culture at the time. Bowie instead presented fans with cut-and-paste lyrics about the end of the world, and shocked them by dropping to his knees to perform mock fellatio on Ronson’s electric guitar or telling an interviewer he was bisexual (though he would later say that was just an experimental phase). “We wanted to manufacture a new kind of vocabulary,” Bowie told NPR’s Terry Gross in 2003.

“And so the so-called gender-bending, the picking up of maybe aspects of the avant garde and aspects of, for me personally, of things like the Kabuki theater in Japan and German expressionist movies, and poetry by Baudelaire … it was a pudding of new ideas, and we were terribly excited, and I think we took it on our shoulders the idea that we were creating the 21st century in 1971.” His ever-changing, outrageous personae also served to mask the painful shyness and insecurity of his younger years. “I didn’t really have the nerve to sing my songs onstage,” he told Musician magazine in 1983. Referring to the various personae, he said: “I decided to do them in disguise so that I didn’t have to actually go through the humiliation of going onstage and being myself. I continued designing characters with their own complete personalities and environments. I put them into interviews with me! Rather than be me – which must be incredibly boring to anyone – I’d take Ziggy in, or Aladdin Sane or the Thin White Duke.

It was a very strange thing to do.” A plaque marks the location of the cover photograph of the iconic cover for British musician David Bowie’s album “Ziggy Stardust” in central London. Justin Tallis/AFP Actor and innovator Along with his own music, he promoted the careers of lesser-known musicians such as Iggy Pop, Lou Reed and Mott the Hoople, whose signature hit, “All the Young Dudes,” was written by Bowie. In 1974 he moved to Los Angeles, whose hyped-up, drugged-out music scene – the “Fame” and “Fascination” immortalized on his album “Young Americans” – took a toll. Extensive cocaine use made him jittery and paranoid, even as it enabled him to be creatively prolific. Seeking calm and anonymity, Bowie spent much of the late 1970s in West Berlin, where in collaboration with Brian Eno he produced three albums that experimented with ambient sound and presaged the synthesizer-heavy music of the 1980s. Returning to live in New York City, he began expanding his range as an actor.

Having starred in the 1976 Nicholas Roeg film “The Man Who Fell to Earth,” in 1980 he played the lead in a stage production of “The Elephant Man,” for which Variety praised his “charismatic personality … suggesting springs of passion beneath the severe physical handicaps of the character.” In both roles he played sensitive freaks misunderstood by the society around them, a theme that had also permeated much of his music. He also starred in “Just a Gigolo” with Marlene Dietrich (1978), in the Tony Scott vampire film “The Hunger” with Catherine Deneuve (1983) and as a rebellious prisoner of war in “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence” (also 1983). Bowie’s commercial musical pinnacle also came in 1983, with the blockbuster album “Let’s Dance.” It blasted him into international superstardom, though critics complained that it lacked the depth of his earlier work. Its unexpected success threw Bowie into a creative tailspin. Having planned to follow it with more esoteric material, he instead tried to duplicate the “Let’s Dance” success with albums that were critical flops.

“I suddenly felt very apart from my audience,” he told Live magazine in 1997. “And it was depressing, because I didn’t know what they wanted.” Bowie regularly released albums through the 1980s and 1990s, although none approached the success of his previous output. But he continued to innovate, in 1996 becoming the first musician of his stature to release a song, “Telling Lies,” exclusively via the Internet. He caused a sensation when he was the first to sell asset-backed bonds, known in his case as “Bowie bonds” and acquired by Prudential, tied to the royalties on his back catalogue. By the eve of the century he had once aspired to create, Bowie seemed to be finally settling down. He fell in love – a condition his younger self had pooh-poohed – with the model Iman Abdulmajid, whom he married in 1992 and with whom he had a daughter, Alexandria Zahra Jones, in 2000. After suffering a heart attack backstage during a tour in 2004, he stopped producing albums or touring for nearly a decade, devoting himself to family life.

He even got his vulpine teeth capped, to the disappointment of some fans. But in 2013, the same year an elaborate retrospective of his visual legacy began touring the world, the 66-year-old Bowie released a new album, recorded in secret, called “The Next Day.” His first album in a decade and the 24th of his career, it was praised by critics, who called it innovative even as it hearkened back to his early music. That Bowie was still reinventing himself in his seventh decade could not have surprised those who knew him. “David’s a real living Renaissance figure,” Roeg told Time magazine in 1983. “That’s what makes him spectacular. He goes away and re-emerges bigger than before. He doesn’t have a fashion, he’s just constantly expanding. It’s the world that has to stop occasionally and say, ‘My God, he’s still going on.’ ” © 2016, The Washington Post

Question: Whose alter egos have included Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane and "The Thin Whte Duke"?
Answer: David Bowie