Short History Of... - David Bowie

Episode Date: January 12, 2026

This episode will be available to listen to for free on 12th January, 2026. You can listen to it right away by subscribing to Noiser Plus. Head to www.noiser.com/subscriptions for more information. ⁠A Short History of Ancient Rome⁠ - the debut book from the Noiser Network is out now! Discover the epic rise and fall of Rome like never before. Pick up your copy now at your local bookstore or visit ⁠⁠noiser.com/books⁠⁠ to learn more. During a career spanning half a century, David Bowie constantly reinvented his image and sound, creating the diverse body of work that made him a titan in the history of modern music. From the androgynous alien energy of Ziggy Stardust to the suave, enigmatic Thin White Duke, Bowie’s artistic restlessness became his trademark. Few artists have shaped popular culture with such imagination and fearlessness.   So how did a suburban boy transform himself into a rock superstar? What fuelled his boundless creativity? And how did he change pop music forever? This is a Short History Of David Bowie. A Noiser podcast production. Hosted by John Hopkins. With thanks to Chris O'Leary, author of two books on the songs of David Bowie, Rebel Rebel and Ashes to Ashes. Written by Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow | Produced by Kate Simants | Production Assistant: Chris McDonald | Exec produced by Katrina Hughes | Sound supervisor: Tom Pink | Sound design by Oliver Sanders | Assembly edit by Anisha Deva | Compositions by Oliver Baines, Dorry Macaulay, Tom Pink | Mix & mastering: Cody Reynolds-Shaw | Fact Check: Sean Coleman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It is the evening of the 6th of July, 1972, in the city of Bristol, southwest England. It has been a warm day, and children are still playing outside in the dwindling sunlight. But one 13-year-old boy is unable to enjoy the glorious evening. Stuck inside, he sits at the dining table with his exercise book and pencil case, listlessly doing his math's homework. Behind him, his mother bustles about in their avocado green kitchen, humming along to something on the radio. Through the doorway into the living room,

he can see his father reading the paper. When he catches his son staring, he gestures sharply for him to get back to the equations. Eventually, his mother takes off her apron and calls through to her son to hurry up. The program will be starting in five minutes. The boy speeds through his last few sums before slamming his textbook shut

and racing eagerly into the living room. He kneels on the heavily patterned carpet and switches on the brand new color television, pressing the button beside the screen for the right channel. As deep as it is wide, the top of the line black and silver monstrosity is his father's pride and joy. And on Thursday evenings, the family always gathers round it to watch the latest musical hits on top of the pops. The first few bands who play on the program aren't really the boy's thing, and he starts to lose interest. But then his favorite DJ, Radio 1's Tony Blackburn, appears on screen to introduce someone new, David Bowie, singing Starman. The teenager sits transfixed, as a hand appears on screen, strumming an electric blue guitar.

Then the shot cuts to a face, indistinct at first, but growing clearer. The man who must be David Bowie smiles crookedly at the captain. camera. He stares directly down the lens as he sings, his pale face framed by shockingly orange hair. And his captivating eyes, accentuated by dark makeup, appear to be different colors, with one pupil much larger than the other. As the song continues, the camera moves back to reveal Bowie's multi-colored, tight-fitting jumpsuit. The pink satin shirt worn by the drummer glimmers under the bright studio lights, and the guitarist's platinum blonde hair cascades down his back, his tight gold outfit daringly unbuttoned to his sternum. It's a world away from the brown,

tailored shorts and short-sleeved shirt the boy himself is wearing, and the shocks keep coming. Bowie now slings an arm around the guitarist's neck in a gesture of casual intimacy, drawing his face as close as the song reaches its emotional peak. For a moment, you can almost imagine they're about to kiss. His father grunts in displeasure and fumbles for the remote, muttering about how unsuitable this is for children. But even after the TV is switched off, the boy sits enraptured in front of the blank screen, ignoring his parents disapproving conversation behind him.

Because, by bringing music, colour and excitement into an otherwise beige Thursday evening, David Bowie has just opened his eyes to a whole new world. David Bowie's July 1972 appearance on the BBC music program Top of the Pops was a shocking cultural moment. With his shaggy red hair, painted nails, smudged eye-make-up and tight-fitting clothes, the Ziggy Stardust character he inhabited that night was avant-garde, futuristic and androgy. And he was beamed directly into living rooms across the nation, alarming, stuffy appearance, and energizing younger viewers. But Ziggy Stardust was one of only many personas the musician would adopt.

Over a career spanning half a century, Bowie constantly reinvented his image and sound, creating the diverse body of work that made him a titan in the history of modern music. So how did a suburban boy transform himself into a rock superstar? What fueled his boundless creativity? And how did he change pop music forever? I'm John Hopkins from the Noiser Podcast Network. This is a short history of David Bowie.

The boy who will one day become Ziggy Stardust is born David Robert Burns on the 8th of January 1947 in Brixton. South London is still rebuilding after the Blitz and the lingering effects of the war are felt well into his childhood. There are empty gaps where buildings once stood. Few streetlights and food and electricity are still rationed. At the time of his birth, his parents are unmarried. His father, Hayward Stenton Jones, works for Dr. Bernardo's children's charity and met David's

mother, Peggy Burns, when she was an usheret at the Ritz cinema. They both have children from previous relationships. They marry when David is eight months old, and his surname is changed for the first time to Jones. The family do not stay in Brixton for long. Chris O'Leary is author of two books on the songs of David Bowie, Rebel Rebel, and Ashes to Ashes. He liked to in later years play up being a Brixton boy, but that wasn't really accurate. His family, by the time I think he was five or six, had moved to Bromley.

And Bromley is basically where he grew up. He's a suburban kid, and Bromley is what really forms him. The young David is close to his father, but Peggy is emotionally distant. In later life, Bowie will encourage the idea that he had a dysfunctional childhood, but in reality his formative years are fairly prosaic, spent in a neat terrorist house with the luxuries of both television and telephone. From 1958, David is educated at the local secondary school, Bromley Tech, where he shows an interest in only three things, art, music, and girls.

The school stands on the same site as the Bromley College of Art, leading to a common misconception. He goes to Brownlee Tech and then doesn't go any further. One of the great Bowie myths, which I think he perpetuated, was that he went to art school and he didn't. He never went to art school. His interest in music is apparent from a young age, encouraged by his older half-brother Terry,

who plays him jazz records. He sings in the church choir, alongside fellow Bromley Tech pupil George Underwood, with whom he bonds over their shared love of rock and role. After school they spend their time listening to records in the gramophone section of the local department store. It is George who is responsible for one of David's most notable features, his mismatched eyes. Aged 15, the boys both have their hearts set on the same girl. George arranges a date with her, but David sabotages it, and when George discovers the betrayal,

he goes in search of him to give him a black eye. But though David's sight is saved, The muscles controlling the iris of his left eye are paralyzed, leaving the pupil permanently dilated, and giving the effect that his eyes are different colors. The teenagers soon make up and form a band, the con rads. Perhaps surprisingly, given his later status as frontman, David doesn't sing initially. He began as a saxophonist.

That was his first instrument he got. He loved Little Richard. He loved the sound of Earl Bostic, who was a one of these great 1950s R&B jazz, big honking saxophonists. And that was his original idea. He was going to be a sax player in kind of an R&B band. David's first live gig with the Conrad's takes place at his school summer fate in the summer of 1962. They play instrumental covers with David on saxophone and George on lead guitar.

At the time, it seems more likely that the latter will be the musical success. He is taller, better looking, and can move. like Elvis Presley. But soon, David is drawn to the spotlight. I think one thing that this band, the Conrads, did was show him that what he really wanted to do was be a leader of a band. He wanted to be the singer, he wanted to be the songwriter, he wanted to be the person who controlled the look of the band, their stage presence and everything. By the end of 1963, Beatlemania is reaching a fever pitch. And it's in their fame and success, that a teenage David sees the path he wants his life to take.

He leaves school in 1963 with only two qualifications, in art and woodwork. By this point he is playing the guitar and piano alongside the saxophone. He knows the ordinary world of work is not for him. For a time, worked very briefly in advertising. He called himself a junior visualizer. I think he was the lowest person on the totem pole of whatever ad agency was working for. And that didn't last very long.

He pretty much from 1963 onward just wanted to make a life in music and did. He never really had a full-time job or, quote, respectable job after 17 or so. For a few years, he performs with a variety of bands. 1964 sees him secure his first management contract, and he releases his first single as the frontman of Davy Jones and the King Bees. But success remains elusive, with the early singles barely selling and receiving little play on the radio. Even so, in 1966, he is signed by a record label. He signs with Pi Records, the Kinks's label, and again has no luck.

But the thing about him is that he keeps getting breaks. He keeps getting signed by different labels. He keeps getting new bands. And so, strangely enough, he gets an album contract from Deca, one of the biggest labels in UK. pop at the time, even though he had absolutely no track record. He just had a good manager and he just had the ability to convince people, I think. He was so charismatic that, okay, this time is going to be the big one. This is going to be the hit.

1966 is also the year that David Robert Jones becomes David Bowie. The switch is made to avoid confusion with Davy Jones from the band The Monkeys, but his reasons for choosing Bowie remain unclear. He will later claim it was inspired by the hunting knife of the same name. Unfortunately, the rebrand does little for his career, at least to begin with. His self-titled first album released in 1967 is a flop. He starts out doing early Rolling Stones yard birds, kind of heavy R&B stylings. And then he discards that for more adventurous feedback stuff like The Who we're doing in

1965. That goes nowhere. He starts moving into this kind of very sophisticated pop sound. Again, they don't really go anywhere. And then in the Deca period, he's doing mild psychedelia. It's not like Pink Floyd or anything, but it's more adventurous. It's stranger.

It's got cartoon voices and sound effects. So all of it is of its time. It just did not measure up for listeners at the time to the likes of the Beatles and the small faces or whoever he was imitating. But a few years later, he finally has his taste of success. Space Oddity. A song that tells the tale of the fictional astronaut Major Tom is rushed out to coincide with a 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing.

And the shameless tie-in works. The BBC even use it during their coverage around the event. It ultimately reaches number five in the UK charts. The next year there is excitement in Bowie's personal life too, when he marries 20-year-old model and journalist Mary Angela Barnett, known as Angie. Their son, Duncan Zawi Jones, is born the next year. But the relationship quickly sours. They have kind of a tortured relationship that goes on through most of the 70s.

And the tragedy is that she had thought the relationship was going to be a quipur quo in which he became famous, and then he would help her become famous as an actress or a performer. and it doesn't really work out that way. And they become estranged pretty quickly. Before things go south, however, she will be instrumental in Bowie's breakout moment. After his brief success with Space Oddity, Bowie releases The Man Who Sold the World and Hunky Dory. But it is 1972's The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars

that finally confirms his arrival. Before that, he was kind of considered a one-hit wonder. the guy that did the song about Major Tom in 1969 and then nobody had heard from him since. As revered as hunky-dory is, it was not really successful when it first came out. You would think a song like Changes would have been a smash, but it wasn't until after the Ziggy period. So yeah, he was considered sort of like a fluke hit that had a song about a moon landings. And suddenly now he was back three years later. And that really establishes him finally as like, okay, this person has presence and is going to

be here for a while. His success is aided by his collaboration with a guitarist Mick Ronson, who helps Bowie to crystallize his sound. He's able to kind of nail down, I guess what you would consider the early classic Bowie sound, which is the sound of Hunky Dory and Ziggy Stardust, which is hard rock, but also with a great pop element to it. So it's not just heavy rock, it's stuff like life on Mars and changes, which is much lighter, which is much more intricate. After his appearance on top of the pops in July, the album rises up the UK charts, eventually reaching number six. The program marks the television debut of his Ziggy Stardust

character, an and anrogy-haired alien who has come to earth to deliver a message of hope via the medium of rock music. So influential is the broadcast on future musicians, that it will come to be described as the day that invented the 80s. From Bono and Adamant to Morrissey and Boy George, they'd speak about the life-changing impact of watching Bowie on that fateful night. And it announces him as a performer as much as a musician. The package he created of this character, the sort of backstory, the look, the band, the Spiders from Mars, it was all very, very well designed.

In a way that was closer to maybe a Broadway production, a West End theater production than a rock band typically had been. It was again a reaction to everybody wearing blue jeans and faded tie-dye shirts. This is, no, we're going to wear feathers, we're going to wear makeup, we're going to wear dresses and platformed shoes and be a giant spectacle. And that's where Bowie really thrived. With the Ziggy Stardust persona that he inhabits on stage, Bowie becomes a figurehead of the glam rock movement.

But his wife, Angie, has a huge creative influence. And I think she is very, very important to that Ziggy period. She is like a sounding board for ideas. Like him, very publicity-minded and knows what will capture headlines. And she's sort of a stage manager of the early Ziggy period for him and is very, very, very ambitious and is driven. The gender-fluid nature of Bowie's appearance in these years is often commented upon. London's first gay pride march occurs just a few days before his explosion. moment on top of the Pops on the 1st of July in 1972.

Sex between consenting men has only recently been partially decriminalized. In the wake of these legal changes, Bowie is at the forefront of a new pop cultural movement that is determined to transgress societal norms around sex and gender. His own identity is harder to ascertain. While promoting Ziggy Stardust, he gives an interview to Melody Maker where he describes himself as gay. In 1976, he clarifies that he is in fact bisexual, though this is far from the last thing he will say about his sexuality. Regardless of how he describes himself,

his flamboyant outfits and performances have a huge impact on young people. However, they identify. He was pretty enormous in terms of the freedom he gave teenagers or young people in England and America. He showed there was an alternative to the freedom sort of the macho, hard rock archetype stuff, the Jimmy Page kind of thing. I just think him being there gave people the freedom to be like, you know what, I'm going out to the club tonight and I'm going to wear eyeliner.

I don't have to conform to what society tells me how I should dress, what my genders should be. There is this kind of figure out there who is offering an alternative, a different way of living than your middle class, your working class existence in the 70s. While promoting the Ziggy Star Dust album, Bowie tours America for the first time. In 1974, after gaining popularity on both sides of the Atlantic, he moves to live in L.A. full-time. By this point, he and Andrea are living largely separate lives. America, with its rich musical traditions, inevitably has an impact on him. In the following years, he is more and more influenced by funk and soul music.

And so it is time to say goodbye to Ziggy Star Dust. Within a year of the character being created, he's retired. I think he's very savvy in that he knows the pop world expects novelty in this period, expects turnover and change, and it helped that he had had this long streak in the 60s where nothing was working for him so he could discard things. He realized very quickly that he could not be Ziggy Stardust that long. The character would get really tired really quickly and seemed dated. And so that is why he kind of ends the persona by the end of 1973.

Between 1973 and 1976, Bowie releases four successful albums, Aladdin Sane, Diamond Dogs, Young Americans, and Station to Station. His relentless creativity sees him reinvent himself with each new record. His albums are now charting regularly in both the UK and the US. Despite his success, he fires his manager, Tony DeFries in 1975. Among his various complaints, Bowie feels as though DeFries does not support his creative vision, wanting him to go in a popier and more lucrative direction.

It is not an amicable split. After months of litigation, DeFries is granted a percentage of all Bowie's earnings until 1982. For the next seven years, the musician will have to watch as millions of pounds are sent off in settlement, while he himself sometimes faces periods of financial difficulties. It is from his time in America that one of the most disturbing stories about David Bowie's life emerges. The 70s sees the height of groupie culture. Young women, many of them teenagers, take to hanging around after gigs and at nightclubs, hoping to meet and form relationships with the rock and pop stars of the day. It's a scene that Bowie takes an enthusiastic part in, and much later in 2015, a former groupie

alleges a sexual encounter with Bowie in the early 70s when he was 26 and she was just 14. While Bowie himself never responds to the allegations, her account has since been disputed by other groupies and the truth of the matter remains unclear. But it's also when he's in America that Bowie takes the lead in his first major film. The man who fell to Earth is a sci-fi drama about an alien who crash lands on Earth. The musician, of course, plays the extraterrestrial. Though Bowie's years in the states are creatively vibrant, they coincide with a period of heavy drug use. When he takes his friend and fellow musician Iggy Pop with him on tour in 1926, they're both arrested in New York for possession of marijuana. The charges are later dropped, but according to some, Bowie is by this point subsisting on a diet of milk, cigarettes and cocaine.

As with a lot of the stories about him, it's hard to know what to believe. I mean, with him, there's always an element of self-mythology. I think he was, I don't know if you would say flat out he was a cocaine addict in the mid-70s. He definitely liked using cocaine, from all evidence. And so I think it probably was a very isolated and difficult period for him, but I think he also did play up that, oh, I can't remember anything from that era. On the 1976 station-to-station tour, at the height of his apparent addiction, Bowie starts to appear on stage in character as the thin white duke. His hair is shorter and blonde, slicked sharply back.

He wears a white shirt, tailored black trousers and a waistcoat, a million miles from the glitz and glam of Ziggy Stardust. When asked to describe the persona, Bowie calls him a very Aryan fascist type. And over the course of the European tour, it becomes unclear exactly where the fascist, thin, white duke ends, and Bowie himself begins. It's late April, 1976. A train clatters into Brest railway station on the border between Poland and Russia and grinds to a halt. A young man named Andrew Kent blinks slowly awake from a nap. His cheek pressed against the window of the train carriage. He and his friends drank too much last night, and his head is still throbbing.

He stretches his arms above his head, shoulder joints, popping uncomfortably, then suddenly jumps up, realizing they need to get off. The conductor had explained to them that they would have to change to a different train if they were traveling all the way to Moscow, something about the difference between European and Russian railway tracks. As his companions rushed to leave, Andrew grabs his brother. bag and follows them off the train, checking the camera slung around his neck. He is a photographer following David Bowie and Iggy Pop as they travel across Europe on David's latest tour.

On the platform, he gets a few snaps of the musicians enjoying a smoke as they wait for the next train. Their jeans and shiny bomber jackets, marking them out as Western tourists. But despite the glamour of being on tour, both musicians look worse for wear. Bowie, in particular, is gaunt-faced, with large dark circles under his bewitching eyes. As he is focusing his next shot, Andrew notices a man in a dark blue uniform approaching their small group. He claps Bowie on the shoulder and insists, in broken English, that everyone must come with him. Now. His tone does not invite disagreement.

The men follow him through the station building until they reach a huge, bare room. There are no windows, just a single light bulb dangling from the ceiling. After ushering them inside, the official leaves closing the door firmly behind him. They wait for several tense minutes. At last the door swings open, admitting another man in the same blue uniform. He explains that he is with the KGB, the Soviet Union Security Agency. In a bone-chilling voice, he tells Bowie. that the intelligence service hadn't been expecting him.

Andrew tries not to panic, but this is bad. They had hoped to pass unnoticed behind the Iron Curtain by pretending to be ordinary tourists. It seems someone has tipped them off. The intelligence officer asks for their papers and spends an interminable amount of time scrutinizing them. Unable to find anything amiss, he next orders them to open their suitcases.

Andrews is the first to be inspected. He blushes when the officer pulls out the latest issue of Playboy magazine and proceeds to flip through its pages, pausing at some of the racier photographs. This, he declares, will have to be confiscated. He then proceeds to rifle through the other men's luggage, finally coming to Davids. Most of his suitcase is given over to books,

and the officer reads every title intently, his frown deepening. glancing at the covers, Andrew can see that a surprising number seem to be about Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich. Eventually, the officer straightens up. The men can repack their things and continue on their journey, he tells them. But David's fascist books will have to stay. They hurried to comply, flinging their belongings back in their cases and cramming the lids shut. Soon they are back on the platform laughing at their luck he escape and wondering what awaits them when they step off the train in Moscow.

In the end, Bowie's journey through Russia passes without incident. But his confiscated books, and, according to some reports, Nazi memorabilia, evidence his recent and unhealthy obsession with far-right politics. Just a few days later, he provokes further controversy during a press conference in Stockholm when he proclaims that Britain would benefit from a fascist leader and declares that Hitler was the first rock star. Worse still, a photo taken when he arrives back in London appears to show him throwing a Nazi salute. Bowie quickly disavows the comments in an interview with the Daily Express given a couple of days later.

In the coming months, he repeatedly claims to be upset that anyone might consider him a racist, and he rarely makes a political statement from that day on. Though several biographers believe that his remarks were designed as a publicity stunt, or with the result of his drug taking, his words have a lasting impact. Later, in 1976, the campaign group Rock Against Racism is formed, in response to both Bowie's comments and a racist on-stage rant by Eric Clapton. After the station-to-station tour finishes, Bowie decides to leave L.A. and the drugs behind.

And so he moves to Berlin with Iggy Pop and without his wife. I think he wasn't a bad situation in Los Angeles when he was doing the station to station album. I think he was using a lot of drugs, but also I think he was really cut off from everything. And he came to believe that Europe could be a way out for him. I also think that it's hard to visualize now 50 years later, but you really could go off the grid pretty easily, even if you were famous like him. If you go to West Berlin in 1976, you're not going to have photographers following you around.

You can really live as a civilian if you want it to, which he did. His time in Berlin allows him to get clean, away from the harsh glare of the limelight, and also offers an opportunity to recharge creatively. He now takes a step in another new direction with his music, releasing the Berlin trilogy of albums Lowe, Heroes and Lodger in the late 70s. He is also collaborating with Iggy Pop on his records, The Idiot and Lust for Life. The Sound is influenced obviously by German bands like Krafirk, like Noy. But there's also still Bowie's fractured take on American funk, because he still has his

band from the L.A. period. So it's experimental, but again, it's not absolutely wild avant-garde music. It's still a lot of song structures. It's still poppy. It still has singles like Sound and Vision, which is a pretty big hit in the UK. And obviously, Heroes would down the road become one of his most famous songs, when most loved songs. The albums do not sell as well as his previous work, but they're critically acclaimed.

Sadly, the reinvigoration of his musical output occurs against the complete disintegration of his marriage to Angie. Although they have been growing apart for years, in 1976 she had bought a property in Switzerland that she hoped might become a family home. But her husband's move to Berlin confirms he doesn't share her hopes of rekindling the relationship. and by 1978 she's giving interviews claiming their marriage is over. A year later, a couple initiate divorce proceedings. It is an acrimonious split. Angie receives half a million pounds, but has to agree to a 10-year gagging order, preventing her from talking publicly about Bowie or their marriage.

She loses custody of their son, and soon Duncan is completely estranged from his mother. When Angie can eventually talk about their marriage, she releases a biography discussing their bisexual and allegedly drug-fueled and promiscuous lifestyle. She also claims that listening to Bowie's music always made her feel sick. Newly single, Bowie undergoes yet another creative transformation. 1983's Let's Dance is a pop masterpiece and his most commercially successful album to date. It is EMI Records' fastest-selling album since the Beatles released Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club band 16 years earlier. And the opening single quickly tops charts in both Britain and America.

Let's dance, it's, in a way, a great act of revenge by Bowie. Revenge on two things. Revenge on his manager, his ex-manager, who he had a very bitter falling out with and a very brutal settlement in which the manager, I think, was. receiving 20% or so of everything he recorded until 1982, even though he had stopped representing Bowie. And Bowie's label of the 70s, RCA, who he grew to hate and who he believed had not promoted those Berlin records well. So in 1982, the agreement with the manager is over, and he is no longer with RCA. And the first thing he does is he signs with a new label, and he makes a huge pop record that sells more than any of his other albums, oboes as if F.U hears my pop record and you're not going to get a dime of it.

Neither of you. The album is produced with the legendary American musician and guitarist Nile Rogers. It is the first of Bowie's albums where he sings but plays no instruments, and it is undeniably his most mainstream pop album. Critical response is mixed and in later years, Bowie himself will say he was playing it safe when he made it. Yet it is undoubtedly with Let's Die. and the accompanying serious Moonlight tour that Bowie's global fame is solidified. At last, a decade after Ziggy Stardust, he is a stratosphericly successful pop star. In the following years, he veers between leaning into a celebrity and rejecting it. So he has enormous success with Flet's Dance, and almost immediately kind of wonderfully in a Bowie way, kind of says,

my God, what have I done? Now people who like Phil Collins like me. In his more genial moments, he performs at the Live Aid charity concert in July 1985 and records a cover of Dancing in the Street with Mick Jagger. He also begins to disown some of his previous comments on his sexuality. The period where he kind of renounces it all is unfortunately the peak of a homophobic period in the early 80s, particularly in the U.S., coinciding with the AIDS crisis. And it was just really, to put it mildly bad timing, and it really just,

angered people, that he did that, understandably. Over the next couple of decades, he will refer to himself in various interviews as a closet heterosexual and say that he was never really gay or bisexual. He will even claim that coming out was the biggest mistake he ever made. After the release of Let's Dance, Bowie also dips his toe back into the world of acting. He has retained an interest in cinema throughout his life, But it is his starring role in Labyrinth, a fantasy film released in 1986 that wins him a whole new generation of fans. It is the middle of June, 1985.

Inside Elstree Studios, on the outskirts of London, a runner is attempting to escape from the Goblin Kingdom. Skirting around the edges of the epic fantasy set that has been built, the young man dodges the director and choreographer as they talk through the scene about to be shot. A circular throne dominates one end of the room under a thickly glazed round window. The walls are to be carved from stone, and various goblin-like puppets are perched on rocky ledges around the perimeter, ready to be brought to life by a team of talented handlers. Amidst the faux medieval scenery, the modern lighting rigs and cameras being set up look incongruous. Finally, outside the studios, the runner crosses a car park and taps on the door of the hair and makeup trailer.

He is here to collect the star of Labyrinth, David Bowie, playing the part of Jarrett the Goblin King, whose throne room forms the set for today's scenes. Made up and ready to go, Bowie springs down the trailer steps, already dressed in tight gray trousers and tall black boots, a flounced white shirt and black waistcoat. The ensemble is topped with an elaborate long blonde wig, his compelling eyes highlighted with lashings of dark eyeliner. Today, they are filming a musical scene, where Jarrett dances with a horde of goblins

as well as the young baby that he has kidnapped. During filming, Bowie will have to act alongside dozens of puppets as well as a real life screaming baby. But the star seems unfazed, chatting casually to the runner as they make the way inside. Back on set, Bowie is greeted by the choreographer and the runner sinks back into the shadows. where the puppeteers prepare their creations.

After rehearsals are over, the runner is sent to fetch Bowie a glass of water. He returns to find the musician sitting on a row of chairs, chatting and laughing with a mother and her young baby, his co-star in this scene. The child is dressed in a red and white striped baby grow. After days of filming with David, he has finally got used to him and no longer screams whenever he appears in costume. Once final sound and lighting checks are complete,

it's time for the actors to get into position. David walks over and sits down on the throne. He flings one leg over the arm and leans back nonchalantly. The puppeteers take up their stations, ready to animate the goblins. Finally, the mother David had been chatting to walks over and places her baby in the middle of the room, stranding him amidst the fearsome-looking puppets. He immediately starts bawling. at the top of his lungs.

The runner suppresses a grin. At least the baby is supposed to be crying in this scene. Someone calls for quiet, an expectant hush falls, apart from the wailing infant. The director calls action, and Jarrett slowly uncoils from his throne, stalking towards the distraught child on the floor of his throne room. The runner stands enraptured as film history is made. From the creative team behind the Brutalist and starring Academy Award nominee Amanda Seifred

in a career best performance. Searchlight Pictures presents The Testament of Anne Lee. With rave reviews from the Venice Film Festival, this bold and magnetic musical epic tells the story inspired by a true legend, Anne Lee, founder of the radical religious movement, The Shakers, The Testament of Anne Lee. Exclusive Toronto Engagement, January 16th,

in theaters everywhere January 23rd. Bowie spends much of 1985 filming and recording songs for the Labyrinth soundtrack. The film tells the story of a teenage girl, Sarah, whose baby brother is stolen away by Jareth the Goblin King, and he must travel through the Goblin City to win him back. Though not necessarily well-received amongst critics, it quickly achieves cult-like status. He stars in Labyrinth, you know, to Jim Henson puppet movie, which is actually very important for him because that is how a new generation knows him.

He's very clever in that there's going to be people who are teenagers in the 90s who are going to know me first as Cherath, the Goblin King, from this cool movie they loved when they were 11. After shooting raps on Labyrinth, Bowie returns to music. But for the first time since he broke onto the scene in 1972,

he struggles. 1987's Never Let Me Down is not a hit. His music seems somewhat passe as the 90s dawn. He is more fortunate in his personal life. In 1992, he marries Somali American model Iman. His son, Duncan, now 20, is his best man. The second marriage, by all parents, seems to have been a very happy union for him and a one that really grounded him.

He seems after that marriage to be a much more calm and relaxed and sense. centered person, at least, from the persona that he gave to the press. The couple insists that their wedding be sanctified in a church in Florence, Italy. In interviews, Bowie talks about how important it was to have their union recognized in the eyes of God. Like his politics, his religious beliefs are eclectic, but he is nonetheless deeply spiritual, influenced by both the Christianity of his childhood and the Buddhist teachings to which he was introduced in the late 60s. It's very hard to nail down what exactly he thought. It seemed to be a combination of Tibetan Buddhism.

And then he has a Christian side to him, which I think is informed by Gnosticism, the Christian Gnostic heresy, which is kind of the idea of the creator of this world is sort of a false God. There is another God beyond, and what we perceive as reality is not quite reality. And if you know what to look for, maybe you will find greater revelations out there. After their wedding, they settle in New York and have a daughter, Lexi, born in 2000, when Bowie is well into his 50s. But amidst the joy, years of drugs, cigarettes, and overwork begin to take their toll on the musician's body. His health starts to deteriorate. It's never been confirmed, but he appeared to have something happened to him on stage in 2000. It might have been a heart attack, it might have been some other thing.

But that kind of throws him for a loop, and he basically is done with touring after that. And then a year or two after he stops touring, he stops recording for almost eight years, seven years. He kind of vanishes. He becomes almost as if he's already gone. Stepping back from touring allows him to have something approaching a normal life in New York with his wife and daughter. The break helps his reputation too. It kind of allowed him to sidestep the trap of being a rock artist in his 50s and 60s, grinding out albums that people were like, oh, that's pretty good, there's a good song on it.

You know, kind of like the Rolling Stones or Paul McCartney or what have you. By being absent for so long, when he comes back, it's more of an event. The next day is Bowie's 25th studio album, and it proves the longevity of his star power. It immediately tops charts worldwide, his first number one UK album in two decades, and receives rave reviews. But Bowie has one more musical surprise in store for his fans. Sometime in 2014 or 2015, David Bowie is diagnosed with liver cancer. He spends his final months recording one final album. Black Star is released on his 69th birthday, the 8th of January 2016.

Black Star seems incredibly well-designed. It feels like this is something that is absolutely meticulously planned out. And whether it's tied to the fact that he knew he wasn't going to have that many more years left and he wants to do a final statement, obviously his death coinciding almost simultaneously with the release of it means that it's always going to be connected with that. But I think as a piece of art, it's just pretty striking. And the thing about it also is it's fresh sounding. In Lazarus, one of its singles, he sings, Look up here, I'm in heaven.

And the album turns out to be Bowie's swan song. He dies on the 10th of January 2016, just two days after the album is released. The Star Man has finally ascended. Throughout his long and intensely creative life, David Bowie's boundless originality and capacity for reinvention helped to shape popular music on both sides of the Atlantic. and inspired a new generation of artists. It helped that he'd been around the 60s

kind of in the margins watching everything happen. Bowie is someone who can see how stories go and can see how trends go and how you need to go left when you're supposed to go right and zigzag and so forth. So I think one of the things he does is provide a template for how as a pop musician you can have a life, have a career.

It's a stretch to compare Taylor Swift to him. But you can see Taylor Swift is doing Bowie stuff and that she has, every couple of years, she has a new look, she has a new thing, she moves here, she moves there. And I think that's very much a Bowie map. Often dubbed the chameleon of rock, the endless variety of Bowie's music means that even today he continues to find new fans. Like Lazarus, rising from the grave, his songs are brought back to life by each subsequent generation of music lovers. I think the variety of this music means that even if you think stuff like Ziggy Stardess is kind of hokey, you might still like fame. That might appeal to you, or you might like heroes, or you might even like the sort of R&B stylings of the mid-90s with Earthling. I feel like there's some type of Bowie music that appeals to everybody.

Next time on Short History of will bring you a short history of Nikola Tesla. Tesla obtained more than 300 patents. And he's credited with inventing, obviously, the electric motor, long distance transmission, power transmission, radio, robots, remote control, all of which serve as the very foundation of our modern economy. In one movie, one of the characters asked, you know, what did Tesla invent? And the other guy responds, oh, the 20th century. But, I mean, even long after his death, Tesla continued to inspire great minds. he had visions for cell phones, radar, laser weapons, artificial intelligence. The list sort of goes on.

That's next time. If you can't wait a week until the next episode, you can listen to it right away by subscribing to Noyser Plus. Head to www.noyser.com forward slash subscriptions for more information. At Medcan, we know that life's greatest moments are built on a foundation of good health, from the big milestones to the quiet winds. That's why our annual health assessment offers a... physician-led, full-body checkout that provides a clear picture of your health today

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