David Bowie’s death from cancer shocks the world of music
AS the world mourns the loss of rock legend David Bowie to cancer, the true extent of the singer’s health struggles has been revealed.
David Bowie has died 18 months after battling cancer
His latest album, Blackstar, was released just last week
- IN PICTURES: David Bowie’s incredible life
Fans and celebrities pay tribute to the rock legend
MUSIC lovers around the world have shared their grief over the unexpected death of David Bowie overnight, who reportedly suffered from six heart attacks in his final year.
Fans have created makeshift shrines to the iconic singer outside his New York apartment building, while others have gathered to lay flowers beside a mural of the music legend in Brixton, the south London neighbourhood where the singer was born in 1947.
Fish-and-chip shop owner Roland Lowery, 59, came with his 21-year-old daughter, a lifelong Bowie fan. Lowery said he first heard Bowie when he was 15 years old.
“I was going out with a girl then and she was mad on this strange-looking fellow, and I thought, ‘Oh, yeah I’ll go along”’ to a concert, Lowery said. “I was just blown away with what he did.”
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He said Bowie would be remembered for “the way he influenced people to just get up in the morning and put on what you want to put on and be who you want to be.”
“We are mourning in a way, but it is more a celebration of his life.”
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Bowie died two days after his 69th birthday. He had only released his 25th album, Blackstar, on Friday January eight.
His publicist revealed the surprise news that the reclusive musician had lost his battle with cancer.
The statement read “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.”
But it has also been revealed by his biographer, Wendy Leigh, that he suffered from six heart attacks during his cancer fight — but fought back from each of them, The Mirror reports.
“He didn’t just battle cancer if that’s not enough — he had six heart attacks in recent years,” she told BBC News.
Leigh also said that she believed the star had “orchestrated the timing of his own death”.
“David made sure he died on a Monday morning so that people in England, the England he loved, found out first.
“David was close to the edge, but I truly believe he art-directed his life and his death.”
Many fans hoped Bowie’s social media had been hacked when news of his death first broke or that the musical chameleon was pulling off an elaborate stunt.
Alas, his film director son Duncan Jones tweeted a photo of he and his father with the caption “very sorry and sad to say it’s true. I’ll be offline for a while. Love to all.”
His wife Iman posted a cryptic tweeted on January 11 which hinted at the nearing end.
Rise #imandaily pic.twitter.com/pkR1L1zXJ0
— Iman Abdulmajid (@The_Real_IMAN) January 10, 2016On January 9 she posted this.
Rise #imandaily pic.twitter.com/GUZxpddfY4
— Iman Abdulmajid (@The_Real_IMAN) January 9, 2016On January 8, Bowie’s 69th birthday, Iman shared a poignant image of a smiling and besuited Bowie standing in a doorway, in what would turn out to be the star’s final photo.
The secrecy Bowie thrived on meant he kept his illness private, with the singer rarely spotted in public over the last decade.
While rumours of illness had surrounded him over the past few years, the respect Bowie earned meant that those in his inner sanctum kept even his return to making music quiet, let alone any news of his health.
The last health issue that the world knew about was in 2004 when Bowie suffered heart problems and had an emergency angioplasty. After that he never returned to life on the road, despite lucrative offers to tour again.
A true love story
The love between Bowie and his wife, Iman was a true lasting romance.
The pair met at a dinner party in 1990 and for Bowie it was love at first sight reported E online.
He said from the moment he met her he started naming their children but for Iman it was a different story.
“I did not want to get involved with a rock star. No way. It is not a sane thing to do,” Iman admitted to The Guardian newspaper in 2014. “For him [it was overwhelming]...I was not ready for a relationship.”
But the rock star won her over, pursuing her over the course of a few weeks.
“I fell in love with David Jones [Bowie’s birth name],” she told The Guardian. “I did not fall in love with David Bowie. Bowie is just a persona. He’s a singer, an entertainer. David Jones is a man I met.”
In 1992 the pair married and eight years later they welcomed their first child, a daughter named Alexandria, together. They were happily married until his death.
Drug past
Bowie famously consumed drugs throughout his earlier music career, battling a cocaine addiction throughout much of the 70s. His high energy performances on stage were often a result of his consumption. But the singer wished he had never touched them.
In an interview with The Sun he told journalist Garth Pearce he wished he had listened to the advice of others and stayed clear of drugs.
“Best advice, which I wish I had known at 18? Don’t do drugs,” he said.
“Drugs had taken my life away from me. I felt as though I would probably die and it was going to be all over. My assistant, Coco, got me out of it. Thanks to her, I got myself out of America to Berlin.”
Bowie said at one point he thought he would be dead by 30 and had suicidal thoughts but the legendary singer kicked the habit and got clean.
Bowie tribute concert announced
Rock legend David Bowie will be honoured with a concert at New York’s Carnegie Hall that was announced with eerie timing just as the world discovered he had died.
The March 31 concert will feature performers influenced by the trailblazing British artist including Cyndi Lauper, the pop singer whose flamboyance made her a 1980s celebrity, and Perry Farrell of alternative rock giants Jane’s Addiction.
News of the concert was released early Monday as previously scheduled with the launch of a special website for the charity concert. Moments later, Bowie’s management made the shock announcement that he had died.
Michael Dorf, who runs the City Winery bar and concert venue in New York, said he had been organising the concert for six months.
“A sad coincidence. DB (David Bowie), may God’s love be with you!” he wrote on Twitter.
Tickets quickly sold out to the concert, for which Bowie’s longtime manager Tony Visconti will play as part of a house band.
Other performers will include soul singer Bettye Lavette, English alternative rocker Robyn Hitchcock and US indie rockers The Mountain Goats.
Bowie hailed at London men’s fashion week
In the middle of Burberry’s London fashion show, a model showed her palms to photographers, displaying a name written in big black capital letters: “Bowie”.
To the sound of the late singer’s hits, the British label’s CEO and creative director Christopher Bailey welcomed the few hundred people invited to the unveiling of Burberry’s new menswear collection as London Men’s Fashion Week drew to a close.
“He’s a complete legend. We will all miss his creativity, his style and the elegant way that he approached everything,” said Bailey, who was born in 1971, the year Bowie released seminal song “Life on Mars”.
“I grew up with him. He’s kind of been an undercoat to my creative life forever,” he told reporters in the city where Bowie grew up.
British designer Paul Smith worked with Bowie on the artwork for his latest album.
“A lot of people are considered celebrities today when they have only experienced popularity for one or two years, but he was exposed to the public for about 46 years, and so his talent was very very clear, very impressive,” Smith said.
For Men’s Fashion Week the designer recreated his first shop replete with items that influenced him — including many nods to the singer, such as a book of Bowie photos.
Tributes from sartorial tastemakers flowed from beyond London. For French designer Jean Paul Gaultier, whose avant-garde work includes designs influenced by Bowie, the musician was an “absolute rock star” and a “cult” in his own right.
“Personally, he inspired me with his creativity, his extravagance, his sense of reinvention, his allure, his elegance and playfulness with genre,” he added.
The flashy makeup and striking red mullet of “Ziggy Stardust”-era Bowie inspired Gaultier’s 2011 ready-to-wear spring-summer collection.
Fellow French designer Jean-Charles de Castelbajac saluted Bowie on France’s RTL radio station, declaring Bowie “a cosmic pioneer in all fields.”
New music
Blackstar has received rave reviews and has been neck and neck with Adele’s 25 since release.
Tragically, his death could see him score a posthumous No. 1 this week.
As of Monday, the album had peaked at number one on the US iTunes albums chart, which updated throughout the day to reflect digital purchases from users, while Best of Bowie was at No. 2 pushing Adele’s 25 to No. 3. And two other Bowie albums reached the Top 10.
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Bowie was hailed a “genius” by Molly Meldrum, who befriended the singer in the late `60s and remained in contact over the years.
Madonna said Bowie was the first concert she saw and said “this great artist changed my life. Unique. Genius. Game Changer.”
Bowie had become a virtual reclusive before the surprise release of 2013’s The Next Day album, his first release in over a decade.
Bowie did no interviews or promotion for the album and declined offers to tour. Blackstar was released with similar silence from Bowie, who did make a video for the title track and new single Lazarus.
He’d given up touring, with his last Australian tour taking place in 2004, which was his first visit here since 1987.
Promoter Paul Dainty, who toured Bowie several times in Australia and New Zealand, hailed the musician’s personality.
“He was one of the nicest people in the industry. When you combine amazing talent with such a nice guy, it’s hard to imagine, it puts a smile on my face thinking about that. He came from that generation of gentlemen. He was always a gentleman.”
Dainty remembers Bowie insisting a concert at Kooyong, due to be cancelled due to horrendous weather, go ahead.
“He was an absolute professional through and through,” Dainty said. “His fanbase aren’t transient and his fans from the ’70s are still fans today.”
His last stage appearance was in 2006 at a charity show in New York.
Last year Melbourne hosted the David Bowie Is exhibition, selling over 200,000 tickets and uniting generations of Bowie fans.
Bowie filmed the videos for Let’s Dance and China Girl in Australia, both came from 1983’s Let’s Dance album, his most successful record.
The beginning of Bowie
Bowie started his career under his real name, David Jones, in 1964.
His breakthrough came with 1969’s Space Oddity single.
In 1972 Bowie’s career took a new turn with a string of influential singles including Starman, The Jean Genie, Life on Mars?, Sorrow, Rebel Rebel, Diamond Dogs, Young Americans, Golden Years, Heroes, Ashes to Ashes, Fashion, Under Pressure, Cat People and Modern Love.
Unlike many of his contemporaries, Bowie would constantly reinvent his sound and image, often self-sabotaging commercial success to take musical risks and shying away from nostalgia.
Bowie’s first wife Angie is a housemate on the new British Celebrity Big Brother which started this week.
She has revealed she is estranged from their son Duncan (born Zowie Bowie).
Bowie married model Iman in 1992, the two have been together ever since, with their daughter Lexie born in 2000.
Aside from music Bowie also made many movie and TV appearances, including The Man Who Fell to Earth, Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence, Labyrinth, The Last Temptation of Christ, Basquiat (playing Andy Warhol) and, in 2006, appeared in Ricky Gervais’ Extras.
Dainty said Bowie had put playing the Opera House on his personal bucket list.
“One night after a massive tour we were staying at a hotel which overlooks the Sydney Harbour Bridge,” Dainty said. “Let’s do that, he said. It’s the one box I haven’t ticked.”
Smuggling one of the world’s biggest pop stars through the bottle-o of the Coogee Bay Hotel isn’t for the faint hearted, but music industry veteran and Bowie Down Under archivist Bruce Butler said it was one of his fondest memories of the pop icon.
“I had the audacity to call the hotel where he was staying in Sydney while he was filming clips for Let’s Dance and China Girl, and invited him to come to a Psychedelic Furs gig,” he said.
“I left a message and didn’t expect much, but a minder called me back, asking what the security arrangements would be.
“I said we could sneak him backstage through the drive through bottle shop at the back and before you know, there was his limo waiting for us.
“Out he popped with his minder and a date, and we watched the gig backstage together.”
Butler provided Australian memorabilia for ACMI’s David Bowie Is... exhibit last year. He said the world had lost a true artist.
“Fashion, music, art, theatre, mime... at 69 he was still pushing boundaries. We’re all in shock.”
With Brianna Travers
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