David Robert Jones net worth is $230 Million. Also know about David Robert Jones bio, salary, height, age weight, relationship and more …

David Robert Jones Wiki Biography

David Robert Jones was born on 8 January 1947 in Brixton, London, England; known world-wide as David Bowie, he was an outstanding entertainer, firstly as a singer, but also as a songwriter,  film score composer, record producer, and actor, recognised as one the most outstanding music entertainers Britain has produced, on a par with The Beatles and The Rolling Stones in the modern era. He passed away in 2016.

A world-renowned singer and songwriter, how rich was David Bowie? According to sources, David Bowie’s net worth was estimated to be over $230 million, most of which he accumulated from his successful singing career spanning over 50 years. in 2002 his earnings from the “Heathen” album alone amounted to $2.5 million, while in 2013, his album called “The Next Day” brought him $250,000.

Bowie studied at the Burnt Ash Junior School, where he excelled in the school’s choir, and also proved to be a talented dancer. Inspired by John Coltrane and Charles Mingus, Bowie took up saxophone classes, which he played in the first band with whom Bowie performed at various local events and gatherings. Subsequently, Bowie decided to follow a career in the music industry, initially playing professionally in such bands as “The Konrads” and “The King Bees”, but later joined “The Manish Boys” and “The Lower Third”. Since he had difficulty attracting the audience’s attention as a member of rock groups, Bowie decided upon launching a solo career, as a result of which he changed his name from David Jones to David Bowie.

Bowie rose to prominence in 1969 with the release of his single called “Space Oddity”, which captured the imagination of the public in the period of extensive space exploration. The song became so popular that it earned him an Ivor Novello Award, and was included in the soundtrack of Stanley Kubrick’s film “2001: A Space Odyssey”. That same year, Bowie released his second studio album, which was initially entitled “David Bowie”, but due to the popularity of the song was renamed “Space Oddity”.  A further big break for Bowie came in 1975, when he came out with the album called “Young Americans”, which produced the popular single “Fame”.

Over 30 years he produced a variety of performances and personas, in song, on the stage in concerts, and in films. Bowie’s discography eventually stretched to 27 studio albums, nine live albums, and seven compilations albums, the last “Black Star” just days before his passing. Additionally his collaborations with such artists as Queen and Annie Lennox were inevitably applauded by audiences world-wide. In the UK, he scored nine Platinum album certifications, eleven Gold and eight Silver, while in the US, five Platinum and seven Gold certifications. Bowie’s contributions to music have been acknowledged with Grammy Awards, BRIT Awards, and Saturn Awards to name a few. Bowie has also been included in the list of “100 Greatest Britons”, and inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Following his breakthrough with “Space Oddity”, Bowie not only became a prominent singer, but an actor as well, which he had begun prior to succeeding in music. Over the years, Bowie received a Saturn Award for his role in “The Man Who Fell To Earth” in 1976, was highly commended for his role in “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence”(1983), and made appearances in such films as “Yellowbeard”(1983) with David Sherlock and Peter Cook, “The Linguini Incident”(1991) and the now iconic musical fantasy film “Labyrinth”(1986), which despite its initial commercial failure, soon gained a cult following, and inspired the release of a graphic novel.

David Bowie was always smart enough to ensure his net worth continued to rise along with his continued popularity, which became world-wide, even using discussions about his sexuality for propaganda purposes – at one point he declared himself a ‘closet heterosexual’ – but the quality of his performances in entertaining audiences never wavered, so much so that he was named by Rolling Stone magazine in their list of 100 Greatest Artists of All Time, and in a BBC poll of 2002, the 29th Greatest Briton of All Time.

Of further interest, Bowie’s financial management of assets became a leader in the entertainment industry, not just by moving his tax residence to Switzerland, but in 1997, when only assets such as mortgages and car loans were securitised, David was persuaded to securitise future revenues from his catalogue of songs. This enabled him to buy back rights to his songs, the securitised royalties were eventually known as ‘Bowie bonds’, and were registered as a trademark. Bowie actually sold future revenues from 287 songs to Prudential Insurance at 7.9 per cent interest –  higher than ten-year US Treasury bonds – on the $55 million he received. David Bowie was certainly not your average rock star who lived only for the moment.

His achievements were such that he was made a Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government in 1999, but declined both British honours of  a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in 2000, and a knighthood in 2003. He also received an honorary doctorate from Berklee College of Music in 1999.

In regards to his personal life – which he kept largely  private – David Bowie was married twice. His first marriage to Mary Angela Barnett ended in divorce in 1980, a decade after their marriage in 1970. In 1992 he married Iman Mohamed Abdulmajid. David Bowie has two children, namely Duncan Jones (christened Zowie Bowie) with Mary, and Alexandria Zahra Jones with Imam. Sadly, David Bowie died on 10 January 2016 in New York City from liver cancer, which had been diagnosed just 18 months previously.

IMDB Wikipedia ‘The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon’ “100 Greatest Britons” $230 Million 100 Greatest Artists of All Time 1947 2001: A Space Odyssey (film) 2017) 5 ft 10 in (1.78 m) A Clockwork Orange (film) Abdulmajid Actor Adventure science fiction Alexandria Zahra Alexandria Zahra Jones Androgyny Angela Bowie Angela Bowie (m. 1970–1980) Audience Network Bandslam (2009) Barry Lyndon BBC poll of 2002 Blu-ray Disc BMG Bowie Britain’s Got More Talent (2015-2016) British people Brixton Charles Mingus Chicago Chicago Board of Trade Columbia Conspiracy theory David Bowie David Bowie Net Worth David Jones David Robert Hayward-Jones David Robert Haywood Jones David Robert Jones David Sherlock Davie Bowie Davis Bowie Deram Do not go gentle into that good night Douglas Trumbull Duncan Jones EMI England English people Fame Film Score Composer Gary Lockwood Glam rock Halt and Catch Fire (2016) Hoy nos toca (TV Series Iman Abdulmajid Iman Abdulmajid (m. 1992) Iman Mohamed Abdulmajid Interstellar travel Irish people in Great Britain ISO Janine January 8 John Coltrane Keir Dullea Labyrinth Labyrinth (1986) London Mary Angela Barnett Mercury Music Music Arranger Musician Parlophone Peter Cook Pye Quick Reviews with Maverick RCA Record producer Rock Stars Ryko Records Singer Singer-songwriter Songwriter Space Oddity Stanley Kubrick the 29th Greatest Briton of All Time (Rolling Stone magazine) The Man Who Fell to Earth The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976) The Prestige The Prestige (2006) The Shining (film) The Thin White Duke The X Factor (2009-2016) Thin White Duke Tu cara me suena (2013-2017) Twin Peaks: The Missing Pieces (2014) United Kingdom Virgin Vocalion Young Americans Ziggy Stardust Zoolander (2001)

David Robert Jones Quick Info

David Robert Jones Trademarks

1. His marriage of music and visual art
2. The intellectual depth of his work
3. Wearing sharp suits in the 1980s
4. His musical eclecticism and experimentation
5. His highly theatrical style and performances
6. Lyrics with science fiction or fantasy themes
7. Known for having a different theme on almost every album
8. His one permanently dilated pupil that gives him the appearance of different colored eyes
9. His distinctive and idiosyncratic singing style, wide ranging vocals and rich baritone
10. His constantly changing appearance

David Robert Jones Quotes

• [on turning down the chance to record a James Bond film theme] To be honest I haven’t watched a James Bond film since Sean Connery was in them. I don’t really like them.
• When I heard Little Richard, it just set my world on fire.
• My idol on saxophone has always been Ronnie Ross, so I looked up his name in the phone book and asked him if he would give me lessons.
• It’s unfortunate when musicians qualify their work with “now that I’m married, now that I’ve got kids, I’ve got to be more creatively pedestrian”. Whereas there’s people like myself, Neil Young and Scott Walker who move with the way life flows.
• What happened at the beginning of the ’70s with guys like myself and maybe Bryan Ferry and Brian Eno, maybe some of the guys in Floyd (Pink Floyd) before us, King Crimson, that nature of band: We were all pretty excited about letting people know what went into our work, that we weren’t all trying to be Chuck Berry. I know Ferry was a huge Dada fan, for instance. He even did an album called “The Bride Stripped Bare”. Eno and I went, “He shouldn’t do that,” thinking we should have done it first. We were excited by set design, by the way we dressed, by trying to create a whole landscape for the music we were making. The Beatles had done it to a certain extent because they had John (John Lennon).
• I’ve made over 25 studio albums, and I think probably I’ve made two real stinkers in my time, and some not-bad albums, and some really good albums. I’m proud of what I’ve done. In fact, it’s been a good ride.
• [on John Lennon] I always had such pleasure talking and being with John because there was nothing that didn’t interest him, you know? He had a real appetite.
• I’m just a bloke doing his job, and it’s not terribly complicated. What I do is I write mainly about very personal and rather lonely feelings, and I explore them in a different way each time.
• John Lennon was good at telling people off, but not me. Whenever I do didactic stuff it always seems ham-fisted.
• Some people call me pretentious for working like this, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with thinking of pop as an art form – you’ve just got to think of it without a capital A. Lower-case art is always best. And anyway, a lot of what was considered art in 1978 is now just part of our vocabulary.
• I often pull myself back if I feel something is becoming too melodic. But then melody comes in many forms. He’ll hate me for saying it but the person who is better at hooks than almost anyone is Brian Eno, and the solo on “Virginia Plain” is probably one of the greatest three-note hooks in the history of pop.
• [on Tin Machine] A glorious disaster. But for better or worse it helped me to pin down what I did and didn’t enjoy about being an artist. It helped me, I feel, to recover as an artist. And I do feel that for the past few years I’ve been absolutely in charge of my artistic path again. I’m working to my own criteria. I’m not doing anything I would feel ashamed of in the future, or that I would look back on and say my heart wasn’t in that.
• [on the massive success of “Let’s Dance” and how it led to a creative low in his career] I was something I never wanted to be. I was a well-accepted artist. I had started appealing to people who bought Phil Collins albums. I like Phil Collins as a bloke, believe me, but he’s not on my turntable twenty-four hours a day. I suddenly didn’t know my audience and, worse, I didn’t care about them.
• [on his 1980s music] Commercially I sold an awful lot of albums with work that I now feel was very inferior. Artistically and aesthetically it was probably my lowest point.
• I listen to the radio all the time in New York, on the internet. I wouldn’t listen to American radio. God, it’s ghastly. But I float about through the BBC frequencies.
• [on Kurt Cobain] I was simply blown away when I found out that Kurt Cobain liked my work, and I always wanted to talk to him about his reasons for covering “Man Who Sold The World.” It was a good straightforward rendition and sounded somehow very honest. It would have been nice to have worked with him, but just talking would have been real cool.
• What I have is a malevolent curiosity. That’s what drives my need to write and what probably leads me to look at things a little askew. I do tend to take a different perspective from most people.
• I’ve always cited who my influences are. I felt it was important for people to be able to see how things are put together at any given stage. I let people know what’s going through my head. I’ve been quite vocal about that through the years. It often amuses me to see bands who lie about who they’re listening to, because they don’t want people to know who their real influences are. They leave a trail of red herrings. It’s disingenuous, to say the least. I’ve always loved the process – to see how things are put together.
• [on his reputation as a well read intellectual] I’m a born librarian with a sex drive.
• I have an undying belief in God’s existence. For me it is unquestionable.
• [on declining the role of “Max Zorin” in A View to a Kill (1985), which ultimately went to Christopher Walken instead] It was simply a terrible script; I saw little reason for spending so much time on something so workmanlike. And I told them so. I don’t think anyone had turned down a major role in a James Bond movie before. It really didn’t go down well at all. People were very touchy about it.
• [when advised not to take drugs in his youth] Before I took them, when I took them and afterwards. Every time, that advice was right.
• All my big mistakes are when I try to second-guess or please an audience. My work is always stronger when I get very selfish about it.
• [on Live Aid (1985)] I’d do it again like a shot. This has to become an annual event. It really does. And I think a lot of us would pledge to do a show like this every year until starvation in many areas of the world, not just Ethiopia, was under some kind of control. Everybody had such a fantastic time, I’d love to do it again.
• [in 2014] I’m completely delighted to have a Brit for being the best male but I am, aren’t I Kate [Kate Moss]? I think it’s a great way to end the day. Thank you very very much – and Scotland, stay with us.
• [on the late Lou Reed] He was a master.
• [at The Freddie Mercury Tribute: Concert for AIDS Awareness (1992)] God bless Queen.
• [on Annie Lennox] Most exquisite. Absolutely fabulous.
• The lowest point in my life was in 1975, when I was 28, living in Los Angeles. I really did think that my thoughts about not making 30 would come true. 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. Best advice, which I wish I had known at 18? Don’t do drugs.
• [in 1973] Offstage, I’m a robot. Onstage, I achieve emotion. It’s probably why I prefer dressing up as Ziggy to being David.
• [on declining the royal honor of Commander of the British Empire in 2000, and turning down a knighthood in 2003] I would never have any intention of accepting anything like that. I seriously don’t know what it’s for. It’s not what I spent my life working for.
• [in 1975] I like fast drugs. I hate anything that slows me down.
• [in 1980] I have a lot of reservations about what I’ve done, inasmuch as I don’t feel much of it has any import at all.
• [in 1972] Sometimes I don’t feel as if I’m a person at all. I’m just a collection of other people’s ideas.
• [on Freddie Mercury] Of all the more theatrical rock performers, Freddie took it further than the rest. He took it over the edge. And of course, I always admired a man who wears tights. I only saw him in concert once and as they say, he was definitely a man who could hold an audience in the palm of his hand.
• [on the song “Dance Magic” from Labyrinth (1986)] In a recording studio, a baby I’d picked from one of the backup singers . . . couldn’t put two gurgles together. And it wouldn’t work for me, it wouldn’t go, I kicked it, I did everything to make it scream but it wouldn’t, it really buttoned its lips so I ended up doing the gurgles, so I’m the baby on that track as well. I thought “What the hell? I’ve done “Laughing Gnome”, I might as well go all the way with that.”. I never thought in 20 years I’d come back to working with gnomes.
• [speaking in 2002] It seems to be traditional now that every album since “Black Tie White Noise” is the best album I’ve put out since “Scary Monsters”.
• [speaking in 2002] Of the 26 albums I’ve made I think there were two when I really wasn’t involved and that was “Tonight” and “Never Let Me Down”, the two follow-ups to “Let’s Dance”. That period was my Phil Collins years.
• “Hunky Dory” gave me a fabulous groundswell. I guess it provided me, for the first time in my life, with an actual audience – I mean, people actually coming up to me and saying,”‘Good album, good songs.”. That hadn’t happened to me before. It was like, “Ah, I’m getting it, I’m finding my feet. I’m starting to communicate what I want to do. Now: what is it I want to do?” There was always a double whammy there.
• I like crazy art and, most of the time, out-there music. Rather than having a hit song these days, I like the idea that I’m in there changing the plan of what society and culture look like, sound like. I did change things; I knew I would. It feels great, and very rewarding.
• I think Mick Jagger would be astounded and amazed if he realized to many people he is not a sex symbol, but a mother image.
• The only thing I ever got out of fame was a better table in a restaurant. And for that I gave up being able to relate to people.
• Rock has always been the devil’s music.
• The whole animal of rock keeps changing itself so fast and so furiously that you just can’t plan ahead.
• [Sigmund Freud] would have a heyday with me.
• [on Elvis Presley] I saw a cousin of mine when I was young. She was dancing to “Hound Dog” and I had never seen her get up and be moved so much by anything. It really impressed me, the power of the music. I started getting records immediately after that.
• [in 2002] I had no problem with people knowing I was bisexual. But I had no inclination to hold any banners or be a representative of any group of people. I knew what I wanted to be, which was a songwriter and a performer, and I felt that bisexuality became my headline over here for so long. America is a very puritanical place, and I think it stood in the way of so much I wanted to do.
• [from 1983] I get offered so many bad movies. And they’re all raging queens or transvestites or Martians.
• [on his pop sound during the 1980s] There was a period when I was performing in front of these huge stadium crowds at that time and I’m thinking: “What are these people doing here? Why have they come to see me? They should be seeing Phil Collins.” They were definitely Phil Collins type audiences, you know? And then, that came back at me and I thought: “What am I doing here? I should be playing to people who don’t look like they’ve come to see Phil Collins.” That’s what I’d been used to up until that point. I don’t know the guy. There’s a certain kind of mainstream field that I’m not comfortable in. I’m just not comfortable in it.
• [on Syd Barrett] The few times I saw him perform in London at UFO and the Marquee clubs during the ’60s will forever be etched in my mind. He was so charismatic and such a startlingly original songwriter. Also, along with Anthony Newley, he was the first guy I’d heard to sing pop or rock with a British accent. His impact on my thinking was enormous. A major regret is that I never got to know him. A diamond indeed.
• I gave up smoking six months before I had the heart attack – so that was worth it, wasn’t it! I started to give up when my daughter was born because I wouldn’t smoke in the house with her there so I had to go outside. It’s bloody cold in winter in New York, so I just quit.
• I once asked [John Lennon] what he thought of what I do. He said, “it’s great, but its just rock and roll with lipstick on”.
• [on being 50] Fab. But, you know, I don’t feel fifty. I feel not a day over forty-nine. It’s incredible. I’m bouncy, I feel bouncy.
• I reinvented my image so many times that I’m in denial that I was originally an overweight Korean woman.
• [on his biggest worldwide hit song, “Let’s Dance”] I don’t know how many times someone has come up to me and said, “hey, let’s dance!” I hate dancing. God, it’s stupid.
• You would think that a rock star being married to a supermodel would be one of the greatest things in the world. It is.
• [in 1976 interview with Playboy] It’s true – I am a bisexual. But I can’t deny that I’ve used that fact very well. I suppose it’s the best thing that ever happened to me. Fun, too.
• I’m looking for backing for an unauthorized autobiography that I am writing. Hopefully, this will sell in such huge numbers that I will be able to sue myself for an extraordinary amount of money and finance the film version in which I will play everybody.
• I always had a repulsive need to be something more than human.
• [from 1992] It would be my guess that Madonna is not a very happy woman. From my own experience, having gone through persona changes like that, that kind of clawing need to be the center of attention is not a pleasant place to be.
• I’m an instant star; just add water.
• I know about Kylie [Kylie Minogue] and Robbie [Robbie Williams] and Pop Idol (2001) and stuff like that. You can’t get away from that when you hit the [British] shore, so I know all about the cruise ship entertainment aspect of British pop.
• [on receiving an honorary degree from Boston’s Berklee College of Music] Any list of advice I have to offer to a musician always ends with, “If it itches, go and see a doctor.”.
• I rate Morrissey as one of the best lyricists in Britain. For me, he’s up there with Bryan Ferry.
• Talking about art is like dancing about architecture.
• [during an interview about his new album in 1999] I have nothing to say about the new album. Can I go now?
• [on whether he thinks he is a good actor] I took you in, didn’t I? I rest my make-up case.

David Robert Jones Important Facts

• On 14 March 2017, the British post office issued a set of 10 stamps honoring Bowie. Four of the stamps, issued as a souvenir sheet, show photographs of him in concert performances. Each of the other six stamps features one of the following Bowie album covers: Hunky Dory, Aladdin Sane, Heroes, Let’s Dance, Earthling, Blackstar.
• Music producer Nile Rodgers, the BBC’s arts editor Will Gompertz and Professor Michael Spitzer, the Head of the Department of Music at the University of Liverpool, have all likened Bowie as a musician to the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso, who had a far-reaching and enduring impact on the art world in the 20th century similar to the impact Bowie had on popular music during his lifetime, which has earned Bowie the alliterative nickname “The Picasso of Pop”. Gompertz said that Bowie was, like Picasso, “an innovative, visionary, restless artist who synthesised complex avant-garde concepts into beautifully coherent works that touched the hearts and minds of millions”.
• In 1971, Peter Noone (of Herman’s Hermits fame) had his only solo UK chart hit with a cover of Bowie’s song “Oh! You Pretty Things”, which reached number 12. In 1974, Lulu had a number three single in the UK with her cover of his song “The Man Who Sold the World”. Neither song was a hit for Bowie in the 1970s.
• Bowie’s first four albums, “David Bowie” (1967), “David Bowie” (1969) (also subsequently titled “Space Oddity”), “The Man Who Sold the World” (1970) and “Hunky Dory” (1971), all failed to chart in the UK on their initial release. He first entered the album chart with “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars” in 1972.
• The influential British singer-songwriter Paul Weller named one of his children “Bowie” after him. Weller has cited “Low” as “one of my favourite records”.
• His video for “Ashes to Ashes” was 27th in Channel 4’s countdown of The 100 Greatest Pop Videos (2005). The video featured Bowie fan Steve Strange, whose band Visage later covered Bowie’s song “Loving the Alien” on their 2015 album “Demons to Diamonds”.
• Shortly after his passing, fans from Berlin, Germany, started a petition to change the name of the “Hauptstraße” in Berlin Schöneberg into “David-Bowie-Straße” (David Bowie Street). The reason behind it is that Bowie lived there from 1976 until 1978, a time that is considered for not only saving his career, but also for saving his life. During that time, he produced three of his most well-known albums, “Low”, “Heroes” and “Lodger”.
• The BBC television dramas Life on Mars (2006) and Ashes to Ashes (2008) were named after two of his most famous songs.
• Bowie often said he was ”a collector”, and people close to him said he rarely threw anything away. He made remarks in his twenties that sounded megalomaniacal at the time, saying that he envisioned collecting everything he did in his life and organizing it all meticulously in archives. He wasn’t kidding: he did make good on his intent. He saved all his handwritten lyrics, all his stage outfits once he retired them, paintings and art pieces he made, and everything else he valued that he created during his life’s work, and had them stored under meticulous security in Switzerland, organized and archived as he said he would.
• He died two days after his 69th birthday.
• When Bowie was extremely young, perhaps between the ages of 2 to 4 years old, his parents enrolled him in what is called ‘infant’s school’ in Britain. In the US it would be considered ‘Nursery School’ or ‘Preschool’. His teachers said that during the music and dance parts of the days, Bowie astonished them with his grace and poise of movement. They said they had never witnessed a child so young able to move like that.
• He tried to live as normal and inconspicuous a life as possible in New York in later years. He was also known to be a dedicated family man. In 2002 he said he could never come back to live in the UK because of the media intrusion which had developed there.
• Known for his sense of style, Bowie has been described by director Geoff Wonfor as “one of only three people in music who really looked good in a suit. The others are Bryan Ferry and Robert Palmer”.
• He met wife-to-be Iman in October 1990 through mutual hairstylist Teddy Antolin after Bowie had earlier ‘discovered’ the supermodel in the pages of a fashion magazine aboard a plane between tour gigs. David proposed to Iman under the Pont Neuf bridge on the River Seine while serenading her with the love song “April in Paris”.
• He is mentioned in the lyrics of the theme tune for Only Fools and Horses…. (1981), one of the UK’s most popular sitcoms of all time.
• Bob Geldof envisaged him as singing the first line on “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” by Band Aid. However, Bowie was unavailable for the recording, so Paul Young sang it instead as it was felt he had the closest voice to Bowie of all the performers participating. Bowie did get to eventually sing the opening of the song at the Live Aid (1985) finale at Wembley Stadium.
• He was the main inspiration for Tilda Swinton’s character in A Bigger Splash (2015), rock musician Marianne Lane. Swinton appeared next to Bowie on the music video for his song “The Stars (Are Out Tonight)”.
• He was inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in June 2013.
• He was awarded Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters by French culture minister Catherine Trautmann in 1999.
• Bowie was one of the first artists to pay tribute to Freddie Mercury following his death in 1991 and performed at The Freddie Mercury Tribute: Concert for AIDS Awareness (1992). Bowie was also a friend of his glam rock contemporary Marc Bolan, whose funeral he attended in 1977. Elton John revealed in an interview with The Evening Standard following Bowie’s death that he had been close to Bowie during their early careers, they had spent time together at music venues and gay clubs, but they had also fallen out back in the 1970s due to comments Bowie made about John to Rolling Stone magazine. He said they were never close again after that. Nevertheless, John performed a version of “Space Oddity” in a concert as a tribute to Bowie following his death.
• He went through a heroin addiction, which resulted in him blacking out and unable to account for his own behavior for much of the mid-1970s. His song “Ashes to Ashes” documents his struggles with drugs.
• In 1969, he starred in a black-and-white Lyons Maid ice cream commercial directed by Ridley Scott. (The slogan was: “The pop ice cream. Nine pence.”) In 1983, Bowie starred in The Hunger (1983) directed by Ridley’s brother Tony Scott.
• He was a big influence on Peter Gabriel and Tony Banks of the progressive rock band Genesis, who both followed his career from the early days in the 1960s. Banks became a fan from buying a copy of his 1966 single “Can’t Help Thinking About Me”, which he loved for its unusual chords. His song “Heroes” was recorded by Gabriel on his album “Scratch My Back”, released in 2010. It was a very different arrangement from Bowie’s original, with Gabriel’s voice accompanied only by orchestral instruments.
• He asked Stevie Ray Vaughan to play guitar on the album “Let’s Dance” after seeing Double Trouble perform at the Montreux Jazz Festival.
• He had a fear of flying (Aviophobia).
• Early in his career, Bowie was once snubbed by The Beatles’ Apple record label.
• He was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Recording at 7021 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California on February 12, 1997.
• He appeared in Bing Crosby’s last television show before his death, a Christmas special taped in London that aired after Crosby’s death in December 1977. It is memorable for Crosby and Bowie singing a duet of “The Little Drummer Boy”: Bing Crosby’s Merrie Olde Christmas (1977).
• He resided in New York City from 1992 until his death.
• Bowie considered “Tonight” (released in 1984) and “Never Let Me Down” (released in 1987) to be his weakest albums. Both albums were critically panned and led to Bowie forming the group Tin Machine in an attempt to shed his mainstream audience and reinvent himself as a creative force. Despite his low opinion of these albums, Bowie did later choose a song from each album (“Loving the Alien” from “Tonight” and “Time Will Crawl” from “Never Let Me Down”) as among his fifteen favourite tracks from his own career for the 2008 compilation album “iSelect”.
• He was ranked #12 on VH1’s 100 Sexiest Artists and #7 on VH1’s 100 Greatest Artists of Rock & Roll.
• Bowie revealed that he turned down a lucrative opportunity to record a theme song for a James Bond film because he didn’t like the franchise. He was also originally approached to play Max Zorin in A View to a Kill (1985), but turned it down citing his lack of enthusiasm for the script. The role went to Christopher Walken instead. He was also considered for the role of The Joker in Batman (1989) and Max Shreck in Batman Returns (1992), but turned down the latter to appear in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992).
• He played Serbian/American scientist and inventor Nikola Tesla in The Prestige (2006).
• He was the winner of the British Phonographic Industry Award for British Male Solo Artist in 1984 following the success of his multi-million selling album “Let’s Dance”. He was also the winner of the 1996 Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution. In 2014, Bowie became the oldest person to date to win the British Male Solo Artist award following the success of his comeback album “The Next Day”. He was more than 40 years older than the other nominees.
• He was the son of Margaret Mary Jones.
• He is mentioned in “Life Is a Rock But the Radio Rolled Me”, a 1974 international hit single by Reunion and “Monkey Business”, a 1991 international hit single by heavy metal band Skid Row (the lyric “thinkin’ Bowie’s just a knife”).
• He was the first major recording artist to release a song only on the Internet.
• He was credited as himself in Zoolander (2001). He was the judge of the fashion “walk-off” between Owen Wilson and Ben Stiller.
• He sang a duet with Kasper Eistrup on the album “No Balance Palace” by the Danish rock band Kashmir. [2005]
• He was loosely the basis for the film Velvet Goldmine (1998).
• He underwent triple heart bypass surgery following a heart attack. He also gave up his smoking habit of 50 cigarettes a day in the same year. [July 2004]
• He turned down the role of Captain Hook in Hook (1991), which went to Dustin Hoffman.
• He was voted the 39th Greatest Artist in Rock ‘n’ Roll by Rolling Stone.
• He played 14 different instruments. The first instrument he learned was the saxophone at the age of 12 and performed it on several of his own songs. Although a talented rhythm guitarist (which included playing the famous riff of “Rebel Rebel”), Bowie found himself lacking in ability as a lead guitarist.
• Bowie was a big fan of The Velvet Underground. He later recorded with and produced the band’s songwriter Lou Reed. He also frequently collaborated as a songwriter with Iggy Pop from The Stooges. Bowie, Reed and Pop are all considered to be among the most influential rock musicians of all time. Bowie included a version of “China Girl”, which he had written with Pop in the 1970s (and had been recorded by Pop on his 1977 album “The Idiot”), on his 1983 album “Let’s Dance” in order to help Pop financially. The song became one of Bowie’s biggest international hits. Following Bowie’s death, Pop described Bowie’s friendship as “the light of my life”.
• (June 25, 2004) He had an emergency angioplasty in Germany while on his current tour. The remainder of the tour was obviously cancelled.
• He took the pseudonym “David Bowie” to keep himself from being confused with Davy Jones of The Monkees.
• He declined the royal honor of Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in 2000, and turned down a knighthood in 2003.
• Bowie cited Little Richard as his first musical influence, hearing him at the age of eight, and, according to producer Nile Rodgers, he was a key influence on his most commercially successful album, “Let’s Dance”. Bowie drew from a wide range of musical influences from his earliest days. In 2015, British music publication Mojo released a compilation album of 15 tracks by his earliest influences. It comprised of tracks by Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Bobby Bland, Ronnie Ross, Frank Sinatra, Jacques Brel, Lotte Lenya, Nina Simone, Nat ‘King’ Cole, Billy Fury, Anthony Newley, The Flares, Vince Taylor, The Yardbirds and The Pretty Things.
• His song “Five Years” was covered by former Marillion singer Fish on his 1993 album “Songs from the Mirror”, a collection of songs which reflected his musical influences. His song “Life on Mars” was covered by Marillion frontman Steve Hogarth and the H Band on the album “Live Spirit: Live Body” (released 2002).
• Bowie was consistently listed in later life as one of the wealthiest British music stars in the world. In November 1997, Business Age magazine reported his net worth as being over $900 million, surpassing even that of fellow British musician Paul McCartney, making him Britain’s richest rock star. In 1999, Reuters placed his net worth at roughly $917 million. In 2003, the Sunday Express claimed his net worth was still in the $900 million (£510 million) range but that this placed him second to Paul McCartney. However, in 2005, the Sunday Times Rich List estimated his fortunes at roughly $185 million (£100 million). Following his death in 2016, his estate, which was mainly bequeathed to his widow and two children, was valued at $100 million (£70 million).
• Something that he and actor John Hurt had in common is that both men played the Elephant Man.
• He performed with (on separate occasions) Queen, Mick Jagger, Iggy Pop, Al B. Sure!, Tina Turner, Annie Lennox, ‘Nine Inch Nails’ and Bing Crosby.
• His 1972 album “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars” came 8th in Classic Rock Magazine’s list of the 30 greatest concept albums of all time. [March 2003]
• He contributed the song “Everyone Says Hi” to the all-star War Child album “Hope”, which assisted child victims of the war in Iraq, in 2003.
• He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996 (by Madonna) and the American Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2005.
• In his composition “Slip Away”, on his album “Heathen”, he makes cryptic references to The Uncle Floyd Show (1974), a program popular in the late 1970s and 1980s in the New York City area. Broadcast on a local television station, it featured two puppets, “Oogie” and “Bones Boy”, mentioned in the song, as well as the host, “Uncle” Floyd Vivino.
• He was born and raised in London, England, of English parents. His father was originally from Yorkshire. His mother was from Kent and was of Irish ancestry. The Jones side of the family had roots in West Wales.
• Bowie was the first sexually ambiguous British pop star, declaring himself “gay” in 1972 (before contemporaries such as Freddie Mercury and Elton John made declarations that they were bisexual) and only five years since male homosexuality had been decriminalized in the UK. In a magazine interview, he stated that he met his first wife when they were in a relationship with the same man. Whether this was true or a joke has been the subject of much speculation. His appearance on Top of the Pops (1964) in 1972 with “Starman”, when he put his arm around guitarist Mick Ronson, has been cited by many as a key moment for gay liberation in Britain and described by journalist Caitlin Moran as “the gay moon landing”. In a 1983 interview with Rolling Stone, he stated that his bisexuality was really a sham. He claimed he made the story up to create more mystery about himself and defined himself as a “closet heterosexual”. In later years he would neither confirm nor deny he had engaged in gay relationships, merely admitting (in a 2002 interview by Jonathan Ross) that he’d been “incredibly promiscuous”. Dancer Lindsay Kemp has often claimed in interviews that he slept with Bowie.
• (August 15, 2000) His daughter, with Iman, Alexandria Zahra Jones, was born.
• Bowie had one son in 1971 with his then-wife Angie Bowie, originally named Zowie – who later changed it to Joe and who is now known as Duncan Jones. Duncan was Bowie’s best man at his 1992 wedding to Iman. He studied at a film school in London and became a successful writer and director.
• In 1968 while he was still a struggling artist, Bowie wrote some English lyrics to a French song titled “Comme d’Habitude” (“As Usual”). His version, “Even a Fool Learns to Love”, never did get recorded, but when the French melody caught the attention of Paul Anka, he reworked the lyrics and the song became “My Way”. Of course, when Frank Sinatra recorded “My Way” his way, it turned to gold.
• His eyes were both blue. However, one pupil was permanently dilated due to an incident when he was punched by a school friend, George Underwood, when he was 15, and as a result, one eye looked darker than the other. Underwood became a successful artist and remained a friend of Bowie’s for the rest of his life, including designing artwork for him.

David Robert Jones Filmography

David Robert Jones Awards