David Bowie

At 69 years old, David Bowie has this physical status:

David Robert Jones (brightly known as David Bowie (BOH-ee) was an English singer-songwriter and actor who performed on Broadway from January 1947 to January 2016, but he died on January 10, 2016.

He was a leading figure in the music industry and is regarded as one of the twentieth century's most influential performers, particularly for his pioneering work during the 1970s.

His career was marked by innovation and visual representation, with his music and stagecraft having a major influence on popular music.

His worldwide success made him one of the world's top-selling musicians during his lifetime.

In the United Kingdom, he received ten platinum album awards, eleven gold and eight silver, as well as 11 silver, and eleven bronze, and eleven silver, as well as eleven number-one albums.

He received five platinum and nine gold awards in the United States.

Early life

David Robert Jones was born in Brixton, London, on January 8th. Margaret Mary "Peggy" Burns, née Burns; 2 October 1913 – 2 April 2001), was born at Shorncliffe Army Camp near Cheriton, Kent. Her paternal grandparents immigrated from Ireland and had settled in Manchester. She served as a waitress at a movie in Royal Tunbridge Wells. Haywood Stenton "John" Jones, a boy who died on November 21, 1912 – August 5, 1969, was from Doncaster, Yorkshire, and worked as a promotions officer for the children's charity Barnardo's. The family lived on the boundary between Brixton and Stockwell in Lambeth, south London's south London borough of Lambeth, 40 Stansfield Road. Bowie attended Stockwell Infants School from six years old, gaining a reputation as a gifted and single-minded child as well as a defiant brawler.

Bowie and his family travelled from Bickley, Bromley Common, and eventually Bromley Common before settling in Sundridge Park in 1955, where he attended Burnt Ash Junior School. His voice was described as "adequate" by the school choir, and he demonstrated above-average skills in playing the recorder. His dancing during the newly introduced music and movement classes was stunningly imaginative, with teachers describing his interpretations as "violently artistic" and his appearance "astonishing" for a child. His interest in music was boosted even more this year when his father brought home a collection of American 45s by artists including the Teenagers, the Platters, Fats Domino, Elvis Presley (who announced Bowie's birthday) and Little Richard. Bowie would later claim he had "heard God" after listening to Little Richard's album "Tutti Frutti."

When Bowie first saw his cousin Kristina dance to "Hound Dog" shortly after it was first introduced in 1956, he was immediately impressed with Presley. Kristina says she and David "danced like possessed elves" to various artists' catalogs. Bowie had started playing the ukulele and teachest bass with friends and had begun to play the piano; meanwhile, his local Wolf Cub group, which included gyrations in honor of the original artists, was described as "mesmerizing... like someone from another world." In the late 1950s, David's father took him to see singers and other performers preparing for the Royal Variety Performance, introducing him to Alma Cogan and Tommy Steele. Bowie attended Bromley Technical High School after passing his eleven-plus exam at the end of his Burnt Ash Junior course. It was an unusual technical school, as biographer Christopher Sandford wrote: It was a strange combination: it was a biographer's note: It was an unusual technical college.

Terry Burns, Bowie's maternal half-brother, had a major influence on his early life. Burns, ten years older than Bowie, suffered with schizophrenia and epilepsy, and lived in both at home and in psychiatric hospitals; while living with Bowie, he introduced the younger man to many of his lifelong influences, including modern jazz, Buddhism, Beat poetry, and the occult. In addition to Burns, a significant number of Bowie's extended family members had schizophrenia spectrum disorders, including an aunt who was institutionalized and another who underwent a lobotomy; this has been cited as an influence on his early work.

Bowie studied art, music, and layout, as well as typography and typesetting. After Burns introduced him to modern jazz, his admiration for players like Charles Mingus and John Coltrane prompted his mother to give him a Grafton saxophone in 1961. He was soon learning from baritone saxophonist Ronnie Ross. During a fight over a girl, he sustained a serious injury at school in 1962. George Underwood, his buddy, punched him in the left eye. Bowie's doctors discovered that the effect could not be fully restored, and he was left with a false sense of a change in the iris' color, with one iris having a different hue to the other; his eye later became one of Bowie's most distinguishable features. Despite the altercation, Bowie stayed on good terms with Underwood, who went on to produce the artwork for Bowie's early albums.

Personal life

In 1967, Bowie met dancer Lindsay Kemp and enrolled in his dance class at the London Dance Centre. He said in 1972 that Kemp's meeting was when his interest in image "really blossomed." He lived on his emotions, and he had a great deal of influence." His day-to-day life was the most dramatic thing I've ever seen. It was all I suspected Bohemia to be like. "I joined the circus." Kemp choreographed a dance scene for a BBC play The Pistol Shot in the Theatre 625 series in January 1968, and used Bowie as a dancer, Hermione Farthingale; the pair met and moved into a London flat together in January 1968. "Bowie and Farthingale" broke up in early 1969 as she returned to Norway to film Song of Norway; this affected him, as well as many songs, such as "Letter to Hermione" and "Life on Mars." "I refer to her; and, for the video accompanying "Where Are We Now?" "He wore a T-shirt with the word "m/s Song of Norway." They were last together in January 1969 for the filming of Love You Till Tuesday, a 30-minute film that was not released until 1984: it was intended as a promotion tool, not an advertising one: the film had not been released at the time, including "Space Oddity," which was not available at the time.

On March 19, 1970, Bowie married Mary Angela Barnett, his first wife, at Bromley's Bromley Register Office in Bromley, London. They were married in a civil union. Angela characterized their union as a marriage of convenience. "We were married so that I could [get a license to] work." I didn't expect it to last, and David said, "I'm not really in love with you" before we married, which is probably a good thing." "Being with Angela is like living with a blow torch," Bowie said of her. Duncan, their son, was born on May 30, 1971, and was first identified as Zowie. On February 8, 1980 in Switzerland, Bowie and Angela divorced. Bowie's son was taken care of by the family's parents. Angela wrote Backstage Passes: A memoir of their turbulent marriage after the gag order that was part of their divorce deal came to an end.

Bowie said in a 1983 interview with Rolling Stone that his public admission of bisexuality was "the biggest mistake I ever made" and that "I was always a closet heterosexual." On other occasions, he said that his interest in homosexual and bisexual culture had more to do with the times and circumstances in which he found himself rather than his own feelings.

Source

Music career

At the age of 15, Bowie formed the Konrads, his first band. The Konrads, who performed guitar-based rock and roll at local youth gatherings and weddings, had a diverse lineup of between four and eight members, with Underwood as one. When Bowie left the technical school the following year, he told his parents that he wanted to be a pop star. His mother arranged his employment as an electrician's aide. Bowie left the Konrads and joined the King Bees, frustrated with his bandmates' inexperienced ambitions. He wrote to John Bloom, the recently wealthy washing machine entrepreneur, asking him to "do for us what Brian Epstein has done for the Beatles" and earn another million." Bloom did not respond to the invitation, but Leslie Conn's introduction to Dick James resulted in Bowie's first personal management contract.

Bowie was quickly promoted by Conn. His debut single, "Liza Jane," credited to Davie Jones with the King Bees, was not commercially successful. Bowie left the band less than a month later to join the Manish Boys, another blues outfit that mixed folk and soul, as Bowie recalls. Their interpretation of Bobby Bland's "I Pity the Fool" was no more popular than "Liza Jane," and Bowie soon joined the Lower Third, a blues trio heavily inspired by the Who. The farewell from "You've Got a habit of leaving" has no better way than the end of Conn's relationship. Bowie said he would leave pop music "to study mime at Sadler's Wells" while remaining in the Lower Third, despite being a member of the Lower Third. Ralph Horton, the boy's current manager who was later involved in his conversion to solo artist, helped him secure a Pye Records deal. Tony Hatch, a publicist, has signed Bowie on the grounds that he composed his own songs. After the 19th-century American pioneer James Bowie and the knife he had popularized, he became dissatisfied with Davy (and Davie) Jones, which caused confusion with Davy Jones of the Monkees in the mid-1960s. The first single under his name was "Can't Help Thinking About Me," released with the Lower Third in January 1966. The single did not do well as its predecessors.

Following Bowie's demise on the single, he left the Lower Third for part due to Horton's popularity, and he and Pye's "Do Something You Say" and "I Dig Everything," two of which featured a new band called "The Buzz," before signing with Deram Records. Around the same time, Bowie joined the Riot Squad; their albums, which included one of Bowie's original songs and footage from the Velvet Underground, went unreleased. Kenneth Pitt, who was introduced by Horton, took over as Bowie's boss. His solo single, "The Laughing Gnome," released in April 1967, on which speed-up and consequently high-pitched vocals were used to represent the gnome in the song, failed to chart. David Bowie, an emulation of pop, psychedelia, and music hall, died six weeks later on his album debut, six weeks later. It was his last release for two years. Bowie recorded "Let Me Sleep Beside You" and "Karma Man" in September, which were not released as a single and left unreleased until 1970. Both tracks started Bowie's relationship with producer Tony Visconti, which, although there are significant differences, will continue to be present throughout Bowie's career.

Bowie was immersed in the creation of personae to the world, studying the dramatic arts under Lindsay Kemp, from avant-garde theatre and mime to commedia dell'arte. The Bowie composition "Over The Wall We Go" became a 1967 hit for Oscar, and Billy Fury's "Silly Boy Blue," another Bowie track, "Silly Boy Blue," was released by Billy Fury the following year. Hermione Farthingale, acoustic guitar, formed a trio with Bowie and guitarist John Hutchinson named Feathers in 1969; the trio appeared on various occasions between 1969 and 1969, including folk, Merseybeat, poetry, and mime.

Bowie and Mary Finnigan were admitted as her lodger after the break-up with Farthingale. He undertook a short tour with Marc Bolan's duo Tyrannosaurus Rex in February and March 1969, as third on the bill and performing a mime act. "Space Oddity" was launched five days before the Apollo 11 mission and ranked among the top five in the United Kingdom on July 11, 1969. Bowie, who began working with Farthingale, joined Finnigan, Christina Ostrom, and Barrie Jackson to form a folk group at the Three Tuns pub in Beckenham High Street on Sunday nights. The Arts Lab movement influenced the club, which evolved into the Beckenham Arts Lab and became very popular. In a local park, the Arts Lab held a free festival on the subject of his song "Memory of a Free Festival."

Bowie's second album was released in November; it was originally released in the United Kingdom as David Bowie, but it caused some confusion with its predecessor's name; the early US release was instead titled Man of Words/Man of Music; it was reissued internationally by RCA Records in 1972 as Space Oddity. The album, which features philosophical post-hippie lyrics on peace, love, and morality, is occasionally offended by harder rock.

In April 1969, Bowie first encountered Angela Barnett. They married within a year. Her influence on him was immediate, and her participation in his work was pivotal, leaving Ken Pitt with little authority, which he found frustrating. Bowie, who had established himself as a solo artist on "Space Oddity," began to notice a void: "a full-time band for gigs and recording," he could identify with personally. Marc Bolan, who was at the time serving as his session guitarist, put the shortcoming under emphasis. John Cambridge, a drummer Bowie discovered at the Arts Lab, Tony Visconti on bass, and Mick Ronson on electric guitar were among the band's assembled. The bandmates, who were also known as Hype, created characters for themselves and wore elaborate costumes that prefigured the Spiders from Mars' glam style. They reverted to a setting presenting Bowie as a solo artist after a disastrous opening gig at the London Roundhouse. The beginning of their recording session was marred by a bitter rivalry between Bowie and Cambridge over the latter's drumming style. When an enraged Bowie accused the drummer of the accident, the singer was dismissed, saying, "You're fucking up my album." Mick Woodmansey had to leave Cambridge and was replaced by him. Bowie fired his boss and swapped him with Tony Defries just over a year later. Bowie was forced to pay Pitt compensation as a result of years of litigation that culminated in years of conflict that ended in years.

Bowie's third album, The Man Who Sold the World (1970), featured references to schizophrenia, paranoia, and delusion, as well as delusion. It was a change from Space Oddity's acoustic guitar and folk-rock style to a more hard rock sound. Mercury Records sponsored a coast-to-coast publicity tour in the United States in which Bowie, who lived in January and February 1971, was interviewed by radio stations and the media. The original cover of the UK version two months earlier featured Bowie wearing a dress, highlighting his androgynous appearance. He wore it with him and wore it in interviews, to mixed reactions including laughter and, in the case of one male pedestrian's making a pistol and telling Bowie to "kiss my ass" – including Rolling Stone's John Mendelsohn.

Bowie's discovery of two seminal American proto-punk artists inspired him to create a model based on Iggy Pop's appearance at Lou Reed's music, resulting in "the ultimate pop idol." On his return to England, a girlfriend recalled his "crawling notes on a cocktail napkin about a strange rock star named Iggy or Ziggy," and he revealed his intention to create a character "who seems to have landed from Mars." The surname of "Legendary Stardust Cowboy," whose record he was given on tour. On 2002's Heathen, Bowie would later cover "I Took a Trip on a Gemini Space Ship."

Hunky Dory (1971) discovered Visconti supplanted in both roles by Ken Scott's production and Trevor Bolder on bass. It exhibited a stylistic shift toward art pop and melodic pop rock. It featured light fare songs, including "Kooks," a song written for his son, Duncan Zowie Haywood Jones, who was born on May 30. (His parents selected "his kooky name"), but he was known as Zowie for the next 12 years (before the Greek word zoe, life). The album delves into more serious topics, with Bowie paying homage to his influences with "Song for Bob Dylan," "Andy Warhol," and "Queen Bitch," the latter a Velvet Underground pastiche. It was his first appearance through RCA Records, partially due to a lack of exposure from the label.

Bowie premiered his Ziggy Stardust stage performance with the Spiders from Mars, Rosonson, Bolder, and Woodmansey at the Toby Jug pub in Kingston upon Thames on February 10, 1972, dressed in a striking costume and his hair dyed reddish-brown. The show was hugely successful, catapulting him to fame over the next six months and spawning, as Buckley put it, a "cult of Bowie" that was "unique" that was "more popular and has been more influential than perhaps every other pop fandom group. Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972), combining the hard rock elements of The Man Who Sold the World with the lighter experimental rock and pop of Hunky Dory, was released in June and was deemed one of the defining albums of glam rock. Following Bowie's UK debut in July, "Starman" was released as a single ahead of the album's debut: both single and album charted quickly following his July Top of the Pops appearance. The album, which remained in the charts for two years, was soon followed by Hunky Dory, six months old. The non-album single "John, I'm Only Dancing" and "All the Young Dudes," a song he wrote and produced for Mott the Hoople, were also very popular in the United Kingdom. The Ziggy Stardust Tour made its way to the United States.

Bowie, co-producing Reed's 1972 solo breakthrough Transformer, provided backing vocals, keyboards, and guitar to the project. Bowie co-produced and mixed the Stooges' album Raw Power with Iggy Pop in the following year. Aladdin Sane (1973), his first number-one album, debuted on the UK charts. "Ziggy goes to America," Bowie sang as he traveled to and around the United States during the Ziggy tour, which now travels to Japan to promote the new album. "The Jean Genie" and "Drive-In Saturday" were two of Aladdin Sane's top-five singles.

Bowie's obsession with acting culminated in his complete immersion in the characters he created for his music. "I'm a robot offstage." I'm on stage with emotion. It's probably why I prefer dressing up as Ziggy rather than being David." With satisfaction, he had serious personal difficulties: During an extended period, it became impossible for him to distinguish Ziggy Stardust, and later, the Thin White Duke, from his own character offstage. "Want't leave me alone for years," Ziggy said. ... When it all started to go wrong, I was completely influenced. It became very risky. "I had doubts about my sanity." His later Ziggy shows, which featured songs from both Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane, were ultra-theatrical affairs with bizarre stage moments, like Bowie stripping down to a sumo wrestling legcloth or simulating oral sex with Ronson's guitar. On July 3, 1973, Bowie toured and gave press conferences as Ziggy before his dramatic and sudden on-stage "retirement" at London's Hammersmith Odeon. Footage from the final show was included in the film Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, which premiered in 1979 and was commercially released in 1983.

Bowie tried to move forward from his Ziggy persona after breaking up the Spiders from Mars. His back catalogue was now highly sought after: The Man Who Sold the World had been re-released in 1972, as well as Space Oddity.

"Life on Mars?

"From Hunky Dory was released in June 1973 and debuted at number three on the UK Singles Chart in June 1973. In September, Bowie's "The Laughing Gnome," a 1967 novelty record, debuted at number six, debuted on the same chart, peaking at number six. Pin Ups, a collection of his 1960s favorites, followed by a UK number three hit in David Bowie's "Sorrow" in October, making him the best-selling act in the United Kingdom since 1973. It took the total number of Bowie albums on the UK charts to six.

In 1974, Bowie immigrated to the United States, first living in New York City before settling in Los Angeles. Diamond Dogs (1974), part of which led to a wild future in a post-apocalyptic city, was the product of two distinct visions: a musical based on a wild future and the 1984 film version of George Orwell's 1984. The album debuted at number one in the United Kingdom, spawning the hits "Rebel Rebel" and "Diamond Dogs" and "Diamond Dogs," as well as number five in the United States. Bowie founded the Diamond Dogs Tour, a tour run by Bowie between June and December 1974, touring cities in North America. Toni Basil's choreographed stage performance was lavishly staged by theatrical special effects, which was shot by Alan Yentob. The resulting documentary, Cracked Actor, featured a pasty and emaciated Bowie: the tour coincided with his demise from heavy cocaine use to heroin use, causing severe physical debilitation, anxiety, and emotional difficulties. "David Bowie Is Alive and Well and Living Only in Theory," he said later. Bowie's fame as a hero hasn't waned, with his debut in the United Kingdom and the number eight in the United States, as David Livewell established Bowie's as a legend. In Bowie's version of Eddie Floyd's "Knock on Wood," it also spawned a UK number ten hit. The tour returned to Philadelphia, where Bowie performed new music, with a new focus on soul.

Young Americans (1975) was the product of the Philadelphia recording sessions. "Over the years, most British rockers have tried to go black-by-extension in one way or another," Sandford writes. "Bowie did well," Bowie did now. The album's sound, which Bowie described as "plastic soul," represented a radical change in style that alienated many of his UK followers. "Fame," Bowie's first US number one, co-written with John Lennon, who contributed backing vocals, and Carlos Alomar, were among the young Americans to produce "Fame." Bowie's "great," Lennon said, "but it's just rock 'n'roll with lipstick on." Bowie performed "Fame" and "Golden Years" in his November single, which was initially available to Elvis Presley but who declined it. Young Americans in the United States and the United Kingdom were a commercial success, and a re-issue of the 1969 single "Space Oddity" became Bowie's first number-one in the United Kingdom a few months after "Fame" achieved the same in the United States. Despite Bowie's now well-known fame, "for all his remarkable sales (over a million copies of Ziggy Stardust alone), Sandford said, "actually on loose change." Bowie was fired in 1975 after being frustrated with Pitt's traumatic dismissal five years ago. He watched, as Sandford put it, "millions of dollars of his future earnings being forfeited" in what were "uniquely generous terms for Defries," before he shut himself down in West 20th Street, where his howls could be heard through the locked attic door for a week. Bowie's counsel, Michael Lippman, became Bowie's next boss, although Lippman, who was fired by Bowie the following year, received substantial compensation.

The station to Station (1976), produced by Bowie and Harry Maslin, launched a new Bowie persona, "The Thin White Duke," of the Bowie series. The character, according to the picture, was a descendant of Thomas Jerome Newton, the extraterrestrial being portrayed in the film The Man Who Fells Earth the same year. Station to Station's synthesizer-heavy arrangements influenced his krautrock-influenced music of his upcoming releases, developing the funk and soul of his young Americans. When Russell Harty interviewed him for his London Weekend Television talk show in anticipation of the album's support tour, the extent to which heroin use was now impacting Bowie was revealed. The death of Spanish tyrant Francisco Franco was announced just before the satellite-linked interview was set to begin. Bowie was asked to renegote the satellite reservation in order to allow the Spanish government to produce a live news stream. He had no idea what he was supposed to do, and his interview went ahead. Bowie was incoherent and seemed "disconnected" during Harty's lengthy chat. His sanity had deteriorated from cocaine, which was revealed by his own admission; he overdosed several times throughout the year and was physically and emotionally ill;

In February, a 3+1 month concert tour of Europe and North America was followed by a station to station. The Isolar – 1976 Tour with its colour newsprint Isolar concert program, highlighted songs from the album, including the dramatic and lengthy title track, the ballads "Wild Is the Wind" and "Word on a Wing," as well as the funkier "TVC 15" and "Stay," which includes a starkly lit set. The core band that performed on this album and tour, rhythm guitarist Carlos Alomar, bassist George Murray, and drummer Dennis Davis all survived as a strong unit for the remainder of the 1970s. The tour was extremely popular but it was marred by political uncertainty. Bowie was quoted in Stockholm as saying that "Britain will profit from a Fascist leader" and that customs could detain border crossing the Russian/Polish border for unlawful possession of Nazi paraphernalia.

In May, the "Victoria Station incident" in London came to a conclusion. Bowie, a Mercedes convertible, waved to the crowd in a gesture that some thought was a Nazi salute, which was caught on camera and broadcast in NME. In mid-wave, Bowie claimed that the photographer caught him in mid-wave. He criticized the Thin White Duke's character and his pro-fascism remarks and his conduct during the time based on his drug use and the color of the Thin White Duke. "I was out of my mind, completely crazed." The main thing I was working on was mythology... the whole thing about Hitler and Rightism was wrong. "I'd discovered King Arthur." "He was indeed disengaged," playwright Alan Franks wrote later in The Times. He had some bad experiences with hard drugs." Bowie's heroin use, which fueled these scandals, had a lot to do with his time in Los Angeles, a city that alienated him. In an 1980 interview with NME, Bowie discussed his obsession with fascism, and that Los Angeles was "where it had all happened." The fucking spot should be wiped off the face of the Earth. To be anything to do with rock and roll and go live in Los Angeles, it seems, is dooming. It really is."

Bowie apologised for these remarks, and the American music industry has been criticized throughout the 1980s and 1990s, with persistent racial suspicion in European politics and the American music industry. Despite that, Bowie's remarks on fascism, as well as Eric Clapton's alcohol-fueled denunciations of Pakistani immigrants in 1976, resulted in the establishment of Rock Against Racism.

Bowie's involvement in the burgeoning German music scene, as well as his heroin use, led him to move to West Berlin to de-stress and relaunch his career before the end of 1976. He was seen riding a bicycle in Schöneberg and Hansa Tonstudio, the recording studio he used, located on Köthener Straße near the Berlin Wall. For the first of three albums, co-produced with Tony Visconti, that became the Berlin Trilogy, Brian Eno started focusing on minimalist, ambient music while sharing an apartment with Iggy Pop. Iggy Pop, a writer and singer, released his solo album debut The Idiot and its sequel Lust for Life in March and April 1977, touring the UK, Europe, and the United States.

Low (1977), which was partially inspired by Kraftwerk and Neu!'s Krautrock sound, evinced a change in Bowie's songwriting's narration to a more ambiguous musical style in which lyrics were more sporadic and optional. Despite that he finished the album in November 1976, his troubled record company took another three months to release it. Following its launch, it received significant critical feedback: RCA, which was keen to hold the established brand dynamism, did not welcome, and Bowie's former boss, Tony Defries, who held a keen financial interest in Bowie's affairs, was strongly opposed. Despite these forebodings, Low yielded the UK number three single "Sound and Vision" and the UK's highest single "Sound and Vision" topped Station to Station in the UK chart, where it climbed to number two. When he used Low as the basis for his Symphony No. 6, contemporary composer Philip Glass described it as "a work of genius" in 1992. Glass used Bowie's next album as the basis for his 1996 Symphony No. 1's "Low"; later, Glass used Bowie's next album as the basis for his 1996 Symphony No. "Heroes" is the fourth generation of the Xionist movement. Bowie has been lauded for producing "fairly complicated pieces of music masquerading as simple pieces," Glass has lauded. Starting Point, a ten-song LP containing songs from Bowie's Deram period (1966-1967), was released in 1977.

The second half of Low's trilogy, "Heroes" (1977), integrated pop and rock to a greater extent, with Bowie joined by guitarist Robert Fripp. The zeitgeist of the Cold War, as represented by Berlin's divided city, was represented by Low's "Heroes." The album, which debuted ambient sounds from a variety of sources, including white noise generators, synthesisers, and koto, debuted at number three in the United Kingdom, debuting at number three. Despite being ranked number 24 on the UK singles chart, the title-track has remained hot, and German and French newspapers have been published within months. Bowie performed the song for Marc Bolan's television show Marc, as well as Bing Crosby's final CBS television Christmas special with a new, contrapuntal verse. The duet, five years later, became a worldwide holiday hit, peaking in the United Kingdom at number three on Christmas Day, 1982.

Bowie spent much of 1978 on the Isolar II world tour, bringing the music of the first two Berlin Trilogy albums to nearly a million viewers in 12 countries. By now, he had broken his heroin use, and biographer David Buckley argues that Isolar II was "Bowie's first tour for five years in which he had perhaps not anaesthetized himself with copious amounts of cocaine before going on stage. ... He was now in a good enough mental state to want to make friends, despite the drug's oblivion. The tour made up the live album Stage, which was also released the same year. Bowie also recorded narration for an LP version of Sergei Prokofiev's classical composition Peter and the Wolf, which was first published as an album in May 1978.

Lodger (1979), Bowie's final work, eschewed the minimalist, ambient feel of the other two pieces, giving a partial return to the drum- and guitar-based rock and pop of his pre-Berlin era. In places that weren't strictly Western scales, the result was a complex mixture of new wave and world music. Some songs were made with Eno and Peter Schmidt's Oblique Strategies cards: "Boys Keep Swing" involved band members swapping instruments, "Move On" referred to Bowie's early composition "All the Young Dudes" played backwards, and "Red Money" took backing tracks from "Sister Midnight," a piece that was earlier composed with Iggy Pop. The album was shot in Switzerland. Mel Ilberman of RCA characterized it as "a concept album that portrays the Lodger as a homeless wanderer, shunned and victimized by life's pressures and technologies" ahead of its debut. Sandford claims: "It] dazzled such high hopes with dubious choices and a production that brought Bowie's friendship with Eno to an end." Lodger landed at number four in the United Kingdom and number 20 in the United States, and "DJ" and "Boys Keep Swinging" and "DJ" were the UK hits singles. Bowie and Angie initiated divorce proceedings early in the year, but the marriage was dissolved in early 1980 after months of court dramas.

The Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) (1980) was the number one hit on "Ashes to Ashes," starring guitar-synthesist Chuck Hammer and revisiting Major Tom from "Space Oddity." When Bowie attended the London club "Blitz"—the main New Romantic hangout—he recruited several of the regulars (including Steve Strange of the band Visage) to appear in the accompanying video, which is regarded as one of the most experimental of all time. Although Scary Monsters followed principles outlined by the Berlin albums, critics later considered it much more concise musically and lyrically. Robert Fripp, Chuck Hammer, and Pete Townshend's contributions to the album's hard rock edge were among the album's notable guitar contributions. Bowie debuted on Broadway on July 29th, starring John Merrick in The Elephant Man, as "Ashes to Ashes" debuted on top of the UK charts.

"Under Pressure," Bowie's one-off single release in 1981. The duet was a hit, becoming Bowie's third number-one single in the United Kingdom. In Bertolt Brecht's 1982 televised adaptation of Baal, Bowie was given the lead role. A five-track EP of songs from the play, which was recorded earlier in Berlin, was released as David Bowie in Bertolt Brecht's Baal. "Cat People (Putting Out Fire)," Bowie's title song, "Putting Out Fire) in March 1982, a month before Paul Schrader's film Cat People came out, became a minor US hit and landed in the UK Top 30.

With Let's Dance, Bowie reached his peak of fame and commercial success in 1983. The album was co-produced by Chic's Nile Rodgers, and it went platinum in both the UK and the United States. Its three singles also ranked in top 20 hits in both countries, where its title track debuted at number one. "Modern Love" and "China Girl" were both number two in the United Kingdom, as accompanied by two "abstract" promotional videos by biographer David Buckley, 'Let's Dance" and the young Aboriginal couple's briefing scene (a salute to the film From Here to Eternity) was sufficiently provocative to guarantee heavy rotation on MTV, with its little story concerning the teenage Aboriginal couple, targeted 'youth' and later partially blocked) beach lovemaking Stevie Ray Vaughan was a guest guitarist on "Let's Dance" alone, but this video depicts Bowie miming this scene. Bowie had risen to fame by 1983 as one of the country's top video artists. Let's Dance was followed by the Serious Moonlight Tour, during which Bowie was joined by guitarist Earl Slick and backing vocalist Frank and George Simms. The world tour lasted six months and was extremely popular. Two awards were given to Bowie at the 1984 MTV Video Music Awards, including the inaugural Video Vanguard Award.

Bowie appeared on Tonight (1984), another dance-oriented record, and Iggy Pop appeared on stage for the second time. It contained a number of cover songs, one of which was "God Only Knows" by the 1966 Beach Boys. The album featured the transatlantic Top ten hits "Blue Jean," which was the source for a short film that received a Grammy Award for Best Short Form Music Video, Jazzin' for Blue Jean. In 1985, Bowie appeared at Wembley Stadium for Live Aid, a multi-venue fundraising concert for Ethiopian famine relief. The film starring Bowie's duet with Mick Jagger, which was the main attraction of the evening, was premiered. On the day, "Dancing in the Street" debuted on the charts, and it quickly rose to number one on the charts. Bowie recorded "This Is Not America" for the soundtrack to The Falcon and the Snowman earlier this year. The album, which was released as a single, became a Top 40 hit in the United Kingdom and the United States.

In the 1986 film Absolute Beginners, Bowie was cast. Critics harmed it, but Bowie's theme song, "Absolute Beginners," debuted in the UK charts, and it soared to number two. In the 1986 Jim Henson film Labyrinth, he appeared as Jableth, the Goblin King, for which he collaborated with composer Trevor Jones and wrote five original songs. Never Let Me Down, his first solo album of the decade, lost the light of his previous two albums in favour of harder rock with a punditural/techno dance edge. The album debuted "Day-In, Day-Out," "Time Will Crawl," and "Never Let Me Down" were among the hits that reached number six in the United Kingdom. "Bobs" later referred to it as his "nadir," according to Bowie, who called it "an awful album." The 86-concert Glass Spider Tour began on May 30th, supporting Never Let Me Down and preceded by nine promotional publications. Peter Frampton was in Bowie's backing band, as well as Peter Frampton on lead guitar. Contemporary commentators sluggishly dismissed the tour as overproduced, arguing that it pandered to the present day's stadium rock styles in terms of special effects and dancing, although critics later acknowledged the tour's strengths and influence on concert tours by other artists, including Britney Spears, Madonna, and U2.

For the first time since the early 1970s, Bowie ended his solo career in 1989, returning to the relative anonymity of band membership. Bowie first started to work experimentally with guitarist Reeves Gabrels, resulting in a hard-rocking quartet, Tin Machine. Tony and Hunt Sales, whom Bowie had known since the late 1970s for their contributions, on bass and drums respectively, to Iggy Pop's 1977 album Lust for Life, were completed. The Sales brothers, who are both sons of American comedian and actor Soupy Sales, are sons of American comedian and actor Soupy Sales.

Although he intended Tin Machine to function as a democracy, Bowie ruled both in songwriting and decisionmaking. Tin Machine (1989), the band's debut album, was initially well-received, but Bowie's rendition of Neo-Nazis described one song as "a simplistic, naive, radical, laying-it-down"; in the words of a comedy book, "It took courage to denounce drugs, fascism, and television. "lyrics that preach" as well as "recorded tunes" and "minimalist or no production" have been criticized byEMI. However, the album debuted at number three and went gold in the United Kingdom.

Tin Machine's first world tour was a success, but there was growing resistance—among followers and critics alike—to recognize Bowie's appearance as only a band member. A string of Tin Machine singles failed to chart, but Bowie, who argued with EMI, left the name. Bowie himself became dissatisfied with his position as just one member of a band, like his fans and analysts. Tin Machine began work on a second album, but Bowie put the venture on hold and returned to solo work. During the seven-month Sound+Vision Tour, he performed his early hits, earning commercial success and acclaim once more.

A decade after his exile from Angie, Bowie, and Somali-born Iman, a mutual friend introduced him in October 1990. "I was naming the children the night we met... it was completely immediate," Bowie said. They married in 1992. Tin Machine returned to work the same month, but the audience and analysts who were left dissatisfied by the first album's success showed no interest in a second. The unveiling of Tin Machine II was marred by a much-publicized and ill-timed feud over the cover art: the new record label, Victory, declared the depiction of four ancient nude Kouroi statues, judged by Bowie to be "in exquisite taste," with airbrushing and patching to render the figures sexless. Tin Machine Live: Oy Vey, Baby's Business & Financially Dead, the band disbanded, and Bowie, who continued to tour with Gabriels, resumed his solo career.

Following the Queen singer's death the previous year, Bowie appeared at The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert on April 20. He appeared on "Under Pressure" by Annie Lennox, who took Mercury's vocal role, as well as "All the Young Dudes" and "All the Young Dudes"; during his appearance, Bowie knelt and recited the Lord's Prayer at Wembley Stadium. In Switzerland, Bowie and Iman were married four days later. The 1992 Los Angeles riots began as they prepared to move to Los Angeles, but they were forced to their hotel, under curfew. Rather, they settled in New York.

Bowie's first solo appearance after his Tin Machine removal, as well as hip-hop, influenced Black Tie White Noise in 1993. The album, which reunited Bowie with Let's Dance producer Nile Rodgers, announced Bowie's return to fame, debuting on the UK charts and spawning three Top 40 hits, including the Top 10 single "Jump They Say." Bowie investigated new directions on The Buddha of Suburbia (1993), ostensibly a soundtrack album of his music performed for Hanif Kureishi's book on BBC television. Only the title track had been used in the television adaptation, although some of his themes for it were also on the album. It contained some of the latest Black Tie White Noise's new elements, as well as a shift toward alternative rock. The album was a critical success, but it was not announced in a high-key way and only made it to number 87 in the UK charts, despite its being ranked at number 87.

The quasi-industrial Outside (1995), which reunites Bowie with Eno, was originally intended as the first volume in a non-linear story of art and death. The album, which features characters from Bowie's short story, has also achieved success in the UK and US charts and has produced three Top 40 UK singles. Bowie selected Nine Inch Nails as his tour guide for the Outside Tour, sparking mixed reactions from both supporters and critics alike. Gabbie's return to Europe and North America between September 1995 and February 1996 was a highlight on the tour. Bowie celebrated his half-century with a birthday concert at Madison Square Garden, New York, where he was joined in performing his songs and those of his guests, Lou Reed, Dave Grohl and the Foo Fighters, Robert Smith of the Cure, Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins, Black Francis of the Pixies, and Sonic Youth.

Earthling (1997), pioneering experiments in British jungle and drum 'n' bass, became a UK and American hit, and two singles, "Little Wonder" and "Dead Man Walking," became UK Top 40 hits, with both versions — "Little Wonder" and "Dead Man Walking." The Paul Verhoeven film Showgirls' song "I'm Afraid of Americans" was re-recorded for the album and re-mixed by Trent Reznor for a single release. The song's 16-week stay in the US Billboard Hot 100 was due to the band's heavy rotation of the accompanying video, which also stars Trent Reznor. Reznor also produced the Lost Highway soundtrack (1997), which began and ended with various interpretations of Bowie's "I'm Deranged." On February 12, 1997, Bowie was a member of the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Between June and November 1997, the Earthling Tour took place in Europe and North America. Bowie appeared on BBC's Children in Need charity single "Perfect Day," which reached number one in the United Kingdom in November 1997. In 1998, Bowie reunited with Visconti to film "Safe in This Sky Life" for The Rugrats Film. Although the video was cut out of the final cut, it was later re-recorded and released as "Safe" on Bowie's 2002 film "Everyone Says 'Hi'." The reunion resulted in other collaborations, including a limited-edition single release version of Placebo's "Without You I'm Nothing," co-produced by Visconti, with Bowie's harmonised vocal added to the original recording.

Bowie, Gabby, and Gabby produced the soundtrack for Omikron: The Nomad Soul, a 1999 computer game in which he and Iman also voiced characters based on their likenesses. Alex Grant, the winner of his "Cyber Song Contest" Internet competition, was released the same year and re-recorded tracks from Omikron. The album was Bowie's departure from heavy electronica, making extensive use of live instruments. Gabbie's time as a performer and songwriter came to an end in mid-1999. The planned album Toy, which was supposed to feature updated versions of some of Bowie's oldest works as well as three new songs, did not debut before 2021. Bowie and Visconti continued their collaboration, but instead of producing a new album of entirely original songs: the result of the session was the 2002 album Heathen.

Bowie appeared at the Glastonbury Festival in England on June 25, 2000, his second appearance, 30 years since his first appearance at the event. In November 2018, the show was released as a posthumous live album. Bowie appeared at the BBC Radio Theatre in London on June 27th, which was released on the compilation album Bowie at the Beeb; this also featured BBC recording sessions from 1968 to 1972. On August 15, Bowie and Iman's daughter was born. At Carnegie Hall in New York, his fascination with Buddhism prompted him to help the Tibetan cause.

In October 2001, Bowie opened the Concert for New York City, a charity effort to benefit the victims of the September 11 attacks, with a minimalist interpretation of Simon & Garfunkel's "America" and a complete band version of "'Heroes'. Heathen was released in 2002, and the Heathen Tour was held in the second half of the year. The tour began in Europe and North America at the London Meltdown festival, for which Bowie was the year-appointed artistic director. Philip Glass, Television, and the Dandy Warhols were among the acts he'd like for the festival. The tour included songs from Bowie's Low era, as well as songs from the new album. Reality (2003) developed and expanded its international tour, the A Reality Tour, at an estimated attendance of 722,000, more than any other in 2004. Bowie headlined the Isle of Wight Festival's last night on June 13, his last live show in the United Kingdom. He suffered chest pains while performing at the Hurricane Festival in Scheel, Germany, on June 25th. The pain, which was initially thought to be a pinched nerve in his shoulder, was later diagnosed as an acutely blocked coronary artery, requiring emergency angioplasty in Hamburg. The remaining 14 dates of the tour were postponed.

Bowie cut his musical output in the years after recovering from the heart attack, making only one-off appearances on stage and in the studio. For the 2004 animated film Shrek 2, he appeared in a duet of his 1971 song "Changes" with Butterfly Boucher. During a relatively quiet 2005, he produced the vocals for the film Stealth's song "She Can (Do That) Do That," co-written with Brian Transeau. He returned to the stage on September 8, 2005, with Arcade Fire for the United States nationally broadcast event Fashion Rocks, and later that week, during the CMJ Music Marathon, he performed with the Canadian band for the second time. He appeared on television on "Province" from the Radio's Return to Cookie Mountain, and he was joined by Lou Reed on Danish alt-rockers Kashmir's 2005 album No Balance Palace.

On February 8, 2006, Bowie was given the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. "I'm taking a year off—no touring, no albums," he revealed in April. He appeared at David Gilmour's 29 May concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London. The case was live, and a collection of songs on which he had performed joint vocals was later revealed was later released. He appeared again in November at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York, along with Alicia Keys, at the Black Ball, a charity fundraiser for Keep a Child Alive. Bowie performed his music on stage for the final time.

The 2007 High Line Festival was selected by Bowie to curate. He selected electronic pop duo AIR, surrealist photographer Claude Cahun, and English comedian Ricky Gervais among the musicians and performers he selected for the Manhattan festival. Anywhere I Lay My Head, Bowie performed on Scarlett Johansson's 2008 album of Tom Waits covers, Anywhere I Lay My Head. A live album of a Ziggy Stardust-era concert from 1972 was released in June 2008. EMI released individual tracks from the original eight-track studio recording of the song on the 40th anniversary of the moon landing in July 1969 and Bowie's subsequent commercial breakthrough with "Space Oddity"—a homage to the singer's eventual release of "Space Oddity." In January 2010, a Reality Tour, a double album of live material from the 2003 concert tour, was released.

Toy, Bowie's previously unveiled album from 2001, was leaked online in late March 2011 and contained information about Heathen and the majority of its single B-sides, as well as early versions of his early back catalog.

His website revealed a new album called The Next Day on January 8, 2013, which was his 66th birthday. The Next Day is Bowie's first studio album in a decade, and it features 14 songs plus three bonus tracks. The length of his hiatus was revealed on his website. Tony Visconti, a long-time collaborator, and 29 tracks were recorded for the album, some of which may appear on Bowie's new album, which may appear on Bowie's next album, which he may start working on later in 2013. The news was followed by the simultaneous release of a single, "Where Are We Now?" "Bowie wrote and recorded the book "" in New York and Visconti produced it."

A music video for "Where Are We Now?"

The same day, directed by New York artist Tony Oursler, was posted on Vimeo. Within hours of its debut, the single dominated the UK iTunes Chart and debuted in the UK Singles Chart at number six, his first single to crack the Top 10 for two decades (since "Jump They Say" in 1993). "The Stars (Are Out Tonight)" was a second film released on February 25. It stars Bowie and Tilda Swinton as a married couple, and it was produced by Floria Sigismondi. The album was released for free on iTunes on March 1st. The Next Day debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart, his first album to debut there since Black Tie White Noise (1993), and was the country's fastest-selling album of 2013. The music video for "The Next Day" caused some backlash, first being taken from YouTube for terms-of-service abuse, but with a note advising viewing only by those 18 or older.

Bowie has ruled out ever giving an interview again, according to The Times. Bowie was featured in a cameo vocal in Arcade Fire's song "Reflektor" later this year. Bowie was voted the best-dressed Briton in history by a BBC History Magazine poll released in October 2013. Bowie was diagnosed with liver cancer in mid-2014, a condition he kept private. In September 2014, new details were announced about his forthcoming compilation album, Nothing Has Changed, which was published in November. In addition to a new song titled "Sue (Or in a Season of Crime), the album featured rare tracks and old footage from his catalog. "Let's Dance" was announced to be reissued as a yellow vinyl single on July 16, 2015, in Melbourne, Australia, as part of the David Bowie Is exhibition.

Bowie had been writing songs for a Broadway musical based on the SpongeBob SquarePants cartoon collection, which had been announced in August 2015. Bowie wrote and recorded the first title song to the television show The Last Panthers, which aired in November 2015. The The Last Panthers' theme was also the title track for his January 2016 debut Blackstar, which is said to take cues from his earlier krautrock-influenced work. "Blackstar may be Bowie's strangest work to date," The Times says. Bowie's musical Lazarus premiered in New York on December 7, 2015. He appeared at the opening night of the performance for the last time in public.

Blackstar's 69th birthday was celebrated on Monday, January 8, 2016, and Bowie's 69th birthday was commemorated with critical acclaim. Visconti revealed that Bowie planned the album to be his swan song and also a "parting gift" for his followers before his death. Many journalists and commentators later found that the majority of the album's lyrics revolve around his impending death, with CNN noting that the album "reveals a man who appears to be grappling with his own mortality." In his final weeks, Visconti said that Bowie had been planning a blackstar album and had written and recorded demo versions of five songs, implying that he had a few months to go. Following Bowie's death, online viewing of his music plummeted, smashing the record for Vevo's most viewed artist in a single day. Blackstar debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart on January 15th; nineteen of his albums were on the UK Top 100 Albums Chart; and thirteen singles were in the Top 100 Singles Chart. Blackstar also debuted on album charts around the world, including Australia, France, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, and the US Billboard 200.

Who Is It Now? A box set was released in September 2016. (1974–1976) was published a book about Bowie's mid-1970s soul period; it included The Gouster, a previously unreleased 1974 album. No Plan, an EP, was announced on January 8, 2017, which would have been Bowie's 70th birthday. The EP features three songs from Bowie's Blackstar sessions, but they were left off the album and appeared on the soundtrack album for the Lazarus musical in October 2016. The title track's music video was also released. A series of posthumous live albums was also released in 2017 and 2018, including the Diamond Dogs tour of 1974, the Isolar tour of 1976, and the 1978 Isolar II tour. Bowie's UK alone has set 5 million records in the two years after his death. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry named Bowie as the second-best artist in the world in 2016, behind Drake.

All five Grammy Awards were given to Bowie in 2017: Best Rock & Album; Best Engineered Album; and Best Rock Song. They were Bowie's first Grammy honors in musical categories. A previously unreleased version of "The Man Who Sold the World" was published on January 8, 2020, along with a streaming-only EP called "The Man Who Sold the Universe" and an album named ChangesNowBowie. In August 2020, a new line of live shows were added, including sets from Dallas in 1995 and 1999. These and other shows, which were part of a string of live concerts spanning his tours from 1995 to 1999, were released in late 2020 and early 2021 as part of the box set Brilliant Live Adventures. Bowie's estate signed a distribution agreement with Warner Music Group, covering Bowie's albums from 2000 to 2016. Toy, Bowie's album that was released in 2001, was unveiled on what would have been Bowie's 75th birthday. Variety announced on January 3rd that Bowie's estate had sold his publishing catalog to Warner Chappell Music "for a price increase of $250 million."

Acting career

Bowie, who was mainly a singer, performed in over 30 films, television shows, and theater performances throughout his career. Bowie's acting career was "highly selective," with mainly avoiding lead roles in cameos and supporting parts. Many commentators have stated that if Bowie had not chosen not to pursue music, he may not have had a huge success as an actor. Other commentators have noted that, although his screen presence was singular, his best contributions to film were his songs in films including Lost Highway, A Knight's Tale, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and Inglourious Basterds.

Bowie's acting career began long before his commercial debut as a singer. Under Lindsay Kemp, he was trained as Cloud in Kemp's 1967 theatrical production in Turquoise (later turned into the 1970 television film The Looking Glass Murders). Bowie appeared on television drama series Theater 625, which aired in May 1968. He played a ghostly child who emerges from a struggling artist's painting to haunt him in the black-and-white short The Image (1969). Bowie made a brief appearance as an extra in Leslie Thomas' 1966 comedy book The Virgin Soldiers.

In The Man Who Fell to Earth, directed by Nicolas Roeg, Bowie received recognition for his first major film role, portraying Thomas Jerome Newton, an explorer from a dying planet. He later admitted that his heavy cocaine use during the film's making him in such a fragile state of mind that he barely comprehended the film. Bowie appears in the lead role as Prussian officer Paul von Przygodski, who returned from World War II, is discovered by a Baroness (Marlene Dietrich) and put into her gigolo stable as a Gigolo (1979), an Anglo-German coproduction directed by David Hemmings. The film was a critical and commercial bomb, and Bowie later expressed embarrassment at his participation in it.

Joseph Merrick appeared in the Broadway play The Elephant Man, which he undertook wearing no stage make-up and received a lot of praise for his expressive performance. He appeared on 157 times between 1980 and 1981. We Children from Bahnhof Zoo, a 1981 biographical film focusing on a teenage girl's heroin use in West Berlin, had Bowie in a cameo appearance as himself at a concert in Germany. Christiane F. (1981), a Berlin Trilogy album, was included on his soundtrack album. He appeared in the titular role of Bertolt Brecht's Baal in 1982. In Tony Scott's erotic horror film The Hunger (1983), with Catherine Deneuve and Susan Sarandon, Bowie played a vampire. Mr. Lawrence, based on Laurens van der Post's book The Seed and the Sower, played Major Jack Celliers, a prisoner of war in a Japanese internment camp in Nagisa Oshima. In Yellowbeard, a 1983 pirate comedy created by Monty Python members and directed by Mel Damski, Bowie performed a cameo.

Bowie directed the 21-minute short film Jazzin' for Blue Jean (1984), and he played both romantic protagonist Vic and nascent rock star Screaming Lord Byron. Bowie was given his first non-posthumous Grammy award. In the 1985 John Landis film Into the Night, Bowie played Colin, a supporting role. In the James Bond film A View to a Kill (1985), he declined to play Max Zorin. In a supporting role as a d man in late 1950s London, Bowie reunited with Temple for Absolute Beginners (1986), a rock musical film based on Colin MacInnes' book of the same name. Jadeth, Jim Henson's dark musical fantasy Labyrinth, was cast as Jareth, the villainous Goblin King, in the same year. Despite initial poor box office, the film soared in success and became a cult film. In Martin Scorsese's critically acclaimed biblical epic The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), he appeared Pontius Pilate two years ago.

In 1991, Bowie reunited with director John Landis for an episode of HBO's Dream On and played a dissatisfie restaurant employee opposite Rosanna Arquette in The Linguini Incident. In David Lynch's Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992), Bowie portrayed the enigmatic FBI agent Phillip Jeffries. At the time of its launch, the prequel to the television series was poorly received, but it has since been critically reevaluated. In Basquiat, artist/director Julian Schnabel's 1996 biopic of Jean-Michel Basquiat, another artist he considered a mentor and colleague, he played a small but crucial role. Bowie appeared in Giovanni Veronesi's Spaghetti Western Il Mio West (1998, first published in the United States as the country's most feared gunfighter in 2005). In Andrew Goth's Everybody Loves Sunshine (1999), he played Bernie, the elderly gangster who appeared in the United States as B.U.T.E.D. (Japan) appeared as the host in the second season of the television horror anthology series The Hunger. Despite having several episodes focusing on vampires and Bowie's appearance, the series had no relationship to the 1983 film of the same name. In 1999, Bowie appeared in Omikron: The Nomad Soul, his first appearance in a video game.

Bowie portrayed himself as the neighbor of a terminally ill 12-year-old in Mr. Rice's Secret (2000). In Eric Idle's 2002 mockumentary Can't Buy Me Lunch, Bowie appeared as himself in the 2001 Ben Stiller comedy Zoolander, judging a "walk-off" between male models and judging a "walk-off" between rival male characters. For XM Satellite Radio's 2005, he produced a commercial starring Snoop Dogg. In Christopher Nolan's film The Prestige (2006), about two magicians in the late 19th century, Bowie portrayed a fictionalized version of physicist and entrepreneur Nikola Tesla, which was about the bitter rivalry between two magicians. After being ruled out for the role, Nolan later stated that Bowie was his only desire to play Tesla, and that he personally invited Bowie to play the part. He appeared in Luc Besson's animated film Arthur and the Invisibles as the nascent villain Maltazard, and in an episode of the Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant television series Extras. In 2007, he lent his voice to Lord Royal Highness in SpongeBob's Atlantis SquarePantis television film. In August's 2008 film August, directed by Austin Chick, he appeared as Ogilvie, a "ruthless venture capitalist." In the 2009 teen comedy Bandslam, Bowie appeared in a cameo as himself.

Denis Villeneuve, a producer of Consequence of Sound, confirmed his intention to cast Bowie in Blade Runner 2049 as the lead villain, but Villeneuve was forced to search for talent with similar "rock star" characteristics as the lead actor in Bowie's death in January of the same year. Jared Leto, the lead actor and singer of Thirty Seconds to Mars, was eventually cast actor and lead actor of Thirty Seconds to Mars. Villeneuve spoke about the casting process: "Our first thought [for the role] had been David Bowie, who had influenced Blade Runner in several ways." We looked around for someone like that when we learned the sad news. "Bowie] embodied the Blade Runner spirit." David Lynch had hoped to see Bowie reprise his Fire Walk With Me role for Twin Peaks: The Return of Fire, but Bowie's illness prevented this. His character was portrayed in an archival film. Lynch overdubbed Bowie's original dialogue with a different actor's voice at Bowie's behest, as Bowie was dissatisfied with his Cajun accent in the original film.

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