David Bowie Acting Roles
Bowie's first film major role in The Man Who Fell to Earth earned acclaim, as did his performance on stage as The Elephant Man. He had appeared in a few late '60's avant garde films, mostly as an extra. Since then his acting career has been sporadic. Nagisa Oshima's film Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, based loosely on Laurens van der Post's novel The Seed and the Sower, was released in 1983. Bowie played Maj. Jack Celliers, a prisoner of war in a Japanese internment camp; another famous musician, Ryuichi Sakamoto, played the camp commandant. Bowie has a small part as a hit-man in 1985 film Into the Night. Bowie also played a sympathetic Pontius Pilate in Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ.
David Bowie - Discography
This is a discography of David Bowie's studio albums.
David Bowie (1967)
Space Oddity (1969, the 1972 reissue charted at UK #17, US #16)
The Man Who Sold the World (1970, the 1972 reissue charted at UK #26)
Hunky Dory (1971, US #93, the 1972 reissue charted at UK #3)
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972, UK #5, US #75)
1992 to today - Contemporary David Bowie
1993 saw the release of the soul, jazz and hip-hop influenced Black Tie White Noise, which reunited Bowie with Let's Dance producer Nile Rodgers. Though considered by some critics to be musically far superior to Let's Dance, the public was still unsure whether or not it was ready to be receptive to Bowie again. The album, however, met the number one spot on the UK charts with singles such as "Jump They Say" and "Miracle Goodnight".
David Bowie the Tin Machine -1989 to 1991
In 1989, for the first time since the early 1970s, Bowie formed a regular band, Tin Machine, a hard-rocking quartet, along with Reeves Gabrels, Tony Sales, and Hunt Sales. Obviously influenced by many ascendent alternative rockers (including the Pixies), Tin Machine released two studio albums and a live record. The band received mixed reviews and a somewhat lukewarm reception from the public, but Tin Machine heralded the beginning of an ongoing collaboration between Bowie and Gabrels.
The 1980s - David Bowie is a Superstar!
David Bowie's wax figure at Madame Tussauds dressed as in the "Serious Moonlight Tour"In 1981, Bowie released "Under Pressure", co-written by and performed with Queen. The song was a hit and became Bowie's third number one single as well as one of Queen's all time classics. The song appears on the Queen album Hot Space. In the same year Bowie made a cameo appearance in the German movie Christiane F, wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo, the real-life story of a 13 year-old girl in Berlin who becomes addicted to heroin and ends up prostituting herself.
David Bowie 1976 to 1980, Brian Eno and the Berlin era
Bowie's interest in the growing German music scene and his drug addiction prompted him to move to Berlin to dry out and rejuvenate his career anew. Sharing an apartment in Schöneberg with his friend Iggy Pop, he produced three more of his own classic albums, as well as aiding Pop in his career. With Bowie as a co-writer and musician, Pop completed his first two solo albums, The Idiot and Lust for Life. More unusually, the star Bowie joined Pop's touring band in the spring, simply playing keyboard and singing backing vocals. The group performed in the UK, Europe, and the US from March to April.
David Bowie the Glam Rock Years - 1969 to 1973
His first flirtation with fame came in 1969 when his single "Space Oddity" was released to coincide with the first moon landing. This ballad was the story of what was often called Bowie's first dual-subject and role, Major Tom, an astronaut who becomes lost in space. It became a UK hit record. Its corresponding album was originally titled David Bowie and has caused some confusion, as both of Bowie's first and second albums were released with that name in the UK.
David Bowie 1947 to 1967
David Robert Jones was born in Brixton, London on January 8, 1947, apparently at his family's house at 40 Stansfield Road. He lived in Brixton until he was six years old, when his family moved to Bromley in Kent (now part of Greater London). He lived with his parents until he was eighteen. He stated that his earliest musical goal was to be a saxophone player in Little Richard's group. Initially a saxophonist, he was discovered, quite by accident, as a singer when he subbed in for a missing vocalist at a club in London.
David Bowie - The Thin White Duke
He is commonly known as the chameleon of pop, predicting trends and adjusting his style and persona, while holding on to his own ideas and creativity. A multi-instrumentalist, he is famous for playing guitar, keyboard and saxophone; but also plays harmonica, drums, cello, marimba, bass guitar, koto and stylophone. He first rose to prominence with the heady, 1969 folk rock single "Space Oddity" but is perhaps best known for the single "Changes" from Hunky Dory (1971), and the flamboyant, androgynous glam rock of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972), and Aladdin Sane (1973).
David Bowie on The Diamond Dogs tour.
1974 saw the release of Diamond Dogs, another ambitious album with a spoken word passage and a song-cycle ('Sweet Thing/Candidate'). Diamond Dogs was the product of two distinct ideas - a musical based on a wild future in a post-apocalyptic city, and setting George Orwell's 1984 to music ('1984', 'Big Brother', 'We Are The Dead').
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