David Bowie: The life story you may not know

David Bowie was one of the most intriguing musicians of our time, reinventing himself continually and influencing countless others along the way.

Bowie’s theatrical flare, creativity, sexual ambiguity, and incredible music kept the public endlessly interested. With the Sept. 16 release of “Moonage Daydream,” a 2022 documentary film about Bowie’s life and career featuring previously unreleased footage, Stacker compiled a list of 25 things about David Bowie’s life you may not know, drawing from news accounts, biographies, magazine interviews, and movie and music databases.

He made more than two dozen albums, including “Blackstar,” which was released just two days before his death. He played more than a dozen instruments, including a right-handed guitar even though he was left-handed. Bowie’s concept album, “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars,” introduced the world to his glam-rock persona in 1972. Four years later, he starred in the film “The Man Who Fell to Earth.” By the end of the 1970s, he kicked his drug habit and appeared in “The Elephant Man” on Broadway.

Two years after suffering a heart attack in 2004, Bowie performed three songs on stage with Alicia Keys in New York. It was his last performance. In the year following his death, Bowie and “Blackstar” won four Grammy awards. The BBC reported in 2019 that David Bowie had won the broadcaster’s viewer poll for the greatest entertainer of the 20th century, beating out Charlie Chaplin, Billie Holiday, and Marilyn Monroe.

“I like crazy art and, most of the time, out-there music,” Bowie once said. “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.”

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