70 Fun Facts About David Bowie

Bowie was born with which surname?

He was born in Brixton, south London, on 8 January 1947.

Why did the young singer switch from performing as Davy Jones in the mid-1960s?

He took the name from the 19th-century American pioneer James Bowie and the knife he popularised.

Bowie's permanently dilated pupil was the result of what?

His friend George Underwood punched him in the left eye in 1962; Underwood later designed the artwork for Bowie's early albums.

What is the medical name for Bowie's eye condition, a permanently dilated pupil?

It also left him with faulty depth perception after a four-month hospital stay.

Which of Bowie's older relatives introduced him to modern jazz, Buddhism, Beat poetry and the occult?

Terry had schizophrenia and lived alternately at home and in psychiatric wards.

Space Oddity was released as a single on 11 July 1969, five days before what event?

The BBC used it as background music during its coverage of the Moon landing.

The 1969 Major Tom single's title and subject were partly inspired by which film?

Gus Dudgeon produced the song at Trident Studios; it peaked at number five in the UK in 1969.

Which astronaut's 2013 cover of Space Oddity produced the first music video filmed in space?

Bowie's original finally reached UK number one on reissue in 1975.

Bowie wrote the Hunky Dory song Kooks for whom?

Duncan Zowie Haywood Jones was born on 30 May 1971 and grew up to direct the film Moon.

Who were the three members of the Spiders from Mars?

Guitarist Mick Ronson had also played on The Man Who Sold the World.

The Ziggy Stardust character melded the persona of which friend with the music of Lou Reed?

A girlfriend recalled him scribbling notes on a cocktail napkin about a crazy rock star named Iggy or Ziggy.

Bowie's July 1972 Top of the Pops performance of which song cemented his UK breakthrough?

Both the single and the Ziggy Stardust album charted rapidly afterwards.

Where and when did Bowie abruptly 'retire' Ziggy Stardust on stage?

D. A. Pennebaker's film of the show premiered in 1979 and was commercially released in 1983.

Which 1973 album was Bowie's first UK number one?

He described it as 'Ziggy goes to America'; it produced The Jean Genie and Drive-In Saturday.

Which song did Bowie write and produce for Mott the Hoople in 1972?

The same year he co-produced Lou Reed's Transformer with Mick Ronson.

Diamond Dogs grew partly from a plan to set which novel to music?

Its title track introduced the persona Halloween Jack, who lived atop Manhattan Chase.

Fame, Bowie's first US number one, was co-written with which Beatle?

It came from Young Americans, recorded in Philadelphia in a 'plastic soul' style.

Bowie mimed Fame and Golden Years on which US show, becoming one of the first white artists to appear on it?

It capped his mid-70s soul period.

Which persona did Bowie adopt for the 1976 album Station to Station?

Visually it extended Thomas Jerome Newton, the alien he played that year in The Man Who Fell to Earth.

In The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976), Bowie played an alien named what?

Nicolas Roeg directed; it was Bowie's first major film role.

With whom did Bowie move to West Berlin in August 1976?

He produced his friend's albums The Idiot and Lust for Life around the same time as his own Berlin Trilogy.

Which three albums make up the Berlin Trilogy?

Philip Glass later turned all three into symphonies.

Which of the trilogy's albums was the only one recorded entirely in Berlin, with Robert Fripp on guitar?

Guitarist Robert Fripp joined for it; Low was actually recorded in France.

Two days after Marc Bolan's TV show in 1977, Bowie recorded a Christmas duet with whom?

Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy was taped for the singer's final CBS Christmas special.

Which composer adapted the Berlin Trilogy albums into three of his symphonies?

They became his first, fourth and twelfth symphonies, in 1992, 1997 and 2019.

Bowie narrated a 1978 recording of which classical work?

It came out the year of his Isolar II world tour.

Bowie recruited regulars from which London club, including Steve Strange, for the Ashes to Ashes video?

The video gave international exposure to the New Romantic movement.

From July 1980 to January 1981 Bowie played which role on Broadway, without stage make-up?

He starred as Baal in a BBC television Brecht adaptation the following year.

Under Pressure, Bowie's 1981 one-off with Queen, was recorded at which studio?

It went to number one in the UK, and Vanilla Ice later sampled it without credit for Ice Ice Baby.

Which rapper was sued by Bowie and Queen for sampling Under Pressure without credit?

Ice Ice Baby now carries a songwriting credit for both.

Who co-produced Let's Dance, Bowie's biggest commercial success?

The Chic guitarist recorded it at New York's Power Station in December 1982.

Which then-unknown Texas guitarist played lead on Let's Dance?

The album also revisited China Girl, which Bowie had co-written for a 1977 Berlin-era record.

Bowie's Live Aid-era duet with Mick Jagger was a cover of which Martha and the Vandellas song?

It went to number one in the UK, and its video premiered during Live Aid.

What was the name of Bowie's Goblin King in Labyrinth (1986)?

He wrote five original songs for the Jim Henson film, which grossed only $12.9 million in the US on a $25 million budget.

Which former Monty Python member wrote the screenplay for Labyrinth?

George Lucas was executive producer and Jennifer Connelly played Sarah.

What was the name of the hard rock band Bowie fronted from 1988 to 1992?

Its rhythm section, Tony and Hunt Sales, had played on Iggy Pop's Lust for Life; guitarist Reeves Gabrels stayed with Bowie through the 90s.

At the 1992 Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert, who sang Mercury's part opposite Bowie on Under Pressure?

During his set Bowie knelt and recited the Lord's Prayer at Wembley.

Bowie married supermodel Iman in 1992 in which country?

They flew to Los Angeles afterwards to house-hunt and arrived on the first day of the 1992 riots.

Which industrial band did Bowie choose as his tour partner for the 1995 Outside Tour?

The Eno-reunion album was conceived as the first volume of a non-linear narrative of art and murder.

Bowie Bonds, the first modern celebrity bonds, were bought in 1997 for $55 million by which company?

They were asset-backed securities secured on the royalties from his back catalogue.

Where did Bowie hold his 50th birthday concert on 7 January 1997?

Guests included Lou Reed, the Foo Fighters, Robert Smith and Billy Corgan.

In which 1996 film did Bowie play his friend Andy Warhol?

Ten years later he played Nikola Tesla in Christopher Nolan's The Prestige.

Which inventor did Bowie play in Christopher Nolan's The Prestige (2006)?

Nolan said Bowie was his only choice and personally begged him to take the part after he first passed.

Bowie's 2004 touring career ended after he suffered chest pain at a festival in which country?

It happened at the Hurricane Festival in Scheeßel; the A Reality Tour had been the top-grossing tour of the year.

The Next Day (2013) made Bowie the oldest ever recipient of a Brit Award. Who collected it for him?

It was his first UK number-one album since Black Tie White Noise twenty years earlier.

Blackstar was released on Bowie's 69th birthday, how many days before his death?

Tony Visconti called it a parting gift for his fans.

Blackstar was recorded in secret in New York with what kind of musicians?

Saxophonist Donny McCaslin's group had impressed Bowie and Visconti at the 55 Bar in Greenwich Village.

Blackstar holds what distinction among Bowie's albums in the US?

It also topped charts in the UK, Australia, France, Italy and New Zealand.

Bowie's final public appearance was at the opening night of which musical in December 2015?

He wrote it with Irish playwright Enda Walsh; the title song also appears on Blackstar.

With which illness had Bowie been privately diagnosed in mid-2014?

He kept working, recording Blackstar between January and May 2015.

How many Grammy Awards did Bowie win, per Wikipedia?

He also won four Brit Awards, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996.

What was Bowie's only non-posthumous Grammy, won for the Jazzin' for Blue Jean film?

He received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2006.

How many UK number-one albums did Bowie achieve?

They ranged from a 1973 album to Blackstar in 2016.

A street near the Gare d'Austerlitz in Paris is named after him. What is it called?

It lies near the Gare d'Austerlitz.

Bowie voiced two characters in which 1999 Dreamcast game, his only video game appearance?

He mostly chose arthouse film projects, saying one Scorsese cameo satisfied him more than a James Bond.

Which 1967 Bowie novelty single about a small creature flopped, then hit UK No. 6 on 1973 reissue?

It used speeded-up, high-pitched vocals for the gnome.

Bowie and Iman's daughter Alexandria 'Lexi' Zahra Jones was born in which year?

Bowie said he was 'naming the children the night we met'.

Bowie's 1999 record Hours holds what distinction in internet history?

His 1996 single 'Telling Lies' had been among the first downloadable singles, and BowieNet launched as an ISP in 1998.

Bowie's catalogue-owning company Jones/Tintoretto was named after a painter of which era?

The company was the vehicle for the 1997 Bowie Bonds, which paid him $55 million up front for ten years of royalties.

Where in London was Bowie's first solo art show, New Afro/Pagan and Work, held in 1995?

The Outside album cover that year was a close-up of one of his self-portraits, and he later joined the board of Modern Painters.

Bowie took part in a 1998 art-world prank built around which invented painter?

His own art collection, with works by Hirst, Auerbach and Basquiat, was valued at over £10 million when he died.

Where were Bowie's ashes scattered, in a Buddhist ceremony as his will requested?

He had insisted on no funeral and was cremated; fans gathered instead at his Brixton mural and outside his New York apartment.

The V&A's David Bowie Is exhibition drew roughly how many visitors over its 2013-2018 world tour?

It ended at the Brooklyn Museum; the David Bowie Centre opened at the V&A East Storehouse in September 2025.

Who plays Bowie in the 2020 biopic Stardust, which his son Duncan Jones publicly opposed?

The film covered his first US trip in 1971, had no rights to his music and was poorly reviewed.

What kind of creature is Heteropoda davidbowie, named in his honour in 2008?

He also has asteroid 342843 Davidbowie and a seven-star lightning-bolt 'asterism' created by Belgian astronomers.

Which local currency put Bowie's face on its B£10 note in 2011?

Brixton was his birthplace; a statue in Aylesbury, where he debuted Ziggy Stardust, followed in 2018.

Which director's Moonage Daydream was the first posthumous Bowie film approved by his estate?

Five years in the making, it premiered at Cannes in 2022 framed by Bowie's own narration.

For which of his guitarist's wives did Bowie write liner notes on the album Too Many Fish in the Sea?

He also wrote notes for Stevie Ray Vaughan's Live at Montreux and Placebo's debut reissue.

Which charity got part of the proceeds from Bowie's 1997 pay-per-view 50th birthday concert?

He also supported HIV/AIDS research in Africa and education for children affected by war.

What was the BBC's January 2026 documentary covering his career from 1983 to his death called?

It followed The Last Five Years, which the BBC aired on 7 January 2017.