We began collaborating on our show, “Lazarus”, and at some point he took me to one side to say that he wouldn’t always be able to be there due to his illness. “I got this from somebody very close to him”.
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“David Bowie died peacefully today surrounded by his family after a courageous 18 month battle with cancer”, read the official announcement on Facebook on Monday.
Cardinal and head of the Vatican’s culture council Gianfranco Ravasi, quoting Space Oddity: “Ground Control to Major Tom Commencing countdown, engines on Check ignition and may God’s love be with you (David Bowie)”.
To only call David Bowie a “rock star” is to paint only a portion of his image, and does a disservice to the enormity of his legendary status as a man who found ways to reinvent himself time and again as the living embodiment of the word “cool”.
Van Hove said that at the Lazarus premiere in NY on December 7, Bowie collapsed from exhaustion – “It was then that I realised it may be the last time I would see him”. First concert I ever saw in Detroit! Producer and longtime friend, Tony Visconti, recently said, “He made Blackstar for us, his parting gift”. He fought like a lion and kept working like a lion through it all. Rip Torn (as a business partner) and Candy Clark (as a crass inebriant who becomes Bowie’s lover) co-star in the 1976 film that has become a cult favorite thanks to Bowie being Bowie (androgynous, unusual and brilliant) and Roeg’s mind-tripping, quick-cutting cinematic flourishes.
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However, Bowie returned with a new album, The Next Day, in 2013 and Visconti said the star was “not dying anytime soon”, but with Bowie refusing to do any interviews, the rumours never really went away.
