David Bowie's early years revealed: How BBC dismissed star as 'amateur and out-of-tune' - and how he suffered 'terrible fears of going insane' like his tragic brother who killed himself, new documentary says
- David Bowie: Finding Fame will be on BBC2 at 9pm on Saturday February 9
- Bowie says in never-before-heard recordings that he was terrified of insanity
- His half brother Terry Burns, who introduced him to jazz, took his own life in 1985
David Bowie was once dismissed as 'amateur and out-of-tune' by the BBC, and was 'terribly fearful' of going ‘insane’ like his half-brother, newly-released footage reveals.
Terry Burns, who introduced Bowie to buddhism, jazz and beat poetry, killed himself aged 47 after battling schizophrenia.
‘Insanity was something that I was terribly fearful of,’ Bowie says in a never-before-heard recording unearthed by producers of a BBC2 documentary.
In a new documentary - David Bowie: Finding Fame on BBC2 - Bowie discusses his fear of 'going insane'
David Bowie (left) and his half brother Terry Burns who took his own life aged 47 after battling schizophrenia
‘But then I felt that I was the lucky one because I was an artist and it would never happen to me because, as long as I could sort of put those psychological excesses into my music and into my work, then I could always be throwing it off.’
Terry walked in front of a train at Coulsdon, south London in 1985.
Bowie died aged 69 from cancer in 2016, a household name and one of the most influential and best-selling musicians who ever lived.
David Bowie performing as Ziggy Stardust in concert at Hammersmith Odeon, London
Despite this, he was once called 'amateur-sounding vocalist who sings wrong notes and out of tune' by the BBC.
Bowie's band the Lower Third played three songs in their BBC audition: Out of Sight by James Brown, That’s a Promise by Bowie himself and Chim Chim Cher-ee from Mary Poppins.
It was perhaps the last song that caused the BBC's talent selection group to note the 'strange choice of material', unbeknownst to the fact that just a few years later Bowie's 'oddness' would change popular music forever.
The thumping rejection from 1965 was unearthed by the new film's researchers, who combed the corporation's archives.
The damning verdict said: 'I don’t think the group will get better with more rehearsal... The singer is a cockney type but not outstanding enough... There is no entertainment in anything they do.'
The documentary's filmmaker, Francis Whately has sourced archive footage and images that have never been seen before as well as recorded new interviews with those who new the star before he shot to fame.
One of those interviewed is Bowie’s cousin Kristina Amadeus, who claims that the singer exaggerated the family’s mental problems.
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Bowie's cousin Kristina Amadeus said he spent his life striving for his mother's attention, but ironically she 'talked of nothing but David'
‘One of the porkies that David perpetuated for a very long time was that he came from a family where insanity seemed to be the norm – and it just wasn’t true,’ she said.
‘Yes, Terry had his breakdown, but I believe it was a bad acid trip.’
Miss Amadeus also revealed that the star spent his life ‘striving’ for his mother Peggy’s approval.
She was there the evening Bowie's mother gave birth and in 1971 hosted Bowie at her flat in New York where she was working as a theatrical agent.
In her first TV interview, she said: ‘I think the most significant thing in David’s life was that he was always striving for Peggy’s love.’
Although Peggy never gave him the amount of affection he craved, 'the irony of the whole thing was she talked about nothing but David,' she added.
The cover of Hunky Dory - Bowie's fourth studio album released on 17 December 1971. The BBC once said his band had a 'strange choice of material'
David Bowie outside Bromley Registry office on 20 March 1970 after marrying Angie Barnet seen here with her mother
Miss Amadeus also explained that Bowie ‘suffered a lot’ because of problems in his parents’ marriage. Peggy had also come from a family with a history of mental illness.
She said: ‘[Bowie] was vulnerable and he was scared of being abandoned. I think he was very hesitant about giving himself. He came from an extremely tragic family, unfortunately. Some terrible events happened.’
The enduring image of Ziggy Stardust is that of Bowie in the iconic snakeskin jumpsuit, performing Starman on Top of the Pops in 1972.
But the androgynous persona was actually debuted on the ITV show Lift Off With Ayshea a month earlier.
David Bowie (left) performing with Mick Ronson in a snakeskin jumpsuit on Top of the Pops in 1972. Mick 'Woody' Woodmansey is on drums in the background
The documentary team are also hoping to be able to include the newly discovered ITV footage - captured by a fan on an early home video recorder - which Whately has called a 'holy grail' for Bowie fans.
But the tape has degraded over the last four decades, and must be painstakingly 'baked' in an incubator if there is to be any hope of recovering its content.
'It would fall apart if we played it, so it's had to be very carefully restored. It will be a real coup if it comes off,' Whately said.
It is the last hope as all the tapes of the show were accidentally wiped when Granada TV sent them to be digitalised.
Bowie died aged 69 from cancer in 2016, a household name and one of the most influential and best-selling musicians who ever lived
David Bowie performing as Ziggy Stardust in concert at Earl's Court, London, UK - May 1973
'We will get it,' said Whately. 'Whether we get it by Wednesday next week which is our deadline I do not know, it is in the lap of the gods.'
He is also hunting for even more precious footage - Bowie rehearsing for the Top of the Pops performance at Haddon Hall in Beckenham where he lived between 1969 and 1972.
Whately said he knows the tape exists because Bowie went to Radio Rentals to hire equipment 'to film himself so he could work out the moves for the Lift Off With Ayshea show … That’s the real holy grail.'
The documentary team also have unearthed footage of Bowie performing Jacques Brel’s My Death on the Russell Harty show, which was previously thought to be lost and features on the show.
Bowie married twice – to Angie in 1970 and model Iman in 1992 – and had two children, including the filmmaker Duncan Jones – formerly known as Zowie Bowie.
David Bowie as a child with his mother Peggy. His cousin has said in the new documentary that the star spent his life ‘striving’ for Peggy’s approval
Choreographer Lindsay Kemp, who died last August, gave one of his final interviews to the film, in which he joked that his former lover had been terrible at mime.
'He did a piece called The Mask. David, I suppose, had seen Marcel Marceaualong the line but he wasn’t Marcel Marceau. It was dreadful. I cringed, I really cringed.
'There are always people who will say, "He was very good in that miming, wasn’t he?" No darling, it was a load of s***.'
David Bowie: Finding Fame will be screened on BBC2 at 9pm on Saturday February 9.
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David Bowie: Finding Fame also includes the first TV interview with Hermione Farthingale, who Bowie said ‘was the real first love in my life’.
Farthingale and Bowie met in January 1968 but after a year she left to work in a Scandinavian film called Song Of Norway, leaving him with a broken heart.
Bowie's response was to write the song Letter To Hermione, which contains the lyrics: 'I care for no one else but you/I tear my soul to cease the pain.'
The former ballet dancer, now in her 60s, discussed hearing the heartbreaking tribute to her for the first time a year after its release.
But she explained that she knew Bowie did not expect her to respond because just three weeks after its release in 1969 he married his then-partner Angie Barnett.
Bowie (left) revealed he wrote his song Letter to Hermione to tell Hermione Farthingale (right) ‘she really messed me up’
She said: 'I don't think you've got time to hear all the extenuating circumstances that were around this but it was actually a year later when I first heard it.
'He married Angie three weeks later so I think you can see, it wasn't a letter that actually had a stamp on it, and wasn't demanding an answer. It was rhetorical by that point.
'Everything David writes has extraordinary acuity and precision. He puts things absolutely beautifully and spot on. So for that, of course, I appreciate it.'
Farthingale is also credited with inspiring Bowie to write songs including Life On Mars and An Occasional Dream.
More than 40 years after they split, Bowie sent a poignant message to her by wearing a T-shirt bearing the words Song Of Norway in his 2013 video for Where Are We Now.
Addressing their short relationship, Farthingdale said: ‘Our life was not regular. Neither of us were working nine to five. It wasn’t a very rock and roll life either.
'Occasionally we had a glass of white wine and David wasn’t even very good at having a spliff.’
David Bowie and the first love of his life, Hermione Farthingale, in London in 1969. Their relationship lasted about a year before she left to work on a film in Norway, after which Bowie penned the heartbreaking tribute Letter to Hermione
She also denied their relationship had been one-sided, saying: ‘We did fall in love. It took maybe five minutes, maximum.
'He was a lad, a youthlet, very, very young, ridiculously young – he looked about eight. I had to keep reminding myself he was actually 21.
'We missed each other as soul mates, as family, whatever it is that makes people incredibly close and lonely when they are not together.
'That's what happens. It wasn't a one-sided relationship by any means. It was completely mutual.'
But she recalled: ‘I had said to myself, “am I actually going to be with David for the rest of my life?” And I didn’t think I was going to. He was clearly going somewhere and I just didn’t think I was going to tread that path with him.’
Archive footage of Bowie shows the star revealing he wrote his song Letter to Hermione to tell her ‘she really messed me up’.
