Bowie puts an end to Ziggy’s days at London’s Hammersmith Odeon

To become a rock superstar, you have to conquer your first market: the United States. Determined to know the fortune that smiled on two other subjects of Her Majesty, Elton John and Rod Stewart, David Bowie embarks Ziggy Stardust aboard the Queen-Elizabeth-II in September 1972, direction New York. On his return from vacation during this crazy year, he developed a phobia of flying when his, back from Cyprus, the island where his wife was born and raised, was caught in a thunderstorm.

Since then, Bowie only travels by sea and land. It is by train that he travels the great American spaces, a means of transport which leaves time to write songs. He returned from Japan in the spring of 1973 by ferry, before crossing the USSR by Trans-Siberian, then Poland and the GDR. When he enters Charing Cross station, he is awaited by a welcoming committee of fans. The address of Haddon Hall, his home in south London, being known to all, he must move west, to that celebrity district of Chelsea. An apartment is rented to Diana Rigg, the actress of Bowler hat and leather boots. Bowie will quickly be kicked out for noise pollution.

David Bowie: “It was so much easier for me to live inside of him, with the help of some chemicals”

America’s seduction strategy is based on bluffing. The Scrapbook The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars did not meet with great success. Bowie’s name began to spread on the East Coast and in Los Angeles, thanks to Rodney Bingenheimer, a hardcore DJ who would open an Anglophile glam rock club on the Sunset Strip. But elsewhere, the cause is far from won. The launch of the American tour in Cleveland (Ohio), on September 22, 1972, was encouraging since the 3,000 seats found takers. But in Saint Louis (Missouri), the room is so deserted that the singer asks the spectators to come closer. Some dates have to be canceled due to lack of participants.

Regardless, Bowie will be a star in America, no matter what. It is under this status that he is presented wherever he goes. To maintain the illusion, we do not look at spending on hotels, restaurants or limousines. In 1972, manager Tony Defries moved up a gear by creating his company Mainman, which opened offices in New York and Los Angeles. The team of artists includes Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Mott the Hoople and Bowie at the head of the gondola. Linked to Defries for a “unlimited duration”, the musician gave in to Mainman “the exclusive and definitive right of exploitation of his current and future work and the enjoyment of all the profits resulting from this exploitation”. Which will inevitably end up in court.

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