Real Life Parallels

[vardathemessage]

script:

CECIL
Brian, I tell you, I think it’s simply a matter of presentation, and with the proper back up-
 
BRIAN
Back-up! What happened to Judy Garland! What happened to all your bloody torch song rubbish!
 


Despite Brian's rage and humiliation that line is hysterically funny. The source of it was what Bowie's first manager, Ken Pitt, saw in his protégé:

"... amid the uncouth, feedback-fixated young yobbos and ersatz Mississippi Blues belters of Britain's new pop culture, here at last might be something worthy of a cultured show business professional's loyalty and toil: a personality, an artiste, a Star, a – corny but true – Judy Garland for the rock generation."

From Angela Bowie's eminently readable Backstage Passes

Comments

A Wolf in Drags Clothing?

[velvetspur.livejournal.com]

What's so funny about that quote is that Bowie was never in the least like Judy Garland. Her fame was partly about the notion that she could fall apart any moment, on stage, in front of us. Her pain and struggle to function was so palpable. Literally the drama queen!

Bowie never had that aura of fragility, even in his Hunky Dory days. It's apt I suppose that a manager like Pitt would have observed the image of Bowie in the dress and dreamed that he might have the tragic allure of someone like Garland, but the dress of course was simply show biz, really. I'm not sure Cecil was quite so clueless about Brian, but I think he wanted to believe it.

Re: A Wolf in Drags Clothing?

[chezbb.livejournal.com]

That's a very good observation. Bowie often uses these Anthony Newley-like vocal flourishes that make him seem vulnerable, (Wild is the Wind for example) but there is no performer more in control of what is he doing. One reason Judy was such an icon is that we all knew her as Dorothy, which only made her later appearances more poignant. Ziggy has been fascinating and sexy and brilliant but it would be a stretch to call him endearing.