Comments on: Crack, baby, crack, show me you're real.

Crack, baby, crack, show me you're real.

miss lynnster — Fri, 04 May 2007 23:01:23 -0800

David Bowie: Cracked Actor – a BBC documentary circa 1974. One|Two|Three|Four|Five (53 minutes)

By: miss lynnster

miss lynnster — Fri, 04 May 2007 23:05:11 -0800

From the wikipedia link if you don't feel like clicking... Cracked Actor is a 53 minute long documentary filmed by the BBC in 1974 about David Bowie during his drug using days. It was made by Alan Yentob for the Omnibus strand, and was shown on BBC2 in the UK on January 26, 1975. The documentary shows Bowie being driven around in a limousine in between live concert footage. The footage is from one show but the documentary is made in such a way as to make you believe you are on tour with him. The title of the documentary was originally to be "The Collector", after a comment that Bowie had made to Russell Harty the previous year, where he described himself as "a collector of accents". Yentob and his team were given the task of documenting Bowie's famous Diamond Dogs tour, which was already underway when they started filming. Locations for the documentary mainly centred around Hollywood and Los Angeles, but there was also concert footage taken from Philadelphia. A number of performances from the tour were shown including Space Oddity, Cracked Actor, Moonage Daydream, The Width Of A Circle, Aladdin Sane, Time, Diamond Dogs and John, I'm Only Dancing (Again). The documentary has become notorious for showing footage of Bowie suffering from the ill-effects of cocaine (which he had become addicted to by this point) and also includes video of his manager Tony Defries and his new personal assistant Corinne (Coco) Schwab.

By: miss lynnster

miss lynnster — Fri, 04 May 2007 23:23:43 -0800

BTW, Coco is still his assistant. She has been for 35 years now.

By: jouke

jouke — Fri, 04 May 2007 23:41:20 -0800

I haven't seen that docu for 15 years and still know parts of it. Impressive. Except for his mimeing on stage....

By: lone_one

lone_one — Fri, 04 May 2007 23:45:46 -0800

I haven't seen this since I was a kid. I remember the live performances also the the fan interviews. My brother often talk seeing this as kids. I think we seen on PBS. Nice find.

By: taosbat

taosbat — Sat, 05 May 2007 00:13:40 -0800

♪ I'm only dancing ♪

By: juiceCake

juiceCake — Sat, 05 May 2007 07:15:39 -0800

Wonderful. I'm a huge Bowie fan and hadn't seen this. Also find it fascinating how some English musicians diss England.

By: piratebowling

piratebowling — Sat, 05 May 2007 07:29:45 -0800

Thanks for posting this, I wish I had the time right now to watch it, but I'll tag it for later viewing.

By: miss lynnster

miss lynnster — Sat, 05 May 2007 08:15:47 -0800

BTW... adding up the youtube clip times I just realized there might be a few minutes missing. Most of it's there though.

By: quoththeraven

quoththeraven — Sat, 05 May 2007 09:14:04 -0800

Is that Luther Vandross near the end of part 5?

By: hermitosis

hermitosis — Sat, 05 May 2007 09:37:40 -0800

Can't wait to watch this in its entirety later. Thanks!

By: miss lynnster

miss lynnster — Sat, 05 May 2007 10:00:52 -0800

Probably. "Working as both a backup singer and cowriting the song Fascination, Luther Vandross was an integral part of David Bowie's Philly soul project, Young Americans, in 1975." And from a comment here: "Luther came to work with Bowie through his friend Carlos Alomar. And it was Carlos who co-wrote Fame. Carlo came up with the world famous riff that James Brown later borrowed for "Hot." Luther wrote a song called "Funky Music" - Bowie borrowed the melody and called it "Fascination" and included it in Young Americans, which also included Fame, and featured Carlos and Luther."

By: Dizzy

Dizzy — Sat, 05 May 2007 13:22:45 -0800

He's just the coolest. I can't define it, or articulate it. Dang.

By: vers

vers — Sat, 05 May 2007 16:44:22 -0800

Lord, I'd almost forgotten what this love feels like. Thirty years on and I still love The Man Who Sold the World. Thank you ever so much, Miss Lynster!

By: pwedza

pwedza — Sat, 05 May 2007 23:35:20 -0800

F***in rocks!! Thanks.

By: kryptondog

kryptondog — Sun, 06 May 2007 16:18:12 -0800

I've wanted to watch this for years. Thank you very much!

By: Ambrosia Voyeur

Ambrosia Voyeur — Mon, 07 May 2007 14:59:48 -0800

He's divine. It's like the entire eighties was based on this guy.