Icon, visionary, singer, musical innovator, song writer, performer, actor and generally a really cool guy.

David Bowie has died at the young age of 69 just days after the release of his latest album Blackstar.

Bowie was one of a kind and was always reinventing himself for over 50 decades.

As well as a prolific musician, singer songwriter Bowie also had a big career as a Movie actor. This probably wasn’t too much of a stretch as he had already invented his own alter-ego in Ziggy Stardust back in 1972.

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The Man Who Fell to Earth

He had a very androgynous look back in the 1970s and seemed like the natural choice to be cast as the naïve alien who travels to earth in an attempt to save his planet by securing the water it needs to survive. Nicholas Roeg’s  Sci-Fi ‘The Man who Fell to Earth (1976)’ Bowie’s character embraces earth and sets up a technology company making billions enabling him to build a ship to take him home.

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Unfortunately, he gets seduced by greed and falls foul of an introduction to alcohol. A strange oddity of a film but well suited to the up and coming superstar.

Once again Bowies extreme look and characteristics made him the ideal Vampire desperately trying to keep his youth with his search for life everlasting in Tony Scott’s The Hunger (1983) Also starring Catherine Deneuve as his Vampire Mistress Miriam Blaylock  and Susan Sarandon as the scientist and soon to be Miriam’s new muse.

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The Hunger
The film is beautifully shot and very erotically charged thanks to Catherine Deneuve’s performance and Bowie does a very credible job and manages to sum up some sympathy from the audience, despite having shown his utter ruthlessness and bloodlust in an earlier scene.

The film that probably brought Bowie to a whole new younger audience was as the Goblin King in  Labyrinth (1986) a Jim Henson produced fantasy story. It also gave him the opportunity to have a song and dance moment. The film became a cult hit with teenage audiences.

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Labyrinth
These are some of my most favourite Bowie movies but there were quite a few more films that I could have chosen such as Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence (1983),  Absolute Beginners (1986), Zoolander (2001) and  The Prestige (2006).
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The Prestige
David Bowies son Duncan Jones (44) also took the path into Movies but as a writer and director of the Sci-Fi films Moon (2009) and Source Code (2011).

David Bowie was very much a part of my life growing up as a teenager in the 70’s and will be greatly missed.