DAVID Bowie made his mark on two Scots stars, for different reasons.
Back in 1968, Taggart star Alex Norton found himself about to film a small role in the new movie, The Virgin Soldiers.
“At five in the morning, a coach collected my fellow virgin soldiers and me from outside the Hammersmith Odeon and ferried us out to Bury St. Edmonds to start work on the film.
“Since it was a stipulation in our contracts, we knew we were to be given authentic 1950’s army haircuts, and as much as the prospect of losing our sixties style manes dismayed us all, it seemed to absolutely horrify Davy, the modishly dressed young lad sitting next to me.
“He had clearly spent a lot of time and effort on his flame-coloured hairdo, which looked like it would have won first prize in a topiary competition.
“Arriving at Bury St Edmonds, we were taken two at a time into the make-up room and shorn with electric clippers. When I finally plucked up the courage to take a peek at myself in the mirror. I looked like I’d just got out the jail!
“My anguish was nothing though compared to trendy Davy’s. His pleas to the hairdresser to fake a short back and sides by gelling his hair down flat and concealing it under an army beret, fell on deaf ears.
“I could see he was struggling to hold back the tears as his crowning glory fell in clumps around his ankles.”
Davy recovered from his hair loss. And he and Alex became pals.
“When we discovered we were both musical, Davy and I would bring our guitars to the set and play during meal breaks in the dining marquee.
“I quickly realised he was way above my standard, but he generously took time to show me a few new licks and tricks.
“One memorable night, he asked me if I knew any Jaques Brel songs. I told him I had never even heard of Jaques Brel. Davy picked up his guitar and sang In The Port Of Amsterdam.
“When he finished, you could have heard a pin drop. The usual noisy chatter had tailed away as the entire marquee listened in awed silence to his interpretation of Brel’s masterpiece.
“I remember wondering why someone with a talent like that wasn’t pursuing a career in the music world rather than taking on small parts and scraping a living running an ‘Arts Lab’ in Beckenham. “Although we exchanged phone numbers and I promised to come and visit his Arts Lab, as so often happens given the transitory nature of the business, we were really only buddies for the duration of the shoot.
“The next time I heard of Davy was when I was passing the Hammersmith Odeon: the cinema we had once stood outside on freezing winter mornings waiting for the film company coach to pick us up.
“His name was up in lights on the marquee. But by then, he had changed it from Davy Jones to David Bowie.”
COMEDY star Stanley Baxter also worked with Bowie, back in the seventies.
“The show was called Bing Crosbie’s Merry Olde Christmas,” Stanley recalls of the 1977 spectacular.
“I was lined up to work alongside Bing, with me doing a Bob Hope impersonation and a few Upstairs Downstairs characters.
“When I heard pop star called David Bowie was on with me I didn’t really blink. I didn’t know anything about pop music, and the seventies wasn’t my era, but I was assured he was a very big star.
“But you would never have guessed from his attitude. We chatted a couple of times in the make-up room, yet for the most time he kept himself to himself.
“In all honesty, I think he was rather shy, which sort of explains all the make-up he wore.”
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