David Bowie’s ingenious disguise: how the rock legend kept a low profile

Virgin Radio

10 Jun 2024, 10:07

Music legend David Bowie had a surprising trick to go unnoticed during the height of his fame

David Bowie, the Starman who captured the world's imagination, had a secret for blending into the crowd.

Music PR legend Alan Edwards recently revealed to the NME how Bowie managed to keep a low profile during the zenith of his stardom in the '80s.

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Alan Edwards, the founder of the renowned PR firm The Outside Organisation, worked with music royalty, including The Rolling Stones, Prince, and Britney Spears.

His newly published memoir, I Was There: Dispatches from a Life in Rock and Roll, reveals some fascinating anecdotes about his time with Bowie.

Meeting Bowie just after the release of Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, Edwards found himself working with a man who was treated like a movie star but had been dropped by his label due to the lukewarm reception of his albums Low and Heroes.

"He was being treated like a movie star," Edwards shared.

"But also he had just been dropped by his label because Low and Heroes weren’t being deemed as good commercially as stuff like Bay City Rollers!"

Despite his superstar status, Bowie remained incredibly down-to-earth.

"He’d turn up at our office in Tottenham Court Road and make coffee for everyone," Edwards reminisced.

But how did Bowie, the man who gave us Ziggy Stardust and the Thin White Duke, manage to wander about without being mobbed by fans? The answer is as simple as it is ingenious.

"He told me his secret to not being recognised was to wear a cloth cap and have a Greek newspaper under his arm," Edwards revealed.

"That way if anyone ever questioned whether it was him, they’d look closer and think, ‘Well it can’t be… he’s obviously Greek’."

This clever disguise worked wonders even in the most mundane situations. "We’d get the train a lot of the time, no first-class or anything," Edwards explained.

"And you’d be amazed how many people would do a double take, then think: ‘Can’t be him, he’s just a guy sat with us going to Manchester’."

One particularly charming story from Edwards' memoir involves Bowie presenting traffic reports at a radio station after an interview.

"He sat there telling people there were delays on the M25… and even to this day I don’t think anyone knew it was David Bowie," Edwards laughed.

"He was this extraordinary creative genius, but also a pure, disarming, nice gentleman."

In other Bowie news, Patsy Kensit recently shared her own memorable encounter with the icon.

Reflecting on their time filming Absolute Beginners together in the mid-1980s, Kensit described the moment as 'the most erotic experience' of her life.

"I was completely in awe of the singer while they filmed the film Absolute Beginners together in the mid-1980s," she said.

Her story is one that will resonate with many who have found themselves starstruck by Bowie's charm.

"I was also deluded, imagining that he’d fall in love with me, and we’d run off," Kensit confessed.

"And of course, I was in a line-up of people where he just shook my hand and then went along the line, and I was crushed."

But then came a moment straight out of a dream. "One day I was sitting in make-up and he popped his head in the door and said hi," Kensit recalled.

"He came over, picked up a brush and just started brushing my hair. He didn’t say anything – he just brushed it, then walked away. It was the most erotic experience of my life."

Meanwhile, Virgin CEO Richard Branson recently explained how 'delightful' David Bowie inspired his space travel.

The entrepreneur first founded Virgin Galactic, the spaceflight corporation, in 2004 in the hopes of kick-starting space tourism, and in 2021, Branson took his first suborbital test flight to the edge of space. 

While picking out his all-time favourite tracks on My Playlist with Virgin Radio host Steve Denyer (airing on Sunday, 26th May at 7pm on Virgin Radio UK), Sir Branson confessed Bowie had a major hand in his own space dreams. 

“I had difficulty with David Bowie,” Branson recalled about picking his playlist choices. “Absolute Beginners was a record that we put out on Virgin and we also made the film Absolute Beginners and it’s a beautiful song.

“I picked Space Oddity because it helped inspire me to want to go to space myself. Space has played an important part of my life and David Bowie was a really delightful, delightful artist to have had and got to know and, and a very, very, very important part of Virgin.”

David Bowie's ability to blend in with the crowd, while still being a larger-than-life figure, is a testament to his unique charm and genius.

From disguising himself with a simple cap and newspaper to creating unforgettable moments with those lucky enough to cross his path, Bowie remains an enduring icon in the world of music and beyond.