Who Was David Bowie’s ‘Ziggy Stardust’ Persona?

David Bowie was constantly reinventing himself as an artist, from his experimentation with his sound to the onstage personas and characters he explored in his songs. And while all are iconic in their own right, perhaps none were as famous as Ziggy Stardust.

Bowie first created his onstage personas so he didn’t have to perform as himself.

“I didn’t particularly feel comfortable performing as a straight-ahead singer on stage,” Bowie explained in a 1990 interview. “My interest had always been in one of the better word multimedia-type situations. I liked the idea of combining theatre, music, and the whole atmosphere of creating for the stage.”

Ziggy Stardust was Bowie’s first fully realized persona. He began developing the character while on tour in early 1971, drawing inspiration from a variety of sources. Ziggy’s name, for instance, was taken from a tailor Bowie passed one day. Bowie liked its similarity to Iggy Pop’s name.

Bowie introduced Ziggy Stardust to the world on his fifth album, The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars. The lyrics describe Ziggy as a bisexual alien rock star sent to warn the people of Earth of the coming apocalypse while also offering a message of hope.

Bowie performed as Ziggy while on tour through 1972, backed by The Spiders From Mars. He had a distinct look featuring a red mullet and tight jumpsuits. When the tour ended in 1973, Bowie retired Ziggy Stardust and introduced Aladdin Sane, an extension of Ziggy but with a slightly different look. Bowie described Aladdin Sane as “Ziggy goes to America.” His name was a play on the words “a lad insane.”

Bowie and His Many Personas

Bowie tried on plenty of other personas over the years. The earliest ones, such as Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane, often had a lot of overlap and were connected to each other, and the two are often confused with each other as a result. Some of Bowie’s other characters and personas include the astronaut Major Tom from “Space Oddity,” the eyepatch-wearing Halloween Jack introduced on Diamond Dogs, and the more subdued Thin White Duke of the mid-70s. But all personas had a fairly short lifespan.

“They are one shot, they are cartoons and the Ziggy thing was worth about one or two albums before I couldn’t really write anything else about him or the world that I sort of put together for him,” Bowie explained in a 2014 interview with PBS.

As Bowie’s career progressed, he began to use personas and characters less and wrote and performed more as himself. But the ones he embodied remain a crucial part of his legacy.

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