Don't Forget About His Film Career

With the passing of David Bowie this weekend, many news outlets are focusing on his music career and how much he influenced countless number of current musicians over his four decade career. I admit I have a handful of Bowie CDs I love, and in particular one of which I received from The Boss for my birthday a few years back and then played so relentlessly I think she came to regret buying it for me.

But many don't realize the influence and contribution he had on the fantasy genre book publishing business through his movie career. Many modern female authors of fantastic fiction credit the Jim Henson movie Labyrinth (1986) with directly turning them on to fantasy stories, especially fiction, as a way of recapturing that magical feeling of fairy tales and folk stories that they had had as young girls but had lost as they became teens. After watching that movie with Bowie as the evil Jareth the Goblin King and future Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Connelly as the young teenage girl who wishes her baby brother away, these young future authors began to not only seek out other fantasy stories, but began to write them as well.

His role as the Goblin King wasn't his only venture into the world of acting, though. To the previous generation, he was most famous for The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976), and I particularly loved his brief and uncredited cameo as "The Shark" in the movie Yellowbeard (1983). That short fifteen-second scene alone is worth YouTube'ing if you get the chance. He also starred in the television series The Hunger (1999) and did numerous other cameos and voice-overs in cartoons and video games.

Be sure to take a moment to pay tribute to this man who was much more than a musician; he was an actor, painter, and writer.

Until Next Time...
Fame-ously Yours,
Michael