Bowie: A Biography - JFK247

By thirteen Marc too had his first group: Susie and
the Hula Hoops, with lead singer Helen Shapiro on
vocals. Shapiro would go on to have several huge
pop hits and enjoys cult status today as another
beloved British (and Jewish) singing star. Like David
Jones, Marc was a teenage rebel and a smart but
underperforming and tempestuous student. There
are stories of him kicking classmates and others
who crossed him. For a brief time he was even
purportedly a member of a West Side Story—worthy
street gang actually known as the Sharks.
“He could see no point in what he was being
taught,” biographer Tony Stringfellow writes in his
study The Wizard’s Gown—Rewoven, “it held no
purpose for him.” A school friend is quoted as
saying, “He was only ever interested in music and
clothes.”
In his very early teens, Marc was discovered by a
London modeling agent and began to earn his
boutique money by posing for catalog ads. Unlike
David, who has confessed to doing so, Marc was
too proud to go crawling through any garbage cans
to pick up discarded wardrobe items (a common
mod boy practice). This may be a key difference
between the two. There was a strong element of
David’s personality that was and is constantly
searching, but Marc Bolan it seems preferred to stay
put and have people and things simply come his
way, doting and gushing. And they did, including
modeling agents, the gay proprietors of the mod
boutiques opening up in London’s Carnaby Street,