Bowie: A Biography - JFK247

the young David Bowie. Kemp and Birkett seemed
lifestyle models, like James Dean, Elvis and Little
Richard were, only Bowie had never met Elvis or
Little Richard and Dean was long dead. Here was
someone who could influence Bowie directly and
respond to his multiple queries in person.
“I began to think about costuming music, creating
an alternate version of reality onstage. I wasn’t quite
sure what the balance would be but I was always
open to other people’s ideas and always so
influenced by something I found dramatic,” Bowie
has said.
“I really taught him to be audacious, because he
was a bit timid,” Kemp recalls. “Through example.
My own example. My example offstage of course,
but I mean my example in the theater, on the stage
and in the workshop as well.”
Kemp and Bowie enjoyed a brief physical affair as
well, with Kemp expressing his desire and having his
way with his starstruck new friend, although this act
too seemed to be part of a larger curriculum. Bowie
plunged into this tutelage with everything he had and
there was no longer much talk about shaving his
head and fleeing to Edinburgh to become a monk.
“I taught to David the technique of the hypnotist
and the lover. One has to hypnotize an audience to
enchant them and of course make them love you.
The Casanova technique. Not that that I needed to
teach him much about the Casanova technique,”
Kemp proclaimed.
“Lindsay always gave him hell,” Pierrot’s costume