Bowie: A Biography - JFK247

having released a self-titled album on Mercury that
year. “He was a Tom Jones type,” Lee says. “A
baritone. It’s a good album. It’s sad that he could not
see the potential for David too.”
Although handsome in a tan-and-toothy, Bert
Convy–ish fashion, Reizner lacked pop star DNA but
took pride in his musicality and ability to discover,
nurture and sell new artists. He would later shepherd
the progrockers Van der Graaf Generator and Rick
Wakeman of Yes (soon to be a Bowie studio
musician). He is also responsible for the film All This
and World War II, a montage of World War II stock
footage scored with Beatles covers. This sounded
like a good idea to Lou Reizner. David Bowie did
not. Reizner, who eventually permitted Bowie to
become a Mercury artist, died of cancer in 1977 at
just forty-three.
Hermione might not have known about Calvin
Mark Lee explicitly, but she could sense that Bowie’s
attractiveness was starting to infringe on their idyllic
hippie home (in addition to allegedly dealing with
Kenneth Pitt’s attentions, Bowie was embroiled in a
love triangle with Kemp and Natasha Korniloff as
well, one that ended with Kemp slashing his wrists in
a suicide attempt). Those who knew David well, like
Hutchinson, may have worried privately that at heart
Bowie was simply too wild for Hermione, his
“English rose.”
“I think they were a really nice match for each
other,” Hutchinson says, “but I guess I would have
said that it wouldn’t have lasted. David was still very