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Angie Barnett | |
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 Barnett performing in April 2010 | |
| Born | Mary Angela Barnett (1949-09-25)September 25, 1949 (age 75) |
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| Children | 2, includingDuncan Jones |
Mary Angela Barnett (born September 25, 1949), also known asAngie Bowie, is an American model, actress, and journalist. Alongside her ex-husbandDavid Bowie, she influenced theglam rock culture and fashion of the 1970s. She was married to Bowie (whom she assisted in conceptualizing the costumes for theZiggy Stardust stage show) from 1970 until their divorce in 1980. They had one child, the film directorDuncan Jones.
Mary Angela Barnett was born inAyios Dhometios (then inBritish Cyprus)[1] on September 25, 1949, the daughter of Canadian mother Helena Maria Galas Barnett and American father George Milton Barnett. Her father was aU.S. Army colonel who later worked as a mining engineer and ran a mill for theCyprus Mines Corporation.[2] She has a brother who is 16 years older than her. Both of her parents died in 1984.[3][4]
Barnett is of English and Polish descent,[5] was raisedRoman Catholic. She has identified as Cypriot due to the circumstances of her birth and early life, writing in 2000, "I am a Cypriot by disposition. I don't have a passport or Cypriot nationality but my heart is Cypriot, notGreek orTurkish Cypriot, just Cypriot."[6] She was educated in Cyprus, Switzerland, and England (atKingston Polytechnic), then moved to the U.S. to briefly attendConnecticut College until she was expelled after she had an affair with a fellow female student.[7]
During the 1970s, Barnett occasionally appeared as a guest on television talk shows. On November 16, 1973, she appeared onThe Tonight Show, hosted byJohnny Carson.[8][9] She also performed onThe Mike Douglas Show in early 1975.[10]
She auditioned for the title role in the 1974 television movieWonder Woman, withCathy Lee Crosby getting the part.[11][12]Newsweek hypothesized in its February 11, 1974, issue that Angie Bowie lost out to Crosby because of her refusal to wear a bra.[11]
Later in 1975, Bowie bought the television rights to theMarvel Comics charactersBlack Widow andDaredevil, hoping to develop and sell a series featuring the two heroes. She planned to play Black Widow, with actorBen Carruthers as Daredevil. The series failed to secure a studio deal, and it never went beyond the development stage.[13][14]
Bowie was slated to portrayRuth Ellis in a 1979 film that was ultimately never produced. In the 1995 biographyRuth Ellis, My Mother, Ellis's daughter Georgie described herself as "indignant" about the casting, stating that "[Bowie's] credentials for the role seemed to me to be non-existent".[15]
In March 1982, Bowie appeared on the television programThe Old Grey Whistle Test, reciting poetry, whileMick Karn, from the bandJapan, played bass. Her performance was lambasted by the British media.[16]
Bowie appeared as herself in theD.A. Pennebaker concert filmZiggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1973)[17] andGlitter Goddess of Sunset Strip (1991). She also has had credited acting roles in at least four films:Eat the Rich (1987, as Henry's wife),Demented (1994),Deadrockstar (2002, as Bartender) andLa Funcionaria Asesina (The Slayer Bureaucrat, 2009, as Helen Price/Constance).[18]
On January 5, 2016, Bowie appeared onCelebrity Big Brother 17, where she finished in 12th place.[19] On January 10, she was informed off screen of the death of her former husband David Bowie. Although she initially chose to stay in the house, she voluntarily decided to leave on January 19, in part on medical grounds.[20][21]
Angela Bowie has written two autobiographies:Free Spirit (1981, including samples of the author's poetry),[22] as well asBackstage Passes: Life On the Wild Side with David Bowie, published in 1993 and updated in 2000. It detailed her alleged drug-fueled and openlybisexual lifestyle with her former husband and many other well-known musicians.[23][24][25] In 2014, she produced a large book about sex titledPop Sex as well as a book about cats titledCat-Astrophe.[26][27][28] In 2015, she released the bookFancy Footwork: Poetry Collection.
The CD maxi-single "The World Is Changing", with six mixes, including prominent vocal support by Dabonda Simmons, was credited to Angie Bowie with co-composers David Padilla, Morgan Lekcirt, Tom Reich, Jim Durban and D.J. Trance. It appeared in 1996 on New York label Warlock Records (distributed in Europe through Music Avenue on the Nite Blue label).[citation needed] The cover featured a logo of the Bowie name clearly modeled on the one seen on her former husband'sLet's Dance releases. The albumMoon Goddess was released in 2002 on the record label The Electric Label.[29][30]
She sang withSubterraneans vocalist Jude Rawlins on a version of theRolling Stones song"The Last Time", also included on the 2003 Subterraneans albumOrly Flight.[31][32]
Bowie has reinvented herself as a journalist specializing ingender issues. She served as a "roving reporter" for the award winningtransgender anddrag monthly ‘Frock Magazine.’[33][34]
In 2002, she wrote aPocket Essentials book titledBisexuality.[35][36]
She met musicianDavid Bowie in London in 1969, at the age of 19. According to her, they met through their mutual friendship with record executive Calvin Mark Lee.[37] The couple married one year later, on March 19, 1970, at Bromley Register Office in Beckenham Lane, Kent. They had anopen marriage. She stated that they were not in love, and the union was a marriage of convenience. She told theEvening Standard, "We got married so that I could work [to get a permit]. I didn't think it would last and David said, before we got married, 'I'm not really in love with you' and I thought that's probably a good thing."[38] Their sonDuncan Zowie Haywood Jones was born on May 30, 1971. He later preferred to be known as Joe or Joey but has reverted to the name Duncan Jones. After nine years of marriage, Angie and David Bowie separated, and they divorced on February 8, 1980,[39] in Switzerland.[40] In the divorce settlement, she received £500,000, paid in installments, and a 10-year gagging clause. Not wanting to fight over custody, she left their son with David. She stated that David's drug habit had become so out of control that she believed giving him the responsibility of raising their son would stabilize him.[38]
During her marriage, she often accompanied her husband on his international concert tours.[citation needed] He wrote the song "The Prettiest Star", about her.[41] (During a backstage sequence in the concert filmZiggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, David calls Angie by the name Star). After the divorce, Bowie said she was blackballed from the entertainment industry and was so depressed that she considered suicide.[42]
Following her divorce, Angela Barnett had a long-term relationship withpunk musician Drew Blood (born Andrew Lipka); they had a daughter, Stacia Larranna Celeste Lipka (also referred to as Stasha). She later lived in Tucson, Arizona.[29][38]
In 1993, she began a relationship with Michael Gassett, an electrical engineer nearly 20 years her junior.[42] As of 2016 they lived inAcworth, Georgia.[43]
Barnett is estranged from her son Duncan Jones, saying in a 2010 interview that a reconciliation was unlikely.[4][38] She also mentioned the estrangement during her 2016 appearance onCelebrity Big Brother. She previously said that, although she has not seen her son since he was 13, he had been in very brief contact with her daughter Stasha in the early 2000s. "He emailed me and I didn't know what to say. So I put them together. They corresponded for a bit and then that stopped. He is cold, like his father. David cut me off. Zowie, or Duncan, cut me and Stasha off", she said.[44]
When asked byThe Times in 2017 whether she had been in touch with her son since David Bowie's death the year before, she responded "My son? No, why should I be? I'm not interested. It stopped when my father changed his will to not include an educational trust fund for Zowie because David divorced me. When my father did that, I followed precedent. It's over. Nothing. Nothing to do with me."[42] In a 2018 interview for the podcastWTF with Marc Maron, Jones reiterated that they never had reconciled, saying she was a "corrosive person."[45]
Angie Bowie has long claimed to have inspiredThe Rolling Stones' hit song "Angie" from their 1973 albumGoats Head Soup.[46][47][48][49] However, the songwritersMick Jagger andKeith Richards have consistently denied this.[49] In 1993, in the liner notes to the Rolling Stones' compilation albumJump Back: The Best of The Rolling Stones, Richards said that the title was inspired by his newborn daughter, Dandelion Angela.[50] Later, in his 2010 memoirLife, he said that he had chosen the name at random when writing the song and that it "was not about any particular person."[51] According toNME, the lyrics of the song were inspired by Jagger's breakup withMarianne Faithfull.[47]
The fictional character of Mandy, portrayed byToni Collette in the filmVelvet Goldmine, was based upon Bowie.[52][53]
Jagger, it was rumored, had earlier written 'Angie' (Goats Head Soup, 1973) for David Bowie's wife, Angela.
Rumored to be inspired by Angie Bowie, it was actually inspired by Marianne Faithful after her relationship with Jagger collapsed.
"The basic melody and the title were mine...I'd recently had my daughter born, whose name was Angela, and the name was starting to ring around the house. But I'm into writing about my babies. Angie just fitted. I mean, you couldn't sing 'Maureen'...
While I was in the [Vevey drug] clinic, Anita was down the road having our daughter, Angela. Once I came out of the usual trauma, I had a guitar with me and I wrote Angie in an afternoon, sitting in bed, because I could finally move my fingers and put them in the right place again...I just went, 'Angie, Angie'. It was not about any particular person; it was a name, like 'ohhh, Diana'. I didn't know Angela was going to be called Angela when I wrote 'Angie'.
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