David Bowie • Cracked Actor • BBC Omnibus  Documentary • Directed by Alan Yentob • 1975

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Text from DavidBowie.com:

ALAN YENTOB'S CRACKED ACTOR FILM IS FORTY FIVE TODAY

“I'm just the space cadet...he's the commander…”

Around this time on the evening of Sunday 26th January 1975, Bowie fans were readying themselves for the 10:15pm broadcast of Alan Yentob's fifty minute BBC 1 Cracked Actor documentary, which was part of the Omnibus series.

Forty years later it's almost impossible to calculate just how important that screening was to Bowie-starved fans in the UK.

In America, not only did followers of the man and his music have the Diamond Dogs/Philly Dogs tours, but they also enjoyed TV broadcasts of The 1980 Floor Show, Ziggy Stardust The Motion Picture and The Dick Cavett Show.

After Bowie’s 70s TOTPs appearances and his first proper television interview on Russell Harty Plus in January 1973, there had been little to sate the appetite of the hungry Bowie fan on UK television.

So Cracked Actor came as a very welcome oasis in an otherwise dry spell of Bowie TV.

Filmed in California and Philadelphia during the legendary Diamond Dogs Tour of 1974, it captured Bowie at a transitional stage in his life. The BBC had unique access to Bowie on and off stage, in the recording studio and while travelling. This gave fans a rare glimpse of the private Bowie and it made for compelling viewing.

As with the aforementioned UK TV appearances, Cracked Actor had a profound effect on Bowie fans. It was their first real glimpse of the incredible live presentations that never reached the UK and despite the all-access nature of the documentary, it only added to the Bowie mystique.

Also, like much of the dialogue from The Man Who Fell To Earth the following year (coincidentally it was Cracked Actor that inspired Nicolas Roeg to approach Bowie for the film), many fans would learn parrot-fashion the majority of the one-liners that Bowie uttered throughout: “Bleedin’ wax museum in the middle of the desert...you'd think it would melt” and “I never wanted to be a rock ‘n’ roll star. Honest guv, I wasn‘t even there. But I was, you see, I was there.”

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Credits:

Directed • Alan Yentob
Produced • Carol Bell • Alan Yentob

Starring • David Bowie

Narrated • Alan Yentob
Music • David Bowie
Cinematography • Michael D. Murphy • David Myers
Edited • Tony Woollard
Distributed • British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)

Shot during David Bowie's Diamond Dogs Tour • Universal Amphitheater • September 1975
Originally Broadcast • 27th of January 1975

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