Birth - when and where was David Bowie born?
Family - parents and siblings
Schooling - where did Bowie go to school
Stage Name - what is his real name?
Eyes - what's the deal with Bowie's eyes?
Height - how tall is David Bowie?
Sexuality - is David Bowie gay?
Financial - how much is Bowie worth?
Residences - where does Bowie live?
Contact - how do I get in contact with him?

He had an older step brother, Terry via his mother's previous marriage, who suffered for many years from schizophrenia, and was in and out of mental institutions over the years. Terry committed suicide in 1985. Bowie did not attend the funeral, fearing his presence there would turn it into a media event.

He also has a step sister named Annette on his father's side. The family lost contact with Annette.

He remarried supermodel Iman Abdulmajid (usually known just as "Iman") in 1992. The couple currently have no children.

Reports say that he chose the name Bowie because he liked the name Mick Jagger and wanted a similar "cutting" name. He picked the Texan Jim Bowie (famous for the eponymous Bowie knife) because he wanted to have the name of an American, as he has always been fascinated by America.

As a result, Bowie's left eye now appears to be a different colour to his right eye, appearing either brown or green depending on the ambient light.

Bowie has said in interviews that he wasn't bi-sexual, he was "try-sexual" ("I'd try anything"). Certainly it appears that he experimented with bi-sexuality, particularly in the 1960s and 1970s.

However, it seems that he is now and has always been primarily a heterosexual male.

While he was undoubtedly fleeced by managers early in his career, and may have indeed been almost bankrupt during portions of the early Diamond Dogs tour in 1974, he obviously learned from this experience, and decided to forgo the traditional outside management company. He instead formed his own management company, Isolar Enterprises (see Contact), in the 1980s. This arrangement has allowed him to gain much greater control over his music business.

Although Bowie nearly always refuses to comment on his financial affairs, in 1997, a British business magazine named him the world's richest musician, with an estimated worth of $US900 million (yes, 900 million dollars). If true, this fortune would certainly not be from just his musical releases (since Bowie has never sold in the same huge numbers as other popular artists like the Beatles), but is likely to include savvy financial investments which Bowie has made in fields other than just music.

This garnered much interest on Wall Street, as it was the first time a musician had undertaken such a deal, whereby royalties on an artist's back catalogue are used as 'asset backing' on an issued bond.

Prudential Securities bought all $US55 million of the securities on the day they were issued. In effect, Bowie received $US55 million up front, in return for agreeing to pay back the full amount (plus interest each year) at the end of the bonds' time period. The worth of Bowie's back catalogue was used as "collateral" in the sense that future royalties will go towards paying the interest (and guaranteeing the principal).
When the bonds expire (repaid in full), the royalty rights will revert to Bowie, and he'll be able to sell them all over again.

  Isolar Enterprises
  641 5th Avenue
  New York City, NY 10022
  Phone: (212) 308-9345