David Bowie’s manager has claimed they “tried and failed” to resurrect Ziggy Stardust for a comeback tour.
The late music icon famously bid farewell to his alien rock star alter ego at his concert at London’s Hammersmith Odeon in 1973.
However, it was always his intention to make a comeback as Ziggy, according to Bowie’s manager Tony Defries, who said they tried to launch a revival tour.
Speaking to MOJO magazine, Defries said: “Basically, I think success wasn’t the ideal situation for David.
“When [1973 album] ‘Aladdin Sane’ was selling enormous quantities and crowds were shutting down railway stations, just to get a glance of him, I think that’s when it all began to sink in, that he was no longer an ordinary person. The Ziggy effect was taking hold and he couldn’t cope with it, really.”
The ‘Life on Mars’ hitmaker was inspired by Frank Sinatra, who had quit music before announcing his return after just two years a few years earlier.
He explained: “David was a big Sinatra fan. Making the comeback is the key thing.”
Defries added: “We tried and failed to get promoters in America to book [a Bowie / Ziggy Stardust comeback tour] into large arenas as a headliner. So, that was a real reason for retiring Ziggy, to be honest with you … nothing to do with music or style or anything else.”
Video games designer Phil Campbell also previously claimed Bowie wanted to relaunch Ziggy in Space.
The pair worked together on the 1999 game ‘Omikron: The Nomad Soul’, which Bowie scored.
Speaking to The Mirror in 2020, Campbell said: “We talked about buying up a bunch of old satellites that were circling the Earth and he was going to relaunch Ziggy from space.
“The idea was that Ziggy would beam us transmissions – ‘Are you receiving me…?’”
Bowie died in 2016 at the age of 69, following a private battle with liver cancer.