{"id":330772,"date":"2025-12-07T18:02:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T18:02:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/330772\/"},"modified":"2025-12-07T18:02:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T18:02:12","slug":"david-bowie-makes-last-public-appearance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/330772\/","title":{"rendered":"David Bowie Makes Last Public Appearance"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the last months of his life, David Bowie<\/a> appeared frail, but not unhappy. On Dec. 7, 2015 he stepped out in New York City for the opening of his brand new off-Broadway play, Lazarus.<\/p>\n

Lazarus told the story of Thomas Newton, the alien that Bowie had played in\u00a0The Man Who Fell to Earth<\/a>\u00a0back in 1976, and featured both old and new Bowie songs. The production was, as he described to its director\u00a0Ivo van Hove in the show’s early days of formation, “my dream.”<\/p>\n

As production and rehearsals continued, Hove became one of only a few people who knew that Bowie was terminally ill \u2014 the world, including the cast of Lazarus, had no idea the Starman had been diagnosed with liver cancer.<\/p>\n

David Bowie’s Illness Was a Secret<\/p>\n

“None of us knew that he was sick,” actress Sophia Anne Caruso said to NME<\/a> in 2017. “I did wonder because he wasn’t there every day. He was very thin and sat down a lot, but we didn’t think much of it.”<\/p>\n

Naturally, the diagnosis made the making of Lazarus all the more significant\u00a0to Bowie.<\/p>\n

“I felt with David, from day one, a huge urgency to do [this show],” Hove recalled to Rolling Stone<\/a> in 2016. “I wanted to postpone it because of calendar issues. And he said, ‘No, no, we have to make it now, it has to happen.’\u00a0… And that’s what I really admired so much, that the man, at that moment of 68, had such a fire within himself, such a fire and an ambition \u2014 I mean, a real artistic ambition, to make something happen. Because he believed, really, that it was something important.”<\/p>\n

READ MORE:\u00a0Every David Bowie Single Ranked<\/a><\/p>\n

When Lazarus\u00a0opened\u00a0on Dec. 7, 2015 at the New York Theatre Workshop, Bowie was thrilled everything was finally coming to fruition.<\/p>\n

“Well, we were sitting behind the stage together for quite a long time, 15, 20 minutes. And he was excited. He was really excited,” Hove explained. “It was his dream coming true. And he was dreaming of the next [play]. He said, ‘Let’s go for the second one.’ He really loved what he had seen.”<\/p>\n

Watch the ‘Life on Mars’ Scene From ‘Lazarus’ Starring Sophia Anne Caruso and Michael C Hall<\/p>\n

There would, unfortunately, never be a second one. That opening evening would turn out to be Bowie’s very last public appearance. Just over a month later,\u00a0he passed away<\/a> on Jan. 10, 2016, two days after his 69th birthday.<\/p>\n

Lazarus continued, with performances up until Jan. 20. Subsequent productions were held in\u00a0London, Prague and Amsterdam.<\/p>\n

“I think for David Bowie fans, this is his last piece of work and they’re coming to say goodbye to him,” Amy Lennox, another Lazarus actress, said to NME. “This is the final page. When someone iconic passes, people realize what they\u2019ve lost. If anything, I just feel really privileged to be part of this and carrying on his legacy.”<\/p>\n

The Best Song From Every David Bowie Album<\/p>\n

He tried on many personas over his long career, and tested out various styles. Which tracks are the most essential?<\/p>\n

Gallery Credit: Michael Gallucci<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the last months of his life, David Bowie appeared frail, but not unhappy. On Dec. 7, 2015…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":330773,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[24952,49,48,75,341,30745],"class_list":{"0":"post-330772","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-anniversaries","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-music","13":"tag-original-features"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=330772"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330772\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/330773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}