David Bowie

Born David Robert Jones in Brixton, south London. His half-brother Terry introduces him to jazz and Buddhism. A schoolyard fight at 15 permanently dilates his left pupil. One eye appears blue, the other brown.

"Space Oddity" releases five days before the Apollo 11 moon landing. Major Tom, floating helplessly in a tin can. The BBC plays it during its lunar coverage. Bowie goes from obscurity to the British top five in a week.

Ziggy Stardust. The album and the character arrive together. Red mullet hair, kabuki makeup, platform boots, androgyny as performance art. He tells an interviewer he's bisexual. It's 1972. He makes otherness look like the only option worth choosing.

Moves to West Berlin. Records Low and Heroes with Brian Eno in Hansa Studios, 500 yards from the Wall. The Berlin Trilogy. Electronic, ambient, fractured. "Heroes" is about two lovers kissing by the Wall. It becomes an anthem for German reunification twelve years later.

Let's Dance. Produced by Nile Rodgers. The biggest-selling album of his career. "Modern Love," "China Girl," "Let's Dance." He fills stadiums. He's wealthy, mainstream, and bored by it. He spends the next decade trying to get lost again.

Releases Blackstar on his 69th birthday. Dark, jazzy, cryptic. "Look up here, I'm in heaven." He's had liver cancer for 18 months. Nobody outside his inner circle knows.

Dies in New York. Two days after Blackstar. Two days after his birthday. He's turned his own death into a final work of art. 100 million records sold. 26 studio albums. The chameleon goes still.