All language subtitles for Fame.2022.1080p.WEBRip.x264.AAC-[YTS.GG - YTS.BZ]

[gentle acoustic rock music]

Downloaded from
YTS.BZ

♪ I could have loved you,
girl, like a planet ♪

Official YIFY movies site:
YTS.BZ

- [Narrator] Marc Bolan was
an enigma within an enigma,

a man who only
existed to be a star.

- He did precisely what
he said he would do

and became a star.

Marc probably wrote
his own epitaph.

He danced right out of the
womb and into the tomb.

- [Narrator] Many have claimed
to know the real Marc Bolan

but it's doubtful if
Bolan himself had any idea

of where his true identity lay.

- There was a real Marc Bolan,

but it was unreal.

- [Narrator] Here, we
tell the Marc Bolan story

with new insight from
his closest friends.

It's the story of a man who
was obsessed with being a star

and dreamed of one
day being an icon.

- Marc had always said he
would never make it to 30.

He always wanted to
be Elvis Presley,

James Dean, or whatever.

He kind of got his wish.

He kind of got what he wanted.

♪ Really doesn't matter at all ♪

♪ No, it really
doesn't matter at all ♪

♪ Life's a gas ♪

- [Narrator] In 1971,
Marc Bolan, a Tolkien elf,

exploded onto the pop scene.

♪ She's my woman of gold ♪

♪ And she's not
very old, aha-ha ♪

Strewing it with sequins
and sparkling flash.

♪ She's my woman of gold ♪

♪ And she's not very old, ♪

♪ Aha-ha ♪

♪ Ooh ♪

The androgynous elf
with the rosewood mouth

had become the
Lurex-clad glitter god
pioneer of glam rock.

Hit followed hit with
the inevitability

of night following day.

Bolan shimmered and glittered.

He wore velvet and gold
lame, skin-tight satins,

tap shoes, and silver
stars under his eyes.

♪ 'Cause you're mine ♪

For the first time
since Beatlemania,

and never again since,
young girls swooned,

fainted, and wept at
the sight of Marc Bolan,

the swaggering pop idol.

The press dubbed it T. Rextacy.

♪ You're so fine ♪

♪ I want you all and
everything just to be mine ♪

♪ 'Cause you're my girl ♪

- The minute he came on stage,

it would be screaming like
The Beatles in the early days,

only more so.

They were just passing
out, throwing things.

The worst part was at
the end of the gig,

was trying to get
out of the venue.

That became almost impossible.

[crowd screams]

- I was with Marc. I
always traveled with Marc.

Marc was quite a
bit shorter than me

and the girls were
after locks of his hair,

and so they come armed with
scissors, pairs of scissors.

And we came out, and all of a
sudden at exactly my eye level

are all these scissors
trying to get at you.

And they were
ripping clothes off.

And I thought I was gonna
have my eyes out, actually.

We were then being pushed
through into the car.

It was exhilarating and
scary both at the same time.

And I was looking
at Marc over there,

and he was wearing this sort
of big boa feather thing

and he was so loving it.

I mean, this was what
he'd been waiting for

for God knows how many years.

♪ I'll call you Jaguar ♪

♪ If I may be so bold ♪

♪ 'Cause you're my baby ♪

[upbeat rock music]
[crowd screaming]

♪ You're my love ♪

It was 12, 13, 14,
15-year-old girls

and the other indelicate
aspect of all of this

is you going out
into the auditorium

after T. Rex had come off
stage at the end of the concert

and there was this
overpowering smell of urine

because so many of the girls

had wet themselves
in their excitement.

[crowd screams]

- I used to be a toilet cleaner

and every job's got its perks,

and on Sunday they'd give
me a torch and a uniform,

I'd show the fans to the
seats for the rock concerts.

But then T. Rex came along
and it was just incredible

because part of my job
was to stop the fans

running down to the
front of the stage,

but, of course, 2,000 screaming
girls just trampled over

and sort of ended
up with a front.

And I thought, "Blimey,
here I am a toilet cleaner

"and he's got 2,000
screaming girls after him."

So he had the job that I wanted.

I went out the next day
and bought a guitar.

♪ Just a Jeepster
for your love ♪

[crowd screaming]

- [Marc] All right!

[upbeat rock and roll music]

- [Narrator] From childhood,

Marc Feld, as he was christened,

always believed that
he would be famous.

He said, "I was always a star,

"even if it meant being a star

"of just three
streets in Hackney."

- He was like their local
star. He had charisma.

He would walk around Stamford
Hill to the ship house,

or down around Clapton
Common, or up at Manor House,

or just stand by the bus stop.

- [Steve] Marc came out posing.

He was born a star,
you have to see that.

- When you saw him, you
couldn't take your eyes off him.

Had monster charisma.

Wonderful, wonderful!

- He was always saying,
"I'm gonna be famous."

And looking back on it, he
was destined to be famous.

He had come to school in
brightly colored luminous socks

and jeans and stuff like that,

even at that early
age, you know, 10.

Used to have a guitar
in them early days.

And he'd stand in a
corner of the playground,

strumming the guitar.

- He really had a disturbing
sense of self-belief

in his own destiny.

I mean, it really was
actually quite frightening.

I mean, he always said,
"I am going to be a star."

And apparently, when
he was at school,

he used to pretty much get
into trouble for the same thing

because he saw no point
in real formal education

because he believed quite firmly

that he was going
to be a superstar.

- [Narrator] As a 14-year-old
model obsessed with style,

Marc swaggered around Soho

with his fellow
mod, Jeff Dexter.

- The best thing would be to
have a few very sharp suits

and a very well collared shirt,

and all your accessories
had to match and fit in.

The whole idea was to look as
smart as you possibly could.

- His style was tremendous.

When he was 14, he looked
like the charisma with oozing!

Monster oozing out of
him. He was always a star.

- [laughing] The attitude
was to be cool, I think.

I don't know if we
really were cool,

'cause we were both midgets.

I suppose we were
both really amusing,

thinking about it now.

But we thought we were
cool. We were both small.

We probably felt we were
bigger than Woolworths.

We had more front the
more than Woolworths.

- [Narrator] The teenage Marc
Bolan started to hang out

at the in music venues, telling
everyone who would listen

he was heading for the big time.

- He used to come up to the pub

above Leicester
Square Tube Station

called the Brew Master,

where a lot of us music
hacks used to hang out

and he would come in
there and sell himself.

"Yeah, I'm gonna be
bigger than Elvis.

"And I'm gonna be
bigger than anybody.

"Bigger than Cliff, bigger
than The Beatles," you know?

And we'd all go, "Yes, yes, yes.

"Sit down, Marc.
There's a good boy.

"When you're old enough to
buy a drink, come back again."

Nobody was really
kind of rude to him

but we were a
little patronizing.

I mean, we were drinking
with people like The Who

and The Hollies

and the major sort of bands
of that time up at the bar,

and there was this
little chap coming in

telling us all he was gonna
be bigger than all of them.

[laughs] Please, you know?

So, we were hardly
encouraging, I suppose.

[upbeat rock music]

- [Narrator] Marc
first dipped his toe

in the water of
the music business

with a short-lived band
called John's Children.

- [laughing] John's Children

were all about being outrageous.

And they all wore
white suits on stage

and they had gold chains
around their necks.

And they whipped each
other with silver whips,

lots of flagellation
scenes. [laughing]

And they wrote some
outrageously strange songs

like "Thomas A Becket,"
which was all about murder,

and "Desdemona."

And Marc wrote them a little
song called "Testimony,"

I think it was called,
which he always said

was the filthiest
song he ever wrote.

He was quite proud of that
fact. And the BBC banned it.

And shortly afterwards,

I think he thought it was
time to leave John's Children.

[upbeat folk-pop music]

♪ Hey, Mr. Tambourine
Man, play a song for me ♪

♪ I'm not sleepy ♪

And at that time,
in the early '60s,

the biggest thing on
the scene was Bob Dylan,

and the hippie movement,
the peace and love thing

was beginning to gain force.

♪ In the jingle jangle mornin'
I'll come followin' you ♪

- The key mantra elements
were peace and love.

This was the generation that
now was gonna change the world

sexually, politically,
financially.

The music was very
important part

of the development of this
concept of everything's great.

You love your fellow man.

Right in the middle
of the Summer of Love,

The Beatles brought out
"All You Need is Love."

Everybody was taking drugs,

wearing very, very colorful
clothes, growing their hair.

- Marc tuned into
it very quickly.

He was very quick at
picking up vibrations

and feelings of the time.

The winds of change he
sniffed very quickly.

And consequently, he
put together this band

which originally was five
people, Tyrannosaurus Rex,

and then, either
for economic reasons

or simply because
the band didn't work,

they whittled it down to two,

just he and Steve Peregrin Took.

- Marc transformed
from quite a sort of

angular mod image in '64, '65,

to this much more loose and
rounded 1967 London boy.

Kind of like everybody did.

Just literally grow your hair,

put on nice, loose,
colorful clothes,

and sit cross-legged on the
carpet playing acoustic guitar.

[Marc vocalizing]

- My friends and I
had spent many an hour

sitting cross-legged at
The Greyhound, Croydon

where Tyrannosaurus
Rex would play

and this fay, elfin,
curly-headed Marc

singing, "Desdemona," or
"Debora," you know? [laughs]

♪ De, ba, de, ba, de, ba, da ♪

♪ Deboree, deb, deboree,
deb, de-cha-cha ♪

♪ La, la, la, la, la, la, la ♪

♪ La, la, la, la, la ♪

♪ La, la, la, la, la ♪

- Marc really picked up
on the sound of words

or the intuitive
grasp of something,

rather than really
what it actually meant.

♪ Oh, Debora, oh, Debora ♪

♪ La ♪

♪ La, la, la, la, la, la, la ♪

And I'm not sure that Marc
knew what sense they made

but he liked the
sound of the words

and he produced things
like, "My people were fair

"and had sky in their hair,

"but now they're content to
wear stars on their brows

"and beard of
stars and unicorn."

He loved kind of like
slightly mystical,

magical kind of
things like that.

[bluesy guitar music]

It was very Tolkien-ish.

I mean, he was into
"Lord of the Rings."

Marc loved these kind of
cult books of the period

and he was into Michael
Moorcock and Kahlil Gibran.

"Doors of Perception",
Aldous Huxley, he read

because they heard The
Beatles had read it

and things like that.

♪ Sun, see it run
across the sky ♪

♪ See it cry for you
and no one else ♪

- The finest work he
ever did, in my opinion,

was, to illustrate that
point, was "A Beard of Stars,"

the last album that carried
the Tyrannosaurus Rex moniker,

which ends with him thumping
out eight or nine-minute

Les Paul romp through
"Elemental Child."

You hear that, you see
this rock star in embryo.

[upbeat electric
guitar rock music]

Oh, I took to him immediately.

- [Narrator] Marc
believes Tyrannosaurus Rex

to be the last
outpost of hippiedom.

He presided over
reverential gatherings

of the flower children
who refused to wilt.

When Marc was not performing,
nights were spent at his flat

where poems and
songs were flowing

as liberally as the jasmine
tea and the vegetarian food.

- Every day was a fantastic day.

Very few things...

The only things that got in
our way were being busted

by the police for having a
bit of dope or something.

That was the only thing
that ever got in our way,

but the rest of the time
we've spent being very happy.

We laughed a lot and
we had great times.

- [Narrator] It was now that
the disc jockey John Peel,

who became a close friend,

began to have a huge
influence on Marc's career.

- John was on the radio

and when they closed
down the pirates,

John moved into Radio 1.

John put Marc in front of
everything he ever did,

right up to the time his first
records were properly made.

[upbeat rock music]

♪ Left a good job in the city ♪

- [Narrator] By 1971,
rock music was changing.

The more robust sound
of Led Zeppelin,

Jethro Tull, Humble Pie, and
Creedence Clearwater Revival

was dominating the market,
high energy blues-rock.

♪ Big wheel keep on turnin' ♪

And then came Mungo Jerry,

with the big hit
"In the Summertime,"

broadening the appeal
of a falsetto voice.

♪ In the summertime when
the weather is hot ♪

♪ You can stretch right
up and touch the sky ♪

♪ When the weather's right ♪

♪ You got women, you
got women on your mind ♪

Put the two together,
and out came Marc Bolan.

♪ Ride it on out like a
bird in the sky ways ♪

♪ Ride it on out like
you were a bird ♪

♪ Fly it all out like
an eagle in a sunbeam ♪

♪ Ride it on out like
you were a bird, nice ♪

- We'd been talking about poetry

and what rock and roll
writers there were

that really meant something,

and I remember we
had this conversation

about Chuck Berry
being super pop poet.

♪ They're really
rockin' in Boston ♪

♪ Pittsburgh, PA ♪

♪ Deep in the heart of Texas ♪

♪ And round the 'Frisco Bay ♪

And how simple he made
the words with the rhythm.

And what Marc was doing
with Tyrannosaurus Rex

was a little bit
more complicated.

♪ Sweet Little 16 ♪

♪ Just got to have ♪

♪ About half a million ♪

♪ Famed autographs ♪

The idea was that he
would simplify the rhythm,

made it straight on
four-on-the-floor and simple,

and that's was the creation
of "Ride a White Swan."

♪ Wear a tall hat like a
druid in the old days ♪

♪ Wear a tall hat
and a tattooed gown ♪

♪ Ride a white swan like
the people of the Beltane ♪

♪ Wear your hair long,
babe, you can't go wrong ♪

That was the first breakthrough
to become the new T. Rex,

as opposed to Tyrannosaurus Rex.

[upbeat electric guitar music]

- [Narrator] Marc Bolan
was about to be transformed

from a hippie troubadour
to a swaggering, pop idol.

Tired of his rug
and his joss stick,

Marc Bolan plugged in his guitar

and reached for the cocaine.

♪ Well, she ain't no witch ♪

♪ And I love the way
she twitch, aha-ha ♪

♪ Aha-ha ♪

♪ Ooh ♪

Now Bolan was treated like
a king wherever he went

and he was bombarded with images
of himself from magazines,

billboards, television,
and T-shirts.

Now Marc Bolan cared
for nothing but the fact

that he was Marc Bolan,
a boy from nowhere

whose genius had been
recognized around the world

and that he could do
exactly what he pleased.

Success had
transformed Marc Bolan

into a man whose
Faustian quest for fame

would rob him of his dignity.

Bolan had been prepared to
sacrifice everything for fame,

even an old friend

- At the time,
John Peel and Marc

had had a breaking of the waves

at the release of "Get It On."

Because John was then
at that point writing

for Disc and Music
Echo, I think it was,

and had reviewed each
of Marc's singles

and had been getting
progressively

less enthusiastic about them,

as Marc just became
more and more commercial

and I think John felt was
beginning to kind of sell-out

and lose his musical integrity
and all of this stuff.

So when "Get It On" came,

and this is now the
full-scale pop-rock record,

John's patience
just sort of ran out

and he just blasted this single.

And it was two things,
Marc was absolutely angry,

but he was also very, very upset

that he just felt let
down by his friend

that he could be so
critical of something

that Marc himself felt was
the best thing he'd ever done.

And that was it, they
just... [clicks fingers]

That was it.

Just, boom, like that,

and they just stopped
talking at that moment.

♪ Get it on ♪

♪ Bang a gong ♪

♪ Get it on ♪

- [Narrator] But as one friend
was left at the wayside,

many others clambered on
board the Bolan bandwagon.

- You know, me, I'm
liking these records

more and more each
one that comes out.

"Get It On" was the peak for me.

But I think, also, "Telegram
Sam" is a fantastic record.

"Metal Guru" was the first one
that I had reservations about

and I still don't think it's
one of the best T. Rex singles.

Subsequently, then, of course,
we did get another run.

And in fact, you look back
now in the T-Rex catalog

and "I Love to Boogie" and
"Children of the Revolution"

and stuff like that
has seriously stood
the test of time.

♪ She ain't no witch and I love
the way she twitch, aha-ha ♪

♪ Aha-ha ♪

♪ Ooh ♪

♪ She ain't no
witch and I love ♪

- [Narrator] By now, Marc
had spawned many imitations,

as glam rock
dominated the charts.

Gary Glitter, Rod
Stewart, Slade,

The Sweet, and most
significantly, David Bowie,

who would feature prominently

in Marc's last few
weeks in the public eye.

♪ La, la, la, la, la, la ♪

- David was a very clever boy.

He was very good at what he did.

Marc was feeling unsure
at certain times,

but although would
never show it.

The rivalry when
they were together,

you could see them sort of
pushing their shoulders forward

like old mods would
have done in a ballroom

or a nightclub,
just to be up-front.

- [Narrator] In 1969,

David Bowie toured with
T. Rex as the opening act.

- Those those two were
like Rod and Elton,

they were the best of friends,
but, you know, bantered.

Marc would wind Bowie up a lot.

Yeah. I don't suppose he
meant it for one second.

- David has never denied it,

but Marc used to tell
this wonderful story

of the two of them being
on the King's Road,

having come out from lunch,

and they were both
world-famous stars,

and a coach pulled up, full
of schoolgirls, [laughs]

who all banged on the
window and screamed at Marc

and didn't know Bowie.

And it wouldn't
surprise me one bit

because the thing about Marc...

You know, you learn if you
don't wanna be recognized,

if you don't want to be
approached in the street,

if you don't wanna be as
approached at airports

or railway stations, wherever
you might be in public,

you learn how to dress down,

you learn how to hide and just
drop your chin as your walk.

There's all kinds of tricks
to prevent being noticed.

Marc wouldn't wanna be missed.

Marc would have the hair,
the satin scarf all around,

and a feather boa and
high heels in the street.

All of the time he was on.

Marc was like Sammy
Davis Jr., you know?

Open the fridge,
they do 20 minutes.

- [Narrator] Marc Bolan
was now the officially

recognized number one
pop star in the UK

and he aimed to keep
himself in the spotlight.

- He was the most
self-publicized individual,

consciously, that I ever met,

and sometimes the
most self-deluded.

But he could make something
out of nothing the whole time

and he loved the spotlight.

He loved being in the spotlight.

- [Eric] Well, he was
a showman, you know?

He was Bruce Forsyth,
in a strange way.

He was an entertainer. He
gave them what they wanted.

- He was a great interview.

Whenever he was interviewed
by any of the press,

even though they knew
he was talking crap,

he could still spin
out such a story,

they would write every
single word of it down,

and they loved it.

He was definitely good value.

- He was a publicist's dream,
actually, to look after

because he was always prepared

to say whatever the journalist
wanted to hear, you know?

"What should we do today, Keith?

"I know, tell him
I've got a gold bed

"that I take on tour with me.

"They loved that one.

"We'd done bisexual.
What about trisexual?"

I never did understand what
he meant by that. [laughing]

- [Narrator] Being and
living the life of a star

was all Marc knew, real
life was a stranger to him.

- He was cack-handed.
He was hopeless.

He had no hand coordination
at all, for instance.

Where I came from, they'd
say he was girly, you know?

The sports boys, the boys
from the football pitch,

and the rugger, the rugger
team would call him girly.

He played guitar
for me at Abbey Road

on one of my last EMI albums

and they had a table tennis
up in the green room at....

Where was it? AIR, London.

There was a table tennis table.

Now, I'm quite good at that.

I come from a family
of sporting types.

Very coordinated men and women.

And, oh, boy, you're talking
about a man who couldn't,

you know... [laughs]

He couldn't play table
tennis. Let's put it that way.

He wasn't a man's man,
in that sense, okay?

But Gloria will tell you,
they went to Monte Carlo

and spent all their money.

She had a great story
about them being in

the five-star flash
hotel in Monte Carlo,

and Marc would buy
all the kit, you know?

He would buy the
very top-of-the-range
whites for tennis.

And the right shorts,
the right top,

and all the right shoes and
socks, the right rackets.

He would have spent on
nothing but the very best.

In case anyone came
past and recognized him,

he would have to
have the very best.

It would have been certainly
very seriously on his mind

when he was purchasing
these things

and she told me how they
bought absolutely everything

for a lot of money and then
get onto the tennis court

and, of course, he
can't hit the ball.

He can't throw it in the
air and whack it. [laughs]

But he had to pose. He
had to have the kit.

He had to look like he
knew what he was doing.

Had to look like that's
what you do in Monte Carlo.

You got this five-star hotel
with tennis courts out there,

go and use them, but
buy the kit first.

"Why not just go
out, Marc, you know?

"Put on a pair of
plimsolls or trainers

"and just see if you can do it."

- What he really loved was
being in that spotlight,

was being famous.

He loved that more
than anything.

To be famous was what he loved.

And if he could be
with famous people,

who were more famous
than he was, even better!

I was looking after the
Rolling Stones at the time,

and I'd got him a backstage
pass to come and see us,

and shortly before the Stones
were due to go on stage

and he insisted on going
into Jagger's dressing room

and saying hello.

And I said, "I don't think
now's the time, Marc,

"'cause he's a bit stressed out.

"You can back after the show."

"No, I'm not sure I'm
gonna be able to stay

"all the way through,
I'll go in now."

And he was a bit
out of it, as well.

Well, anyway, he waltzed
into the dressing room,

shut the door
behind him, [laughs]

and there was this
scream from inside

and this muffled voice saying,
"He's grabbed my balls!"

[laughing] The next
thing that happened

was the two security guards
rushed in, carrying Marc out,

sort of one under each arm with
his feet kicking in the air

and him sort of like saying,

"I didn't realize
they were sacrosanct!

"I didn't realize
they was sacrosanct!"

And every time he came up
to my office after that,

he always asked how golden
balls was. [laughing]

- [Narrator] Marc Bolan
displayed a ruthless streak

that become more and more
apparent as his career took off.

- Well, I think Marc had a
sense of self-preservation,

and if there was
something that he saw

that he's gonna have to do in
order to continue his march

upwards towards that
destiny of being a star,

people would get
dumped along the way,

and people did get
dumped along the way.

♪ Get it on, bang
a gong, get it on ♪

[upbeat rock music]

♪ Get it on, bang
a gong, get it on ♪

- [Narrator] But Marc
Bolan was changing.

- Well, his character changed
because of the mad success.

Everything was written about him

that he was some new
superstar and he believed it.

He believed that he could
do no wrong, basically.

He suddenly believed that
whatever he did was so good

that he didn't have to
think or work at it,

he just thought it
fell out of him.

And it made him very
difficult for lots of people

and, at the same time, lots
of people fell by the wayside

because he was
suddenly a superstar.

- By now, Marc has moved on
to become a different person

from the person that
John and I knew in 1967.

And it was interesting,
too, to watch him

because his weight ballooned
at this period of time,

and it seems to me
that this was symbolic

of his ego getting
bigger and bigger,

so he was sort of ballooning
with the size of his ego.

And he did get into big ego
problems, as we all know,

and became extremely difficult.

The sort of slightly
boastful, but in a joking way,

"Yeah, I know we've sold
millions of records."

Then became it was serious.

"Yeah. We've sold millions
of records," you know?

The emphasis became so
completely different

and then that was it

and I saw very, very little
of Marc from then on.

- A part of the reason for
what I saw as a decline

was his excesses.

He did start drinking too much.

Then there was a period
when he was going out

with Harry Nilsson and
Ringo and Keith Moon.

[laughing] Well, I
mean, that combination

more or less speaks
for itself, doesn't it?

I mean, I think there's only
one left alive, isn't there?

And there was a bit of cocaine
going down, I think, as well.

- It became mad, as
the drink crept in

and the drugs crept in,
people do turn into monsters

and Marc turned into
Elvis Presley on acid.

And well, it wasn't acid,
it was alcohol and cocaine,

that didn't help him at all.

- He knew how to open
a bottle of champagne.

Although, what we
really drank together,

we were terribly,
terribly smashed all
the time, was cognac.

I gave that up. But, I
mean, we did a lot of bad...

We spent our money in a
lot of the wrong ways.

- And if it was
drugs or it was pills

or it was food or drink,

but he was maybe three,
four, five stone overweight.

Monster, monster, monster fat.

- And this is what I was
saying about symbolism.

The symbolic thing of him,

his weight filling
out and everything,

'cause he was getting
bigger and bigger,

there's no doubt about that.

But I think that he just got
swept up with this whole thing

of how big I am,

and, eventually, you're
going, "Hello? I'm here."

And that's a bit
what it was like.

- He was beautiful-looking boy.

He had great friends around him.

He had great management and
he had some fantastic music

but it all turned into
pop trash I'm afraid.

- [Narrator] As
his fame declined

and his records
stayed on the shelves,

Bolan's capacity
for self-publicity

had turned into a
cruel self-delusion.

- The thing about Marc, again,

was his ability
for self-deception.

I mean, he really
could bring himself

to believe in his own publicity.

I think, in a way, some of
that shut him in on him himself

and he began to actually kind of

believe these things were true.

There was one occasion where
my partner, Chris Williams,

was going down to see him

and had rung up to
make arrangements

to meet him at his house,
off the King's Road.

And he said, "Oh, Chris,
you gotta be careful

"if you're coming this morning.

"There are thousands of
fans around the house.

"They nearly tore me
apart when I came in."

And this was one of
the periods in time

when he was going through
a bit of a lull anyway.

And Chris said, "Oh. What
do you want me to do?"

He said, "Well, when
you get down here,

"phone me from the telephone
box across the road,"

there's a red telephone
box just across the road

in the King's Road,

"and I'll open the front door

"and you make a run for it from
the other side of the road."

So Chris dutifully did
as he was told. [laughs]

There wasn't a soul there.

And burst puffing and perspiring
through his front door

and said, "Well,
where are they all?"

He said, "Oh, they're all hiding

"behind that wall over there."

Well, I mean, they weren't.

♪ 20th-century boy ♪

- Marc never believed he
could lose his popularity.

He always thought he was
still the same teenage idol

he was when T. Rextacy
was at its height.

He still believed
there were people

camping outside his
house or the flat,

waiting for him every
minute of the day,

when the whole thing had
already burst and moved on.

He believed that he was
being followed everywhere.

He still thought the fans...

There were always the fans.

Some fans are incredibly loyal

and they'll live with anything,

but the majority
of them had gone.

Marc's magic had actually gone.

[upbeat rock and roll music]

- [Narrator] As Bolan
got fat, Bowie got thin.

Bolan couldn't get a
hit, Bowie took America.

As the hits dried up,
Bolan failed to dry out.

To him, now everything he
did was a stroke of genius.

And surrounded by an
entourage that agreed with him

and fueled by booze and
coke, he was not dissuaded,

even though the following day,

he would not be able to remember

what he recorded
the night before.

By early 1976,

Marc Bolan had been
out of the spotlight

he craved for three years.

In the meantime, pop
music had become stagnant,

a world of glam imposters,

self-indulgent
progressive rockers,

and the insidious disco beat.

[upbeat disco music]

And then along came
the Sex Pistols

with the singer Johnny Rotten,

whose sneering face would
symbolize the punk era,

just as Bolan had
symbolized glam rock.

[heavy punk music]

Ever the chameleon, Bolan
latched onto punk rock

with a mixture of
instinct and opportunism,

and while the punks sneered
and spat at the rock hierarchy,

they took Bolan to their hearts.

It was a mutual
appreciation society

as Marc hailed the new wave

as the children
of the revolution.

- I took him to The Roxy club.

Took him out to
meet all those...

And he had such a great time.

He went for it, after
that, in such a big way.

And then a couple of the
punks were interviewed

and mentioned that
they'd cut their teeth

listening to T. Rex records.

So, suddenly, he had new support

and he could see a new
way of inventing himself.

- Well, most of the people

who ended up in punk groups
in '77 were buying records,

in '71, '72 when T-Rex
were at their peak.

So we all knew this
stuff really well

and it was really
classy kind of pop.

When you buy your
first guitar and that,

you can pick out "Hot Love,"
what, there's three chords?

It's easy. It's a
good little riff.

[upbeat rock and roll music]

♪ She's my woman of gold ♪

♪ She's not very old, aha-ha ♪

Bolan's stuff, it was
fresh and exciting,

and he could really
play a guitar, as well.

Hell of a guitar player.

[upbeat electric guitar music]

- [Narrator] In 1977,
Marc Bolan toured the UK

and took with him The Damned,

one of the more
memorable punk acts.

- I borrowed a shirt,
a T. Rex shirt,

off of Mark Perry who was
writing a punk fanzine

called Sniffin' Glue,

and there was a picture of
me in Sounds wearing it,

and I suppose Marc
must have seen it

and gone, "Okay,
they're the boys I want.

"Get them as my
support act," you know?

♪ Whoo ♪

♪ Wow ♪

[upbeat rock music]

Usually, you have to travel
in a little transit van

and you stay in dodgy B&B
and everything is kind of....

You know, it's a bit of a
tough life, to be quite honest.

But Marc paid for everything.

We traveled on his coach.

We ate at the same dinners
as him and used his PA

and was fantastic to us.

He was really decent.

And he used to give us
little bits of advice

on the tour bus.

We opened and, funnily enough,
a lot of his fans liked us,

and a lot of our
fans liked them.

So the thing really worked,

much better than any
of us thought it would.

And it was nice to play
in front of a bunch

of attractive girls and stuff.

And, of course, it was
my first proper tour.

So we took full advantage of it

and chatted up as many of
Marc's fans as possible.

Which pissed him
off a little bit

because sometimes we'd take
them on the tour bus, you know?

And we thought,
"Oh, we'll a snog

"up the back of the
bus," and everything.

And as soon as I got on
the bus they ran for Marc

and left us behind, you know?

So they didn't wanna
kind of disgusting

old punk rocker, after
all, they wanted Marc.

There you go.

- [Narrator] Marc's
welcome to punk rock

also signaled a massive change
in his health and appearance.

He cleaned up completely.

- He just wandered around
with a tracksuit on.

And while the rest of
us were in the services,

eating greasy fry ups and that,

Marc would be jogging around.

You'd see him. You could
time him by your watch.

"Hey, there goes Marc. Yeah,
he'll be another five seconds."

And he was desperately
trying to get fit, you know?

And he was, he was doing it.

He was off the drink and
drugs and he was looking good.

- He had a big weight
problem, you know?

He was the shape of a
football at one point.

Which he shook off.

I think he knew about it

and he shook off a
lot of the weight.

He would have known, you
know, he wasn't stupid.

You'd look in the
mirror and think,

you know, "The screaming
hoards are growing up

"and if I'm gonna win them back,

"I'm no longer gonna be a
poster on the bedroom wall,

"I have to be making
serious music."

- I just felt that the
original Marc Bolan

was beginning to come back,

and particularly with
the onset of punk

and the way that
Marc really got into

the whole new wave scene,

and also the way
that he was regarded

as something of a hero figure

by the emerging punk generation.

I think Marc was beginning
to stabilize again now

and beginning to
return to the person

that he was when
I first met him.

♪ Sometimes I wonder
what I'm a-gonna do ♪

♪ But there ain't no
cure for the summertime ♪

[upbeat rock music]

- [Jeff] There was no such
second coming in Marc's mind.

He hadn't gone away.

He'd just re-trimmed himself

and things were
gonna be different.

He had a new band, that were
a red hot band, great band.

Things were actually
looking better for him.

- [Narrator] The favorable
notices Marc coveted

began to roll in.

He sensed real success again

and that hunger replaced his
hitherto unquenchable desire

for alcohol and fatty food.

And Bolan's dedication was
soon rewarded by Granada TV.

He was invited to front
a six-part pop show

to go out late in the afternoon.

With a nod towards punk rock,

Marc invited The
Jam, Boomtown Rats,

The Rods, and Generation
X onto the show,

describing Generation
X's singer, Billy Idol,

as almost as pretty as me.

- Billy Idol is supposed to
be as [sniffs] pretty as me.

- [Narrator] The final
episode was broadcast

in the summer of 1977.

- Thank you for goodbye.

And all the boys in the band,
David, everybody for the cash.

You know who they are.

This is a new song.

- [Narrator] And it
featured the great

Marc Bolan-David Bowie rivalry,

for what would become
the final time.

[upbeat rock and roll music]

- Oh, God, yeah, the Marc
Bolan-David Bowie confrontation

on the final TV show that
Muriel Young directed

was absolute chaos.

- That day at the studio

was one of the worst
experiences of our life.

- Bowie's people made
a huge production

about keeping people
away from him.

I'd brought down a huge
contingent of press, [laughs]

ostensibly to see Marc, but
also on the basis, of course,

that David Bowie was
gonna be performing,

and we wanted
press for the show.

- We get back to the studio.

We go to walk
straight into the room

I've been in three days
a week for six weeks,

and this guy puts
his hand up and says,

"Sorry, you can't go in
there. It's closed session."

I said, "Excuse
me? Who are you?"

He said, "I'm stopping anyone
going to see David Bowie."

I said, "Well, you get out
the bloody way right now

"or you're out of here, mate."

I walked straight past
him into the studio.

I walk in and there's this
air and the studio is empty,

apart from Marc and
the band, and David.

And there's two other
people on the other door.

So I go out the side door,
I go to look for Muriel,

and I walked down
the end of the hall

and there's this floor
manager standing on the side

with his kit on, and
there's a group of people,

they're gonna call
out everyone out.

They've been ordered
out of their own studio

by David Bowie's security.

- Then the run-through
itself was chaotic

because people
were arriving late.

The Generation X turned
up without their equipment

and had to borrow
from everybody else.

And Marc was saying,

"If they smash anything
of mine, I'll kill them."

- So this turned into
an incredible row
between everybody.

Once Marc had twigged
what had happened,

the rivalry then really showed.

- Marc was going into his
Cecil B. DeMille routine.

You know, "Why do I
have to do it all?"

You know, "I can't
be the director,

"the producer, the artist,"
and you know. [laughs]

It was very funny
actually. I loved it.

- It was live. It
was going out live.

But there was this incredible
tension in the air.

Anyway, Marc had given
David one of his guitars,

sort of peace offering,

"Okay, we'll just go and
do it, have a good time."

And it was a good show.

[upbeat rock and roll music]

- Because the show
is overrunning

because David and Marc decided
to do a jam at the end of it,

during which Marc
fell off the stage,

much to David Bowie's amusement.

♪ What can I do ♪

- You see at the end of the
show finishes just there

with Marc falling off the stage.

It was a sort of sign of
things to come, I think,

in a strange way.

- [Narrator] 8:00
p.m., Thursday, 15th
of September, 1977,

and Jeff Dexter is checking
out a new punk band

at The Speakeasy Club
in Central London,

where he was expecting to
meet up with Marc, Gloria,

and her brother, Richard Jones.

[people chattering]

The plan had been to go
to Morton's restaurant

and meet up with Marc's manager
Tony Howard and some friends

but then Marc sat
down with a punk band

to give them, first of all,
the benefit of his company,

and later, business advice.

- Money will come.
The money will come.

- And Marc saying, "Well,
I'm going to Morton's.

"I've got to eat something."

So I phoned the head to
Morton's and I told Tony,

"Marc's on his way
now, be careful."

[upbeat rock music]

And I'm afraid I
didn't go to Morton's.

I didn't want to be
in that situation.

And that's the last I
saw of Marc until...

Well, that's the
last I saw of Marc.

[tense music]

- The day of the accident,

Marc was doing the
interview for the BBC

and he ended up
telling his life story,

how he started in the business

and, actually, just told
his whole life story.

So he was really up

and so he suggested that we
stop and have something to eat.

Now, we go into the restaurant,
there are friends there.

One gentleman, he'd known
since they were kids.

And Marc said, "Sing me a song."

I said, "Are you
serious?" He said, "Yeah."

So I got up and I
did a number for him.

And it was just a beautiful,
beautiful evening,

not knowing that that would
be our last evening together.

And we were going home

and

fate wasn't on our side.

- [Narrator] Everyone
left the restaurant

around 4:00 in the morning.

Victoria accepted
Richard's offer

to drive her back to
Marc and Gloria's home.

- [Victoria] Hi.
Where are we going?

- [Narrator] That night Marc
had given the driver time off.

So they drove home in
Gloria Jones' Mini,

with Richard and
Victoria following them.

The journey to
Upper Richmond Road

would usually take around an
hour at that time of night.

[upbeat rock music]

Gloria drove home through
the streets of South London.

♪ You're so sweet ♪

♪ You're so fine ♪

♪ I want you all and
everything just to be mine ♪

♪ 'Cause you're my babe ♪

♪ 'Cause you're my love ♪

The car went over a
small humpback bridge

and that is all
Gloria remembers.

♪ For your love ♪

[woman screams]

Gloria's Mini plowed into a
tree, killing Marc instantly,

and robbing him of a second
taste of fame and fortune.

- The way the car was totaled,
I should have died with him.

In fact, the doctors they
felt, how did I live?

I wasn't told that
a Marc had died.

Richard asked the doctors and
nurses not to let me know.

So, I didn't get to
go to the service.

I wasn't aware of anything.

And Tony came to the
hospital, he and Richard,

and then they told me
that I had lost Marc.

[sparse somber music]

- It's fantastic when
you meet your heroes

and they turn out
to be good people,

and some of my heroes have
turned out to be assholes

and some have been
wonderful human beings.

Marc was a great,
great, great bloke.

- He was a very generous
person, very generous of spirit,

and that's what I
would have cared about.

I loved him. I loved
listening to him.

I knew he'd been
through something

that was an extremely
rare occurrence.

He'd been through something
that very few of us

would ever, ever
experience, you know?

It was Beatlemania
for Bolan, wasn't it?

The friend that I mixed with

was the fellow who
sat cross-legged
singing great poetry,

very strange poetry.

This was the fellow I sat with.

I didn't sit and talk and mix
with the feather boa-wearing,

posing, pouting pop star.

You don't forget
someone like Marc.

And yeah, I was very proud
to have been his pal. Yeah.

♪ I could have loved you,
girl, like a planet ♪

♪ I could have blazed
your love in the sky ♪

- [Narrator] Marc Bolan, whose
songs celebrated the movement

of swans and seagulls,
Jeepsters and Cadillacs,

was still at last.

♪ Life's a gas ♪

- Marc had always said he
would never make it to 30.

[gentle pop-rock music]

- Weird thing is about Marc,

he could sometimes come up
with a little kind of almost

clairvoyant things about in
his own destiny and stuff,

and he always said he
would die young, you know?

- I'd turned 30 the year before

and Marc was about to become 32,

which was, to him, a huge step
and he didn't quite make it.

♪ No, it really
doesn't matter at all ♪

♪ Baby, life's a gas ♪

- He loved these
figures that died young

and made a good corpse.

James Dean, Marilyn Monroe,
Montgomery Clift, you know?

He adored those kinds of
iconic Hollywood figures.

♪ I could have burned
your fate in the sand ♪

- He always wanted to be

Elvis Presley, James
Dean, or whatever.

He kinda got his wish. He
kind of got what he wanted.

- Now, one sees the value
of what Marc was doing

in the early '70s, how
good those records were,

and how much his
influence still resonates.

Look at the number of ads

that use one or other
of Marc's songs.

And even the fact
that Robbie Williams,

on "Top of the Pops"
a year or so ago,

was wearing a T. Rex
"Slider" T-shirt.

Marc always said how great
he was. He always did.

I know that he would
be able to say,

"You see, look, I told you."

♪ But it really
doesn't matter at all ♪

♪ No, it really
doesn't matter at all ♪

♪ Life's a gas ♪

[gentle somber music]