Tuesday 3rd July 1973 – Café Royal, Regent Street, London
What was Ziggy’s Last Supper?
Tuesday, the 3rd of July 1973 was a day which David Bowie and MainMan had been planning for some time. He’d arrived at London’s Hammersmith Odeon to be greeted by an army of devotees, all keen to glimpse their hero on the last date of the current Ziggy Stardust tour. Scuttling around backstage were celebrities, film crews, journalists and musicians, all doing their thing whilst drinking in an atmosphere which promised that something exciting was about to happen. By the end of the show, Bowie had stunned his audience, fired the band with a grin and sped away into a London night which wasn’t yet over. It was time for Ziggy’s Last Supper.
Bowie’s management worked overtime to pack out the Café Royal with guests, celebrities, VIPS, and photographers to capture Ziggy’s demise. The brutal madness of the ’73 tour had been to fuel this night, therefore MainMan had spent every expense to magnify the opulence of the occasion. Exactly whose expense MainMan has tapped was less clear, but it’s important to remember that this party was about the business of being seen and being seen to be seen.
Why was Ziggy’s Last Supper important?
The unsubtle subtext was that this was Bowie’s coronation. Gaining recognition from his peers that after years of failure, restarts and re-launches, he was now the number 1 star in the UK. The photograph that we’re interested in was a carefully stage-managed shot, designed to sell Bowie’s legend in the press. It guaranteed this day would get media coverage. The last concert would probably have been enough, but throw in the shock retirement announcement, a hot guest list and a stack of celebrity snapshots, then it became a certainty that Bowie would be all anyone talked about the next day. Which was fortunate because Ziggy Stardust and MainMan existed for luxury, stardom and rock n roll, yet to maintain the mythical facade, it was burning through cash, contracts and cocaine at levels unheard of within the decadent realm of glam-rock. RCA Records was getting twitchy about money. To calm the nerves, and fund the future, Mainman needed to prove that Bowie was the next global superstar. Ziggy’s Last Supper did just that.
Who is in the photograph?
Typically, the stars of the day are surrounding Bowie. The composition excludes it from being a candid shot and therefore it’s one of a set, taken by different photographers, revealing laughs, giggles and good times. It’s the 1970s version of a red-carpet or lobby shot. Something which is a staged PR shot, a photograph of contractual obligation, perhaps. Let’s go through who is there.
| Bottom Row (From Left) | Top Row (From Right) |
| Maureen Starkey – Wife of Ringo Starr. | Edgar Broughton – Musician |
| Mick Ronson – Lead guitar of Spiders From Mars | Bianca Jagger – Model & wife of Mick Jagger |
| Lulu – Singer | David Bowie – No idea what happened to this guy… |
| Jeff Beck – Musician | Angela Bowie – Wife of David Bowie |
| Celia Hammond – Girlfriend of Jeff Beck | Bowie’s Mystery Guest – This is why we’re here |
| Ringo Starr – Musician and husband of Maureen Starkey |
Who’s that man?
This photo is iconic because it’s packed with 1970s celebrity, and one unknown bloke that no-one has a clue who he is, or how he got there.
This night was about maximising Bowie’s exposure and true to form, access to him was carefully controlled. Somehow, Bowie’s Mystery Guest ducked the security, grabbed a glass of fizz and dropped himself onto the top row next to Mrs Bowie. It’s an audacious maneuver, and to my mind, there are only three possibilities:
- Firstly, he was a guest of someone in the photo.
- Or perhaps Mainman thought he was someone else (see suspects). My research clarifies that they don’t know who he was.
- Finally, he was a guest at the party. Invited by someone for some reason, jumping into frame as the cameras came out.
If he was a guest of someone in the shot, the obvious suspects would be the singletons in the photo, Edgar Broughton or Lulu. Edgar has told me he doesn’t know who it is.
The identity of Bowie’s Mystery Guest has never been verified. Tim Buckley, Elliott Gould, Cat Stephens, Ossie Clark and Bowie’s best mate, Geoff MacCormack are the names normally thrown around. Thankfully, we’ve eliminated these gentlemen as suspects, but the mystery man’s identity remains unknown.
