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1st & 2nd prizes in Disc magazine competition (September 1972)

Ziggy Stardust Dolls were a rumoured fan item intended for Christmas 1972 (see "David Bowie: The Elvis of the Seventies") and reportedly four were made up of scraps from original Ziggy costumes and distributed to Bowie PR assistant Cherry Vanilla and a few others for promotional purposes. However, the final "for-sale" products were never made.  The four dolls mentioned above are believed to be the only four Ziggy Stardust dolls ever made, three of which were identical.

On 23 September 1972, Disc magazine ran a competition in which first prize was the Ziggy Stardust Doll seen above.  Second prize were "Starman" skin transfers created by George Underwood.  

While this doll was not the wind-up promotional Ziggy Stardust item planned (but never realised) by Tony DeFries that said "Wham Bam Thank-You Ma'am" - it is still a unique item and amongst the rarest of all Ziggy Stardust memorabilia.  Do you know who won it and where the doll is now?

Disc accompanied the competition with a make-believe interview with Ziggy Stardust:

"Slumped in the corner was Ziggy, a shadow of his former self.  His orange hair had turned white and he looked even skinnier than David Bowie.  "They killed me with love, man", he kept saying.   "Nervous disorder", whispered the Starman.  "He thinks he's being interviewed by the Old Grey Whistle Test - He can only give banal answers and you have to ask banal questions..."

David Bowie holds up a doll at a 1973 concert.
Is it one of the official four Ziggy Dolls or a fan creation thrown onstage?

Trivia: In Ziggy Stardust: The Motion Picture (1983), during the singing of "Watch That Man" - a doll is thrown onto the stage from the audience.  Bowie spots it, bends down and picks it up, waves it at the audience and then puts it on a speaker. But it doesn't appear to be a Ziggy Stardust doll.

---This page last modified: 15 Dec 2018---