A story circulating online, no idea if it's true
David Bowie had gone to a private showing of his 1987 movie Labyrinth. Afterward, he’d have a meet-and-greet with a group of children. He met them and had a ball, but one boy was shy and withdrawn.
So Bowie asked the organizers of the event if he could talk to the boy by himself, seeing as though he was “so shy."
The kid wasn’t actually shy — he was autistic. Bowie told the kid he was also scared, too, of everything. He was, in fact, only able to face other people because of a “magic mask” he would always wear. It just so happened the mask was ‘invisible.’
He gave it to the boy. He then acted rather distressed himself and had to make another magic mask, after which he became calm, too. Bowie and the kid just hung out for thirty minutes, and it was a magical experience.
The boy later said he actually felt more confident after meeting David Bowie and receiving his “magic mask."
Bowie reminded the boy of how ‘everyone is shy and scared sometimes, and we all wear masks’. Not every celebrity as famous as Bowie would take so much time and go through such effort to put an uncomfortable kid at ease at an event.
Puts this pre-fame parable-about-fame film that Bowie made in a different perspective, eh?
I seem to have a memory of being dispatched to review Labyrinth... and that it was absolutely awful. But I have not come across the review anywhere in my cuttings files since then - and don't feel like flicking through copies of Melody Maker from 1987.
Bowie learned about masquerade from mimester Lindsay Kemp, who I was surprised to see pop up playing the role of an art dealer in this film by thesp-loving Ken Russell: Savage Messiah.
He's also in The Wicker Man, playing the landlord of a public house.
This Kemp-concocted fantasia of a TV special, featuring Bowie, is just about worth sitting through.
Another Kemp pupil turned pop star
This was the most famous of his company's productions, I think
