HELLO GOODBYE
Ava Cherry and David Bowie
Creative and personal harmony blossomed in NY. Then managerial tumult and craziness split them asunder.
Stardust memories: Ava Cherry and Bowie during filming of The 1980 Floor Show, Marquee Club, London, October 1973.
Getty, Bob Gruen
HELLO SEPTEMBER 1972
I’d moved to New York. My boyfriend had a hair salon, and he said, “Would you wear your hair short and dye it platinum blonde for the New York Times?” I said, “Yeah! ”
I had this manager, who’d given me this album, The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars by this guy from Britain named David Bowie, and I was just going nuts over it. A month or so later, David was playing the Carnegie Hall. I was friends with Stevie Wonder who was doing the Apollo the same night, and he gave a party afterwards at this really upscale club called Genesis, where I was working. The who’s who of R&B is there, and all of a sudden, my manager comes running over to me and says, “David Bowie’s here, I’m gonna introduce you to him!” I was totally freaked out. He comes over in his electric blue suit and the red Ziggy hair, kisses my hand and he goes, “Very nice to meet you, Ava, I love your hair.”