She’s the ex-hairdresser who turned Bowie into Ziggy Stardust, then set off around the world in his entourage. Ronson relives those wild days – and recalls seeing a darker side of David
One Saturday morning early in the summer of 1971, Suzi Ronson was busy at work at the Evelyn Paget hair salon on Beckenham High Street when a couple walked past pushing a pram. The woman was wearing black jeans and a furry jacket, the man was in a flowing gold midi dress. “Everybody rushed out to have a look,” recalls Ronson, who then went by her maiden name Fussey. “Everyone was like nudging, poking each other, asking, ‘Who’s that?’ Then someone whispered, ‘It’s David Bowie.’”
Ronson had vaguely heard of Bowie: the success of his Space Oddity single had made him a local celebrity and the singer’s mother was a client. But she recalls: “He was in an arty clique, not my world.” However Ronson would end up becoming part of Bowie’s world, the only working woman in his touring party – as her new memoir Me and Mr Jones relates.
