Dear Urban Legends:
When I was in junior high school in Huntsville, Alabama, the "story" going around was that David Bowie was really Davy Jones of the Monkees... after he had been in a car wreck and needed extensive plastic surgery! People swore it was true. Is it?
Dear Reader:
All I can tell you is if so, the operation was an unqualified success. Davy may have suffered a little in the cuteness department post-operatively, but hey, he gained about two feet in height, went on to enjoy a successful solo career dressed as a space alien, and, most importantly, acquired the ability to sing.
Of course, some may object that it's impossible that the former Monkee could have been surgically transformed into David Bowie because, well, Davy Jones still makes public appearances as Davy Jones, and still looks exactly like himself (only older).
And that pretty much debunks the rumor, to tell you the truth, but I would still like to draw your attention to one tiny, though poetic, grain of truth buried within. Before he changed his name to David Bowie in the mid-1960s, the Man Who Fell to Earth performed under his given name, which was - you guessed it - David Jones. And he changed it for a perfectly cogent reason, explained as follows in Eyal Perek's David Bowie FAQ:
David Bowie is David Robert Jones, born in Stanfield Road, Brixton, South London, on the 8th of January 1947 to Peggy (whose real name was Margaret) and John (whose real name was Haywood Stenton) Jones. He changed his stage name from Jones to Bowie in 1966 because of the success of Davy Jones on the London stage. That was prior to the success of the Monkees (with Davy Jones).
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