This is Fresh Air, I'm Tanya Mosley.

50 years ago, David Bowie retired his alter-ego Ziggy Stardust live on stage

to a stunned audience in bandmates.

Everybody.

This is me.

The one of the greatest tours of our life, we really...

Of all the shows on this tour, this particular show will remain with us the longest.

Because...

Not only is it the last show of the tour, but it's the last show that we'll ever do.

That moment and the entire performance was captured by documentary filmmaker D.A. Pinabaker.

Now that film, Ziggy Stardust and the spiders from Mars, along with the soundtrack,

had been restored and reissued as part of a 50th anniversary edition.

Ziggy was one of Bowie's early gender-bending alter-ego's,

mixing androgyny and science fiction.

He wore elaborate eye makeup and lipstick and dyed his hair red.

But even before Ziggy, Bowie had become an icon of glam rock after posing on the cover

of his 1970 album, The Man Who Sold the World, wearing a gown in makeup.

Bowie died in 2016 of cancer, just after his 69th birthday.

He had a genius for reinventing his sound and his image.

His best-selling music was a mix of funk, dance, and electronic,

with influences of cabaret and jazz.

Here's the title track from the new 50th anniversary restored version of the film.

...