PHOTOGRAPHY BY GETTY IMAGES; SPLASH NEWS; INSTAR.216 marieclaire.com.au
He loved the limelight, and understood
the power of the complete glam-rock-
god persona. He dressed in clownish
outfits by hip London tailor Tommy
Roberts, and gave pointedly controver-
sial interviews. In October 1976, John
famously proclaimed, “There’s nothing
wrong with going to bed with somebody
of your own sex.”
Taupin, in contrast, liked to stay in
the background. (“I couldn’t live [John’s]
life. I would rather drill myself in the
head with a nail gun than do what he
does,” he told Rolling Stone years later).
It was John, the flamboyant frontman,
who would become the legend.
Elton John, always larger than life.
Star of the 1997 doco Tantrums &
Tiaras, who once called his mate Ma-
donna a “fucking fairground stripper”
when they fell out. Friend of Diana,
Princess of Wales, and Gianni Versace.
Famed party-thrower.
Serial award winner
(he has five Grammys
and one Oscar). AIDS
awareness campaigner
and fundraiser. And
gay dad – John married
long-time partner David Furnish in
December 2014, the same month it be-
came possible in the UK to convert civil
partnerships into marriages, and the
couple has two sons (six-year-old Zach-
ary and four-year-old Elijah were born
to a surrogate mother in California).unaffectionate. In an inter-
view with Playboy maga-
zi ne, he described their rela-
tionship as “pure hate”. “I
always wanted my dad to
hug me and tell me he loved
me,” he told the Express
newspaper in 2011. “He
didn’t, but he loved me in his
own way. I now think that
maybe my relationship with
my dad, which I spent so
many years being angry
about, is the thing that actu-
ally made me successful.”
At the Royal Academy,
John played classical music
but was “always pop mad”.
To look more like rock’n’roll
idol Buddy Holly, he took to
wearing glasses, even
though he didn’t need them.
The teenaged John began
playing pub gigs to save up
for an electric keyboard, and left school
before his final exams. John had a
dream, and it had nothing to do with
the RAF or some stuffy office job.
He auditioned for rock bands
relentlessly. When he turned up at Lib-
erty Records, answering an ad in NME,
he hoped they’d hire him as a solo artist,
but instead they teamed him up with
Taupin and suggested the pair try to
write hits for other people. There were
brushes with greatness – in 1969 John
played piano on The Hollies’ track “He
Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother” – but it
wasn’t enough. The dream was not
about making other artists look good.
His breakthrough came in 1970
with a self-titled solo record in collabo-
ration with Taupin. One of the singles
was “Your Song”. They were called “the
most inventive team of songwriters
since Lennon & McCartney” by the Brit-The man we all
know as Elton John was
born Reginald Kenneth
Dwight in the outer
London suburb of Pin-
ner on March 25, 1947.
His parents were young
but, like many others,
they’d had to grow up
fast during the war. New
father Stanley Dwight,
22, was in the Royal Air
Force. Sheila, 21, was a
housewife.
Stanley Dwight was musical; he
played the trumpet, so perhaps it wasn’t
surprising when his four-year-old boy
showed a precocious talent for the
piano. At first, John taught himself, but
was soon polishing his skills with pro-
fessional lessons. By the age of 11, he had
won a scholarship to attend the Royal
Academy of Music.
The young John
found solace in piano
while the atmosphere at
home in Pinner became
increasingly tense. In
the unauthorised 2012
biography Elton John, Jean-Pierre Hom-
bach describes Stanley as “uninterested
in his son and often physically absent”.
When Stanley was home, he and Sheila
had “terrible arguments”. In 1962, when
John was 15, his parents divorced.
John saw his father as critical andJohn (left, in London
in 1969) and lyricist
Bernie Taupin (below
left, with John in
California in 1973)
forged a hugely
successful and
enduring songwriting
partnership.From top: with Madonna
and Donatella Versace
in 2008; rocking out in
1974; making history
with Princess Diana and
George Michael at Live
Aid at Wembley in 1985.“[Having
children] was the
greatest decision
I’ve made”