‘Personally the prospect of immortality does not excite me, but the prospect of being a materialistic idol for four years does,” says Marc Bolan, narrating his own documentary Marc Bolan: Cosmic Dancer (BBC4). Well, actually it’s actor Jamie Bamber talking, but he is using Bolan’s words, extracted from diaries and interviews. It’s a nice touch that gives a personal, almost confessional feel to the film.
Others chip in too. Paul Morley and Bob Harris are a given, because this is a BBC music doc on a Friday night. Plus Simon Napier-Bell and Tony Visconti, who worked with Bolan; Harry Feld, his brother; Toyah Willcox, who worshipped him; Gloria Jones who went out with him and had his son; Danielz, of tribute act T-Rextasy, who pretends to be him; and Mick O’Halloran, who carried and set up gear for him.
Roadie Mick is one of the most telling contributors. He remembers losing his rag with his friend and boss, telling him that success had made him “too effing big-headed for his own good”. Marc’s response was to give Mick an extra fiver a week.
It’s certainly no hagiography. Bolan comes across as hard to love, unless you were actually in love with him, which most people were – including, or especially, himself. He was self-obsessed and narcissistic, and perhaps cynical. But he was also undeniably brilliant, a true original whose influences ranged from Ravi Shankar to JRR Tolkien to Beau Brummell, who rethought what it meant to be a man long before everyone else did, who was almost hypnotically beautiful, and who had a few great songs too. His former publicist puts it well: “It’s easy to underestimate him because he overestimated himself.”
And then he died of course, a fortnight before his 30th birthday, in a Mini, in Barnes – something he foresaw. When Napier-Bell, his manager, warned him of revering James Dean because he might end up dying in a Porsche, Bolan apparently replied: “I’m just tiny, I’d like to die in a Mini.”
Not immortal then, but an idol certainly, just as he wished. And if that’s not enough Marc Bolan for you, on the 40th anniversary of his death, there is another documentary on Sky Arts tonight, with many of the same contributors and also his son, Rolan Bolan.
