When David Bowie was launched into the public eye in the early ‘70s, the music listening public didn’t know what hit them. He was a true space oddity, strutting on stage in shimmering outfits like an alien fresh from an interplanetary rock ‘n’ roll ball. Almost four decades later, rock’s infamous chameleon has reinvented himself and his music so many times, most fans have lost count. From the Technicolor glam of Ziggy Stardust to the Thin White Duke, Bowie has evolved and become no less than a legend to modern pop music.

Born David Jones, he began exploring music and art early in life, forming bands with schoolyard buddies and later discovering mime. In 1969 he released what’s probably his best-known song, “Space Oddity,” about an astronaut who becomes disconnected from ground control, and is left floating through space. The single became a hit in the U.K., and Bowie went on to explore everything from hard rock to lighter, singer-songwriter pop.

But it wasn’t until the creation of Ziggy Stardust, just when glam rock was taking off, that made him a superstar. He crossed over to America, cementing his appeal with a larger-than-life public persona. The ‘70s would prove an endlessly creative decade, filled with ambitious concept albums like Diamond Dogs to the so-called “plastic soul” of Young Americans. Most notably during this period, he released three highly influential, experimental art-rock albums with producer Brian Eno that became known as the Berlin Trilogy: Station to Station, Low and Lodger.

He’s also had a productive career in acting, from a critically acclaimed role as John Merrick in the stage play The Elephant Man to the lead in the 1976 film The Man Who Fell to Earth. Since then he’s taken smaller roles, such as his turn as a vampire in the cult film The Hunger, a scheming goblin king in Labyrinth, or the more recent portrayal as Nikola Tesla in the 2006 film The Prestige.