On 16th Sept 1977, 29-year-old former T. Rex singer Marc Bolan was killed instantly when the car driven by his girlfriend, Gloria Jones, left the road and hit a tree in Barnes, London.
The couple were on the way to Bolan’s home in Richmond after a night out at a Mayfair restaurant. A local man who witnessed the crash said, “When I arrived a girl was lying on the bonnet and a man with long dark curly hair was stretched out in the road; there was a hell of a mess”.
Marc had become a huge star in the UK, and at some time in the early to mid-’70s, he was probably the ‘biggest’ pop star we had. He achieved that rare thing — he had a massive teenybopper audience, yet secretly the cool guys appreciated how good he really was.
