When MTV launched in 1981, they didn't have many videos available because most American artists didn't make them (
Devo is a notable exception). Stewart had already made several videos, and he gained significant exposure on the fledgling network.
Stewart had to re-train his voice after having a cancerous lump removed from his throat in 2000. He could not sing for six months, but made a full recovery.
He has a history of blond wives and girlfriends, including Britt Eckland, Alana Hamilton (ex-wife of George Hamilton), Kelly Emberg, Rachel Hunter and Penny Lancaster. He was married to Hamilton, Hunter and Lancaster.
Rod is an excellent soccer player and a famously big supporter of the Glasgow, Scotland football team, Celtic. He would kick a ball into the audience at many of his concerts.
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Marilyn - New York, NY
In 1994 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He skipped the ceremony because an earthquake hit his Los Angeles home three days earlier and he did not want to leave his family.
Rod Stewart once worked at High Gate Cemetery, which is designated on the English Heritage Register of Parks and Garden of Special Historic Interest.
Rod issued his first single in 1964 under his own name - a version of Sonny Boy Williamson's "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl." He went on to join Steampacket (which contained Peter Green, Mick Fleetwood and Brian Auger) in 1965, then the Jeff Beck Group.
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Jon - London, England
He was in a group called Shotgun Express with Peter Green and Mick Fleetwood, who would go on to form Fleetwood Mac.
Stewart and Ron Wood were brought in to the Small Faces in 1969 to replace Steve Marriott, who had just left the band. The Small Faces dropped the "Small" and became the Faces. Ron Wood left to join the Rolling Stones in 1976; Rod Stewart concentrated on his already much more successful solo career.
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Dierk - Hamburg, Germany
His daughter Kimberly is a notable fashion designer and model. She had a daughter, Delilah, with the actor Benicio del Toro in 2011.
He moved to Los Angeles in 1975 to avoid paying taxes in England.
Stewart has eight kids. His first, daughter Sarah, was born in 1963 when Rod was 18. His last, son Aiden, arrived in 2011 when Rod was 65.
In a 2008 Esquire interview, Steven Van Zandt said: "I remember a kid running into band rehearsal one day, in '68 or so, and saying, You're not gonna believe this, but Rod Stewart is white! We said, Get outta here. We didn't believe him. There was just not that many places you could se pictures of people. There wasn't MTV and we never heard any white person sing like that. We knew he was black."
Rod Stewart is a model train enthusiast. At one point he had 1,500 square feet of model railway track set up on the the third floor of his home in Los Angeles, about the size of 10 average bedrooms.
In the late '90s he stopped writing songs, saying he was finished as a lyricist. In 2013 he reneged, releasing an album of original songs - many very personal - called Time.
Rod Stewart got the goosebumps after a private jet carrying him was forced to make an emergency landing in Gothenburg, Sweden with an engine shut down. The problem had been caused by a goose being sucked into one of its two engines. The pop star said: "It was bloody scary. We landed safely amid the unpleasant aroma of a roast goose dinner."
Rod Stewart once had a job as a screen printer designing wallpaper. When his bosses discovered he was color blind, he was laid off.
Rod Stewart's orchestral rework collection You're In My Heart topped the UK albums chart on December 15, 2019. At 74 years and 11 months old, the singer became the oldest male to reach #1 on the tally, taking the accolade from American singer Paul Simon. The oldest female to top the albums chart, Dame Vera Lynn, reached the summit in 2009 with We’ll Meet Again – The Very Best Of Vera Lynn when she was 92.
Stewart's title of the oldest male solo artist to top the chart was short-lived. At 79 years and one month old Bob Dylan became the oldest artist to top the tally when Rough And Rowdy Ways debuted at #1 on the UK album chart dated June 28, 2020.
It takes Rod Stewart just two minutes to style his trademark spiky rooster hair. "Get the hairdryer, put a bit of product in it, dry it upside down to make it all stand up," he told
The Guardian. "Then put a bit of wax on, which didn't exist when I started this haircut, making it stand up using sugar and water."
On November 2, 1965, Stewart was the subject of a 30-minute Rediffusion, London television documentary titled An Easter with Rod. The half-hour program told the viewers about "Rod The Mod," who was belting out R&B tunes in Long John Baldry's band.
