He's one-half one of the most iconic songwriting duos in rock history, responsible for the lyrics to hits like "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road," "Bennie and the Jets," and "Rocket Man," and yet there are many who barely know his name. Since 1967, Bernie Taupin has been the main, nearly exclusive, musical partner of Elton John, a role newly explored in the Taron Edgerton-led musical Rocketman. Taupin is played by Jamie Bell in this outing and while the script takes few liberties with his details, many never make it to screen.
Here's what to know about the real Bernie Taupin and his life that follows the events of the movie.
He and Elton John met in a Recording Studio.
In the waning months of 1967, a then 17-year-old Bernie Taupin was wandering around a recording studio housed in Dick James’ music publishing offices in London. He was looking for a 20-year-old piano player named Reg Dwight who, upon finding, as he recently recalled to Harper’s Bazaar, was “refreshingly square, chunky with Buddy Holly glasses, and a kind face. More so imperative to my dignity, he is unadorned by embroidery and crushed velvet.” John was, at the time, playing in Long John Baldry’s backing band while also performing on demos. Taupin, from rural Lincolnshire, had dropped out of school several years earlier and was making ends meet via a variety of odd jobs. They were both answering an ad in NME placed by Liberty Records, which had called for new songwriters, as they split from EMI. (Liberty Records did not actually want Taupin and John, but their partnership survived, and they later signed with Dick James Music.)
Rocketman is loyal to the nexus of the two men’s relationship, for the most part. As we see in the film, John has previously been given a stack of songs, almost at random, by an unsigned songwriter after a flubbed audition at DJM. He takes them home and is transfixed. Later, after having already worked on several songs together, they meet at a nondescript diner to make their face-to-face introductions. As was not in the case in real life but was in the motion picture, Reg Dwight has already taken on “Elton John” by this sit down, but the feeling remains true to Taupin’s memory. “I like him tremendously because he’s not condescending,” Taupin said, also to Harper’s Bazaar. “I sense a kindred spirit: We’re outsiders looking for a way in, and I’m willing to play along, Sancho Panza to his Don Quixote. We agree to give it a shot...let’s go tilt some windmills. There’s nervous energy in the air, a feeling of possibility.”
Pop singer Elton John and his lyricist Bernie Taupin (left) pose for a portrait in circa 1971 in London, England.
Together, they wrote some of rock’s most iconic songs.
For the first two years of their partnership, the duo worked as staff songwriters at DJM Records—the same Dick James mentioned above—penning cuts for the likes of Lulu and Roger Cook. (Understandably, this is never explored in the film.) Their first work released under the name Elton John came with John’s 1969 LP Empty Sky, but it was the next year’s self-titled album that earned real attention. Single “Your Song” peaked at No. 7 on the U.K. singles chart and No. 4 in the U.S. What followed was a dizzying flood of music. “Rocket Man,” “Crocodile Rock,” “Daniel,” “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting,” “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” “Bennie and the Jets,” “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me,” “The Bitch is Back,” “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” “Philadelphia Freedom,” “Someone Saved My Life Tonight,” and “Island Girl”—all Top 10 singles in the U.S.; most of them Gold or Platinum in sales—all dropped in the next five years.
But he also wrote for other artists.
Taupin is most famous for the cuts he penned for Sir Elton, but you’ll find his name dotting a few other famous songbooks. Alice Cooper (“From the Inside,” “I Guess We’re All Crazy”), Rod Stewart (“Hard Lesson to Learn,” “I Guess I’ll Always Love You”), Kiki Dee (“The Last Good Man in My Life,” “Lonnie and Josie”), Olivia Newton-John (“The Rumour”), Eric Clapton (“Runaway Train”), Richie Sambora (“Engine 19”), Red Hot Chili Peppers (“Sick Love”), Ringo Starr (“Snookeroo”), and many more have taken his pages into their vocal booths.
Elton John (right) pictured here as best man to his songwriting partner Bernie Taupin. Bernie marries 19 year old American student Maxine Feibelman on Saturday 27th March 1971 at Holy Rood Catholic Church, in Market Rasen, Lincolnshire. Best man Elton wears a white suit embroided with red and yellow roses, and a white silk top hat. All made in Los Angeles, by the same tailer who has designed suits for Elvis Presley.
He has been married four times.
Taupin’s personal life is never explored in Rocketman, but it’s certainly been eventful. Much of the excess in the film comes from John, but Taupin was also living the sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll way during their breakout. When he and John took a break in 1976 following Blue Moves—their only period of separation—Taupin divorced his first wife, Maxine Feibleman and entered treatment. He also relocated to Southern California at this time, where he still lives. He would go on to wed three more times. He was married Toni Lynn Russo for two years beginning in 1979 and Stephanie Haymes for five years beginning in 1993. In 2004 he married his present wife Heather Kidd, with whom he shares two daughters.
And he has enjoyed a multi-media solo career.
In 1980, Taupin released his debut solo record, He Who Rides the Tiger. He followed in 1987 with Tribe and, in 1971, he released a spoken-word LP, which he dubbed Taupin. In 1996, he formed a band called Farm Dogs, who released two albums. In the early ‘90s, the scribe took up painting and, in this decade, he’s embraced sculpture. (He will show his sculptural constructions at an exhibit called “The Artist, The Raconteur, & His Blowtorch,” next month in Los Angeles.) As he says on his website, “My dimensional work is simply the visual extension of what I have spent my life creating through words.” Around the same time he began exploring other creative outlets, he also started competing in weekend horse shows and became a part-owner of a champion bull, Little Yellow Jacket. At his Santa Barbara ranch, he began hosting an annual cutting competition for cowboys. “Here, I'm living my fabulous lifestyle, collecting paintings,” said John in 2013, and Bernie is interested in horses and bull riding and sh*t like that."
