♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -Elton John has been part of our musical heritage for the last four decades.

[ Cheers and applause ] He's had his ups... -It was his huge, flamboyant persona that sold records, that sold out stadiums.

-...and his very public downs.

-It became quite clear that Elton was addicted to something.

-It set me on the road to near enough ruin.

-He's a performer as famous for his clothes as for his music.

-There's an image in your mind.

You can picture these feathers and bare-chested costume that he was famous for.

-We hear from the man who created some of Elton's most iconic stage outfits.

-Oh, I did this big fur-trimmed cape, which became much, much, much longer.

And a jumpsuit with little peekaboo holes and everything.

And I thought, "Are you sure you want to wear this?"

-Find out more about his trademark accessories... -Spend a bit extra, you can have any amount of diamonds set in.

So all of this can be blinged to your specification.

-...and meet a man who knows the value of everything Elton related.

-I know that for a fact that is a rare poster.

There's not many of those around.

That could go from anywhere from about £80 to £200.

-This is the changing face of one of the world's most famous and most flamboyant pop stars.

♪♪ ♪♪ In 1947, in a suburb of London, Reginald Kenneth Dwight was born to Sheila and Stanley Dwight, the piano-playing, music-mad Reggie hit his teenage years in the 1960s.

-He was a very ordinary-looking, quite pudgy teenage boy who wore glasses and was very, very shy and self-effacing.

And he didn't look anything like what would be a sort of pop megastar.

He was in a band called Bluesology that, you can tell from its name, was rather serious in intention.

♪♪ -It may have been serious in intention, but it didn't have any serious success.

And when he was 18, Reggie found himself working for a publisher at the heart of London's music industry in Denmark Street.

-It was a little street where music publishers had their offices, some agents, but also musical instrument shops and a coffee bar where agents and impresarios used to meet.

But it did feel like he was in the -- in the swim of the music business, such as it was.

-It also gave him access to recording studios and a chance to carry on making music.

-But the other thing about him that he firmly believed -- and still believes -- is that he can't write song lyrics.

-But a stroke of good luck saw both Reggie and a young lyricist replying to an advert in a music magazine, and a friendship was forged.

-Bernie Taupin actually used to stay at Elton's mother's flat in Pinner, and they would share a room.

They shared little boys bunk beds in the room.

They would sit and write songs in the bedroom there.

Or, in fact, "Your Song" was written at the kitchen table in Elton's mother's flat.

-The music-loving Reggie was inching closer to his dream of stardom.

But first, there was something that had to go.

-You couldn't really, I guess, be Reginald Dwight.

It doesn't quite have a ring to it.

-He felt that Reg Dwight really did sound like a working-class British name, and he wanted to find a name, which he took from two of his friends, Elton Dean and John Baldry, so that he could put those together and be much more commercially successful.

-So sometimes when people call him Elton in the street, he wouldn't turn around because he wasn't accustomed to it because he was still Reg, although I don't call him Reg because I never knew him as Reg.

There are people who will try to call him Reg, pretending they knew him, but they didn't, which is stupid, and he's not Reg.

-Less easy to change was his stocky build and his love of food.

-He wasn't particularly greedy.

He just put on weight.

if he looked at a cream doughnut, you know, and always resented that very much.

But you don't ever get slim for good if you're like that.

And bits of him never could be slim, like his little stumpy legs and his little stumpy hands.

-They're not pianist hands.

That's why I was never gonna be a classical pianist, nor did I want to be.

But, you know, to be a wonderful classical pianist, you really do have to have long fingers.

-There was no way, looking at Elton at that time, or indeed almost subsequently, that he looks like our clichéd image of what a global superstar looks like.

But, you see, his personality made up for it.

He had charisma.

So, in that sense, he was a potential star.

-That same year, in 1967, the pair were snapped up by music mogul Dick James.

After a couple of years with minimal success in the U.K.

and as virtual unknowns in the USA, Dick sent Elton to the States to do a few low-key gigs, one at Los Angeles' famous Troubadour club.

-He got an amazing review at the Troubadour by one of the main American pop critics who really just said, "This is the shape of music to come."

-The whole thing just took off.

It's just a small club in L.A., but, you know, the waves rippled outwards, and from then on, he was set.

-It rippled right across the country and hit New York when Elton played one landmark gig there.

-November 17th, 1970.

He was going to record a live album at a studio, A&R records, on 46th Street, I think.

So this big studio was jammed with people, and then Elton sat down at the piano, and it was mesmerizing.

I mean, I still think of it now how I was so lucky to have been there.

The whole rock press was there.

A lot of journalists, a lot of people from the music business.

And that was the night that everybody thought, "This man is a star.

This man is spectacular."

-At breakneck speed, Elton John became a household name in the States.

Radio stations were dedicated to him, and his tours were instant sell-outs.

-You have to remember that, in the '70s, most of his major success and his huge revenue flows came from America.

In Britain, he was seen very much as a serious musician, and he could get away with toning down his image in the UK.

But in the U.S.

particularly and the rest of the world, it was his huge, flamboyant persona that sold records, that sold out stadiums.

-By the end of 1974, he had 10 top-ten singles in the U.S.

and was riding high.

At the peak of his fame, the stage shows and stage outfits got ever more outrageous.

-Elton John was a circus performer.

He came on with specs this big, you know, hot pants, but not the way that Liberace looked ridiculous in hot pants.

Elton John was going, "I do look ridiculous in hot pants, and I'm having fun."

-You say to someone "Elton John glasses" or an Elton John costume, they know immediately what you're talking about.

You know, he -- there's an image in your mind.

You can picture these feathers and bare-chested costume that he was famous for.

-There was this thing, glitter rock or glam rock, and people started to dress funny.

And he wasn't the only one, except he took it to a greater extreme.

-In a funny way, he kind of wasn't very camp in that sort of camp light-touch way.

He's always been much more burlesque to me.

-Well, I always used to look forward to what new outfit he had because it became a challenge in the end.

You know, you had to take a picture that matched the flamboyance of his outfits.

-He loved playing with the whole flamboyant look.

He loved that, being outrageous.

That was him.

-For someone to make a twit of themselves like that is a uniquely British thing.

Plus, I think he was satirizing the American idea of the big rock star, as well.

-He just had got a lot of fun out of it.

I mean, I don't think he thought what the public are gonna think at all.

♪♪ ♪♪ -Based in Los Angeles, there is a man who is responsible for some of the most outrageous costumes in music-performance history.

-It's sort of my duty to get a reaction from the audience before anybody ever sits down to the piano or opens their mouth to sing or does anything.

You walk out on stage, and the audience is already excited and having a good time, laughing or applauding or whatever.

That's part of the job.

And that's the best part.

-Bob Mackie has been a costume designer to the stars for nearly 50 years.

He is not a man to design clothes that are mundane and modest.

He and Elton were a perfect fit.

-Elton would come in, and we'd do a lot, and then I might not see him for a few years, and then he would show up in California and come by and say, "I need some things," you know?

That was really fun.

I loved that.

It was all vinyl and kind of sculpture.

-Bob began to design for Elton in the mid 1970s, at the peak of his fame, and their working relationship lasted for over a decade.

-So, I did this big fur-trimmed cape, which became much, much, much longer.

And a jumpsuit with little peekaboo holes and everything.

And I thought, "Are you sure you want to wear this?"

A whole mirrored cap that he wore later on with some other things.

It was kind of fun.

A big muscle man brought him up on his shoulders onto the stage and deposited him on the piano.

[ Laughs ] It was -- it was great fun.

And of course he had platform shoes underneath the big bell-bottom pants.

Spandex was very popular at that point.

It was shiny and stretchy and fit, you know, probably too tight.

That was white.

Everybody's costumes were silver and white.

And he had these great huge sequin balls and whatever and a big top hat.

And he looked great.

He really looked great in that.

-In the late 1970s, there was a receding part of Elton that he particularly wanted to hide from the world, and, as ever, Bob was there to help him.

-I don't think I ever did anything without a hat.

Well, there were a couple of times when he was having special, crazy, you know, wigs made, really outrageous wigs made, using them really like hats.

We made him little caps to match everything and caps that he could give away and throw away and wear them once and throw them in the audience or whatever.

That was Donald Duck.

And, of course, he had trouble sitting on the piano bench when he got out there, but he had never tried it until he got out on stage.

But he managed.

-Creating outfits for an energetic musician who can be performing for many hours is a tricky business.

-Some of the ladies, you know, they wear it for one song and then they walk off and they change clothes and come right back again, and another and another and another.

With Elton, he put it on and wear it for the first half of the show, at least.

And sometimes it was the whole concert.

Here's a sort of devil costume.

[ Chuckles ] In '86, we did some wild stuff.

Here, he had a whole -- a whole coat that was covered in sequins, like a clown costume, kind of.

But then he had a little beanie with a propeller on it.

[ Laughs ] And here's another one that we did for him.

Big, great, huge hat with all these crystals and mirrors and feathers.

And, you know, I don't know.

Maybe he wanted to be a showgirl, I don't know.

-It's up for debate whether it was in fact the showgirl in Elton that motivated him or whether it was all done just for fun.

-Going on the stage dressed as Daffy Duck is not camp.

It's funny, and I think it's partly a way of saying, "Turns out, I'm short, a bit squat, and I've not got much hair, but I do fantastic tunes, so I'm gonna make -- I'm gonna make a show."

-It worked.

You know, people enjoyed him.

People enjoyed the look of him.

He probably enjoyed all those feathers and sequins and crazy costumes and seemed to be enjoying himself.

But I suppose there was no way he was going to be a sex symbol.

-He knew that he didn't have movie-star or rock-star looks, and so what he decided to do, which was a very clever thing for him to do, was to get a stage persona that was so outrageous, so flamboyant that it would completely take over his stage presence.

-When he was playing as Elton John, he was, like, bubbling with everything.

I mean, he just became a giant of the stage.

I mean, he was incredible.

[ Cheers and applause ] -There's a leap between being Reg Dwight in the dressing room and being Elton John on stage in front of thousands, if not millions of people.

And the costumes would have helped that metamorphosis for him to become somebody who could fill stadiums, somebody who could hold attention.

-I don't think he was confident in the way he looked.

And maybe that's to do with why he picked these crazy, crazy outfits, you know, to hide behind.

-With Elton, it was always a bit of a send-up.

He never sort of seemed to be taking himself seriously.

He seemed to be dressing absurdly to forestall any criticism, before anyone could say, "This little fat bloke," you know?

-I'm still the young boy from Pinner who was just insecure, a little overweight, and, you know, had a bit of an inferiority complex.

That didn't -- I just showed off on stage.

All entertainers want to do is show off.

-And show off he did in Los Angeles at one of the biggest outdoor stage shows of the '70s.

Over two days in 1975, Elton took over the huge Dodger Stadium.

-Record company rang up and said, "You've got a week free.

Would you like to come to the States?

Everything's paid for."

And, yes.

And so they hired a plane for us, and off we went.

-Everybody from the accountants down to the girls who run the fan club and relations and lawyers and people like that have all come over, and they can't -- they still can't believe they're here.

It's a bit weird to come -- I mean, some of them have been as far as Clacton, you know.

♪♪ -Waiting in the sun for Elton's arrival on stage were 55,000 fans.

♪♪ -I mean, it was that wild, and the whole of Hollywood turned out to see him.

-It's an L.A.

Dodgers outfit.

They sent one down, and Bob Mackie, who makes all of Elton's clothes, made this one up.

-And that was, like, done, like, almost overnight, two or three days before the event.

"Wouldn't it be fun if you had a sequined baseball uniform on?"

I said, "Okay."

-And then he's got this hat to wear with it.

Cute.

-Then you have to run around and try to find fabrics.

There was no time for embroideries or anything.

So it was -- It worked out.

Worked out great.

♪♪ -It was the biggest outdoor concert ever done ever.

And I realized I had to get up on the stage, which you don't actually do with artists.

-And Terry O'Neill took a great photograph of Elton in a baseball suit, rhinestone-encrusted, standing on top of the grand piano, wielding the baseball bat.

♪♪ -Well, I mean, when you're actually behind him, you realize what rock 'n' roll is all about.

I mean, the crowd loved it.

It was a great privilege for me, anyway, to feel, you know -- to sort of stand in his shadow.

♪♪ [ Cheers and applause ] -By the mid 1970s, Elton was at the peak of his fame.

-He has one after another album that go to number one in the album charts in the U.K.

and the U.S.

immediately.

Just a whole run of them.

-We want Elton!

We want Elton!

-He just ruled all the charts, everything.

And his music -- he was the absolute king.

-I now want to present a proclamation which declares this week Elton John Week.

-Put his footsteps and his handprints on the pavement on Hollywood Boulevard.

Every radio station is playing nothing but Elton John music.

-All right!

-There it is.

-And I'm very, very honored, being British, to have my star on Hollywood Boulevard.

♪♪ -Elton was now a huge global superstar and the biggest recording artist in the USA, with an ego and temper to match.

-Reggie's little moments, these funny little tantrums that came from nowhere.

And, of course, the bigger he got, of course, the bigger the tantrums became, and they became -- Well, Elton's little moments were very, very big moments.

-The bad behavior I regret was when I was doing drugs and alcohol, and I couldn't remember the bad behavior 'cause I got up the next day and Bernie Taupin, my lyricist, would ring me up and said, "I'm never coming out with you again if you did what you did last night."

And I said, "What did I do?"

He said, "You don't remember?"

And I said, "No, I don't."

'Cause, you know, you drank so much that I couldn't remember.

It's called a blackout.

-The real Elton was kind of nasty, kind of bitchy.

And the bitch is back.

The bitch never went away.

I mean, he was really -- he was really quite a character.

And as he got more famous and as he got richer, he got meaner.

-You become self-obsessed.

You become, um... Your values completely go out the window.

You know, it's -- you know, you don't like the color of the wallpaper on the plane or the way it's done.

You don't like the color of the furniture in the hotel room.

It's all that absolute nonsense.

-You know, he's always had to struggle with, you know, what he wants.

If something isn't right for him, then it just -- bwaah!

-- it comes out, and it goes like that, and then it's over very quickly.

He can then, in retrospect, look back at himself and laugh, and often does.

-This ability to laugh at himself helped in even his darkest moments, when, in 1975, he tried to kill himself.

-He runs out in front of his family and jumps into the swimming pool, having taken a load of sleeping tablets, screaming, "I want to die!"

When he was fished out of the swimming pool, and, of course, he was rescued and they got the sleeping tablets out of him, he heard his grandma, who was in her 70s at the time, saying very loudly, "I suppose that means we've all got to go home now."

And he found that funny, even in the depth of whatever was sort of affecting him.

-In 1976, during an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Elton talked openly about his sexuality for the first time, though admitting only to being bisexual.

-It was almost seen as something that was kind of quite glamorous.

David Bowie, as well, had come out with a similar expression in an interview round about the same time.

And I think these guys were building a slight enigma to go alongside their stage images.

So, in a sense, that decision that was taken then to come out as bisexual almost helped them commercially.

-His sexuality now in the open, Elton got an offer from an unexpected source -- his favorite football team, Watford.

-They were in all sorts of financial difficulties in the '70s, and they thought, "Well, who's our most rich and famous fan?

", and that was Elton John.

And cleverly, they gave him the gig of being chairman, as well.

They didn't just go to him to ask for money.

It kind of appealed to his flamboyant nature.

-He was taking the whole thing very seriously.

It wasn't something that he wanted just to sort of, you know, sashay in and, "Oh, I'm this and I'm that, and I'm going to decree this and this.

I'm going to buy you that."

It wasn't anything like that.

It was just he really wanted to get in there and graft and just enjoy it and be part of it.

-He did have some really quite difficult times.

You know, he'd appear in the chairman's box and there'd be, you know, homophobic chanting from the crowd.

But he doesn't stand for it.

He just -- "Look, I like football.

I'm here.

I'm the chairman.

I bought the club.

Now, you know, let's all watch football, shall we?"

-Elton's commitment to the job and to the team he loved, in the end, won the fans over.

-The fans started to go, "Oh, actually... Well, we love him now."

And so the chanting changed to sort of being joking as opposed to hostile.

-Elton was now a man in his 30s, and his look reflected a more grown-up style, more befitting of a football boss.

-It made him look authentic again, didn't he?

And we all remember the -- Well, those of us of a certain age remember a chairman turning up in a boater.

-Compared to the show-business side, he was very subdued.

I mean, he was like a chairman.

-In 11 years at Watford, Elton John brought them from fourth to first division, and, in 1984, to the Cup final.

-Watford became his baby, and he got -- got them a real manager and saw them through to Wembley.

And that undoubtedly was one of the great moments of his life.

[ Cheering ] -Elton John bounced out of his white limo, dressed in white, from white tails right up to his white boater.

-There was another potential great moment in Elton's life when, on the 14th of February 1984, he married for the first time, to Renate Blauel.

-The news came out that he was engaged.

I thought, "Oh, my God."

You know, "Who can this be?"

And it said Renate, and I went, "Oh, my God."

Because there was absolutely -- "Oh, my God."

There was absolutely no clue at all.

Renate looked stunning, and Elton was -- he was very much in love with her.

He said, "When I was standing at the altar, and I turned around to look at her," he said, "I've never seen anything more beautiful."

And as he was talking to me, there were tears in his eyes.

He really -- He really loved her.

-And 40 minutes later, Mr.

and Mrs.

Elton John emerged.

Elton told me that the only reason he -- he got married when he did was so he wouldn't disappoint his mother.

-Well, I never found the right person to marry her before, and now I have.

-Maybe he thought, like lots of gay men think, "Well, I can make it work.

I can make this bit of me work.

And if I do make this bit of me work, life will be easier."

Of course, you realize it's not easier.

It's much easier to be truthful.

But at the time, particularly, by his own admission, he wasn't sober.

So he's making all sorts of crazy judgments.

You know, they got married on Valentine's Day, as well, as if to underline it, you know?

Mental.

♪♪ -On this quiet suburban street in a leafy corner of New Jersey lives a normal family of three.

-Ice-skating practice when?

Monday?

-Tuesday morning.

-Tuesday morning.

-But there's another person that looms large in all their lives.

-I've been a fan of Elton's for 36 years, and I've been to probably over 50 shows.

And I thought it was some crazy, outlandish person.

And I thought it was really great that he could dress any way he wants and nobody cared.

♪♪ And then here is my main collection.

♪♪ It's the only room I'm really allowed to display everything.

Over here I have copies of glasses that he has owned.

These pair here are from when he toured in 1986.

These are from nineteen... At the same time, around 1986, also.

These windshield wiper ones, mid-'70s.

These are one of his real pair of glasses.

The only pair that I own that are a real pair of glasses.

They're from around probably 1989 'cause I have a picture of him wearing them in a magazine, and if you put them on... It's very hard to see because his prescription is very bad.

♪♪ -Elton John, he's a singer, and he likes to play the piano.

-He makes normal people feel like, you know, you don't have to be great-looking or best physical shape or whatever, but it's possible you could do that, too.

This is a Bally's Home Edition pinball machine that was put out in the late 1970s.

I got it a few years ago for approximately like $500, and it still works and plays fine.

[ Chuckles ] These are a pair of his real platform shoes.

They're a size 9 1/2, and they do fit me, but kind of tight.

But they do fit.

-It's an investment for the future, anyhow, and he enjoys it.

And, you know, as long as he doesn't go out and buy $50,000 diamond earrings, then we're good.

[ Laughs ] -In the early '70s, when I first started liking him, my parents were going through a divorce.

I didn't have many friends.

So his records and following him, they were my friends.

♪♪ -Now in the mid '80s, the newly married Elton had based his family life in his beloved U.K., but there were dark times ahead at the hands of the tabloids when the Sun newspaper kept printing sordid stories about him that turned out to be completely untrue.

-Hammering and hammering day after day at him.

They could just, you know -- just publish horrible stuff.

-He'd already had 15, 16 years of solid success musically, and I think he'd built up a lot of popularity and a lot of equity with British people.

So when the British paper, The Sun, the tabloid, wanted to write the story about the rent boys, what was extraordinary was there was a backlash, not against Elton John but against the newspaper itself.

-It was during these toughest of times that Elton was forced to admit that his marriage had broken down, and he and Renate were to divorce.

But at least after a year in the courts, his libel case against The Sun was over.

-They got a date wrong.

And on that one mistake, he could have them, and he did have them.

-"I've won.

I've won," he said.

"And it's going to be front page tomorrow.

A big apology, the whole front page."

And he was standing there, and there were tears in his eyes.

I mean, it meant so much to him.

I mean, he went through absolute torture.

-In the U.K.

courts, Elton was awarded £1 million.

Not a trifling amount but small change to a man used to the finer things in life.

Money had always burnt a hole in Elton's pocket.

-At one time, it was estimated he spent £30 million in two years, which worked out to about £1,500,000 a month.

This is a guy who spends, you know, hundreds of thousands on fresh flowers.

He has more cars than he can drive.

He has homes, apartments, flats, palaces all over the world.

This is a guy who doesn't know the meaning of "Maybe I won't buy that today."

♪♪ -He called it looting.

He would go into a -- almost with a supermarket trolley to a place like Cartier and try and fill the trolley in a sort of supermarket sweep in a few minutes.

He said that you could rely on possessions.

They didn't let you down.

-Shopping wasn't just a good-fun pastime for Elton.

It was one of a number of examples of his dangerously addictive personality.

-He went shopping because it was compulsive.

It was just as compulsive as him taking drugs or alcohol or the rest of it.

-This compulsive behavior was manageable when it involved shopping.

It was his addiction to drink and drugs over the last 15 years that had become much more of a problem.

-I thought, being shy, that cocaine, because it made me talk, was the key to -- "I can talk now.

I can be one of the gang.

I can fit in."

Um... It was a false alarm, and it set me on the road to near enough ruin.

-You could see that something was wrong.

I mean, it became quite clear that Elton was addicted to something, that there were some issues that he was having, that there were addiction issues.

-I mean, I would have an epileptic seizure and turn blue, and people would find me on the floor and put me to bed.

And then, 40 minutes later, I'd be snorting another line.

-Elton has the sort of personality that he's got a kind of hole inside him that needs filling up, and that's why he's gone through drink, drugs, bulimia, all of that.

Because there's something inside him that needs feeding.

-Alongside his drink and drug problems, Elton was also showing classic bulimic behavior.

In 1990, he went into rehab, dramatically deciding to deal with all his addictions at once.

-He really did survive this awful kind of trauma that his body went through.

You know, the detoxification and diet and everything.

So that, at the beginning of the '90s, he really did sort of look pretty amazing.

-Well, I think then he -- he realized that, you know, that he, as a stocky guy, what actually suits him is a bit of tailoring.

You know, enhances the best parts and hides the others.

So found more of his own real style.

He felt more comfortable with that.

-Americans love a comeback story.

So no matter what you've done, no matter how far you've fallen out of the good graces of the public, if you appear to be sorry, if you appear to have gotten help, i.e., go to rehab, get sex-addiction therapy, or get your wife to take you back, Americans forgive you.

♪♪ ♪♪ -Could Elton's determination, sense of humor, and addictive personality all have been divined from simply looking at his face?

Naomi Tickle is a facial pattern expert who believes that personality traits can be identified from faces.

-Well, he has these very magnetic eyes, very much sparkling.

And when people have these sparkling eyes, you're drawn to them, that people will feel comfortable in his presence.

If the lower lip is very full, these people are very generous by nature.

They want to give.

They want to give of themselves and give of their time.

And they almost are overly generous.

So the longer the philtrum is, the more -- the drier the humor.

And it takes longer for things to get under his skin.

He also has this dryness, so not everybody gets his jokes.

And to him, they're very funny, and people are still trying to find out what was funny about them.

Chin comes down even further down in here.

It's a square chin.

And you'll notice he has that very square chin right in here.

He also has this very strong angle.

He's able to bring people together and into agreeing and sort of bring the different sides together.

But Elton will definitely be someone who will be out there for people if it's a cause he believes in.

The ear is very rounded, like that.

And that's the musical ear.

If they're very rounded, like the outer edge of a C, this is the love of music.

You know, listening to music, playing music, singing.

♪♪ -Forgiven by the press and the public for his past misdemeanors, Elton decided it was time for a fresh start.

And so, in 1988, Sotheby's auctioned off huge amounts of his possessions.

-I went to Sotheby's, to the viewing before the sale of his stuff, and I thought, "Ooh, I've slept in that bed, and oh, I've..." And I could see this fantastic Art Deco figurine of a -- of a lady.

And I thought, "Oh, my God."

And it was -- it had some price tag.

I don't know what it was.

You know, thousands and thousands and thousands.

And I had stayed in this particular bedroom, this particular suite, and I tried to keep the window -- There was something wrong with the window, and I jammed it with this figurine.

And then I saw it later at the Sotheby's -- He never knew that, but, I mean, I was -- I thought, "Oh, my God, if I'd known..." -Elton's turbulent love life had caused him much unhappiness over the years.

But in 1993, this all changed when he met a Canadian filmmaker 15 years his junior.

He and David Furnish became inseparable.

Elton had at last found someone who appreciated his flamboyant nature, and at his 50th birthday party, he and David shared center stage.

Celebrity photographer Dave Hogan has been taking photos of Elton John for over a decade, and he was there on the night of Elton's 50th birthday party.

-You'll never ever, ever beat the set of pictures of his birthday party when he turns up, you know, with his bouffon outfit, and David's there.

And he couldn't -- he couldn't fit into the car, so he had to come back, and he arrived at his own party in a transit van with an extended thing, because the two thrones and the wig couldn't fit in the door of a normal car.

-And it was fancy dress, and everybody kind of rose to the occasion.

But nobody could have outdone Elton.

He just looked magnificent in this extraordinary white and silver.

And he had a huge, huge, huge wig, which, in fact, was in two parts.

So he came in with the massive wig.

I mean, I think he must have been about 9 feet tall.

And then, later on, he took the top part off so that it wasn't as heavy for him.

But embedded in the side of the wig was a beautiful silver galleon.

And he could go like that, and the guns would fire.

-The wig at his 50th may have been all for show, but throughout his career, Elton had become adept at hiding the hair loss that had blighted him from his early 20s.

-My understanding is that Elton John did have a hair-transplant operation.

Back in the '70s, he would have had a technique called punch grafting or plug grafting.

The older technique of hair transplantation certainly caused -- I wouldn't call it scalp damage, but certainly caused a lot of scarring in your scalp.

It may very well be that he would not be a great candidate to have modern hair transplantation.

Elton John, for quite a while, almost definitely has been wearing a form of a wig.

The most sophisticated ones now, they are sort of attached to your -- to your scalp, either through glue, double-sided tape, or through hair clips, which means they don't fly off, they don't move.

You could actually do activities.

For somebody like Elton John, who perhaps it's not just about personal feeling about it, but also because he has this image that's projected to the public, and he feels it's important to maintain that.

♪♪ ♪♪ -Other than a brief dalliance with contact lenses in the late '70s, glasses have been Elton's trademark for decades.

He's a world-renowned glass-aholic.

During his life and career, the look and style of his eyewear has changed dramatically.

-Well, it's all become quite iconic and synonymous with wearing quite flamboyant glasses, for a start off, and sort of -- they tend to have got more flamboyant as time has gone on, as well.

And he had a lot of custom-made glasses, but also became quite famous for sort of having tints, various tints and just things that were a little bit different, as well.

♪♪ Round glasses generally are quite tricky.

They don't suit everybody, so you have to be a little bit careful with round eyeglasses.

But I think, yeah, they do suit him and kind of he can get away with anything.

Anything goes.

There's been a resurgence in geeky glasses now, and you'll find that a lot of glasses, when you look in a boutique like ours, they are more sort of geeky frames just because that's what the trend is.

This is one that Elton John wears, we believe.

This is all laser-etched gold with laser-etched ebony, as well, with this cross detailing.

Spend a bit extra, you can have any amount of diamonds set in.

So all of this can be blinged to your specification.

These were a bit special and can go for anything up to £10,000.

♪♪ -Outside the cathedral in Milan, Italy's fashion capital, the celebrities are arriving to pay tribute to one of Italy's fashion greats.

-In 1997, Gianni Versace was murdered.

Elton was both a fan and a friend.

He was comforted at the funeral by another confidant, Princess Diana.

Over the years, they'd become close, but sadly, Elton was soon to be mourning another death.

-They were good friends, and I think it was almost natural that if somebody was going to play at her funeral, it was going to be Elton John.

♪♪ -Oh, watching the funeral when he played "Candle in the Wind" was such an emotional moment.

I mean, I was sitting there weeping, absolutely weeping, and just praying that he wouldn't break down.

-I knew that I had to sing it properly, and I knew I couldn't afford to break down.

I was really being the ambassador for people who loved her.

-It was a spine-chilling moment.

It really was.

-I had to hold it together.

I couldn't afford not to.

It was probably the biggest honor of my life on the saddest -- one of the saddest days I'd ever go through.

I'll never forget that song.

-Elton John performing at that funeral, you know, a different version of "Candle in the Wind," is something that every American is familiar with and listen to and maybe bought the single afterwards and would certainly forever, from that point forward, I think, associate Elton John with the royal family.

-Yeah, I think the moment Elton John ascended to sort of national icon status was when he played "Candle in the Wind" at Diana's funeral.

She was the bridge, wasn't she, between the stiff, conservative, rather old-fashioned monarchy and the sort of new kind of monarchy with the gloss, and Elton John in the public imagination, is a similar sort of bridge.

He can hang around with the establishment because he is somehow -- he's somehow iconic of Britain.

And yet at the same time, he's absolutely got this populist touch.

He absolutely can communicate with the people.

♪♪ -Elton and Diana had shared an ability to connect with the public.

They were amongst a handful of famous people galvanized into action when a catastrophic new disease had hit the headlines in the 1980s.

-For as much money as Elton John spends on himself, which is an extraordinary amount, he has also done a tremendous amount of giving, of giving his own personal funds and also raising money for AIDS.

-He was a sensitive person, and he would meet someone or another who reminded him of how fortunate he was, particularly fortunate to have come through the '70s when no one worried about having protected sex, you know?

And he was always capable of seeing someone and thinking, "That could have been me."

-In 1992, Elton had even set up his own AIDS charity, the Elton John Foundation.

Huge annual fundraising events are still organized today, which celebrities flock to.

-Don't have unsafe sex.

Don't have unprotected sex.

It's a message we say every single year when we're standing here on this carpet.

-People look at Elton John and they know they can believe in what he says.

He's not, you know, a celebrity that sort of lit on this cause or that cause.

He knows what he's talking about.

He's been doing this for years, and I think that makes an enormous difference.

-Since the '90s, he's even found a way to put his love of shopping to good fundraising use.

-He has this massive sale every year, and he sets up a temporary shop, which is very wittily called Elton's Closet, and you can go and buy all his old clothes, you know?

-It's a bit like going into a Versace shop where actually they're seconds, but they've never been worn.

He's obviously just gone in there, supermarket sweep, and gone -- fwwp!

"I'll have all that," take it home, and then go, "I don't like it."

-We don't want to hang on to anything that we don't need anymore.

And throughout the years, we raised over $2.5 million by doing this kind of thing.

[ Applause ] -It is purely altruistic.

There is no other motive than he doesn't -- You know, he's at that stage of life, and has been for many, many, many years, where it doesn't matter, really, what people think of him.

Is he a good guy or is he not a good guy?

He's decades beyond caring about that.

-His charitable work played a part in his becoming a proud Sir Elton in 1998.

-I should think he was knocked out to be knighted, and quite rightly.

I mean, it's a great honor.

So, you know, he would feel the honor of that.

-And I think it's actually put him in a position in the U.K.

that he's seen very much as a kind of an elder statesman of the music industry now.

-Elton became a respectably married elder statesman in December 2005, when he and David became one of the first gay couples to enter into a civil partnership.

-He is now regarded by the tabloids as absolutely a national treasure.

He's a cuddly, darling, our Elton.

And in fact, when he and David Furnish got married, the headline in The Sun was "Elton Takes David Up the Aisle," which is hilarious, you know?

I mean, I think there were some people who thought it was -- But, to me, that was a great bit of British seaside postcard humor.

And it shows the kind of affection in which he was held.

♪♪ ♪♪ -Across the globe, there are thousands of people who will spend large sums of money on things that have little intrinsic value but are worth a great deal to them.

Mark Hayward lives surrounded by a jumble of items he's sourced that he knows other people will value.

In fact, he's turned his expertise at it into a thriving cottage industry.

-I collect lots of fun pieces of memorabilia and tons of original photographs and negatives.

And I utilize the photos and negatives by selling them as prints in the likes of Harrods and Selfridges, places like that.

I think it's a passion that's gone a bit mad, but, yes, it is a very deep passion.

I enjoy doing this, yeah.

Oh, yeah, look.

Here we go.

Look, we've got Elton John, "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road."

Platform boots, sparkly red shoes, sort of a "Wizard of Oz" type cover.

Follow the yellow brick road.

"Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" is what he's saying.

"To Bob, with my love."

That was Elton John's tour manager.

And this was just sold at, um... In Gorringes, actually.

His mother, Mrs.

Farebrother, sold all her Elton John belongings, everything -- gold disk records, albums, tons of those.

There was another glut of Elton material, you know.

This one's with Sutherland Brothers & Quiver.

But what makes this program interesting is, he did this concert on October the 7th, 1973.

Now, he was almost at the peak of his career there.

I mean, massive.

You're talking 80,000, 90,000 people at a concert.

And suddenly, here he is, doing Indiana University, Assembly Hall, at 8:00 p.m.

Oh, every Elton fan would want that.

That's a very rare program because every Elton fan would want every program and every ticket for every concert, if they can do it.

-Mark knows that collectors are insatiable in their need for ever more Elton memorabilia.

-This is a nice early poster of Elton John.

Here you've got perfect.

The huge, huge oversized glasses and the great big... ...fur, sequin, bling.

And there is a bit of bling there, too, look.

So, for Elton John fans, I think the peak collecting is the '70s because that's at his peak of his career, that's top dog, top albums.

So a lot of people, that's when they want his material.

Go from anywhere from about £80 to £200.

I don't really know.

Yet again, it depends on people bidding, but they wouldn't have seen that.

I know that, for a fact, that is a rare poster.

There's not many of those around.

They've got all the records, they've got all the CDs, and after a while, they think, "Well, I've got all of that, so I'm hungry.

I want more."

And so they -- they go for other things, such as Elton's bathtub, in extreme cases, or otherwise, jackets or clothes, whatever grabs their fancy.

But they feel that they've got part of the artist with them.

♪♪ -Now in his 60s, Elton still performs around the world, with regular long residencies in Vegas, all of which keeps the money rolling in.

And now there's a new family member to spend it on, his young son, Zachary.

-It's quite interesting now to sort of see him and David, probably the happiest they've ever been.

And they've got, you know, a young son, and you just go, "The world has changed so much, and the newspapers and the media have become so, um, more tolerant," which is great.

It's fantastic.

So, nobody remembers, "Oh, it was this, it was --" It's like, "Do you know what?

His sexuality doesn't come into it."

-Elton John has really proven all he needs to prove.

You know, at the moment, he's kind of taken a step back.

He spends a lot of time in the south of France at one of his mansions they have.

He and David have an amazing place in L.A.

They're parenting their little boy.

And I think he has nothing left to prove.

-You can see that the whole narrative that he's been very public about, about his sobering up -- I mean, you can see what happens as a kind of mad marriage, drug-fueled kind of, you know, '80s, blah, blah, blah.

And then gradually, slowly, in the '90s, the early '90s, he goes sober.

Then he meets David Furnish, then they get married.

So you can see -- And then now they've adopted, you know.

And you can really feel, "Yeah, it's rather lovely, isn't it, that actually he's kind of kicked his demons."

-He may have kicked his demons, but is it too late?

Is being over 60 over the hill to be a dad?

We asked some Londoners what they thought.

-He might want a nap more than the baby.

Might be a bit exhausting.

Pros, I suppose he's got a lot of life experience and certainly stable background.

He's pretty financially secure.

-But he'll still be earning plenty of money when he's 80, so it won't be such a problem.

But think of that child having a very old parent.

-Maybe he'll sort of, you know, become less of a diva, I suppose, and be more of a, you know, down-to-earth family man, I guess.

♪♪ -Elton is a performer with staying power, from mousy musician to rock god and global superstar, when he wowed the world with his showstopping performances and extraordinary costumes.

♪♪ ♪♪ -Elton always had another good tune, another great song.

-He attracted people from every walk of life.

-And he covers a huge range of ages.

You know, my age and older are big fans of his, and the young kids love him.

You know, because he's that good.

-Above all, what has saved him, apart from his intelligence and his talent, what has saved him is his sense of humor.

His humor has meant he could see through everything.

It's kept him going, I think.

[ Cheers and applause ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪