Rocketman portrays Elton John's father, Stanley Dwight (Steven Mackintosh), as being a disinterested and physically absent parent who leaves his son longing for affection and approval. Elton found Fred to be supportive and caring, and even gave him the nickname "Derf", which is Fred spelled backwards. By the age of 15, his mother had remarried, tying the knot with a local painter named Fred Farebrother. Prior to that, his father, Stanley Dwight, was at times physically absent due to his career in the Royal Air Force, leaving Elton to largely be raised my his mother, Sheila, and maternal grandmother, Ivy Harris. They divorced when he was 14 and his mother was granted custody. The Rocketman fact check confirms that he dropped out of the Academy at age 17 to pursue a career in music.ĭid Elton John's parents divorce when he was a teenager? ![]() He won a junior scholarship to the Academy and took Saturday classes there for five years. She writes that one of the instructors at the Royal Academy of Music recalled an 11-year-old Elton playing back, without hesitation, a four-page piece by George Frideric Handel that he had just heard for the first time. The real-life version of the scene was described in Elizabeth Rosenthal's book His Song: The Musical Journey of Elton John. He then sits down without sheet music and performs the same piece, stopping at the same point she does. In the film, a young Elton shows up for an audition at the Royal Academy of Music and watches as his examiner plays a classical piece perfectly. ![]() ![]() Though he did attend AA meetings, these scenes in the movie are fictional and are used as a framing device.ĭid Elton John really audition for the Royal Academy of Music without using sheet music? Elton (Taron Egerton), who is wearing a costume of feathery orange wings with horns on his head, bursts into an AA meeting and declares, "My name is Elton Hercules John and I'm an alcoholic, and a cocaine addict, and a sex addict and a bulimic." He begins to tell his life story to a group of non-famous strangers, which anchors the film as it unfolds through a series of flashbacks.
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