Klaus Nomi

Born Klaus Sperber in Immenstadt, Bavaria in 1944, he moved to New York at the age of 28 and worked as a pastry chef while building his alien stage persona. A countertenor of extraordinary range, he broke through in November 1978 performing at the New Wave Vaudeville revue in the East Village, and in 1979 appeared as a backing singer for David Bowie on Saturday Night Live. His RCA Victor albums Klaus Nomi and Simple Man blended synthesizer-laden operatic passages with covers of 1960s pop standards. He died in August 1983, one of the first public figures to succumb to AIDS.