Biography

During a period when first touring in the United States, where rowdy Stewart and his band were prohibited from staying in some hotels, the band used to masquerade as Fleetwood Mac in order acquire accommodation.

A lifelong collector of model trains, Stewart maintains an elaborate outlay in an upstairs room of his Los Angeles home that stretches the length of his house. Bases his layout scale on the 1940s New York Central and Pennsylvania line.

When then-girlfriend Britt Ekland discovered that Stewart was seeing other women, she filed a $12.5 million palimony suit, claiming that, as she had given up much of her career for him, she deserved a large portion of his income. The lawsuit was dismissed.

In an early stage of The Kinks, before future frontman Ray Davies was willing to be the lead singer, they recruited Stewart (who grew up in the same neighborhood as the Davies brothers) as a singer. After a couple of weeks of trying to be a band, Stewart and the future Kinks found that they did not get along that well, with their musical tastes being too different, and parted ways.

Contrary to popular belief, he was never a professional soccer player with Brentford Football Club before becoming a musician, this was one of many stories invented by his publicist when Rod was starting to hit the big time. Rod was successfully sued by Brazilian singer Jorge Ben Jor who claimed the tune to Rod's "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?" was too similar to his song "Taj Mahal". Ben won the lawsuit and asked Rod to donate all his profits from the song to UNICEF.

Instead of getting married again, I'm going to find a woman I don't like and just give her a house.

[on looking young] The secret is to moisturise the face. I've been doing that since I was 17 years old.

[on Brigitte Bardot] She's the only woman I've ever had a sexual fantasy about. With me, looks come first, and she's everything a woman should be. She's blonde and beautiful, she's got the most incredible legs--et cetera, et cetera. And she's French as well.

[on his former wife, Rachel Hunter, shortly after their break-up] She was the first woman who left me.

[on being awarded the CBE] It's a marvellous occasion. We're the only country in the world to honour the common man.