George Michael dies at age 53
GEORGE Michael, the creamy-voiced English songwriter who sold tens of millions of albums as a member of the duo Wham! and on his own, was found dead on Sunday at his home in Goring in Oxfordshire, England. He was 53.
A police statement said: “Thames Valley Police were called to a property in Goringon-Thames shortly before 2 pm Christmas Day. Sadly, a 53year-old man was confirmed deceased at the scene. At this stage the death is being treated as unexplained but not suspicious.”
Michael’s manager, Michael Lippman, told The Hollywood Reporter that Michael had died of heart failure “in bed, lying peacefully.”
“It is with great sadness that we can confirm our beloved son, brother and friend George passed away peacefully at home over the Christmas period,” his publicist Connie Filippello said in a statement. “The family would ask that their privacy be respected at this difficult and emotional time. There will be no further comment at this stage.”
Michael was one of pop’s reigning stars in the 1980s and 90s – first as a handsome, smiling teen-pop idol making lighthearted singles like Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go with Wham!, then arriving as a grown-up pop sex symbol with his 1987 album Faith.
But Michael grew increasingly uncomfortable with the superficiality and relentless promotion of 1980s-style pop stardom. He turned away from video clips and live shows; he set out to make more mature statements in his songs, though he never completely abandoned singing about love and desire.
Michael wrote supple ballads, like Careless Whisper and Father Figure, as well as buoyant dance tracks like Freedom ‘90 and I Want Your Sex. For much of his career, including his bestselling albums Faith and Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1, he was also his own producer and studio backup band. Much of his music drew on R&B, old and new, but his melodic gift extended across genres.
He won a Grammy Award in 1988 for I Knew You Were Waiting (for Me), a duet with Aretha Franklin, and Faith won the Grammy for album of the year. In Britain, he was showered with awards, and in 2004, Britain’s Radio Academy said he had been the most-played performer on British radio from 1984 to 2004.
In 1998, Michael came out as gay after being arrested on charges of lewd conduct in a men’s room in Beverly Hills, California. During interviews in later years, he described himself as bisexual, and said that hiding his sexuality had made him feel “fraudulent.” He also described long struggles with depression.
During the 2000s, Michael’s output slowed; his last studio album of new songs was Patience in 2004. But in 2006, 25 years into his career, he could still headline stadiums worldwide.
George Michael was born Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou in East Finchley, London, on June 25, 1963, the son of a Greek Cypriot restaurateur and an English dancer. In 1979, he and a schoolmate, Andrew Ridgeley, played together for the first time in a ska band called the Executive. That didn’t last, but they continued to make music together – nearly all of it composed and sung by Michael – and began releasing singles as Wham!, cultivating the image of carefree teenage rebels in songs like Young Guns (Go for It!).
Their 1983 debut album, Fan- tastic, reached No1 in Britain; in the United States, their 1984 single Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go became ubiquitous on MTV and reached No1. In 1985, the duo became the first major Western pop group to perform in China as part of its world tour, and Michael appeared at the Live Aid charity concert, telecast worldwide, joining Elton John to sing John’s song Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me.
The worldwide 1984 hit Careless Whisper, credited in Britain to George Michael solo and to Wham! featuring George Michael in the United States, signaled a turn away from perky teenage fare. Michael’s status as a top British pop star was confirmed by his appearance on Band Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas?,” the 1984 allstar benefit single for Ethiopian famine relief.
In 1986, Wham! dissolved, with a farewell show at Wembley Stadium. Michael had a No1 hit with I Knew You Were Waiting (for Me) before releasing the album Faith in 1987. Faith, which hinted at both gospel and rockabilly, reached No1.
But for his next album, Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1, released in 1990, Michael set out to jettison his pop persona. “I’m not stupid enough to think I can deal with another 10 or 15 years of major exposure,” he told an interviewer at the time. “I think that’s the ultimate tragedy of fame, people who are simply out of control, who are lost. I’ve seen so many of them, and I don’t want to be another cliché.”