George Michael
(June 25, 1963 - living) U.K.
Pop singer and songwriter
 George Michael, whose real name is Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou, is born in Finchley, London. His family were Greek-Cypriot. In the UK he has been called The Bubble with the Stubble. From the Cockney rhyming slang bubble and squeak = Greek. He was often seen sporting designer stubble.
He and Andrew Ridgeley (born 1963) first started to perform together in 1979 in a ska act, The Executive. George Michael wrote a song with the line "Wham bam thank you ma'am", and this led them to adopt the name Wham! for their singing duo. The song evolved into Wham! Rap (Enjoy What You Do), (February, 1983).
 The duo became popular and well-known and also had the hit singles: Young Guns ("Go For It", November 1982), and Bad Boys, (May, 1983). At the time of the release of Club Tropicana (August, 1983), they changed their management to Simon Napier-Bell and Jazz Summers. However, by the end of 1985 the relationship ended acrimoniously, and George Michael made plans to go solo. The duo split with a farewell concert in Wembley Stadium on 28th. June, 1986 with an audience of 72000.
He stopped producing work for a while during legal proceedings to extricate himself from his recording contract with Sony which he had originally signed to under CBS when in Wham!. The matter was eventually settled.
 He re-establised himself as a solo artists and his first three songs were no.1 hits and four more no.1 in the 90s. His songs between 1984 and 1999 included 18 Top 10 hits, 15 of them were Top 5 and overall 7 no.1s, he only had 7 songs out of Top 10.
For many years there had been rumours about George Michael's sexuality, but he was very secretive and avoided addressing the issue. As a result he was called Coy George.
Nevertheless his album Older had some clues. It was dedicated to his lover, Anselmo Feleppa, and some of the lyrics contained homosexual sentiments.
 Prior to the incident which led to him being forced out he had recently lost his mother through cancer, he had been distressed at the deaths of his friends Princess Diana and Gianni Versace, and his lover of two years, Anselmo Feleppa, had died of an AIDS-related illness.
On Tuesday April 7, 1998 Los Angeles detective, Marcello Rodriguez, arrested George Michael for lewd behaviour in a public lavatory in Will Rogers Memorial Park in Beverly Hills. The event became a big story, particularly in the tabloid newspapers. On April 9, 1998 the front page of The Sun was taken up entirely by the story with the banner headline almost filling the page "Zip me up before you go go". (A reference to the Wham! hit single "Wake me up before you go go", 1984.) He was sentenced to community service and sex counselling.
The video of the song Outside was his reaction to this arrest. Rodriguez later claimed a large financial compensation because he was "traumatized and humiliated" by the behaviour of George Michael.
 After the arrest George Michael was quoted as saying:
"I feel stupid, reckless and weak for having allowed my sexuality to be exposed in this way, but I don't feel any shame whatsoever, and neither do I think I should."
The incident might have been expected to be George Michael's fall from grace, but he turned the outing into something more to his own advantage. He underwent a metamorphosis from a scared closet case to an open, relaxed and happy homosexual.
In subsequent interviews he became very ready to talk about his arrest and his sexuality. The video for the single Outside featured an irreverent reconstruction of events leading upto the arrest. A television interview by Michael Parkinson received some acclaim for its frankness.
His lover is Kenny Goss.
George Michael has been responsible for some of the best dance music and ballads of the '80s and '90s. Such songs as Faith, I Want Your Sex, Careless Whisper, Fastlove, Too Funky, and Freedom 90 establish him as one of the most inventive and exciting pop artists of our time.
 Hits
With Wham!:
- Young Guns ("Go For It", 1982)
- Wham! Rap ("Enjoy What You Do", 1983)
- Bad Boys (1983)
- Club Tropicana (1983)
- Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go (1984)
- Careless Whisper (1984)
- Freedom (1984)
- Last Christmas / Everything She Wants (1984)
- I'm your man (1984)
- Music From The Edge Of Heaven (1986)
- Where Did Your Heart Go (1986)
Solo:
- Careless Whisper (1984)
- A Different Corner (1986)
- I Knew You Were Waiting for Me (1987, with Aretha Franklin)
- I Want Your Sex (1987)
- Jive Talkin' (1987, with Boogie Box High)
- Faith(1987)
- Father Figure (1988)
- One More Try (1988)
- Monkey (1988)
- Kissing a Fool (1988)
- Heaven Help Me (1989, with Deon Estus)
- Praying for Time (1990)
- Freedom (1991)
- Heal the Pain (1991)
- Cowboys and Angels (1991)
- Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me (1991, with Elton John)
- Too Funky (1992)
- Somebody to Love (1993, with Queen)
- Killer (1993)
- Five Live (1993)
- Jesus to a Child (1996)
- Fast Love (1996)
- Spinning the Wheel (1996)
- Older (1997)
- Star People '97 (1997)
- You Have Been Loved (1997)
- Outside (1998)
- As (1999)
- Shoot the dog (2002)
CD's
With Wham!:
- Club Fantastic Megamix (1983)
- Make It Big (1984)
- The Final (1986)
Solo:
- Faith (1987)
- Listen Without Prejudice, volume 1 (1990)
- Five Live (1993, with Queen)
- Ladies and Gentlemen, the Very Best of... (1999)
- Songs From the Last Century (1999)
Writing:
- Older (1998, International Music Publications, paperback)
Source: The Knitting Circle - http://www.sbu.ac.uk/stafflag/people.html - et alii
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