George Michael died today.
The son of a Greek Cypriot restaurant owner and an English dancer, his real name was Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou, which he changed to George Michael in order to fit onto album covers, at a stroke wiping out his chance to become the highest scoring scrabble name in pop.
Inspired whilst eating a candy bar at school, George Michael teamed up with Andrew Ridgeley to form pop duo Wham!
Wham!'s success was extraordinary. Hits included the ballad of a man nodding off in a strip bar, Wake Me Up, Before You Go-Go, Club Tropicana a tribute to George's favourite juice brand, and Careless Whisper, suspected by many to be about about accidentally farting during a job interview.
In addition to his work with Wham! George performed with Band Aid on the hit Do They Know It's Christmas? to raise awareness of the chronic shortage of calendars in Africa. Although the song raised a great deal of money, critics complained that it was little more than a sticking plaster for the problem.
In 1986 George Michael left Wham! and began a solo career releasing the Album Faith, followed by Listen Without Prejudice, which everyone assumed was going to be rubbish. Meanwhile Ridgeley went on to marry Keren Woodward who was, interestingly, the Andrew Ridgeley of Bananarama.
It was also in 1986 that Michael was arrested in a public restroom for 'engaging in a lewd act', with a policeman who just happened to be passing, with his penis out, at the time. It was about this time that Michael came out as gay, after briefly considering the alternative, of coming out as a toilet attendant.
The penis-wrangling incident did little to dent Michael's popularity, so he tried again, getting arrested in London for possession of drugs in 2006 and again in 2008, although presumably not the same drugs. As a result of a conviction for driving under the influence of David Cassidy, he spent four weeks in Highpoint Prison, plenty of time to consider the irony of the name.
Despite the arrests, the scandal and Andrew Ridgeley, Michael managed to become one of the must successful British artists of all time, selling more than 100 million records worldwide and bringing joy to millions with his music.
So long George, I hope you got further than the edge of Heaven.
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