George: A Memory of George Michael
George is the story of two extraordinary lives – the private man and the public legend.Georgios Panayiotou was just eighteen when he decided to adopt the stage name of George Michael. Sometimes his two worlds would collide with shattering consequences.Bestselling biographer Sean Smith has gone back to the neighbourhoods of North London to trace the astonishing journey of a sensitive but determined boy who grew up to be one of the biggest British pop stars of all time.Along the way, he talks to those close to George, revealing the real man – funny, articulate, intelligent and generous spirited – who hid behind the powerful image he created.He reveals the complex relationship with his high-achieving Greek-Cypriot father; the unconditional love of his mother; his teenage relationships with girls; and his first tragic love affair with another man.George’s career began falteringly with a schoolboy band, exploded with Wham! before he became a solo phenomenon. But at the height of his fame, the world seemed to turn against him. Smith describes his despair at losing the two people who mattered most, how he sought consolation in drugs, his notorious ‘coming out’ and how he ended up in jail.His health failed him and he died heartbreakingly alone on Christmas Day, 2016.Affectionate yet honest and moving, George is both a celebration of George Michael’s music and a lasting tribute to a decent and much-loved man.
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First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2017
SECOND EDITION
Text © Sean Smith 2017
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Source ISBN: 9780008155643
Ebook Edition © November 2017 ISBN: 9780008155650
Version: 2018-05-22
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Contents
Part One: Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou
Part Two: At the Top of a Dream
8 Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
1
The boy who would grow up to become George Michael had an unruly shock of black curly hair, a sensitive nature and the weight of parental hopes on his shoulders. He was much loved and indulged, in keeping with his status as the only male child in a Greek-Cypriot household, but was aware of his responsibilities from a young age. He needed to make something of his life.
His mother and father toiled long hours to give their family the best possible life. He witnessed his beloved mum endlessly scrubbing her hands to rid them of the smell from the local fish and chip shop where she worked extra hours to help provide for her son and his two elder sisters. Their labours eventually paid off and by the time George was a teenager, they lived in an affluent neighbourhood and he could treat his girlfriend to a drive in his dad’s swanky Rolls-Royce. That luxury had been a million miles away when he was born Georgios Panayiotou in a modest house in Church Lane, an unprepossessing street in East Finchley, North London.
His beginnings were only relatively humble, however, especially when compared to his father’s start in life as one of seven children sharing a house in the rural Cypriot village of Patriki on the north-eastern Karpas Peninsula of the island, about twenty miles from the fishing port of Famagusta. In 2004, George released a song called ‘Round Here’, a nostalgic contemplation of his origins. It began with the memorable line: ‘My daddy got here on the gravy train’, which suggested his father had an easy time of it, making lots of money for very little effort. Perhaps he was having a gentle joke at his father’s expense, because that certainly wasn’t the case.
Patriki was not a place for an ambitious young man like Kyriacos Panayiotou to make his fortune. There was no easy money to be had in Cyprus where, traditionally, the men rolled up their sleeves and worked as farm labourers and fishermen while the women stayed home and raised often very large families. In this conventional community, the father of the house was very much the boss.
Nowadays, Cyprus is a wonderful destination for tourists, thrilled to sample its rich history and legends, its fabulous Mediterranean cuisine, to gaze at calm seas, olive and lemon groves and bask in the countless hours of warm sunshine. This, as the tourist guides will tell you, is Aphrodite’s island, where in Greek mythology the goddess of love was born in the sea foam and drifted to the eastern shore in a seashell. One of the most famous paintings of all, Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus
