Singer, Songwriter, 1980s Pop Culture Icon. He was the charismatic, doe-eyed frontman for the popular 1980s-1990s New Wave rock band, INXS ("In Excess"). Born to Kelland and Patricia Kennedy Hutchence at the Mater Misericordiae Hospital in North Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, he lived most of his early years in Hong Kong, where his father worked for an Australian trading company. The young Michael was an athletic swimmer and showed a precocious interest in poetry and music. At the age of 8, he made his first recording: a voice for a Japanese toy. In 1972 when Michael was 12, the family returned to Sydney. While attending Killarney Heights High School in the Davidson area of Sydney, he met Andrew Farriss, who introduced him to his brothers, Tim Farriss and Jon Farriss. After his parents divorced in 1975, Michael briefly lived in Los Angeles, California with his mother and older half-sister Tina in 1976. He eventually returned to Sydney with his mother after a short time living in Los Angeles. Upon reuniting with Andrew Farriss and his brothers, the boys gathered in the Farriss home to practice rock music and eventually, they began playing local gigs in Sydney. Formed in 1977, INXS began life as The Farriss Brothers. Other INXS bandmates to complete the classic lineup were: Garry Gary Beers and Kirk Pengilly. When the Farriss parents relocated to Perth, Western Australia in 1979, the band followed them. In Perth, they began to consider their music more seriously, honing their songwriting skills and increasing their public appearances to gain experience and exposure. The Farriss Brothers changed their name to INXS and moved to try their luck in Melbourne, where they began to attract serious media attention with their hit tune, "Simple Simon." After a return to Sydney, INXS signed their first recording contract and in 1980, released a self-titled debut album. In 1982, the band became Australian rock superstars with the release of their third album, Shabooh Shoobah. Contemporary music critics began to refer to Hutchence as the "new voice in rock" and the band set their sights on conquering the American music scene. In 1985, they scored major success in the United States with the release of the album, Listen Like Thieves and the song "What You Need." The 1987 album Kick led to other top-of-the-charts tunes like "Devil Inside," "Need You Tonight," "New Sensation," and "Never Tear Us Apart." These hits, combined with lots of video airplay on MTV, his sultry voice, good looks and sexually-charged stage persona, won INXS a wide fan base in the United States and Canada. Their popularity soon spread to the U.K. and Europe, then on to Japan and Central and South America. By the late-1980s, INXS had become one of the most popular rock bands in the world. During this period, he also acted, appearing in the Australian film by Richard Lowenstien, "Dogs in Space" (1987) and as the Romantic poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley, in Roger Corman's "Frankenstein Unbound" (1990). By 1990 though, INXS albums failed to be commercial successes and the band's popularity continued to decline throughout the decade. His erotic stage presence was reminiscent of The Doors' Jim Morrison, and like Morrison, his string of love affairs was the stuff of international media frenzy. He had well-publicized affairs with pop-singer Kylie Minogue and supermodel Helena Christensen. His only child, a daughter, Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily Yates-Hutchence, was born during his relationship with British television personality Paula Yates, the wife of his producer, Bob Geldof. Yates eventually left Geldof to live with Hutchence. On November 21, 1997, he was in Sydney to promote INXS's twentieth-anniversary reunion tour and their tenth studio album, "Elegantly Wasted." However, on November 22, 1997, as his band mates waited for him in a recording studio, a hotel maid at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Double Bay, Sydney, discovered his body. He was cremated and his ashes were divided into thirds. His father and mother each received 1/3 of his remains, as did his partner, Paula Yates. His father, Kelland, spread his share of the ashes in Sydney Harbour. A solo album, "Michael Hutchence," was released posthumously.