Brown Jen Jewel - Michael: my brother, the lost boy of INXS

MICHAEL

Michael was a blessing to this planet, his friends and his family. He had what so few possess; talent, looks, charisma, drive, charm. His story is told by the one who knew him best, who watched him grow up from being a shy boy to becoming a worldwide starhis sister. If you love music, mysteries and most of all, Michael, you wont be able to put this book down.

Richard Blade, popular Los Angeles radio, television, film personality, DJ

An effusive man with a seductive puppy-dog grin and a disarmingly direct gaze got up and loped towards me, and held out his hand. He said his name was Michael A sense of well-being and relief washed over me. We were gonna do great things together and I didnt have to be a rock-star anymore Michael would do it for me.

Richard Lowenstein, writer, director, producer

Other books by the authors

Tina Hutchence

Just a Man: The real Michael Hutchence

(with Patricia Glassop), Sidgwick & Jackson (2000)

Just a Man: The real Michael Hutchence

(with Patricia Glassop, updated edition), Pan Books (2001)

Jen Jewel Brown

As author:

Great Southern, Rare Objects poetry series, Vagabond Press (2010)

Gutter vs Stars, poetry illustrated by photographers including Carol Jerrems and Clara Law, Flat Chat Press (2006)

Alleycat, poetry and prose illustrated by Michael Leunig, Feral Books (1988)

Skyhooks Million Dollar Riff, photos by Carol Jerrems, Dingo Books (1975)

As editor:

Co-edited (with Gig Ryan) Nebuchadnezzar by Shelton Lea, Black Pepper (2005)

Edited Aboriginal Country by Lisa Bellear, The University of Western Australia Publishing (2018)

First published in 2018

Copyright Tina Hutchence and Jen Jewel Brown 2018

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.

Every effort has been made to trace the holders of copyright material. If you have any information concerning copyright material in this book please contact the publishers at the address below.

Allen & Unwin

83 Alexander Street

Crows Nest NSW 2065

Australia

Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

Email:

Web: www.allenandunwin.com

ISBN 978 1 76063 313 4

eISBN 978 1 76063 751 4

Set by Midland Typesetters, Australia

Cover design: Luke Causby/Blue Cork

Cover photo: Michael Putland/Getty Images

To Michael, a beautiful, gentle soul, and to all the children in the family

Michael in December 1986, in Hobart, at the beginning of the Australian Made tour

I dont think one thin page of words can change the world, but it can push things around.

Michael Hutchence

contents

MY BROTHER roamed the world with a book in his hand and one in his suitcase. Like the beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, whose work inspired him, Michael started writing poems when he was twelve. And he was a great, precocious reader. As Sydney schoolboys, hyper and pubescent, he and Andrew Farriss would whirl in from Davidson High mid-afternoon and hole up in Michaels room to discuss not only music, including jazz, but books like Charles Bukowskis Diary of a Dirty Old Man.

Michael always loved being read to, ever since he was a tiny child.

In 1984 he played his first UK show, with INXS, at the Astoria on 26 May. Troubled by chronic post-gig insomnia in his hotel room, he called his live-in girlfriend Michele Bennett, who was back in Sydney.

That night he asked her to read to him, as he had so often before. And she would reach for the book beside her bed, as she would throughout his life, and read Michael to sleep. He and Michele spent six years together.

In January 1986, he was himself reading A Very Easy Death by Simone de Beauvoir.

I bet youre thinking, how does she know these thingsright?

My brother wrote about them in his diaries. A diary was just another piece of flotsam to him, I guess. Part of an astounding, ongoing cascade of paperwork including cards, scrawled lyrics and legal documents hed leave with mein the wake of yet another departure, for yet another tour.

When we asked his great friend, Chris Bailey, of the Saints, about what writers he liked best, he recalled that Mick once gave him a book of letters by the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, who wrote Do not go gentle into that good night. I threw my mind back to Michaels bookshelves; the titles and authors he talked and wrote about. I turned the pages of some he loved the most, looking for what might have sent wings for his own poetry, as he thought of it: his lyrics. And so from time to time these books that Michael read connect me to the story of his life again. They brush across these pages too, leaving a trail of hints about their reader, lost too soon.

There have been at least nine biographies written about Michael so far. This book is different because I was one of the closest people on the planet to him.

Twelve really is a special age, poised on the brink of life. Thats how old I was when I first held him, the day he was born. I spoke to him five days before he died.

I became his pre-teen, stand-in mother when ours was working, and he became the five-year-old DJ for my go-go dance rehearsals in Hong Kong. We were kids roaming the planet, eager for experience. We shared crazy, terrific and trying years of growing up, with or without each other, our brother, Rhett, and each of our parents at different times. We went our separate ways and faxed and phoned to bare our worries and share our wins, comparing notes and planning distant meet-ups.

As adults, Michael and I rendezvoused all over Europe and America. We had hilarious dinners in myriad cities. Our shared, nomadic, spreading family spent Christmas after Christmas hanging out.

Sure, there was frustration and tragedy in Michaels life, but one thing I can say for certainhe didnt die wondering. He lived a series of grand adventures.

Nevertheless, in his last months on earth, there were signs that he had begun to realise what a naive leap of faith he had made in delegating his business affairs. For Mother and me, compounding the profound, ongoing trauma caused by his sudden death, a legal battle loomed. It was impossible to ignore the opaque and secretive twists of the shape-shifting business empire set up by others with Michaels money. The defendants to later proceedings included Michaels financial adviser and named executor of his estate, Colin Diamond, Hong Kong accountant and co-executor Andrew Paul, and a labyrinth of corporate trustees that held various assets including many real estate properties, which we alleged were held beneficially for Michael. Patricia Glassopour motherand I were two of those named in his will, and we especially felt compelled to fight on behalf of Michaels only child, Mothers granddaughter, my niece. Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily Hutchence was, still is, the nominated heiress of 50 per cent of her fathers estate.