Michael Kelland John Hutchence (January 22, 1960 November 22, 1997) was the lead singer of the Australian rock band, INXS. He was born in Sydney, but was raised in Hong Kong. He began performing at the age of eight in a local toy store commercial. The Hutchence family eventually returned to Sydney, and it was there that Hutchence joined Andrew Farriss and Garry Gary Beers in forming a group which would ultimately become INXS. In 1980, the group put out their first single, Simple Simon. With the 1983 release of their third album, Shabooh Shoobah, the band became international stars.
In 1987, following several more successful INXS albums, Hutchence appeared in the Australian movie Dogs In Space. This was followed by the album Max Q, a collaboration with Australian post-punk pioneer Ollie Olsen. In 1990, he played Percy Shelley in Roger Corman's Frankenstein Unbound.
INXS spent the mid-1990s trying to develop a successful new album after a series of less-than-spectacular releases. During this time, Hutchence had an affair with British TV host Paula Yates, who was then the wife of singer Bob Geldof. The tabloid newspapers made them front-page news. Yates left Geldof for Hutchence, and they had a daughter, Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily. After Yates's death, she was cared for by Geldof.
A new INXS release, 1997's Elegantly Wasted, had barely come out when Hutchence, aged only 37, was found hanging in a hotel room of the Ritz-Carlton in Double Bay in Sydney. The New South Wales coroner determined his death was a suicide but evidence and analysis has since come forward to suggest that it may have been an accident resulting from autoerotic asphyxiation (strangling himself while masturbating). However the full Coroner's Report does not support these findings, and should end any speculation about his death.
Hutchence's long-in-the-works solo album, Michael Hutchence, was finally released in 1999, as was his third movie, Limp.
