Biography for
Michael Stipe More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

4 January 1960, Decatur, Georgia, USA

Birth Name

John Michael Stipe

Height

5' 9" (1.75 m)

Mini Biography

John Michael Stipe was born in Decatur, Georgia, on January 4th, 1960. Since his father was in the military, they moved around a lot. In 1980, while he was attending the University of Georgia (studying painting and photography), he met Mike Mills, Peter Buck and Bill Berry. They dropped out of school to form R.E.M., which, with over 40 million records sold to some estimates, rival Irish band U2 in being one of the most popular bands on the late 20th century. Their debut single in 1981, Radio Free Europe, generated enough buzz for R.E.M. to sign with a major label. With IRS Records, they released Murmur (1983), Reckoning (1984), Fables of the Reconstruction (1985), and Life's Rich Pageant (1986). Document (1987) brought them into the public view, with Out Of TIme (1991) sending them to the top of the charts. The movie video for the flagship song, Losing My Religion, was recently rated by MTV as being one of the top five greatest music videos. Automatic for the People (1992), was a successful followup to Out of Time. In 1994, the band released Monster. The guitar-inclined songs the album focused on showed that R.E.M. could be a grunge band, as well. New Adventures in Hi-Fi, recorded mostly during sound-checks during the Monster tour, was released in 1996 to only modest success. It was followed by the equally so-so Up in 1998. Michael Stipe began to focus more on Hollywood in the 1990s. In the early 1990s, he and Oliver Stone tried for over two years to get a movie financed, but never succeeded. His Single Cell film company started achieving success in 1999, producing the Oscar-nominated Being John Malkovich (1999), among other films.

IMDb Mini Biography By: Andrew M.H. Alexander

Trade Mark

Cryptic lyrics

Bald head

Trivia

He also owns a film production company called C-IOO

Lead singer and lyricist of musical group R.E.M..

Is a vegetarian.

Michael is a keen photographer and often contributes his pictures to the artwork of REM's albums, (notably the covers of the albums 'New Adventures In Hi-Fi' and 'Reveal').

One of Michael's closest friends was the actor River Phoenix. When River died, aged just 23 in late October 1993, Michael called his young friend's sudden passing "the most shattering experience of my life." He dedicated REM's 1994 album 'Monster' to River. The dedication ("For River") can be seen in the album's fold out sleeve.

Is good friends with fellow musicians Natalie Merchant and Courtney Love.

Has a brick tattooed on his right hand and on his upper right arm a tattoo of the characters Krazy Kat and Ignatz Mouse from George Herriman's comic strip "Krazy Kat".

Is mentioned in the Danish band Nephew's single "Superliga".

Was once considered for the role of John Doe in Se7en (1995).

Collects aeroplane boarding passes as a memento of "a place that doesn't exist". He has 500-600 of them.

Is close friends with Radiohead singer Thom Yorke.

REM won the 1995 Brit Award for International Group.

REM won the 1993 Brit Award for International Group.

REM won the 1992 Brit Award for International Group.

Good friends with Helena Christensen.

Very good friends with indie filmmaker Tom Gilroy.

Radiohead is one of his favorite bands and he is friends with all the band's members.

Personal Quotes

Radiohead are so good they scare me.

We love Peter Gabriel - great minds think alike.

I've been to places where people my age had never voted in a democratic election. To go to the voting poll with someone in the former Czechoslovakia, a grown man, and watch him cast his vote for the first time brings tears to your eyes. the right to vote is a privilege I want to remind people of.

"I wouldn't survive ten minutes on 'American Idol'".

I found something that was secret; it was dangerous and it was exciting. [his description of punk rock music]

I guess I've figured out that I can't just blabber anything I want to anymore.

[on once having referred to the Beatles as 'elevator music'] I still get death threats about it from Beatles fans. The point that I was trying to make was that I was three years too young for them. I grew up in an era where the Banana Splits, the Archies and the Monkees were the music that I listened to. The Beatles were the music that was playing in the background.