Early Life
Ridgeley was born in Windlesham, Surrey to Jennifer and Albert Ridgeley. His mother is British and his father is Egyptian-Italian. Ridgeley grew up in Bushey, Hertfordshire, and attended Bushey Meads School. His mother was a schoolteacher at Bushey Heath Primary School and his father worked for Canon. When George Michael was enrolled at the school, Ridgeley volunteered to take him under his wing.
After years of playing in various music groups, Michael and Ridgeley formed Wham! They then approached various record labels with a homemade tape (which took ten minutes to record in Ridgeley's living room), and signed with Innervision Records. According to "I'm Coming to Take You to Lunch", a book written by Wham's manager, Simon Napier-Bell, the band left Innervision after the first album and signed to CBS.
Read more about this topic: Andrew Ridgeley
Famous quotes related to early life:
“... goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“... business training in early life should not be regarded solely as insurance against destitution in the case of an emergency. For from business experience women can gain, too, knowledge of the world and of human beings, which should be of immeasurable value to their marriage careers. Self-discipline, co-operation, adaptability, efficiency, economic management,—if she learns these in her business life she is liable for many less heartbreaks and disappointments in her married life.”
—Hortense Odlum (1892–?)