Michael was born
George Michael Gimpel in
St. Louis,
Missouri, on March 24, 1939, the son of Margaret and Earl Herman Gimpel. He grew up near
Tower Grove Park in the city's south side, and graduated from
St. Louis University High School. While attending
Saint Louis University, he worked as a
Midwest promoter for several
record labels such as
Scepter and
Motown. It was also during this time when he made his
radio broadcasting debut on a one-hour Sunday night show at midnight on
WIL, which invited individual SLU students to be the hosts every week. He earned a full-time job as a
disc jockey at the station after he was judged to be the best of the group. His first radio appointment outside of his hometown was in 1962 at
WRIT in
Milwaukee, where he worked the 6-to-10 pm shift until he was reassigned to 5-to-9 morning
drive time in early 1964. His next stop was at
KBTR in
Denver later in 1964, working under the name "King" George Michael for the first time. He earned the
nickname due to his success in "ruling" evening radio. He became one of the original
Boss Jocks at
WFIL in
Philadelphia when its new
Top 40 rock and roll format debuted on September 18, 1966. He served as
music director and evening deejay for the next eight years. WFIL, which promoted itself as "Famous 56" after the transition, ended
WIBG's listener ratings dominance and became the city's most popular station by the summer of 1967. Decades later, Eskin would be a contributor to
The George Michael Sports Machine. On George's last WFIL show (on September 6, 1974) he played "When Will I See You Again" by
the Three Degrees, the first time that the record aired on any radio station. The playing of this on his show broke the song into the mainstream, and within two months was a huge international hit, reaching number one in the U.K., and number two in the United States. George was personal friends with the owners of
Philadelphia International Records and the song's writers
Kenny Gamble and
Leon Huff. Michael, noted for his energetic style, was hired by
WABC in
New York City; his first on-air stint there was on the evening of September 9, 1974. Michael now not only was entering the nation's largest
media market; he also succeeded radio legend
"Cousin Brucie" Morrow, who had jumped to competitor
WNBC. Several incidents from Michael's radio stint there have been chronicled in Morrow's autobiography. Even though he was reunited with
Dan Ingram and
Ron Lundy (colleagues from his WIL days in St. Louis), Michael's time at WABC, which ended on November 17, 1979, was mostly frustrating because he was no longer a music director who had any influence on a
playlist which was much shorter than the ones with which he was more familiar. One of the highlights during his time at the station occurred when he anchored its coverage of the
New York City blackout of 1977 after the music format was temporarily suspended for the night. His first experience in sports broadcasting also came in 1974 when he was a television announcer for the
Baltimore Orioles on
WJZ-TV. He declined an offer to work for the ballclub full-time in order to accept the WABC position. As part of the deal to bring him to New York, Michael also worked for
WABC-TV as the weekend sports anchor and a
color commentator on
New York Islanders telecasts for several seasons, paired mainly with
Tim Ryan. He served as an occasional substitute on
ABC American Contemporary Network's
Speaking of Sports show whenever
Howard Cosell, the primary
commentator, was on
vacation or assignment. ==Television career==