‘Come on, George. Loosen up’: Frank Sinatra sent The Times some advice for George Michael in 1990

When George Mi­chael spoke to the Los Angeles Times for a Cal­en­dar cov­er story in 1990, not long after his solo ca­reer shot to the stra­to­sphere with “Faith,” he was buck­ling un­der the weight of his own fame.

“The truth is, it all got much big­ger than I ever ima­gined — and much harder to con­trol. Ul­ti­mately, I wasn’t com­fort­able with that kind of vis­ib­il­ity and power,” Mi­chael, who died on Dec. 25 at age 53, told Robert Hil­burn at the time.

Ap­par­ently, Frank Sinatra wasn’t too hip to Mi­chael’s woes. The Chair­man of the Board penned a let­ter to The Times, of­fer­ing some un­so­li­cited — but de­li­ciously en­ter­tain­ing — ad­vice to the Brit­ish pop star.

“I don’t un­der­stand a guy who lives ‘in hopes of re­du­cing the strain of his celebrity status.’ Here’s a kid who ‘wanted to be a pop star since I was about 7 years old,’” Sinatra wrote on what ap­peared to be his of­fi­cial sta­tion­ery. “And now that he’s a smash per­former and song­writer at 27 he wants to quit do­ing what tons of gif­ted young­sters all over the world would shoot grandma for — just one crack at what he’s com­plain­ing about.”

“Dust off those gos­samer wings and fly your­self to the moon of your choice and be grate­ful to carry the bag­gage we’ve all had to carry since those lean nights of sleep­ing on buses and help­ing the driver un­load the in­stru­ments,” he ad­ded.

The Times pub­lished Sinatra’s let­ter on Sept. 16, 1990.