INXS manager Chris Murphy remembered by actor Damon Herriman

The actor who played INXS manager Chris Murphy in the TV miniseries has paid tribute to the late music manager.

Actor Damon Herriman has remembered late INXS manager Chris Murphy as “such a positive guy” who would call him “CM Junior”.

Herriman famously played Murphy on the small screen in TV miniseries, INXS: Never Tear Us Apart.

In preparing for the role, the pair became firm friends.

INXS manager Chris Murphy.

Actor Damon Herriman as Chris Murphy in INXS: Never Tear Us Apart.

“I am deeply shocked, he died way too young and it is a great loss,” Herriman, 50, told Confidential on the red carpet of the Australian premiere of Penguin Bloom in Sydney.

Murphy died in Ballina at the age of 66 at the weekend after a short battle with cancer.

INXS: Never Tear Us Apart was a two-part miniseries about the iconic Australian band that was fronted by the late Michael Hutchence and screened on Channel 7 in 2014.

Luke Arnold played Hutchence while Samantha Jade was Kylie Minogue.

INXS: Never Tear Us Apart cast: Andy Ryan, Hugh Sheridan, Ido Drent, Luke Arnold, Alex Williams, Nicholas Masters, Damon Herriman.

“I asked him a million questions about anything and everything I could think of,” Herriman recalled. “Initially I was really intimidated by him because of who he was and his energy. He was such an alpha guy and I was also just a bit scared that he was going to go, ‘what are you doing playing me? You are not right’. But then we actually became mates.”

Murphy died at his Sugar Bay Ranch property in Ballina at the weekend.

“It is with great sadness that the remaining members of INXS mourn the passing of our brother, Chris Murphy. Without Chris’s vision, passion and hard work, the INXS story would be totally different,” INXS band members Tim, Jon and Andrew Farriss, Kirk Pengilly and Garry Beers said in a statement on Saturday.

The cast of INXS: Never Tear Us Apart.

“Chris’s star burned very bright and we celebrate a life well lived and send all our love to his family.”

Murphy was just 16 when he joined his mother running the theatrical agency MMA in 1970 after the death of his father, shifting the business to book tours for rock acts and pioneering the “door deal” which guaranteed his acts a percentage of the cover charge and increased their earnings.

He became the manager of INXS in 1980, securing the group a global record deal that took the band from the rough and tumble Australian pub circuit to world domination off the back of their relentless touring and innovative funk-driven rock sound.

Originally published as INXS manager Chris Murphy remembered by actor Damon Herriman