Jacko, His Rise and Fall: The Social and Sexual History of Michael Jackson (24 page)

The waiters from upstairs appeared frequently, but not to serve drinks down here. They were
shirtless, wearing only white silk basketball
shorts. Clients, both male and female, brought
their toy boys of the night here to pull down
those shorts and to fellate them. Minnelli got
Rubell to let Michael enter into this chamber. He
was reportedly shocked yet fascinated by the
coke-snorting and the wild sex in various combinations of sexes, including three- or four-ways.

"The lounge made Sodom and Gomorra look
like kindergarten," said a former employee.

"We just assumed that Michael was gay,"
said one of the busboys. "With that voice, that mincing manner, what else
could he be? But he turned down guys who came on to him. It was rumored
that even Calvin Klein invited Michael to his lair in the Pines on Fire Island
but Michael rejected the invitation of the great underwear king."

Michael often spent hours on the dance floor. One night he was seen dancing with Gloria Vanderbilt, the heiress once known as "the poor little rich
girl." Gloria was also known for her affairs, including liaisons with Marlon
Brando, Howard Hughes, and Frank Sinatra.

Night after night, Michael watched in fascination as Rollerena, one of the
most amusing drag queens in New York City history, endlessly circled the
floor on her roller skates.

On the main floor on any given night, Madonna might be seen chatting
with Salvador Dali. Elton John might be spotted trying to pick up Patrick
Taylor, a busboy who, regrettably, turned out to be straight. At the time,
patrons treated the handsome busboys and waiters like Playboy bunnies.
"Everyone, guys and dolls, tried to bed us, and most of them succeeded," said
a former waiter.

The co-owner, Steve Rubell, personally welcomed Michael and La Toya
to the club, where a cocaine-snorting, neon-lit man-in-the-moon would
descend from the ceiling five or six times a night, his flashing red eye approving of all the coke-snorting going on. The smell of amyl nitrite cut the night
air.

Michael and La Toya were there at the famous May, 1977, birthday bash
for Bianca Jagger. She rode onto the main floor on a white horse led by a
naked man.

A far greater tour guide to Studio 54 than Capote was Liza Minnelli. She
became a "fixture" in Michael's life during the frenzied nights she spent at Studio 54, doing cocaine and partying the night away. Her health was fragile,
and she was deep into relationships with both Martin Scorsese and
Baryshnikov. When Michael caught up with her, she'd already missed seven
performances of the musical, The Act, simply because she was not able to go
on.

On one of Liza's "good nights," Michael had gone to see her perform in
the Broadway musical, and had been deeply moved by her voice and movements on the stage. The next day, someone, perhaps La Toya, showed him a
review written by John Simon, theater critic for New York magazine. In the
harshest terms, the acerbic Simon had attacked the look of Liza's face, mocking it, especially her wide eyes.

"Like myself, Liza has always been insecure about her looks," Michael
said. "After reading that mean-spirited attack, she was devastated and didn't
even want to go on the next night. I know how she felt. When I was fourteen,
a so-called fan mocked me for my awful acne. I stayed in my room for days
with the curtains drawn. I couldn't even stand to look at my own face in the
mirror. I cried day and night. I was ashamed to show my face to the world
again. Poor Liza. Poor me. A performer's appearance is everything. When
your look is mocked, it cuts into your heart like a sharp knife."

Michael remained steadfastly loyal to Liza, even though he could obviously see the toll that alcohol and drugs were taking on her. He dared not ask
her to change her lifestyle, even though he suspected she was heading for a
fall. The designer Halston told Warhol, who then told Michael, that Liza had
arrived one night at his Upper East Side townhouse. Her face was partially
concealed by a black felt hat to
hide the damage. According to
Halston, "Liza barged into my
house and demanded that I give her
every drug I had."

Liza Minnelli 1984

In spite of her drugs, heavy
drinking, and her horrible appearance (at least according to John
Simon), Liza still managed to snare
what was then considered the sexiest man in New York. The Russian
dancer, Baryshnikov, was hit upon
by both men and women wherever
he went. One night as Capote and
Michael were observing Liza dancing with Baryshnikov on Studio
54's floor, Capote turned to Michael. "Unlike Rudolf Nureyev, Mischa actually likes women. He's also
notoriously virile. I'm dying to sample that thick Russian sausage for myself.
So far, no luck. But one night when he's really drunk down in the basement,
I'll get him yet."

"How do you know if he can perform if he's all that drunk?" Michael
asked. "The word is out," Capote said. "Mischa can get it rock hard even if
completely wasted. He's Russian, my dear boy. Russians are always soggy
with vodka."

In their private moments away from the frenzied heat of Studio 54, Liza
and Michael bonded. Their friendship was forged partly because of their
equivalently horrid showbiz childhoods.

Michael might have scorned his chain-smoking, Scotch-and-Coke drinking new friend, but he found her the most fascinating woman he'd ever
known. Liza entered that rare pantheon of "friends for life" that would eventually include Elizabeth Taylor.

Compared to Judy Garland, Michael's father, Joe, was a pillar of stability.
By 1969 Judy had attempted suicide twenty times, finally dying alone in the
bathroom of her London townhouse.

Michael was impressed with the intensity of Liza's survival instinct, even
though she currently was on a self-destructive binge. She told him that once
when she was sixteen, her mother kicked her out of the house. "I had my plane
fare and a $100 left over," she told Michael. "I went to New York, and I've
never taken another penny from my parents."

Michael was mesmerized by her stories of growing up in Hollywood. She
told of the fabulous parties thrown by Judy and her then-husband, Sid Luft.
"At one of them, Lauren Bacall sang while Humphrey Bogart looked on in
amusement. Judy had invited this newcomer to Hollywood. At least I thought
she was a newcomer. Turns out she'd been around for quite awhile. Her name
was Marilyn Monroe. She sat alone. No one would talk to her. I felt lonely,
too, and I came over to sit with her and talk to her. She was so grateful for the
company she practically cried."

Michael confided that he too had moments of great loneliness such as that.

Sometimes Liza could be seen sitting alone even at Studio 54 with
Michael, just holding his hand, although romance was not part of the equation.
"I'm vulnerable," she told him.

"It's one of your most appealing qualities."

"But I don't want to be vulnerable," she protested. "It's a secret. I don't
want the public to find out I'm vulnerable. Oh, my God, the last thing I want
to become is the second Judy Garland."

Michael was once asked what had drawn him to Liza since they were such
different personalities. "She gives. Everyone else in my life takes."

One night, high on cocaine, Liza turned to Michael and said, "I'm tired of
talking about myself. What do you think of me?"

"I like the way you crawled out from behind your mother's shadow."

Michael's devotion to Liza even earned her a paragraph in his autobiography, Moonwalk. "Liza Minelli (sic) is a person whose friendship I'll always
cherish. She's like my show business sister."

Michael, who claimed "I love her," loved her so much he never learned to
spell her name. But his editor, Jackie 0, should have known to spell Minnelli
with two n's. The line, "my show business sister," was very revealing. Capote
sometimes referred to Michael and Liza as "soul sisters."

"We get together and talk about the business," Michael wrote. "It comes
out of our pores. We both eat, sleep, and drink various moves and songs and
dances."

Michael, however, wasn't spending all of his time with his "soul sister."
He was making the scene with other cultural icons eager to see what he was
about. "Michael was on the long path to his own liberation and independence
from his domineering family," Sidney Lumet allegedly said. "Michael was the
meal ticket for the Jacksons, so they wanted to keep a close eye on him even
though he was experiencing New York on his own terms."

At Studio 54, Michael met some of the cultural elite of the era, although
he wasn't certain who some of the celebrities were. Truman Capote introduced
him to Gloria Swanson. Michael was found under his Afro wearing a pale
shantung-weave shirt and a scarlet-colored Ascot. The silent screen vamp,
who immortalized herself by playing Norma Desmond in the 1950 Sunset
Blvd., said, "Young man, in my day men went to a barber."

He also met the great diva of modern dance, Martha Graham, who sat next
to Betty Ford. By that time, Michael had come to realize that her husband,
Gerald, had been president of the United States.

Escorted by her mother, Teri, Brooke Shields was pointed out to Michael,
but their relationship lay in the future. Years later, he could not recall meeting
a brunette Madonna, but he did wonder who that old man was sitting next to
her. It was William S. Burroughs, that "literary outlaw," junkie, wife murderer, and author of the underground classic, Naked Lunch.

Studio 54 functioned as Michael's major "Combat Zone," but he was
spotted at other venues as well. He appeared at avant-garde gallery openings
on the arm of his "date," Andy Warhol. At one such gathering in Soho, Warhol
was overheard talking to Michael about what he wanted to do as a filmmaker.

"I want to depict homosexuality, lesbianism, sadomasochism, masturbation, drug use-even douching, and most definitely every known sexual permutation in the universe."

On another night at Studio 54, Warhol confided to Michael, as he had countless others, his plans to stage a musical
on Broadway to be called The Velvet
Underground.

Mick Jagger

"Mick Jagger and I have been planning this
for years," Warhol said. "There's a great role
in it for a black singer. In nearly all artistic
productions today, you have to cast a token
black. Perhaps you'll agree to take the part
and make it your Broadway debut."

"As the token nigger?" Michael asked, seemingly offended by Warhol's remark. "I don't
know about that."

"My protege, Paul Morrissey, wants me to
produce a film starring Mick and Bianca
Jagger," Warhol said. "It's to be based on
Andre Gide's The Caves of the Vatican. Bianca and Mick will be cast as brother and sister. I guess I'll have to rewrite Gide because I want Mick and Bianca
to commit incest in the film. Of course, I haven't read Gide. Maybe he's
already come up with the incest thing all by himself."

"Actually, I heard that David Bowie and Jagger are considering dressing
in drag and doing a remake of Some Like It Hot," Michael said. "I'm sure
they'd be better than Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon. Some Like It Hot is my
favorite Marilyn Monroe movie."

"Mine too!" Warhol chimed in, as he cruised the main dance floor of
Studio 54. Suddenly, he showed astonishment. "Speak of the Devil! Here
comes darling Mick now. I'll introduce the two of you."

As Mick Jagger talked to Michael for less than twenty minutes, he seemed
to grow bored and invited both Warhol and Michael to go with him to Max's
Kansas City Dance Club. Michael only reluctantly agreed to go along.

At Max's, Jagger continued to drink heavily. At one point Jagger asked
Warhol to dance with him, and the two men took to the floor, creating a spectacle. Michael sat on the sidelines.

Warhol returned to table, but Jagger headed for the men's room. He was
trailed by a string of gay guys hoping for a "sighting."

"Mick is hot!" Warhol told Michael. "Every time he goes to take a piss, a
lot of guys follow him inside the toilet, hoping to get a look at his dick. I don't
have to revert to such tactics. I've slept with Mick on several occasions. In
fact, I'm mad about the boy."