Jacko, His Rise and Fall: The Social and Sexual History of Michael Jackson (29 page)

Michael asked Frank DiLeo, Epic's production director, to announce to
the press that he'd made a bid to purchase the skeleton for $500,000.

DiLeo sent ahead and even prepared a press release, claiming that
"Michael Jackson has read and studied all
material about The Elephant Man, and visited the hospital in London twice where
Merrick's remains are found. His possible
purchase of the skeleton of John Merrick is
not for exploitation. Mr. Jackson cares about
and is concerned with The Elephant Man as
a dedicated and devoted collector of art and
antiques."

John Merrick

The announcement generated millions of
dollars of publicity. But an alert London
reporter checked with the hospital and
learned that no such offer had been made.
The press announcement was a hoax.

Fearing a backlash, with his credibility
on the line, Michael ordered DiLeo to make an actual offer of one million dollars for the bones.

"One million big ones for a sack of old bones," DiLeo reportedly told the
hospital. The administration was offended, turning down the offer. "The
Elephant Man is not for sale," said a hospital spokesperson. "In no way do we
want to be part of a cheap publicity stunt."

Although free, the publicity generated by The Elephant Man ultimately
boomeranged into headlines such as WACKO-JACKO'S IN THE CLOSET
WITH THE ELEPHANT MAN.

Ultimately, the publicity campaign generated by Michael himself failed.
He would never be taken seriously in the press again, and The Elephant Man
only generated more press, most of it unfavorable, much of it devoted to ridiculing Michael as a public figure.

Although he was hardly grotesque like The Elephant Man, Michael himself still dreaded to look into the mirror. He decided that more surgical altering of his face was necessary, and he asked Dr. Steven Hoefflin to perform a
second rhinoplasty. "With my new nose, I will never look like Joe ever
again-no one will ever say that."

Abandoning the greasy "soul food" he loved, Michael became a vegetarian, losing his baby fat. He claimed he wanted to have a body as lithe as
Rudolf Nureyev or Mick Jagger.

Eventually the dreaded acne that had plagued him for years began to clear
up. With the second nose job, his face took on a different look. A remarkable
transformation had begun. Those close to Michael privately voiced concerns
that he was still not satisfied with his looks.

Speaking off the record, an executive of Epic said he felt that "deep down
Michael just didn't want to be black like his brothers. He wanted to change his
skin color. But how does a black boy become white? If there's a way, I predict
Michael will find it, regardless of the cost."

As the 80s rolled in, Michael began to change his appearance drastically.
His looks caused massive public interest, analysis, and an outcry from many
of his fans, especially black ones.

Author David Buckley wrote, "If David Bowie was about psychic reconstruction through a personal style, then soul singer Michael Jackson was taking it all too literally and way too far. Jackson took home improvements literally and, by redesigning his face and skin tone, allegedly through elective cosmetic surgery, he gave the impression of being ashamed of his colour.
Running through all this was a Peter Pan-esque androgyny. Jackson, with the
body of a boy and the face of a strategically redesigned white/black,
male/female hybrid, made a global impact in the 1980s through his plasticsurgery bisexuality. In a decade in which Western youths were subjected to
increasing pressure to reconstruct their bodies through diet and exercise (with often fatal results), Jackson set himself up as the ultimate example of an individual trying to cheat nature. At a time when hundreds of thousands developed
eating disorders and became ashamed of their natural size and shape,
Jackson's quest for bodily `perfection' was another signal to youth that the
current orthodoxy was both righteous and right."

With his increased earning power, Michael not only changed his face but
financed the expansion and restoration of the Encino family home. The old
lackluster ranch-style house, which Roy Rogers and Dale Evans might have
called home, was completely gutted. In its place a Tudor-style mansion sprouted up, a far more luxurious retreat to the increasingly famous Jacksons.
Michael owned fifty percent of the house, for which he paid half-a-million
dollars, the rest belonging to his parents. Eventually Joe, strapped for cash,
would sell his quarter interest to Michael as well, giving him three-fourths
ownership with his mother sharing the rest.

Reconstruction of Hayvenhurst would go on for more than two years.
While driving through West Sussex in England, Michael had spotted a country estate that intrigued him. He wanted it duplicated at Encino. The leaded
stained glass with beveled panes would have made Elizabeth I feel at home.

When the estate was finished, black swans and flamboyant peacocks wandered the grounds along with llamas and deer, even a giraffe nicknamed
"Jabar." His favorite pet was "Muscles," a ten-foot boa constrictor.

Michael's "folly," was the inclusion, within the reconfigured Encino
estate, of an abbreviated version of Main Street U.S.A., his favorite part of
Disneyland, which he continued to visit frequently.

Michael would also spend several hours every week watching films within the estate's on-site theater, a facility that provided plush scarlet-colored
seating for 32 guests. His favorite film was Fantasia, which he is said to have
seen one hundred times. For comedy, he preferred Charlie Chaplin or The
Three Stooges. Fred Astaire movies like Royal Wedding were also among his
favorites, as was Katharine Hepburn's Little Women.

The house itself was filled with Jackson memorabilia, including both gold
and platinum albums used as wall decorations, along with family pictures,
many depicting Michael with celebrities such as Liza Minnelli.

In all, Michael would spend nearly four million dollars "to turn
Hayvenhurst into a fairytale."

While reconstruction was going on, Michael in February of 1981 purchased a three-bedroom condo at 5420 Lindley Avenue in Encino for
$225,000, giving Katherine a share. Since the condo afforded privacy,
Michael would later share it with a series of very young boys he'd invite for
"sleepovers."

With his new estate at Encino and his increasingly celebrity status, Michael began to seek out other celebrities, some of whom were the most
famous on the planet. Or, rather, celebrities began to seek Michael out.

Unlike many pop stars of his age who had no use for the established stars
of the industry, Michael in his future would court some of the biggest stars of
the so-called Golden Age of Hollywood.

One night in Los Angeles the most controversial star in Hollywood-at
that time-walked across a crowded room and extended her hand to Michael
in a firm handshake.

At the time of their meeting, he was aware of her reputation, knowing that
she'd been variously ridiculed as a sex kitten in the film Barbarella, and as a
political activist for her views on the Vietnam War. Her enemies called her
"Hanoi Jane."

Standing before him was one of the most self-assured and beautiful
women he'd ever seen, definitely with an independent spirit and a "mind of
her own," as he'd later tell Katherine.

She was one of the most recognizable faces in the world. Although they
were hardly the type of films he normally liked to see, Michael had sat
through Klute in 1971 and Coming Home in 1978, each of which had earned
her an Oscar for Best Actress.

"Hello," she said in her perfectly modulated voice, "you must be Michael
Jackson. I'm Jane Fonda."

"Michael has a heightened sensitivity for the crying needs of
this world. Through his 'Heal the World Foundation,' he works
to preserve this planet's most precious resources-children,
and the environment. He feels much of the same responsibility a parent feels-his children are all of our children. Michael
brings so much to so many, he is one of the world's most precious resources himself. "

--Steven Spielberg

"The world sees me as this monstrous freak who abuses little
boys. "

--Michael Jackson to Elizabeth Taylor

"He's taken a lot more control of his own life. When I made
'Thriller' I dealt with thousands of managers and record people and all this stuff and it's pretty clear to me that Mike
makes his own decisions now... He has a lot more pressure on
him now. There's a lot more jealousy. Michael, you know, is
an old pro. People still think of Michael Jackson as little
Michael Jackson like little Stevie Wonder, but you're talking
about someone who was on the Ed Sullivan show, I mean he
was making live performances and working hard from the
time he was little.""

--John Landis

"Michael originally rang me up on Christmas day... and I didn't
believe it was him. I didn't think it was Michael... eventually I
said, 'Is that really you?' He was laughing on the phone, he
said, 'You don't believe me, do you?'

--Paul McCartney,
On the first time Michael proposed they work together

"Billy Joel and Michael Jackson. "

--Taylor Hanson, on his favorite singers

In Jane Fonda's 2005 autobiography, My Life So Far, you can look in the
index under the Js, and you'll find Jackson State University. But no Michael
Jackson. Since he was the biggest entertainer in the world during the height of
their friendship, and they became close personal comrades, it can be assumed
that Jane's omission of Michael was a deliberate choice.

Jane devoted several pages to the making of the 1981 film, On Golden
Pond, and Michael was a frequent visitor to the set, yet he is not included in
her memoirs. She introduced him to her father, Henry Fonda, who was near
death at the time, and to the indomitable Katharine Hepburn, with whom
Michael formed the unlikeliest of friendships.

Perhaps Jane, and this is pure speculation, was offended by all the subsequent child molestation charges whirling around Michael, and wanted to distance herself from him. Jane has had enough controversy in her life, without
having to defend Michael in public as Elizabeth Taylor has done without
apologies.

At least before she moved to Atlanta and became a "Born Again," Jane
was worldly wise and sophisticated. Born to Hollywood royalty, Henry Fonda
and Frances Brokaw, Jane had led a privileged life, meeting screen legends
and moving in left-wing political circles. From reports, she was mesmerized
by the naivete of Michael. She might have considered him like a child, a very
fragile individual, a wounded antelope in private life, but the epitome of a
graceful panther on stage where every move is perfect. He might have seemed
to be filled with a love for mankind, especially the children of the world.

Sharp, sexy, and strong, Jane could, in succession, play a call girl stalked
by a killer, the writer Lillian Hellman, a timid wife involved in an erotic relationship with a paraplegic, a hardened newswoman, or a newlywed in a
Tennessee Williams atypical stab at comedy.

Michael eagerly accepted her invitation to come to Squam Lake in New Hampshire where On Golden Pond was being shot.

He recalled the time fondly as they sat "all alone on a boat in the water
just talking, talking, talking. We talked about everything: racism, Vietnam,
acting, politics, even philosophers. It was like wandering into the Magic
Kingdom. Miss Fonda knew so much about everything. Even though young,
she was informed about all things, especially politics."

Michael might have listened to Jane talk about politics, and he may have
absorbed much, but he was never to commit himself politically. "Unlike Jane,
I don't think Michael ever learned the difference between a Republican and a
Democrat," Katharine Hepburn once said.

Jane opened up to Michael and shared some of the private trauma she'd
experienced in her own life, including the suicide of her mother. She spoke of
the coldness of Henry Fonda to her, and how difficult their father-daughter
relationship had been.

"We had the same psychic scars," Jane later said of Michael. "The tissue
had never healed. We bonded by talking about how emotionally distant our
fathers were from us."

Michael shared his own trauma of growing up under Joe's thumb-the
midnight terrorizing, the beatings, and the punishments inflicted if he didn't
get all dance movements and notes right. At one time, Michael told Jane, "I
was so afraid of displeasing Joe that my vocal cords froze."

Although Michael became a far better-known entertainer than even Jane herself, she intervened and tried to help him launch a film career, the one form
of the entertainment industry where success had eluded him. As Michael's
chauffeur drove his sparkling new, cream-colored Rolls-Royce through the
streets of Los Angeles, Jane conjured up the "perfect role for you-Peter Pan,
a symbol of youth, joy, freedom."

MJ and Jane Fonda