Jacko, His Rise and Fall: The Social and Sexual History of Michael Jackson (30 page)

Michael burst into tears. "How could you know?" he asked her. "You
touched on my dream. I've always wanted to be Peter Pan, to lead lost children into a magical world of fantasy. My bedroom is filled with pictures of
Peter and memorabilia. At times I dream I'm that lost boy of Never-Never
Land."

"The more I think about it, the more I know you're Peter Pan. You wouldn't even have to act it since you are Peter."

Jane, who had her own production company, said she'd like to produce the
film. Then she learned that Francis Ford Coppola of The Godfather fame was
planning a spectacular and costly version of Peter Pan. Encountering the producer at a party, Jane pitched the idea of casting Michael as Peter Pan to
Coppola, who had his doubts. "A black Peter Pan-what a novel idea!"

Quincy Jones felt Michael might be brilliant as Peter Pan on the screen.
"There's a downside, though," he cautioned. "Michael might keep playing
Peter Pan even when the camera is not on him. Children are supposed to grow
up-that is, all but one."

Later, when Michael shared his dream of becoming the screen version of
Peter Pan with friend Marlon Brando, the actor said, "Forget it! Peter Pan is a
wimp. Go for the role of Al Capone instead!" Michael later wondered if
Brando was sincere or merely being the prankster he so often was.

Eventually, Steven Spielberg entered the race to film Peter Pan, but ran
into trouble securing the rights. He was receptive, however, to casting Michael
as a young Peter Pan. Later, an original script, Hook, was written. In this film,
the role of Peter Pan called for an older
actor, the part going to Robin Williams.
Michael was extremely disappointed. At
grim times such as this, he retreated to his
darkened bedroom at Encino, "where I
cried my eyes out."

Steven Spielberg

As the years went by, Jane would
pop in and out of Michael's life, appearing at a dinner, a party, or a premiere. But
in the 90s, when charges of child molestation against Michael became more shrill,
she disappeared from the radar screen.

"She just wasn't there to lend her moral support," David Geffen is reported to have said. "Neither was Katharine
Hepburn, Brooke Shields, or Jackie Onassis for that matter. Jane no longer
returned Michael's calls, or so I heard." As far as that goes, Geffen too disappeared from Michael's life.

When Henry Fonda published his memoirs, Fonda My Life, in 1981, he
too omitted any mention of Michael Jackson. But he'd met Michael during the
filming of On Golden Pond, and in some strange way had bonded with him
for a few days.

Knowing that her father could be difficult and closed off to people, Jane
had been hesitant to introduce him to Michael. "I was in awe of my Dad," Jane
told Michael. "As a girl, I used to do naughty things just to get his attention."
She related an amusing story about how, when she was cast in the sexually
provocative film, Barbarella, in 1968, she discussed with Henry the possibility of his appearing in a cameo role in the movie. "Will I have to take my
clothes off?" Henry queried his daughter.

Before Jane introduced them, Michael had never seen a Henry Fonda
movie. The taciturn Henry was sitting by a boat dock fishing. During Jane's
introduction, her father's face was partially covered by a wide-brimmed hat as
he was allergic to too much sun. He didn't look up or even acknowledge
Michael on the first meeting. Michael was heartbroken, as he wanted screen
legends to like him. It isn't certain that Henry even knew who Michael
Jackson was.

"Dad, you must speak to Michael," Jane beseeched him. "He's one of the
most important singers in the world."

"If he's so important, why haven't I heard of him?" Henry finally spoke
up. "Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland I've heard of."

"People in the music industry think Michael is going to become the
biggest star of the 1980s," Jane
said.

"What do I care about the
80s?" Henry asked. "I won't be
around to live through them."

Henry Fonda and Katharine Hepburn

At that point Michael
walked up. "If you give me
your address, I'll send you a
postcard to wherever you are,"
Michael said.

Henry looked up at him as
if he hadn't quite registered that
remark. Finally, he broke into
laughter. "Listen boy, I don't want to put up with you today, but come around this time tomorrow and I'll
teach you to fish."

Michael showed up at the appointed time, and there was Henry impatiently waiting for him. He wore a different hat. When Michael asked about it,
Henry told him that he had been given the hat by his co-star on the film,
Katharine Hepburn. "She said it had been Spencer Tracy's favorite hat. Tracy
and Kate were supposed to have been lovers. Frankly, in my opinion, I think
they were more beards for each other than lovers."

Michael didn't understand what that meant.

According to Jane, Michael and Henry went fishing together every day for
three days before either of them opened up to each other. "They would sit for
hours in silence as both of them were incredibly sensitive and private people-not really comfortable with strangers."

On the night of the third day, Henry told his daughter, "That Michael
Jackson is one strange young man. But, so what?"

Jane granted an interview to Gerri Hirshey of Rolling Stone. "Like
Michael, Dad was also painfully self-conscious and shy in life. He really only
felt comfortable when he was behind the mask of a character. He could liberate himself when he was being someone else. That's a lot like Michael."

At first, Henry had been unnerved by Michael's falsetto whisper, but later
he said, "I guess he can talk like he wants to talk."

On the fourth day of fishing, the normally crusty Henry opened up more
to Michael, who wondered when they were ever going to catch a fish. "There
are only two fish in this lake," Henry said, "and both of those fuckers are too
smart to get caught by us."

Michael sensed that Henry was visibly upset by something, although he
wasn't revealing why. Finally, Michael asked, "What's the matter? I can tell
something's wrong."

Henry took off his hat and reached for a newspaper article he'd tucked
away there. He showed it to Michael. Some supposedly well-meaning friend
had sent him an article by one "John Evans," which had appeared in an underground Hollywood paper. It was the most scurrilous article ever written on
Henry, and certainly the most invasive ever published on his private life.

Very slowly, Michael read some of the more shocking revelations.

"Just because we perform in public, showing our asses, or at least our
faces, to the world, that same public thinks it owns a piece of us," Henry said.
"It thinks it's entitled to know all about us, even the most personal things.
You'll find that true as you hang around longer in the business."

The article had dredged up rumors about Henry's past, including a report
that he and his best pal, Jimmy Stewart, had been lovers when they'd roomed
together during their poverty days as struggling actors in New York. It also was reported that Henry had gotten his start in the theater when he'd been
seduced by Marlon Brando's mother in Omaha when he was quite young.

The most viperish part of the article quoted his first wife, actress Margaret
Sullavan, who claimed that Henry had been a premature ejaculator. She
labeled him "the one-minute man," and Evans reported that in his article. He
also reported Henry's alleged response: "Maggie can make a man feel like he
has two inches."

Henry was known for making homophobic remarks. Once he'd mocked
George Sanders for "running after Tyrone Power with his tongue hanging
out." When Sanders heard that, he curtly responded, "Henry Fonda is a Don
Juan homosexual who has to prove himself with one woman after another."

Crumpling up the article and throwing it in the lake, Henry told Michael,
"All the women, except my present wife, Shirlee Adams, have been sexual
predators. Joan Crawford, not one of my wives, once called me in my dressing and invited herself by. She told me to be waiting for her in a jockstrap. I'm
not impressive in a jockstrap. I fled the studio."

Months later, Michael was watching when Henry won his first Oscar for
his appearance in On Golden Pond. Regrettably, Henry was too ill to attend
the ceremonies, and his statuette was accepted by Jane. All the Fonda family
and Michael knew that the Oscar was the veteran actor's last hurrah.

Michael became so close to the Fonda family that on August 12, 1982, he
arrived at their Bel Air home in a black Rolls-Royce to commiserate with family members after Henry's death. That night, Michael got to see his first Henry
Fonda movie. It was the 1940s film The Grapes of Wrath. He vowed one day
to watch On Golden Pond.

Before Michael had ended his stay with Jane on that New Hampshire
Lakeshore, he'd met yet another screen legend appearing in On Golden Pond,
an actor even more formidable than Henry Fonda. Once again, the introduction was arranged by Jane.

If Michael needed a role model for a closeted life, or even an example of
how to fool the world, he could find no better figure than Miss Hepburn herself. At the time of his meeting with her, she'd retired from the sexual wars
and was an imperial diva who demanded that you play by her rules or else
you'd be banished from her court.

Her youth was long behind her, and she often claimed that, "I wasted it in
the idiot profession of acting."

When Jane had first introduced them, Hepburn had been put off by
Michael's wimpy presentation of himself. "Men are worthless creatures," she
later told Jane, "but if you are a man, then you should act like one-not some
creature trapped in the twilight zone."

She did have one question for Jane, however. "Just who in the hell is Michael Jackson, and why should I bother?"

Gradually she warmed to Michael, even though at first he annoyed her.
"He followed me around the set like a puppy dog in heat," she claimed. In
him, she found the perfect listener. He had almost nothing to say, at least nothing of importance, and she had "the wisdom of the ages to impart to him."

She delivered one bon mot after another to him, and sometimes he wrote
them down. She told him, "If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun!" She
recommended that he live his life on his own terms, not bowing to the social
pressures of the world.

When she'd been young-her own father had called her "a raging bull"Hepburn had pursued the bisexual life, her longest affairs being with Laura
Harding, the American Express heiress, and with Spencer Tracy, an abusive
alcoholic who drank to escape the torment of his own closeted homosexuality. Hepburn invented faux romances with such unlikely candidates as Howard
Hughes, while carrying on genuine affairs with women, many of them famous
such as Claudette Colbert, Greta Garbo, Judy Garland, and Judy Holliday. Her
male lovers had included Charles Boyer, John Ford, Leland Hayward, Van
Heflin, George Stevens, and Jimmy Stewart.

"My privacy is my own, and I am the one to decide when it shall be violated," Hepburn told Michael. "Do whatever you want, but only behind closed
doors. Don't let the world knock down your closed door. Bolt it if you have
to."

Privately she told Henry Fonda and others that "Michael is a homosexual-only he doesn't know it yet. It's an obvious source of torment to him, and
will cause him great grief unless he comes to terms with it. I know of such
things." Was that a reference to her troubled relationship with the tormented
Spencer Tracy?

There were things that Michael did that annoyed her. She didn't like him
to wear sunglasses all the time. "A performer must show his eyes to the world.
The eyes are the most important feature of the face. You can convey whatever the hell you're trying to just through the use of your eyes. It could be your
most effective weapon. Sunglasses keep you hidden from the world. That's
okay in private life. But on stage you must let the audience, however briefly,
look into the mirror of your soul. Besides, those damn sunglasses make you
look like a Harlem drug addict."