Jacko, His Rise and Fall: The Social and Sexual History of Michael Jackson (6 page)

Miss Ross

Although Katherine objected, Joe
moved Michael into Ross's Hollywood
Hills home. The self-absorbed diva had
little time for a growing boy, as she was
completely involved in her own career.
She was at a pivotal point, breaking away from The Supremes to become a
solo performer.

Katherine's primary objection involved having her impressionable young
son live in the same household where Ross was carrying on "a tumultuous Ava
Gardner/Frank Sinatra type of affair." Gordy was married at the time.

The first night Michael spent in Ross's house, she warned him about the
dangers of show business. "I think you're going to make it in show businessand make it big. For a while, fans will build you up-even the media. But
there's a dark side to all of this. The press likes to build up people only to tear
them down. Show business brings many things, fame and fortune among
them. But it also exposes you to the world. Your darkest secrets might end up
one day on the front page of some tabloid. Show business can hurt you, it can
devastate you. It can become your worst nightmare. Fame carries such a terrible price that I sometimes wonder if it's worth it."

In her warning to Michael, Ross might have been seeing a vision of her
own future. In the years to come, it became popular to bash her in the press.
Both her persona and her music were trashed. She was often referred to even
in print as a "bitch." Many of her black fans attacked her for "losing her blackness" by marrying white men. In the words of a security guard at Chi-Chiz,
a black men's gay bar on Christopher Street in New York City, "There are three subjects so controversial, you should never, ever bring them up:
Religion, politics, and Diana Ross."

Michael listened politely to his mentor, perhaps not truly believing her.
Later he'd say, "To me, performing is like a dream come true. You live in
grand mansions. You're driven around in fancy cars. You can buy all the
clothes you want. You never have to go hungry again. No more settling for a
bowl of tomato soup with a sweet roll for a meal. How can show business
harm you? It can only reward you. As for the press, I think those guys will find
me adorable. After all, I'm sorta cute. Besides, I have no dark secrets that
would make tabloid headlines."

After a night spent in Ross's guest bedroom, Michael woke up refreshed
and eager to get on with his career. Over breakfast, he told Ross, "I dreamed
of a Neverland called California, never really knowing it existed. Maybe it
was all a dream, like Oz." Once again, he compared California to Oz. "Now,
this morning, my dream has come true."

Impatient to get to a recording studio, Ross patted his head after eating
one scoop of low-fat cottage cheese and a dry piece of Melba toast. "Just you
be careful that dream doesn't become a nightmare." As a final warning, she
said, "And don't leave any doors and windows open. Stay in the house!"

Instead of "California Dreaming," most Hollywood celebrities at the time
were obsessed with serial killings.

Ross herself seemed to live in fear and had stationed two security guards
outside her home along with ferocious, man-eating guard dogs. The rich and
famous of Hollywood, Bel Air, and Beverly Hills were also hiring bodyguards. When the supply in Los Angeles was exhausted, many guards were
flown in from as far away as Tennessee.

Sharon Tate and six of her guests had been slaughtered by the drugcrazed, Satan-worshipping "family" of a lunatic, Charles Manson, who originally wanted to kill Doris Day and her son, Terry Melcher. Celebrities feared
that other death squads in that drugged era would emulate the Manson family
and also go on killing sprees, torturing and murdering victims. At every
Hollywood party, the grisly tales of the murders were retold, even exaggerated, with a vivid recounting of the tortures the victims were forced to endure
before their slaughter.

"Imagine," actor Gregory Peck asked friends, "being forced to eat our
genitals before dying."

Michael didn't listen to all this talk and felt no fear. "I feel California is
the safest place in the world," he said. "I saw a lot of horrible things before
coming here. Those terrible dives that Joe booked us into. Here the sun shines
brightly on us. America's going to love us, especially me."

During his first week in Ross's home, Michael watched her rehearse "Someday We'll Be Together," which would not only be her farewell song
with The Supremes but would become a hit record.

Michael's first insight into heterosexual marriage had come from his own
dysfunctional parents. In the Ross household, he learned about the rocky
course of straight, off-the-record love affairs. When they weren't making love,
Gordy and Ross were often fighting.

At Gordy's suggestion, her group was already being billed as Diana Ross
and The Supremes instead of The Supremes. Under that label, the group with
Ross as its lead singer had racked up at least a dozen hit records. Ross
believed that she could do even better on her own.

Gordy and Ross had intense, often violent, arguments about the course of
her career. He wanted her to be a crossover success, reaching more affluent
audiences such as the largely white fans who flocked to hear big name entertainers in Las Vegas. She feared she'd lose her following of black devotees if
she appeared to desert them. She also wondered about the future of The
Supremes without her.

Perhaps Michael learned his lessons well ... or not. He too would one day
break from his brothers to pursue a solo career, and he, too, would be charged
with deserting his black audiences in pursuit of pop-read that "white"-fans.

In the days ahead, little Michael hid behind draperies or behind a sofa as
he watched Ross's every move performed before a full-length mirror. He was
spying on her every gesture, her every subtle motion. She was the embodiment of feline grace. He listened for every note coming from her thin voice,
and in time would incorporate every oooh into his own music.

"Michael was Eve Harrington to Diana's Margo Charming," Gordy later
said. He was referring to the 1950 movie, All About Eve. In that film, Bette
Davis played an aging actress, with Eve (Anne Baxter) waiting in the wings
to go on stage in her place.

Michael was a fast learner. "He took the best of Diana Ross and the best
of James Brown, and threw in every move Jackie Wilson ever made," Gordy
recalled.

One day Smokey Robinson showed up at the Motown studios and
watched the Jackson brothers perform. Having seen them on stage before, he
was awed at how they'd improved and perfected their act since coming to
California. In his autobiography, Smokey-Inside My Life, published in 1989,
he wrote that Michael was the biggest talent since Ross-"and the accompaniment of his brothers, bad-ass singers and dancers themselves," only sweetened the stew pot.

On the few nights Ross was ever alone with Michael, she discussed her
career concerns with him, especially about breaking from The Supremes.
Even though he was at a tender age, she sensed he had a "gut instinct" about show business. After
urging her to perform
solo, he told her to "Go,
girl go!" And she did.

The Jackson 5

On October 18,
1969, on Hollywood
Palace, she introduced
The Jackson 5 to
America. Much of black
America tuned in. So did
millions of white
Americans-potential
new fans-hearing The
Jackson 5 for the first
time. A soul ballad, "Can
You Remember?," was
undistinguished. But
when Michael sang,
"Oooh, baby, give me
one more chance," a line
from "I Want You Back," he went over big. At long last, black teenagers in
America had someone to identify with in an era of black pride. "The kids identified with them not as stars, but as contemporaries fulfilling their own fantasies of stardom," said Steve Manning, a long-time Jackson family retainer.

When the song was released as a single, it climbed slowly up the charts,
becoming number one in the nation by January of 1970, when it topped
"Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head" on Billboard charts.

"`I Want You Back' took off like an aural steamroller," wrote Stewart
Reagan. "It took off like a rocket and exploded with a nervous, frenetic pace
that wouldn't let up. Its energy and freshness was made irresistible by the desperate passion of Michael's vocal. Here was a boy screaming for mercy as if
his life depended on it. It reached the parts other records couldn't reach."

At first The Jackson 5 appealed to prepubescent jumpers and screamers.

Rolling Stone joined in high praise for Michael after the release of "I Want
You Back," still considered one of his greatest records. "Catalyzed by a red
hot performance from ten-year-old Michael," a critic wrote, "the record
explodes off the turntable with an intricate Sly-influenced arrangement featuring some of the toughest bass, drum, piano, guitar playing on any soul record
anywhere."

All the Jackson brothers, especially Michael, owe a debt to Freddie
Perren, a writer-producer who worked on such hits as "I Will Survive," recorded by Gloria Gaynor. Perren produced
and co-wrote that mega-seller, "I Want You
Back." Assisting him to make pop music history for the Jacksons were his partners, Deke
Richards and Fonce Mizell. Of course, Berry
Gordy was also looking over the shoulders of
his creative team, who were scoring one pop
single hit after another for the Jacksons in the
early 70s. The team that produced these early
Jackson hits was nicknamed "The
Corporation."

Sammy Davis Jr., whom Michael had always
idolized, was also a host on Hollywood Palace
that night, and Michael met him there for the
first time.

Davis had already heard of the boy's prodigious talent, which evoked his
own memories as a child entering show business when he was far too young.

"Did anyone ever tell you you have Shirley Temple dimples?" he asked
Michael. Michael was dumbfounded at meeting Davis and couldn't immediately formulate an answer.

Davis invited the boy to his dressing room. Around Davis, Michael didn't
have to talk ... only listen.

"I paved the road for you, kid," Davis told him. "When I started out, I was
told that a nigger could never make it big in show business, except on the
chitlin' circuit. I crossed over and won over whitey. You can do the same. Of
course, you'll always have the haters and hecklers in the audience. I face those
nightly."

"But I want people to like me because of my talent, not judge me by the
color of my skin," Michael said.

"A worthy ambition," Davis said. "Keep that thought."

At the end of their talk, there was a knock on Davis's door. It was the stage
manager, announcing the arrival of the performer's date for the evening.
Michael stepped aside as a shapely young woman, who evoked Marilyn
Monroe, brushed past.

"One thing a crossover career means," Davis said, "is that after you've
made it you can always fuck white. Which brings up the big question of the
night: Are you gay?"

"If you mean homosexual, I am not!" Michael said adamantly. "I'm a
Jehovah's Witness. Our religion is strongly opposed to any form of homosexuality. It is against God's teaching."

Davis laughed. "I didn't expect such an answer. Not in show business where all of us guys, even the straight ones, get our dicks sucked from time to
time. Even Sinatra told me he lets a gay stagehand occasionally cop his joint."

Sammy Davis Jr.