Jacko, His Rise and Fall: The Social and Sexual History of Michael Jackson (23 page)

He also arrived in the New York of 1977, which, arguably, was the most
decadent year in that city's history in the entire 20th century. Right before the
AIDS epidemic struck, hip New Yorkers-both gay and straight-were on a
sex binge. "If you couldn't get laid in New York at that time," said Truman
Capote, "you had two heads and a lizard's tail."

In the apartment, La Toya took the luxury suite, a showplace boudoir with
a large bed and a mirror above it. The decorator had been inspired by Mae
West's bedroom in Los Angeles. She assigned Michael to the simple "maid's
room," although he-not her-was the star.

The leased apartment rented for $2,500 a month, and was located on the
37th floor of a luxe apartment building "It was the type of place Joan
Crawford might have rented," said Quincy Jones.

The apartment opened onto a balcony with a railing. To distract La Toya
from her new addiction to eating chocolates day and night, Michael tried to
frighten her by dangling himself precariously over the balcony, threatening to
let go and fall to his death. He would, of course, later become notorious for
dangling one of his children over another balcony.

Reclusive and shy for most of his life, Michael, at least temporarily,
became "fun, outgoing, and a dancing fool," in the words of Wiz director
Sidney Lumet. "I heard that he and La Toya were going out to the clubs every
night. I was concerned if Michael could get up for early call at the studio. But
regardless of how late he stayed out the night before, he was always on time
for his appointment with the makeup boys."

One night at the Rainbow Grill, Michael was introduced to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, who would play an important role in his future. "All memories of his goddess, Diana Ross, were forgotten when he encountered Jackie
0," said the gossipy Capote. "He developed a fixation on her. All he could talk
about was her voice, which sounded a bit like Michael's own whispers. Her
clothing. Her glamorous hair styling. Her manner. Her polite manners. Her
sophistication. Until that meeting at the Rainbow Grill, I think Michael had
wanted to transform himself into Miss Diana. But after meeting Jackie, I think
then and there Michael raised the bar on his transgendered dreams. Instead of
a black diva like Ross, he apparently decided that he wanted to transform himself into a white woman like Jackie. After all, she was the most famous and
most admired woman in the world at the time. Who wouldn't want to walk,
act, talk, and look like Jackie? Even moi. Actually, to tell the truth, if I could
become a woman, I would want to be Marilyn Monroe. As Marilyn, I would
fuck Warren Beatty, Robert Redford, Steve McQueen, Paul Newman, Burt
Reynolds, Nick Nolte, Tom Jones-big dick that one-Robert Goulet, Rock
Hudson, you name it. But I was more realistic than Michael. I knew I was
trapped with my own voice and physicality and could never escape it. Even
though a Little Black Sambo, Michael felt no such limitation. He truly
believed the American Dream-in his case, that you could be born a poor
black ghetto boy and grow up to become a rich white woman."

Michael's interest in Jackie was first piqued weeks before he actually met
her. Bob Weiner, a reporter for the New York Daily News, invited Michael to
his apartment for an interview and a home-cooked meal. While Weiner was in
his kitchen preparing a chicken and rice dish, Michael amused himself by
"grazing" through the wealth of books and photographs that were scattered
across the apartment.

At one point, Weiner heard Michael let out a yelp. Rushing in from the
kitchen, he spotted Michael staring at a celebrity nude calendar. One of the
snapshots was of a nude Jackie. "I can't believe what I'm seeing!" Michael
said. "Why would a woman like Mrs. Kennedy pose nude for the paparazzi?"

Weiner patiently explained that the picture had been taken on Skorpios
with a hidden camera. Jackie had no idea that she was being photographed and
that her privacy had been invaded.

Later, the former First Lady found out that her husband, Aristotle Onassis,
had hired a Greek photographer to take the picture. Apparently, her husband
felt Jackie was getting "too grand," and he hoped to embarrass her-"bring
her back down to earth," as he allegedly said at the time.

Weiner later expressed surprise that he had "encountered an eighteenyear-old millionaire with his innocence intact."

After their first meeting, Michael virtually "stalked" Jackie, if the not
always reliable Capote can be believed. "He showered her with invitations. If she had agreed, Michael would have taken
her out every night. I don't know what she
saw in this inexperienced black boy from
somewhere in the Middle West, but Jackie
told me that she was intrigued with
Michael and his sheer audacity."

Truman Capote

"Of course, Jackie was a pro at gracefully turning down invitations and keeping
ardent pursuers at arm's length," Capote
claimed. "Everybody tried to fuck her after
John Kennedy died--some succeeded.
Marlon Brando, William Holden, Frank
Sinatra, and, of course, such `family' as
Robert Kennedy and Peter Lawford. She
was far too hip to suspect that Michael's
motives were sexual. That would have been laughable to her. But she was
aware that she'd become his new role model."

"As of yet, I have no opinion of Michael Jackson," Jackie allegedly told
Capote. "I am just formulating one. I can't figure him out. It seems he's stalled
on the bridge between boyhood and manhood. He also seems strangely asexual. I honestly believe that even though Michael is an adult, he hasn't completely figured out for himself yet if he wants to be gay or straight. I, naturally, have my own ideas about where he's going, which road he'll take. I think
his future sex life-that is, if he has a future sex life-is going to be very difficult for him. Fraught with hazards."

If Jackie did say that, and Capote maintained that she did, it was a perceptive observation about where Michael was heading in his future.

Jackie invited Michael to accompany her to the Robert Kennedy Tennis
Tournament where she introduced him to her children, John Jr. and Caroline.
Later, Michael would invite his newly formed friend, Capote, to escort him to
another tennis match to watch young John play.

The son of the slain American president was just a teenager at the time,
and had not come into his full male beauty with a chiseled physique that
would contribute to his being referred to as "the hunk" in American media.

"Even though John-John was quite young at the time," Capote later
recalled, "he was still a Prince Charming, even with all that long hair. It was
obvious that afternoon that Michael was smitten with John-John. I was only
becoming aware of Michael's interest in teenage boys. I'd met John-John once
or twice through Jackie, but had not paid much attention to him until that
afternoon."

After the game, Capote said that John invited both of them to join him at some grill along Ninth Avenue because he said he was ravenously hungry.
"But, first, we were also invited to join him in the locker room where he had
to shower and get dressed. At the time, I didn't know that John-John was an
exhibitionist. The world learned that much later. Before both Michael and me,
John-John peeled off. He might have been just a boy at the time, but that was
a man's cock he was flaunting at us. The kid was hung ... and hung big.
Michael appeared fascinated. Jack Kennedy often took nude swims-Rose
did too-at their estate on Palm Beach. Anyone who was interested knew that
the President wasn't hung at all. So where did John-John get this octoroon
dick? I think I know. From Jackie's daddy, Jack Bouvier-called `Black Jack.'
His many girlfriends claimed Black Jack was hung like a horse."

John-John, grown up, with his brainchild, George Magazine, and Jay Leno

Capote admitted that he did not know the outcome of Michael's attempt
to forge a relationship with the handsome young teenager. "I understand that
Michael pursued John-John, and they were seen together on a few occasions.
As everybody knows, President Kennedy's closest friend, Lem Billings, was
a homosexual and was madly in love with John Kennedy all his life-a oneway affair, I might add. But John-John didn't seem ready, willing, or able to
use his father's relationship with Lem as a role model for Michael and himself."

"Exhibiting himself in front of Michael was one thing-he did that in
front of any number of gay guys-but carrying it farther than that was out of
the question," Capote claimed. "Jackie always had homosexual panic fears
about her son, especially when he wanted to become an actor. She may have
intervened and nipped Michael's friendship with John-John in the bud.
Somebody told her that Michael was collecting pictures of `the hunk,' all shirtless, and decorating his bedroom walls with them. I don't know for a fact
if that were true or not. But it was enough of a rumor to cause concern in
Jackie's head. In the future, she would continue to pursue her own relationship
with Michael, at least on a professional level. But at a point not known to me,
John-John faded from Michael's life. Unlike Madonna, Michael never really
got a piece of John-John. In that kid's case, the line formed on the right and
the left."

Capote, Michael's original guide to Studio 54, called the legendary dance
club "very democratic, boys with boys, girls with girls, girls with boys, blacks
and whites, capitalists and Marxists, and everything else-all in one big mix!"

And so it was.

In 1977, Studio 54 was the hottest night club in the entire world. You
never knew who might show up on any given night: Jackie Onassis, Gregory
Peck, or even Doris Duke, the planet's richest woman. Andy Warhol was a
regular. During the making of The Wiz, Diana Ross appeared frequently, even
Elizabeth Taylor, Betty Ford, and Mikhail Baryshnikov, who wanted to dance
with Michael as a lark but was politely and shyly turned down.

One night, Capote invited Michael to his favorite spot, the deejay's booth
overlooking the dance floor. From this crow's nest, he had an ideal viewing
spot. He told Michael that, "Proust would have loved this place. Too bad he's
not around to record it. I think about all the dead who would have loved 54:
Toulouse-Lautrec, Baudelaire, Ronald Firbank, Carl Van Vechten, Oscar
Wilde."

"Who are all these people?" Michael asked, "And what did they die
from?"

Capote stared incredulously at Michael. "They were lost souls who died
for love," he finally said.

Constructed in 1927, the building itself was an old theater and TV studio.
Before that it was once the home of the San Carlo Opera Company. The
address was at 254 W. 54th St., off Broadway. Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager
were the welcoming hosts if you were rich, famous, infamous, or just merely
gorgeous. They invited "the right people," turning all others away.

Around the dance floor were silver banquettes. Under the balconies was a
mirrored diamond-shaped bar. Overlooking both the balcony and the large
dance floor was the infamous "Rubber Room," designed with thick rubber
walls so they could be washed down with soap and water after a night of sex
and drugs.

In the basement was the very private, invitation-only VIP Room, called
the "sanctum sanctorum." With chain-link fences lining its perimeter, it
evoked a prison. But night after night it was the most sought-after den of those
denizens of the night who came here to pursue private pastimes devoted to drugs and raw sex.

Gloria Vanderbilt