Jacko, His Rise and Fall: The Social and Sexual History of Michael Jackson (7 page)

"Good night, Mr. Davis," Michael said. "An honor meeting you."

As Davis watched Michael rush off to join his brothers, he turned to the
stage manager and said, "The kid's definitely gay, even if he don't know it
yet.

As Michael departed, Davis called to him, "This is the last time I'm gonna
share the stage with a scene-stealing, thirty-five-year-old midget. Try to
upstage me, will you?"

When a startled Michael turned back, Davis smiled, claiming, "I was just
joking!"

Only fifteen minutes earlier, Michael had kept dancing when Davis clearly wanted him off the stage. Davis practically had to take the boy by the nape
of his neck and shove him out of the spotlight.

There would always remain a friendly rivalry between Davis and Michael,
but they became friends of a sort.

In an interview with People Extra, Davis said of Michael: "He takes a step
that you've been doing and then by the time he switches it around, you don't
even recognize it. There is nothing new about thrusting your hips out, but
when he does that with quick moves, the high kick out and that slow back-up
step he does, people say, `Jeez, what is he doing?' And he never lays on a
move long enough for you to figure it out. I'm sure if he worked with Nureyev
or Baryshnikov, he would come close to that level. Can he tap dance? I don't
know. But then again I'd hate to leave my dancing shoes in his vicinity."

In Davis's autobiography, Why Me?, he said: "Michael used to come by
my house-'Can I borrow some of your tapes, Mr. D.?' And he'd go to my
library and take what he wanted of the shows I'd done. Visiting me in Monte
Carlo in July of '88, he said, `Y'know, I stole some moves from you, the attitudes.' I'd known that. It's terribly flattering for the young to feel that way
about you. Especially Michael, who I think is the ultimate professional. A lot
of young performers have become multimillionaires on ten big records, but
they don't know how to bow and get themselves off a stage. Everything
Michael does on a stage, though, is exactly right."

After his boys appeared on Hollywood Palace, an angry Joe confronted
Berry Gordy. "What is it with Ross?" he asked. "She introduced my boys as
Michael Jackson and The Jackson 5. Michael is no more a star than any of my
other sons. All my kids are stars. Jermaine one day will sell more records than
Michael."

Gordy later asked Ross why she'd made such an introduction, virtually
renaming the group. She said: "You've heard of Diana Ross and The
Supremes? Now you've heard of Michael Jackson and The Jackson 5." She turned and walked away.

One night when Ross came home late, she was startled to hear the sound
of her own voice. Live. She had to pause for one minute before she realized
that wasn't her voice but that of Michael. She slowly slipped into the room
where she rehearsed her music.

There in front of her full-length mirror was Michael dressed as herself in
her red toreador pants and bolero jacket. He even wore her Joan Crawford
fuck-me stiletto heels. He was singing in perfect imitation her "Rock-A-Bye
Your Baby with a Dixie Melody," just as he'd heard it in 1966.

Ross walked over and abruptly cut off the music. Frightened, Michael
turned around so fast he almost fell from his perch on those stiletto heels.

"Forget it, kid!" she said harshly. "There's room on this planet for only
one Miss Ross." She stormed off toward her bedroom to call Gordy. "The
kid's gotta go!" she shouted into the phone when she reached her lover.

In spite of this rejection, Michael was not to be deterred. In the years to
come, he would continue to imitate Ross. When he became the chatelain of
Neverland, he even insisted that his staff refer to him as "Miss Ross."

As the years went by, Michael began to rewrite the history of his stay at
the home of Ross.

When he was in his late teens, he carried his imagination too far by suggesting that he had shacked up with Ross. "Diana Ross was my mother, my
lover, and my sister-all combined in one amazing person." Mother, perhaps.
Sister, perhaps. But not lover.

When Ross heard that, she was more amused than angry. "In his dreams!"
was her only comment.

Gordy was shocked. "That's like Liberace claiming he had a long affair
with Ava Gardner, and she told Twinkle-Toes that he was better in bed than
Sinatra."

The story about a physical relationship
between Michael and Ross is pure bunk. For
starters, Ross is not a child molester. She never
possessed any sexual interest in Michael, who
was only eleven years old when he lived under
the same roof with her. "He was just a cute kid
I helped along the road to stardom," Ross
said-and accurately so.

Motown Records'
Berry Gordy, Jr.

Even though she has never publicly commented on Michael's sexuality, as a very hip
woman she must have known for years where
Michael's inclinations lay.

Ross had a more believable story to tell years later. "I looked at this little kid whirling around up there on stage, and I
thought I was looking at myself. I couldn't believe it. I saw so much of myself
as a child in Michael. He was performing all the time. That's the way I was.
He could be my son."

After years of struggle, fame at last came to The Jackson 5. By December
of 1969, the brothers made their debut album, trading once again on the fame
of their sponsor, Diana Ross. Released in time for the Christmas buying market that year, the album was called Diana Ross Presents The Jackson 5,
although she'd wanted to call it, Diana Ross Presents Michael Jackson and
The Jackson 5. The album became the fastest-selling group record in the history of Motown.

To prick this promotional balloon, a critic for Rolling Stone wrote: "Given
any kind of decent material at all, The Jackson 5 should be able to give us
many years of good tight music. Who's this `Diana Ross' anyway?"

The opening sounds of "Zip A Dee Doo Dah" on their first album were
played around the world. James Barker, a business traveler, remembered hearing the song at Heathrow Airport in London. When he got off the plane in
Lagos, Nigeria, the same "Dee Doo Dah" sounds were heard. "My God,"
Barker said, "this Michael Jackson was just a kid and he could deliver a song
with the evocative emotion of Marvin Gaye."

Barker, among millions of others, sensed what was happening. In spite of
his age, the voice of Michael Jackson, a magnificent instrument, was destined
to become an icon of pop music in the 1970s. Long before the release of his
bestseller album, Thriller, Michael became a powerhouse at Motown, turning
out some of its most memorable music. The Jackson 5 helped create a type of
music called "bubblegum soul." Other "bubblegummers" included their white
rivals, the Osmond Brothers, and the Partridge Family with David Cassidy
and his stepmother, Shirley Jones.

While making Diana Ross Presents The Jackson 5, the entire Jackson
family moved into a house that Gordy had leased for the brood at 1601 Queens
Road in Los Angeles. Katherine and the other children arrived from Gary to
hook up with family members. Ross personally drove Michael to his new
home and said a brief "hello" to Katherine, who flown to Los Angeles with La
Toya, Janet, and young Randy.

For Katherine, it was her first plane ride and her first palm tree. She
hugged Michael to her breast. "With your real mother now in California, you
will no longer need a substitute mother like Miss Ross. There's nothing like
the real thing."

Less than two weeks before Christmas, Michael and his brother appeared
on The Ed Sullivan Show singing not only "I Want You Back" but "Can You
Remember?" It wasn't quite the sensation that Elvis Presley and The Beatles created. But all eyes were on Michael that night, which was fortunate because
his brothers performed awkwardly-Jermaine, for example, warbling off-key.
At his TV set, Berry Gordy, along with sixty million Americans, watched the
program with avid interest. He later said, "Their tempo was off. I was devastated." As always, Gordy was being too much of a perfectionist. The public
ate it up, heralding the arrival of a phenomenal new group.

Gordy demanded that the Jacksons come up with a second hit, and that's
what he got when Michael and his brothers recorded "ABC." Michael's perfect voice sang, "Shake it, shake it, baby." Michael knew the moment he heard
the lyrics that "ABC" was going to be another hit. Gordy was skeptical.
Michael turned out to be right.

On February 24, 1970, "ABC" was released. The song featured a rapid
and driving bass line underneath a shrill but dynamic vocal by Michael.
Amazingly, he could be surprisingly convincing when he sang about love,
even though sounding like a castrato.

In less than two months, it had knocked The Beatles' song, "Let It Be,"
off the top of the chart. Bubblegum boys or not, The Jackson 5 sold nearly 2'/z
million recordings of that solo. The third recording of the Jackson boys sold
nearly two million copies.

In Las Vegas when he heard all three songs, Frank Sinatra was livid.

"Teenybopper shit!" he proclaimed in anger, forgetting that in the early
40s, he, too, was a favorite of bobbysoxers.

From his suite, Sinatra asked two of his henchmen, "What do I think of
Michael Jackson? I'll tell you: he's a God damn faggot pickaninny!"

When he heard of that insult from Sinatra, Michael shot back:

"Sinatra's very overrated. I just don't understand why he has fans. He
might be a living legend, but it's not because of his voice, `cause he's not
much of a singer. When was the last time he had a hit? Back in 1942?"

By June, the third solo of The Jackson 5, "The Love You Save," broke out
at the top of the Billboard chart, knocking out The Beatles with their "The
Long and Winding Road."

Jacksonmania swept America. With success came bookings all over the
country, beginning with their first concert appearance on May 2, 1970 in
Philadelphia. "My God," one policeman said, "you'd think Elvis has arrived
in town with The Beatles as his back-up. I've never seen such pandemonium.
I rescued one girl, no more than thirteen, who was almost trampled to death."

The same hysteria greeted the Jackson brothers wherever they went. In
one case, police foiled the plot of some overeager girls to rush the stage and
strip the brothers "buck-assed naked." At some of their more unruly concerts,
fans disrupted the performance. One night, a loud-voice teenage girl shouted:
"Whip out your big black dicks!"

With the release of their next album, also called ABC, The Jackson 5 continued the tour. The hysteria mounted. Michael tried to get used to screaming
fans, the flashing dome lights, the sirens wailing, and limousines pushing forward into dense crowds. But he couldn't quite seem to adjust. His brothers
adapted but he didn't, often breaking into tears or else sobbing screams when
he felt he was going to be killed by the mobs.

In contrast, the older brothers enjoyed the adulation, especially from hysterical female fans eager to get laid by one of the brothers. "We are big-time.
We'll be on top forever. Legends in the making, and pussy lined up from New
York to California, all a man would ever want. Islamic men who sacrifice
themselves for Allah are promised forty virgins in Heaven. Hell, man, that
many virgins are available to each of us in every town." This quote, most often
attributed to Jermaine, may be apocryphal.

When the neighbors got a petition together complaining about the noise
from the Jackson's Queen Road house, Gordy moved them to an ugly but
comfortable motel-like house on Bowmont Drive. The stucco house rested on
stilts and was filled with chocolate brown shag carpeting and plastic furniture
in neon colors of green and pink.

Even though reunited under one roof with his family again, Michael years
later admitted the depth of his loneliness. "I used to sit in my room and cry. It
was so hard to make friends. I was cut off from kids my own age, except for
my brothers and sisters. They never had the same interests that I did. I had a
lot of feelings in me that I could never talk about. I didn't even understand
some of my own yearnings. I wanted to talk about them with someone understanding. I certainly couldn't go to my father. He would understand nothing,
maybe even beat me up if I confided too
much. I loved my mother but she was
bound by her faith, one of the most faithful of the Jehovah's Witnesses. If I told
her things, she might think the Devil had
taken over my soul."

"An understanding heart" was on the
way. When both Katherine and Joe were
out of the house late one afternoon,
Michael was sitting alone in his bedroom
staring vacantly out the window.

Frank Sinatra,
bobbysoxer favorite of the 40s.