The Miami Herald from Miami, Florida • 2

2A FRIDAY JUNE 26 2009 MiamiHeraldcom THE MIAMI HERALD A1 MICHAEL JACKSON: 1958-2009 I FROM THE FRONT PAGE A LOOK BACK himself premiering his "moonwalk" dance move March 31 1983: "Beat by Michael Jackson which features a blistering Eddie Van Haien guitar solo is premiered on MTV Dec 2 1983: MTV debuts Michael Jackson's 14-minute "Thriller" film The Making of "Michael Jackson's Thriller" released in time for Christmas becomes the largest-selling music home video ever 1984: Jackson's hair catches fire during filming of an ad for Pepsi and he is seriously injured Undergoes surgery for burns and is rumored to have plastic surgery Says his increasingly fair complexion is due to vitiligo a skin disease Aug 31 1987: by Michael Jackson the follow-up to firS Sneddon announces Jackson has been charged with lewd and lascivious acts on a child under 14 and administering an intoxicating agent fTI April 30 2004: Jackson pleads not guilty to a grand jury indictment that expands the charges to include allegations of child abduction extortion and false imprisonment June 13 2005: California jury absolves Michael Jackson of all 10 criminal counts accusing him of sexually molesting a 13-year-old boy in 2003 giving the boy wine and conspiring to hold his family captive to get them to rebut a damaging documentary June 25 2009: Michael Jackson suffers cardiac arrest in his Bel Air home He is pronounced dead at UCLA Medical Center Sources Rock Roll Ha(i of Fame Nationa1 Pubitc Radio The New York Post The Daily Tetegrach (Sydney) his Neverland compound: "I am totally innocent of any wrongdoing" Jan 25 1994: Jackson settles out of court with his accuser for an undisclosed sum estimated at $20 million May 1994: Quietly weds Elvis Presley's daughter Lisa Marie At MTV Video Music Awards that year shares an awkward kiss onstage with his wife June 3 1995: Michael Jackson's "History: Past Present and Future Book 1" a double CD pairing one disc of new music with one of greatest hits is released Jan 1996: Lisa Marie files for divorce Nov 15 1996: Jackson and his dermatologist's secretary Debbie Rowe already pregnant secretly wed they later have a two children Oct 1999: A Jackson and Rowe file for divorce "Thriller" and therefore the most hotly anticipated album in history is released It tops the charts for eight weeks and yields seven hit singles THE 1990s Nov 14 1991: Michael Jackson's controversial 11-minute "Black or White" video debuts on television It is a teaser for "Dangerous" his third No 1 album in a row and the source of seven more hit singles Jan 31 1993: Michael Jackson's half-time performance at Super Bowl XXVII draws the largest viewing audience in the history of American television Feb 24 1993: Michael Jackson receives the Living Legend Award at the 35th annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles Sept 15 1993: Lawyers for a 13-year-old boy file a civil suit against Michael Jackson alleging sexual abuse On Dec 22 Jackson responds to the accusations via satellite from THE 2000s Oct 30 2000: Michael Jackson's "Thriller" receives its 26th platinum certification from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) representing 26 million copies sold in the US It remains the second best-selling album in music history March 19 2001: Michael Jackson is inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at the 16th annual induction dinner 'N Sync are his presenters Nov 19 2002: Dangles his third child baby Prince Michael II (whom he calls over a fourth-floor balcony at a Berlin hotel shocking the crowd of fans in the street below Feb 2003: In a BBC documentary aired on ABC's 2020 Michael Jackson reveals he shares his bed with young boys not related to him "It's not sexual" he says "It's very charming it's very Dec 18 2003: Santa Barbara County District Attorney Tom including four consecutive chart-toppers Oct 14 1972: the title song from a film about a beloved rat becomes 14-year-old Michael Jackson's first No 1 single Aug 5 1979: "Off the the first album by the Michael Jackson (who turned 21 that month) is released It produces four hit singles and spends eight months in the Top 10 THE 1980s Dec 1 1982: Michael Jackson's "Thriller" is released Beginning Feb 21 1983 it tops the charts for 37 weeks March 5 1983: "Billie Jean" the second single from Michael Jackson's tops the singles charts for the first of seven weeks March 25 1983: The TV special "Motown 25: Yesterday Today and Forever1' is taped The Jackson 5 perform a medley of their hits then Michael sings "Billie by Aug 29 1958: Michael Jackson is born in Gary Ind THE 1970s Nov 6 1971: Michael Jackson's first solo single "Got to Be There" is released By this time he has had eight Top 40 hits with the Jackson 5 JACKSON 5 NEVERLAND RANCH AND LEAVING COURT IN MY OPINION LEONARD PITTS JR Unrivaled success brought fame crippling isolation OBITUARY Ail unexpected end for global pop icon style was a work of prescience and marketing genius seems almost irrelevant Because the truest statement of success is simply this: It made the man historic It opened a whole new stratosphere of success This was his great triumph And his great tragedy Because the very magnitude of the achievement isolated him from the ordinary human contact he claimed to crave made him prey for the leeches and hangers-on who troubled the last years of his life The charming eccentric who walked the streets of Encino looking for companionship was suddenly unable to poke his head out of a window without causing a riot Worse his success made him a man no one could say no to Not when he altered his very visage with a series of plastic surgeries that some said were designed to remove every trace of Africa and of the father with whom he had a famously troubled relationship Not when he made his home into an amusement park complete with a train and a zoo and a tree he climbed in order to be alone Not when he spent a fortune on garish baubles and tchotchkes and drove his finances into the ground Not when a series of scandals and public oddities ruined his image and left one of greatest showmen an object of pitiable scorn And not when he began sharing his bed innocently he always said with little boys THETRUTH WITHIN Thriller consumed Michael Jackson It raised the stakes on everything he did and until his last day he was always competing with it always looking to top what he had done He never did And yet you wouldn't have been surprised if he had That's how good he was Which is why for those of who remember Michael Jackson before those of us who memorized his little ad libs in ABC and stayed up late to watch him dance the robot on Carson those of us who saw him move seamlessly as liquid or sing in a voice that shifted without apparent effort from saw-toothed rawness to a sweet and ethereal falsetto there is a poignancy beyond mere grief here We were waiting for him to get back to what he had been before all the extraneous madness: a singer and showman of astonishing genius We were waiting for that even those of us who thought we weren't Just the other day I exchanged e-mails with a friend ho Lke me covered Jack-son in the old days We were talking about his recently announced comeback show and I asked my friend what he thought of it My friend didn't think much He was sick ot Michael's self-centeredress his manipulation of others his general weirdness As far as he was concerned the comeback could pass him tv I ag-eed And we were both lying throe ch our teeth If that show had come of: we base gone PITTS FROM 1A for someone to talk to I took it for imagemaking hyperbole until a friend of mine singer Sam Moore of the old duo Sam Dave told me about driving through Encino one night and finding Michael just walking One other memory from that inter- view: Michael was telling me in that soft fey voice of his how some girl had climbed the security fence and been found wandering the property early one morning She was lucky he said that the dogs were not out because have eaten her alive Moments later by way of illustration he took me to see the dogs in question We were standing before a pen in which the canines were lounging And Michael said attacking I said Beg pardon? He repeated it: going to attack So I did as he said hesitantly raising my hands toward his throat In an instant the dogs had gone zero to bloodlust barking and snarling climbing the fence and trying to chew through the chainlinks Suddenly I was doing a statue imitation and wondering if I had soiled myself Michael was laughing his head off He was an odd guy And this was before Thriller made him the most successful recording artist in history It was before Bubbles the chimp and the elephant bones before daughter and plastic surgery before the hyperbaric chamber and skin the color of bones And yes it was before sordid rumors and eventually a trial and an acquittal on charges of child molestation THE PINNACLE OF Michael Jackson's life will always separate out like that into epochs of before Thriller and arter Before: an applecheeked adolescent child prodigy of the Motown stable obsessed with fantasy and reptiles and possessed of a raw talent (listen again to that explosive lead vocal on I Want You Back) years beyond his age Years beyond anyone's age And alter a star bigger perhaps than any human being ever should be so big he redefined the very meaning of success Before Thriller an artist might call himself successful if he got a gold record signifying 500000 copies sold He might call himself a superstar if he got platinum signifying a million copies sold To sell five times or 10 times platinum was to have one of the biggest albums of the year Thriller has gone at least 48 times platinum worldwide It has sold 23 million in the United States alone It made him bigger than Elvis bigger than the Beatles bigger than popular music itself That the album produced videos (Billie Jean Beat It Thriller) that changed the face of music video seems almost incidental That its gTab-bag approach its something for everybody genres of rap and hip-hop As his career waned his strange behavior and increasingly odd looks resulting from a series of plastic surgery procedures came to define him Jackson was enamored of children who often stayed at his Neverland ranch in California He wore a germ mask when traveling and kept a pet chimpanzee named Bubbles never got a chance to really be a child except for what he allowed himself He was trying to fill some empty Jones says Still the two Michaels the entertainer and the man became increasingly difficult to reconcile was one of the greatest entertainers of all time but on the other hand you had this parallel story about a man whose behavior was peculiar and at times said Robert Thompson a professor of media and popular culture at Syracuse University "He became so famous and eccentric that he exiled himself from the human In 1993 lawyers for the parents of a 13-year-old boy filed a civil suit against Jackson alleging sexual abuse He responded via satellite from Neverland: am totally innocent of any No charges were ever brought The family settled with Jackson for a sum reported to be between S15 million and $24 million In May 2003 Jackson showed up at Aventura Mall veiled behind a feather-lined mask but fooled no one Cops had to keep gawkers away as he stopped at The Limited Too A clerk told a local television station that Jackson made an unusual request: He wanted the oversized photos of kids on the shop walls could not figure out a way to satisfy the the Herald reported left without the photos leaving behind signatures feathers from his mask and something for shoppers to talk Two years later Jackson was acquitted of charges that he had molested a 13-year-old cancer survivor at Neverland The case took a toll on the career and image and his legacy He faced serious financial problems and spent the rest of his life mostly in seclusion with his children After hearing of his death tourists gathered at Pizza Bar 1627 Collins Ave in Miami Beach where the owner played a DVD of Jackson's 1993 concert from Hungary wanted to marry said Staci Brink-ley 29 of Dallas hose eyes got moist as she watched him perform She's Out of My Life Outside a man as moonwaiking down the street Just before his death Jackson was preparing for what was to be perhaps his greatest challenge: a bona fide comeback He was scheduled for an unprecedented 50 shows at a London arena It was to be an extravaganza and though he was 50 he promised his classic dance moves and soundtrack from yesterday and today Jackson died 13 days before the first show U'-e je-vicfs end Herald staff wrir-es or P-eche Daniel Chung 1yd a Afj-tn letnj-i Ttts J- and Fobe't Sinuels to this tvpn-f "JACKSON FROM 1A to die in our unexpected death brought to a tragic end a winding sometimes selfdestructive often bizarre lifetime but not one without immeasurable highs in the public eye pure almost angelic voice helped put himself and his brothers the Jackson Five on the map in the 1960s Collectively they became teeny-bopper sensations topping the charts with hits I Want You Back ABC and I'll Be There But from the beginning Michael was different remember him being this shy quiet boy When all the other boys were wrestling and shooting hoops he would be off somewhere watching or drawing said Regina Jones former publisher of SOUL Magazine one of the first publications to cover the Jack-son family "Very polite when you engaged him but he kept to himself I think he thought of himself as an artist" As a solo performer Jackson revolutionized American pop music with his performances his kinetic crotch-grabbing dance moves and a falsetto voice that brought fans to tears Jackson's remarkable reign over the 1980s was cemented with his 1982 album Thriller which remains the second-biggest-selling record of all time The video for Beat It shattered the race barrier on MTV in 1983 With Billie Jean Jackson debuted the move that had kids around the world sliding backward in their living rooms And the album's titular song Thriller had a 14-minute video that included graveyard scenes filmed in Coconut Grove's old Bahamian cemetery "Rarely has the world received a gift with the magnitude of artistry talent and vision as Mhael Jackson" said Neil Portnow president of the The Recording Academy "''chad's career transcends musical and cultural genres and his contributions will always keep him in our hearts and memories" The "Victory Tour" came to ami's Orarce Bow 1 for two sold-out shows in November 19 54 The appearances set crowd records for the multicity tour to th3t point: 128000 fans paid a then-whopping $30 per ticket The concert drew Jackson look-afikes from "middle-aged matrons from Little Havana to lemer'ary school kids from Overtown a Miami Herald story said at that time During stay Jackson took a morning off to visit the Miami Beah home of socialite Marcy I eft on a d-sigr-r who made many of mark akets and gloves Hers were the first mil: V-: he wore but he Ic-ed her versions and became a regular cus-mer He wvu i sav Ch Marcy dn't you just 1 made a fi cf gloves for because he would eve the-i away to the i sLe recalled -A hen he came over he very s-t --v sweet verv knd He was "3-1 Th-re was niv F1 marched cm brine rg with it a jtf -v ba- i r-place and the rw -i: 6-icc 333 g'E 43 164 i LC 68 1 v3 20G 8 42G.