Jacko, His Rise and Fall: The Social and Sexual History of Michael Jackson (17 page)

Contrary to what he had told Elvis, in the months leading up to the death
of the singer on August 16, 1977, Michael read every item he could find that
had ever been written about Elvis. But calls from Elvis to Michael, spilling out
dark secrets, never came to be.

After Elvis's demise, Michael became even more obsessed with the circumstances surrounding the death of the former truck driver from Memphis.
In the immediate hours following Elvis's death, Michael repeatedly played
such hit songs as "Jailhouse Rock" and "Love Me Tender." And ghoulishly,
Michael became obsessed with learning the most minute details of the autopsy performed on Elvis by Dr. Eric Muirhead, chief of the department of
pathology at the Memphis hospital where Elvis was taken. Michael learned
that Dr. Muirhead, in an inch-by-inch study of Elvis's corpse, found that the
skin was "pitted" with numerous needle marks, almost too many to count
accurately.

What allegedly fascinated Michael even more was when he learned that
Elvis's rib cage had been cut open with a saw, exposing his lungs and heart.
Painstakingly, each organ was examined after removal from the body cavity.
The organs were weighed and studied carefully. Elvis's much-abused liver was found to resemble "pate de foie gras," the French goose liver specialty
served in luxe restaurants.

The large intestine was clogged with fecal matter. One intern at the hospital morbidly joked, "The doctors learned that the King was full of shit,
maybe forty feet of it."

Michael also learned that Elvis's heart was greatly enlarged. More than a
dozen drugs, including significant amounts of codeine, were detected in
Elvis's blood stream. Quaalude appeared in a toxic amount.

The staff at the hospital seemed particularly concerned that the autopsy on
Elvis would not become the source of scandal the way it had on the one performed on the slain John F. Kennedy in 1963. Therefore, they proceeded to
conduct the procedure on Elvis with extreme caution and meticulousness.
Even so, the debate over Elvis's death would rage for at least a quarter of a
century and beyond, evoking the usual lawsuits, book exposes, and even medical disbarment.

The usual procedure in an autopsy is to examine each organ exhaustively
and remove tissue samples, placing them into bottles filled with preservatives.
After that gruesome procedure, the brain is returned to the skull and the displaced organs "stuffed" back into the body the way a cook might assemble a
Thanksgiving turkey.

In the wake of Elvis's death, there was a rumor that his body parts had not
been returned to his corpse, but were still preserved in a laboratory. Rumors
also spread that Michael made an attempt to secretly purchase Elvis's enlarged
heart. Allegedly Michael also wanted Elvis's large intestine with the fecal
matter intact. These stories may have been just scurrilous gossip at the time,
and they cannot be confirmed. But in his future, Michael would be accused of
similar ghoulish acts with the dead.

After his now legendary meeting with Elvis, Michael's life began to spin
out of control. A fan, Theresa Gonsalves, pursued Michael to Las Vegas. Only
sixteen, she was invited by Katherine to stay with the Jackson family. At first
she was disappointed with Michael, finding him "arrogant and stuck up." But
she finally warmed to Michael and they became friends, a relationship that
would last for four years. Finally, when The Jacksons went to dinner and
Michael stayed behind, Theresa got to be alone with her idol. As dreams of
romance played out in her head, she was disappointed when Michael took out
his Jehovah's Witness Bible and lectured her. "It's a sin to have sex outside of
marriage," he told her, promising to pray for her redemption.

Following Michael's appearance with his brothers in Las Vegas, he was
eager to abandon the group. He decided to pursue another solo album, Forever
Michael, which would be released in January of 1975.

But he was distracted in rehearsals when Joe announced to his sons that they had a half-sister. Cheryl Terrell had given birth to a daughter, Joh Vonnie.
Joe was the proud father.

Still married to Joe, Katherine referred to the Terrells as "that whore and
her bastard child." Michael later claimed that the news of the addition to the
Jackson family "made me want to vomit."

Not to be deterred, Joe purchased a midsize but tasteful home for his
unmarried girlfriend and his new daughter only a short drive from the
Jackson's Encino mansion. After enduring her humiliation for weeks,
Katherine finally exploded. She drove to the Terrell household and attacked
her rival when she appeared in her driveway. Her husband's baby was fastened
into the Terrell car for a shopping expedition. Katherine yanked the hair of
Joe's mistress, slapped her face, and knocked her down on the gravel.

Hearing the news an hour later, Michael rushed to Katherine's bedroom to
console his mother, to whom he was still devoted. He pleaded with his mother to call her attorneys and reinstate her divorce proceedings against Joe.
Katherine agreed to do that and packed her luggage, flying to stay with her
mother. Three weeks later, after Joe pleaded with her on the phone, telling her
that "You are the only woman I've ever loved," Katherine reluctantly returned
to the household. Michael was disappointed at her capitulation to Joe.

The Jackson family continued to expand when Jackie married Enid
Spann, age twenty. Her father was black but her mother had been born in
Korea. The family, especially Joe, opposed Jackie's marriage, which was
eventually celebrated on December 6, 1974. Jackie was extremely casual
about his wedding, showing up in denim and gym shoes, with a wedding band
he'd purchased at K-Mart.

Even though he'd recorded Forever Michael during a period of turmoil,
Michael hoped for its success. But the album bombed, never going beyond
101 on Billboards charts, selling fewer than 100,000 copies. Joe was furious
when he heard of the disappointing sales. "No more solo albums for Michael,"
he said. Joe blamed the failure of the album on Gordy and his lack of promotion.

Forever Michael would be the singer's last album for Motown. Although
the album was a failure, one song surfaced: "One Day In Your Life."

In a rare act of defiance, Michael called Gordy and arranged to meet with
him alone. This had never happened before. Eager to hear what the real star of
the Jackson family had to say, Gordy set up an appointment with Michael and
didn't let Joe know what was going on.

Michael himself has admitted that his reputation is one of shyness.
Although that is true, when he wanted something, he could have the resolve
of a steel magnolia. The day Gordy met with Michael, the promoter saw a
determination he'd never seen in any of The Jacksons, certainly not in his son in-law, Jermaine, and a resolve unmatched by that of Joe himself.

"After that day, I never thought of Michael as a wimp," Gordy later said.

The secret rendezvous took place at the Gordy manse in Bel Air,
California, on May 14, 1975. The meeting went badly, with Michael threatening to organize his family's abandonment of Motown, in spite of family ties
through marriage. He poured out his frustration and unhappiness with the way
Motown had controlled the group, not letting the brothers chart their own
course with their own songs and instrumentation.

"Listen to me, kid," Gordy shouted at Michael in anger. "I picked you
boys up in some Rust Belt hellhole in Indiana. You were playing stripper
joints before I discovered you. Remember, without Berry Gordy, you'd be
flipping burgers."

Finally, Gordy sighed. "I even let your brothers live in my own home. I
moved you in with Diana Ross, a class act. I treated you like family. How can
you even contemplate walking out on me after all I've done for you?"

That angered Michael. "Let me restate that. I respect you greatly. You're
a genius in the business. But it's not a question of what you've done for us.
It's what we've done for you. We worked our hearts out for one of the lowest
royalty rates-perhaps the lowest in the business. A pathetic 2.7 percent."
With that, Michael stormed out of Gordy's home. Their face-to-face encounter
had utterly failed, and had, in fact, led to a lot of damage.

When Michael arrived home after the meeting, Joe had been tipped off by
one of Gordy's household staff. He was waiting to beat Michael with a large
thick leather belt with a steel buckle. When Michael came into the house, Joe
didn't wait to have an argument. The sting of the whip slashed across
Michael's face. When he realized what was happening, he fled from the house,
outrunning his father. His whereabouts remained unknown for ten days.

To this day, no one knows where he went. But he was seen on Hollywood
Boulevard three days later in a large sedan driven by an older man. When
Michael finally did return home, Joe had cooled down considerably. He told
Michael that he had decided that The Jackson 5 was "bolting Motown. It's our
fuck-you to Jermaine's father-in-law."

Michael had nothing to say.

Joe called a meeting of all his sons, except Jermaine. Because of his marriage to Hazel, Joe didn't think he could trust Jermaine since "he's in the
enemy camp." Michael joined in a vote with Jackie, Marlon, and Tito to split
from Motown. Joe promised his sons that there was big money to be made at
a much higher royalty rate at another record company. "You guys are big now
because of me," Joe boasted. "I can make the deal of the century for you."

But other companies were not forthcoming with deals. The failure of
Michael's recent album and the hit-or-miss sales racked up by the Jacksons didn't impress Atlantic Records, which nixed any hopes of linking their future
to The Jackson 5.

Joe found a more receptive home at CBS Records, especially at its branch,
Epic Records, which specialized in African-American entertainers.

Joe was happy to receive a check for $750,000 in upfront money. He also
walked away with another half-a-million dollars for a development fund to
produce Jackson 5 albums. Not only that, but he managed to negotiate an
astonishing $350,000 per album as a guarantee against future sales, even if
those sales didn't happen.

The advances were to be recouped from royalties, in a style that mimicked
procedures that were prevalent in book publishing, but that rate was raised
from 2.7 percent to 27 percent. "The decimal just disappeared," Joe boasted.
And if sales shot up beyond the half million mark on an album, The Jackson
5 would get a 30 percent return. Epic did not grant complete artistic freedom,
however, but allowed the brothers to select a trio of songs for each of their
albums.

The bolting of The Jackson 5 from Motown was hailed as "the divorce of
the century." Already in decline, Motown had lost such stars as Gladys Knight
and The Pips, The Isley Brothers, The Four Tops, and The Temptations. Gordy
had also witnessed the decline of his other acts, including the once-supreme
Supremes.

Gordy told a reporter, "The Jacksons say they aren't being paid enough.
Hell, they've made millions off me."

Jermaine faced a painful dilemma: To remain, professionally speaking,
with his wife, Hazel, and her father, or else break from Motown, following Joe
and his brothers. "Jermaine voted with his dick," said a raunchy Motown exec.
"He stayed in Hazel's bed and told old Daddy-Pooh to go fuck himself, which
he should have done long ago. Besides, I heard that Gordy had promised to
make Jermaine a star in his own right, instead of appearing in Michael's shadow."

Jermaine explained it differently to the press. "I wasn't choosing between
two families. I was making a selection between two rival recording companies. Motown or Epic."

Angered by Jermaine's decision, Joe blasted back. "It's my God damn
blood that flows through Jermaine's body-not Berry Gordy's."

The farewell performance of The Jackson 5 occurred in Las Vegas in a
final show in the summer of 1975. Michael suffered more from Jermaine's
loss than his brothers. "I depended on being next to Jermaine. And when I did
that first show without him there, with no one next to me, I felt totally naked
onstage for the first time in my life."

Berry Gordy had been a smart executive. Even though he lost the Jackson brothers, he still owned the entire Jackson 5 catalogue. He was also sitting on
a mountain of unissued recordings that the group had stockpiled over the
years. Had he wished, he could have flooded the market with these recordings,
potentially wiping out the sales of future Jackson 5 records through oversaturation of the marketplace.

That didn't happen, and The Jacksons, especially Michael, were set to
move on into what one critic called "a record-busting future."

Regrettably, Joe had to abandon the name "The Jackson 5." Thanks to not
having read the fine print when he'd signed the contract with Motown,
Motown owned the rights to the use of the singing group's name.
Consequently, Joe had to rename his boys "The Jacksons."

At a somber press conference during the summer of 1975 at New York's
Rainbow Grill, the Jackson brothers, along with Joe, but without Jermaine,
announced to the world they were leaving Motown. The announcement was
premature, as The Jackson 5 contract would continue until March of 1976.
The brothers had jumped ship before they were actually free to do so, an act
of disloyalty that wasn't lost on the ever-sharp Gordy. Nonetheless, at the conference, Joe claimed that Epic, unlike Motown, which had often focused on
the release of their songs as singles, would concentrate on issuing albums.

Gordy fought back, ordering his attorneys to file a $5 million breach of
contract suit. Later, in his rage, he upped the ante to $20 million, his claim for
damages. Almost immediately, Joe countersued.

To show he was still in control of The Jackson 5, Gordy ordered the
release of a new Jackson 5 album, called Moving Violation. As if to show that
Joe was wrong in his charges of neglect, Gordy worked personally to promote
and distribute the album. But even so savvy a promoter as Gordy could not
make Moving Violation a hit.