Jacko, His Rise and Fall: The Social and Sexual History of Michael Jackson (25 page)

Michael didn't know if that were true or not. He'd learned that Warhol
often exaggerated. But as he later confided to La Toya, among others, "I think
this time Andy was telling the truth."

For his part, Jagger always seemed to have mixed feelings about Warhol.
In Robert Frank's film, Cocksucker Blues, Jagger called Warhol "a fucking
voyeur"-and did so with a certain accuracy.

After meeting at Studio 54, Mick volunteered to introduce Michael to "the
scene" in New York, taking the innocent young man to clubs Michael had
never heard of.

"There's no way in hell that Mick could have found a simpatico soul in
Michael Jackson," Keith Richards was reported to have said as an explanation
for the time they spent together. "Mick is very bright, and I think he sensed
future competition in Jackson. He wanted to study his every move, figure out
what he was up to, what he was like, what he had that the world wanted to
buy. 11

A music industry insider, Butch Wohlin, who worked briefly with both
Jagger and Michael, said, "Mick was worldly wise. To him, Jackson must
have looked like a prissy little baby. Almost everything about Jackson must
have turned off Mick. That religious fanaticism. That little girl voice. His fear
of drugs. His fear of sex. Jackson was the very opposite of Mick."

After touring the New York clubs with Michael, Jagger told Richards,
"Jackson is a limp-wristed bore. Or at least I think he is. I never heard one
word he ever said in that whispery voice of his. At the clubs I took him to, the
music was too loud, and I'm not a lip reader. The kid is a total lightweight.
He's like froth on beer. I'm the golden liquid itself. The alcohol that makes
you drunk. The kid doesn't drink. Doesn't do drugs. I think the strongest drink
Jackson ever ordered was a Shirley Temple."

As time would reveal, Michael may have learned more from Jagger than
the rock star did from him.

"Long before Madonna grabbed her pussy on stage, long before Michael
fondled his dick in front of an audience, Mick was crotch-grabbing years
before," Wohlin said. "In Mick's case, and I've seen it, he had a lot more to
grab. Jackson experienced a meltdown if it was suggested that he was gay. He
appeared like such a sissy on the whole subject. Throughout his career, Mick
has been exposed as a bisexual in print. Whether he is or not is another matter. But he didn't give a damn. Did Mick sleep with David Bowie? How in the
fuck do I know? I wasn't concealed under Mick's bed with a recorder. Mick
has a certain androgyny. So does Jackson. But what Mick had and Michael
never would have was raw masculine power. You inherit that. You're born
with it. When God handed out those male genes in Heaven, Michael was at
the end of the food chain that day and got none of them. Madonna is far more
masculine than Michael. The kid just doesn't have it. There's a rumor going
around that he was born a hermaphrodite-and I believe that. He's certainly
caught in that twilight zone between the sexes-neither girl nor boy. On the other hand, Mick got more male hormones than he knows what to do with."

"Mick may have given Jackson a few lessons in androgyny," Wohlin
claimed, "but the kid didn't learn his lessons well. I think Jackson envied that
Mick could wear lipstick and sashay around like a queen, yet still keep his
image as a macho rocker. Jackson desperately wanted to learn from Mick what
his secret was. How did he get away with that? Jackson never learned the
secret. When he went out on stage with all that lipstick, all that sashaying
around, he still hadn't learned the secret. But I'll let you in on the secret.
Mick's public knew that behind the androgyny was a rocker with balls. Mick
has balls. Michael Jackson does not!"

One night at a club in the East Village, Jagger showed up with Rudolf
Nureyev, whom he'd met years before when he'd gone backstage after one of
the Russian dancer's performances with Margot Fonteyn. In the great heyday
of ambisexual New York in the late 70s, rumors were all over town that
Nureyev and Jagger were "sometimes lovers."

At the club, Jagger introduced Nureyev to Michael, who later told friends,
"Those two even look alike. God gave both of them the same mouth."

That night Michael was fascinated to hear an argument between Jagger
and Nureyev. Jagger maintained that it took more talent to be a pop star than
a ballet dancer. Looking over at Michael, Nureyev said, "Anyone can be a pop
star. It takes incredible talent to be a ballet dancer."

Nureyev, at least for that night, won the argument.

Michael turned down Nureyev's offer of marijuana, but Jagger went for
it. Again ... and again ... and again. Within the hour, Jagger and Nureyev
had taken to the dance floor, as the other dancers in all combination of sexes
parted to make room for them.

"Those two pressed their bodies so close to each other that night I'm sure
they both got erections," said Tom Felison, club manager. "They weren't
dancing. They were fucking each other in front of everybody. It was the most
overtly sexual dance I've ever seen. Nureyev ran his hands across Jagger's
bare chest, then kissed him. It was Big Mouth meeting Big Mouth."

According to the manager, Michael witnessed the whole event with wideeyed wonder.

Suddenly, Nureyev, showing a big erection in tight pants, broke from
Jagger and headed for the table where Michael sat on the edge of his seat, taking in all the action. With the grace of a swan, Nureyev reached for Michael's
arm, pulling him onto the dance floor.

As an amused Jagger stood by, Nureyev began "the dance of love" with
Michael, rubbing his well-endowed crotch against Michael's flaccid package.

"It was the most suggestive dance I'd ever seen," Felison claimed. "And
I've seen boys and girls, even boys and boys, fucking each other on my dance floor. I realized that night that the suggestion of sexual mating can be far more
erotic than the actual fucking. In the midst of all that heat, generated almost
entirely by Nureyev, not by Michael, Jagger moved in from the rear. He too
had an erection which he rammed up against Michael's butt encased in jeans.
God, what a hot scene. Nureyev reached into Michael's shirt and rubbed his
skilled hand across the nipples as he'd just done with Jagger. From the rear,
Jagger was plowing his fingers into Michael's hair before lowering them to
Michael's lips, presumably for him to suck on them. Michael was having none
of that shit."

When Michael tried to break away, Nureyev yelled, "We've got ourselves
a virgin, Mick."

With a sudden force, Michael bolted from the "human sandwich" of
which he was a part. Bursting into tears, he fled from the club.

Not missing a beat, nor even seeming to care about their friend's departure, Nureyev resumed his erotic dance with Jagger.

"From the looks of things, those two climaxed in their pants before leaving the dance floor that night," Felison said. "Talk about two hot men!"

A long time would go by before Jagger would enter Michael's life again.

When not out with Jagger or Liza, Michael would continue to accept
"dates" from Warhol. He was proud of the friendship, viewing Warhol as "The
King of Pop Art."

Michael told Warhol that when he'd lived with Diana Ross, "she taught
me how to appreciate art, and we often painted together, going out to record
scenes from nature."

Warhol laughed in amusement, not really believing Michael. "How could
Ross have taken time out for that?" he asked. "The only art Ross appreciates
is what is staring back at her in the mirror."

When Warhol heard that Michael was bragging about his friendship with
the "King of Pop Art," he corrected him.

"I'm also an artist myself, a filmmaker, a writer, publisher, interviewer,
photographer, fashion consultant, set designer, record producer, and the
world's greatest jet-setting trendsetter," Warhol claimed.

"You left out dog lover," Michael jokingly chastised him.

Warhol seemed to mull that over for a moment. "That too!" he said.

Warhol took Michael to the Sanctuary, a former church on 10th avenue
where the altar had been turned into a sound booth. The DJ was dressed as a
priest. "Look at those hookers over at the bar," Warhol pointed out to Michael.

"They're nuns!" Michael said, astonished.

"They're merely dressed as nuns," Warhol said. "They're actually drag
queen hookers."

Warhol also pointed out that most of the boys dancing with each other on the floor weren't gay. "They just look gay. Actually, the Sanctuary has pioneered a new lifestyle. Here straight boys can dance with straight boys, and no
one ridicules them for doing what they want to."

Warhol also took Michael to the Tambourlaine, a Latino night club that
flourished briefly in the East 50s. He told Michael that their mutual friend,
Capote, once showed up at the club with both Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
and Lee Radziwell. "Those sisters were wearing Hermes scarves to disguise
themselves, but they were spotted and mobbed before the night was out,"
Warhol said.

Later, Warhol sadly informed Michael that the Tambourlaine had closed
when a drug dealer from Harlem castrated one of his clients, a drag queen
from Havana, for failing to pay him the five hundred dollars she owed him. "I
made the bitch into a real woman," the drug dealer bragged, as he emerged
from the women's toilet. The screams from the transvestite could be heard
throughout the club.

One night Capote took both Warhol and Michael to Stage 54, a gay bar
near the United Nations that attracted mainly black homosexuals serving the
UN staffs of such countries as Nigeria and Haiti.

"Michael was turned off by the place," Capote said. "I suspected that
Michael's desire was to fuck white."

The Studio 54 era and the New York scene were just a brief interlude in
Michael's life. "It was a momentary diversion for him," Capote recalled. "In
time, we would learn that he was far more interested in taking little boys to
Disneyland than he was in hanging out with denizens of the night such as
Bianca Jagger, Andy Warhol, Liza, and Mick. Or even moi as far as that goes.
Foolish boy! With me, he was with the best. Going high class. I'm invited only
to A-list parties. I also introduced Michael only to A-list people. Regrettably,
the child didn't know how to behave. He was not meant to conquer high society as I'd done before him."

Capote might have been referring to,
among other incidents, the coming together of
Michael with the great designer, Halston.

Halston

One night at Studio 54, if Truman Capote
is to be believed, the fashion designer, Halston,
was mesmerized as he watched Michael dance
across the floor. Before the evening ended,
Halston confided to Capote: "I'm in love with
that boy. I'm taking him for my next lover."

Halston (actually Roy Halston Frowick,
born 1932 in Des Moines, Iowa) was in his
mid-forties when he first encountered Michael. "A bit long in the tooth for Michael," Capote cattily remarked.

At the time, Halston was still being celebrated for the pillbox hat made
famous by former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy. "He's designed hats for
everybody from Gloria Swanson to Deborah Kerr," Capote said. "I'm sure if
he plays it right, he can become Michael's milliner."

Halston never ended up designing hats for Michael, although he'd
designed masks for Capote's famous Black and White Dance in the Grand
Ballroom of the Plaza Hotel in 1966.

Halston made a striking, somewhat mysterious appearance with his mirrored sunglasses and all black attire. In the years to come, society's top dressmaker was accused of "looking like Darth Vader."

On the first night of hawk-eyeing Michael, the singer disappeared before
the designer could meet him. On another night at Studio 54, under pressure
from Halston, Capote finally introduced Halston to Michael. On this night, it
was Michael who was dressed entirely in black, Halston appearing in a russetbrown ultra-suede jacket and tight-fitting red suede trousers.

He didn't really have to, but Halston tried to impress Michael, who at first
didn't seem to know who the designer was, at least according to Capote. "The
talk was of scent. . .perfume, my dear. Halston's perfume was the rage of New
York. I wore it myself. Halston told Michael and me that he expected sales in
the coming year to go beyond one hundred million dollars."

"He filled Michael in on the secrets of the fashion industry," Capote
claimed. "We learned-actually I already knew this-that only three thousand
women in the world could afford to buy a designer dress. But he felt his scent
could reach millions around the world. At one point, Halston asked Michael if
he'd wear his new perfume, and Michael agreed. Halston promised to send
him a case."

That night, as Capote remembered, Halston showed his disdain for other
designers. Both Gloria Vanderbilt and Calvin Klein were at Studio 54. Halston
looked at each of them with a sneer. "Only a pig would put his name on a pair
of blue jeans," Halston sneered.