Jacko, His Rise and Fall: The Social and Sexual History of Michael Jackson (28 page)

In addition to Branca and Yetnikoff, Frank DiLeo eventually became "the
man behind Michael Jackson," forming a triumvirate that would take Michael
to the zenith of his success in the 1980s. "Uncle Tookie," as Michael called
him, would go on to orchestrate two hit albums for Michael, Thriller and Bad,
plus two world tours that each met with overwhelming success.

A native of Pittsburgh-he once wanted to be mayor-DiLeo went from
serving spaghetti and meatballs in a seedy Italian trattoria to becoming national director of promotions for RCA Records when he was only twenty-one. He
was known for his foul mouth, "assholes" being one of his favorite epithets.
With this blustering, outspoken record hustler, Michael would form yet another of the many "odd couple" relationships in his life.

Michael and DiLeo were a study in contrasts. A secretary who worked for
DiLeo said, "to see the two of them together at lunch was a sight to behold.
Michael would order a glass of carrot juice and a spinach salad. DiLeo pre ferred a `triple bypass' burger smothered in onions, bacon, and Cheddar along
with three Buds to help all that cholesterol go down his gullet."

In contrast to razor-thin Michael, the 275-pound DiLeo looked like a
bookie left over from the cast of the film, Guys and Dolls, that had starred
Michael's friend, Marlon Brando, and Michael's enemy, Frank Sinatra.
"DiLeo smoked the kind of cigars Castro preferred, and at times I think he
liked stogies better than women, although I'm not sure," said Luciano
Pellegrini, who had met DiLeo in Pittsburgh. "He was more masculine than a
bull in the ring, yet would be associated with the careers of two boys of dubious sexuality: Michael Jackson and Boy George." In addition to those artists,
DiLeo also promoted Meat Loaf and Cyndi Lauper.

In time, Michael was so pleased with the promotional efforts of Uncle
Tookie that he rewarded him with a Rolls Royce and a gold, diamond-studded
watch among other prizes.

To celebrate signing a deal that granted him the highest royalty rate in the
business, Michael joined the homeless.

Dressing up like a bum in soiled, ragged, and smelly clothing, he was
driven to one of the seediest and most dangerous parts of Los Angeles. There
he wandered among whores, pickpockets, winos, and bums, many of whom
had contagious diseases. Attaching himself to a hobo who had managed to
reach his 60s, Michael followed him on his rounds from garbage can to
garbage can, scrounging for food or any object that could be used in an endless quest for survival. For some reason, the hobo had acquired the curious
nickname of "Bearded Liver." Part of the pathetic figure's face seemed eaten
away with cancer that was raging out of control and had never been treated.

When Katherine learned of Michael's disappearance, she sighed, "That
Michael! He always was an inquisitive child."

"The next time he pulls a stunt like this, he's liable to get killed," Joe predicted.

When Michael later became friends with Marlon Brando, the actor confided in him that, "I did the same thing in the late 40s when I survived among
the clochards of Paris. I didn't even have one franc on me. It was the happiest time of my life."

Michael got through his life as a hobo in seedy Los Angeles without incident. He wasn't so lucky months later in 1981 in Atlanta, Georgia, when he
appeared in rags at an antique store, behaving strangely. He refused to halt
when the store's owner, a Londoner, John Nolan, told him to. Instead of that,
Michael concealed himself in a "Scarlett O'Hara armoire" rescued from some
old plantation house.

Nolan called the police. Finally, Michael emerged and reached inside his
breast pocket. The owner thought he was drawing a gun to shoot them. Nolan bashed his fist into Michael's reconstructed nose. Blood spurted out. While
they were struggling, the police arrived. There was a station around the corner. Officer Jeff Green recognized Michael in spite of his disguise. "That's no
hobo," Green said. "It's Michael Jackson in person."

When order was restored, Green considered charging Michael with criminal trespass, and Nolan with assault and battery, but charges were dropped.

Before leaving Georgia, Michael had another hostile encounter in the
town of Macon. In a convenience store waiting for his vehicle to be filled with
gasoline, a white man screamed "Nigger!" at him and accused him of stealing
a candy bar. The man began to pound Michael, plowing his fists into him until
his bodyguard rushed into the store and rescued the star. Assault charges were
considered but never filed.

Back at Encino, enjoying the comforts of the Jackson mansion after his
aimless wandering and countless disguises, Michael listened to the final cut of
La Toya's first solo album, simply called La Toya Jackson.

Originally, Joe had pressured Michael to produce the album for La Toya,
but he'd refused. "If my brothers and sisters want to strike out on their own,"
Michael said, "they are free to do so. But I'm not going to let them ride in on
my coattails."

In spite of his refusal, Joe kept the pressure on Michael until he agreed to
co-write and produce one song for La Toya's album, "Night Time Lover."

Suspicions were aroused when Michael heard the final mix and ordered
that the song be recorded again. Katherine told La Toya, "Michael's jealous.
He's scared that somebody in the family will be bigger than him, so he had to
go back to the studio, make it different-and now it isn't as good." La Toya
found that hard to believe.

Initially, La Toya had been dismayed when presented with some of the
songs, especially her first single, "If You Feel the Funk." As a devout
Jehovah's Witness, she feared that by recording some of the more suggestive
lyrics, she'd be kicked out of her church. But Katherine, an even more devout
Jehovah's Witness, told her to go ahead. La Toya reluctantly agreed.

Brett Stevenson was one of many who had observed La Toya when she
was working on her first album. He claimed that, "All of us in the studio
thought she was one hot pussy but had no talent as a singer. Instead of recording her songs, we wanted to go to bed with her. I felt that in spite of a poor
voice, she had a fierce determination to become the female Michael Jackson.
Old Joe showed up once or twice. I don't think he really had much faith in La
Toya's talent as a singer either, although he kept goading her to move along
with it. Actually, I heard that Janet is the only one in the family with enough
talent to become a female Michael Jackson."

In the living room of the Encino home, Michael listened to the final album without saying a word. At its conclusion, he rose from his chair. "The album's
a failure," he said to La Toya. "It'll bomb just like Jermaine did with his first
solo album." Before heading upstairs to his bedroom, he assured his sister that
she was beautiful and might have a better chance if she pursued a career as a
model. Of course, Michael surely didn't mean she should pose nude for
Playboy, which she would later scandalously do.

Randy's legs had miraculously improved, and he was walking on October
16, 1980, when he accompanied Janet and Katherine to the offices of Joe
Jackson Productions at 6255 Sunset Boulevard. For months, Katherine had
been hearing that her husband was having another affair, this time with one of
his employees, a younger woman, Gina Sprague, who was descended from
Mexican and Irish parents. She was only nineteen years old. Having confronted Cheryl Terrell, the mother of Joe's illegitimate daughter, Katherine was
prepared to take on this younger and more beautiful woman. Although
Sprague would later deny that she was having an affair with Joe, Katherine
was convinced that they were lovers, enough so to take matters dangerously
into her own hands as part of a public confrontation.

Based on her testimony to the Los Angeles Police Department, Sprague
claimed that Randy, then 18 years old, and Janet, only 14, came into her office
and attacked her.

In her testimony, Sprague told police that Katherine pulled her hair as
Janet grabbed her wrist. Allegedly, Randy knocked Sprague from her desk
chair, and she fell on the carpeted floor.

Apparently the victim was dragged out of the office, while Katherine
pounded her face, calling her a "bitch" and threatening her if she didn't stop
seeing her husband. Sprague also testified that Katherine took some blunt but
unknown object from her pocketbook and hit Sprague nearly twenty times on
her back and neck. Janet, Katherine, and Randy finally got Sprague to the
stairwell of the office building, where her screams alerted security guard
James Krieg, who came to her rescue.

The commotion created such hysteria that other employees began to gather to see what was the matter. Katherine, along with her son and daughter, fled
from the building. Before going, she reached for a gold necklace around
Sprague's neck, yanking it from her. "This belongs to me, bitch," Katherine
was heard to shout at Sprague before running away.

When Michael was called and told what had happened, he was reading all
the material he'd collected on "The Elephant Man." Upon hearing the news
about his mother, he didn't believe it. He claimed that his "Kate would never
do that," in spite of the fact that she'd once attacked Joe's other mistress,
Cheryl Terrell.

"My mother would never harm anyone," Michael said. "There is no gen tier person on the planet. This incident is a lie. It never took place. I know my
Kate." For months afterward, Michael denied that the attack ever happened,
referring to it as "a rumor spread by my worst enemies."

Despite Michael's denials, in the wake of the attack, Sprague filed a $21
million assault-and-battery lawsuit against Katherine, Janet, and Randy.
Surprisingly, Sprague also named Joe in her lawsuit, although he was not one
of the family members who ganged up on her. Later, Sprague testified that she
was blackballed from working in the music industry. Five or perhaps six years
went by before she was offered a job in the industry once again.

Michael refused to talk about the incident, although privately he voiced
his concern, fearing that this scandal, which became the talk of Hollywood,
could seriously damage his career as it was about to take off big-time.

In court, and in contradiction of eyewitness testimony, Katherine, Janet,
and Randy maintained that the attack never took place.

That case could have been one of the sensational domestic trials of the
decade, holding the Jackson family up to ridicule. Wisely, Joe's attorneys
urged him to settle out of court. Various estimates have put the settlement as
low as $75,000 or as high as $100,000. On July 21, 1983, Sprague's lawyers
filed for a dismissal of the suit against the Jacksons.

When not agonizing over family woes, Michael buried himself into the
story of John Merrick, the so-called Elephant Man, the English Victorian
deformed by neurofibromatosis.

The story of Michael's fascination with the Elephant Man is a bit hard to
piece together, because there has been so much written about it, so many misconceptions, and, last but not least, a series of lies from the Jackson camp
itself.

During a live interview with Oprah Winfrey in 1993, Michael said that the
story of the Elephant Man "touched me profoundly-it made me cry because
I saw myself in the story. But, no, I never tried to buy the Elephant's Man's
bones. What would I do with a bag of bones?"

He was being a bit disingenuous during that interview. On the question of
bones and body parts, Winfrey might have asked, "Why do you need to keep
a pickled human brain in your bedroom? Or a piece of preserved cartilage
from your own nose?"

When director David Lynch released The Elephant Man in 1980, Michael
is reported to have seen the film a dozen times. John Hurt played John
Merrick, with other lead roles interpreted by Anthony Hopkins, Anne
Bancroft, and John Gielgud. Michael was not alone in appreciating the film,
as it was nominated for eight Oscars. But Michael seemed the most obsessive.
He was reported to have purchased clothing and artifacts that had belonged to
Merrick.

If a maid who worked at Encino is to be believed, Michael actually sat by
his window for hours staring into space. He despondently and rhythmically
tapped on the arm of his chair, holding his left hand in a distorted position. As
the hours deepened, he pretended that a painful crippling was taking over his
body. He kept repeating this verse:

"Merrick was a sideshow attraction," Michael is reported to have said.
"Just what I am to the world. But in the end he was beloved by the Victorians.
In time, I too will be loved, not by high society, but by the children of the
world."

As the years went by and the world began to regard Michael more and
more as a "Freak"-actually the title of a National Enquirer book about
him-his identification with The Elephant Man grew and grew.

The Elephant Man would figure in Michael's future before the release of
his album, Bad, in 1987. Wanting to attract bizarre publicity and make headlines, he arranged to view the bones of John Merrick kept in a glass case at the
London Hospital Medical College.