Jacko, His Rise and Fall: The Social and Sexual History of Michael Jackson (72 page)

New Jack Swing eventually translated into hiphop soul. Riley had also worked with Boy George. By
2006, Riley was at work with a New Jack Swing
revival.

Teddy Riley

The album, Dangerous, premiered on Billboard's
top album chart at Number One in 1991, as Michael
himself had predicted. It had been produced at an estimated cost of more than $12 million, an industry
record. CBS Records shipped out four million copies.

In addition to the title song, "Dangerous," the
album featured such songs as "In the Closet" and "Remember the Time," the latter dedicated to Diana Ross. Michael was feeling better about her again. As a political message, he recorded "Heal the
World."

Internationally, Dangerous would eclipse the sales of Bad, as 32 million
albums disappeared around the world, even in East Germany. Not all of these
were legitimate sales. On November 20, 1991, a group of armed men stole
30,000 copies of Dangerous from an air freight terminal at the Los Angeles
airport.

In spite of strong sales, critical response to the album was for the most part
unfavorable. The Los Angeles Times asked: "How dangerous can a man be
who literally wants to please everyone?" The reviewer called the album "a
messy grab-bag of ideas and high-tech non sequiturs, with something for
everyone from the man who has everything-relatively tame, wildly unfocused." Another critic asserted, "Michael Jackson desperately wants to be a
classic star like his good friends Elizabeth Taylor and Katharine Hepburn."

Teddy Riley, the producer of the Dangerous album, said that Michael
talked a lot about what he'd done to his face and skin during their production
work. "I'm quite sure if Michael could have done it all over again, he would
not have done what he did," Riley said. "But there's no turning back. Once
you change your description, you're stuck with it. You can't get your own face
and your own skin back. But he is still Michael Jackson, still the talented man
that everybody grew up on."

Although at least three music videos were generated by the Dangerous
album, the video associated with the single "Remember the Time" generated
more than its share of strife.

John Singleton, director of Boyz N the Hood, was hired to direct it, opting
for, in full cooperation with Michael, a setting in ancient Egypt.

In a surprise move, Michael decided to cast Eddie Murphy in the video,
despite the fact that it was widely assumed that the two men detested each
other. Throughout the 80s Murphy had made a
career in stand-up comedy routines which sometimes viciously ridiculed gays and their vulnerability to AIDS. Even Richard Pryor found Murphy "a
little too mean," and Michael was frequently the
butt of Murphy's jokes.

John Singleton

Michael, of course, was aware that Murphy
had mocked him on nationwide television and
made fun of him in club acts, but despite all that,
the two men worked harmoniously together, concealing whatever private feelings they might have
had about each other. Murphy was cast as the Pharaoh Ramses, playing opposite the glamorous actress and supermodel,
Iman, who played his wife, Queen Nefertiti. Before signing on, Murphy, joking or not, said, "There ain't gonna be no scene with me kissin' no faggot!"

Born in Somalia, the exotic Iman became the wife of David Bowie on
April 24, 1992. Channel 5 ranked her #29 in their roster of "The World's
Greatest Supermodels." Iman later proclaimed, "I had breast enlargement to
quiet that noise in my head and fill the gaping hole in my self-esteem."

Iman confided that she would not be able to show the video to her father,
a strict Muslim. Her father was the Somalian ambassador to Saudi Arabia.
"Nudity and erotic video are against his religion, and has been a major conflict in our family. Even my being a model goes against my father's religion.
At the end of the day, I'm my father's daughter. If there are any naked pictures
up when he comes around, I hide them."

She'd posed topless for the 1985 edition of the popular Pirelli Calendar.
She had also performed in a music video for Jermaine Jackson, "Do What You
Do."

In Michael's video, Eddie Murphy, as the Egyptian pharaoh, sends his
guards chasing after Michael, who manages to elude them and ends up with
an embrace and a kiss from Iman.

Michael seemed to freeze during his kiss with the delectable Iman. "I
wouldn't freeze, man," Murphy said. "That would sure get a rise out of me."

Later, reviewers attacked the kiss as "the most unconvincing in the history of the movies." One critic wrote, "if Michael Jackson was trying to assert
his heterosexual credentials in this video, he failed miserably. If Sir Winston
Churchill had ever been forced to kiss Adolf Hitler, I think the British prime
minister would have pulled it off with more fervor." Singleton begged
Michael to film the scene over again, but Michael retreated to his dressing
room for the rest of the day. Sobbing, he was found watching The Little
Mermaid.

Magic Johnson was also cast in the video. Privately, Michael told his producer that he wanted to limit his contact with the athlete. He'd heard that he
had HIV, and Michael, perhaps unaware of how the disease is transmitted, was
overly sensitive.

The director wanted his actors in Egyptian dress, which meant showing
some leg. But Michael refused, allegedly because his legs were still "as brown
as an acorn," whereas his upper torso had turned white. To the horror of the
wardrobe department, Michael insisted on wearing black pants underneath his
Egyptian dress.

Later, Michael agreed to a minor participation in Murphy's 1992 album,
Love's Alright. In the video of the song, "WhatZupWitu," Michael and
Murphy appear in a Technicolor-like dream together. The Boys Choir of Harlem also makes an appearance. The video was so horrid that it was at first
released only in Japan. Later when it reached the United States in 1999, MTV
voted it as "one of the 25 worst music videos" in history.

For yet another video from the Dangerous album, Michael filmed "In the
Closet," as if dangerously courting more ridicule from Joan Rivers. "In the
Closet?" she shrieked. "Michael, tell us something we don't know."

If his kiss with Iman was a bomb, he hoped to right that wrong by hiring
another supermodel, the ravishingly attractive Naomi Campbell.who had been
chosen by People magazine as one of the 50 Most Beautiful People in the
World.

A Californian, Herb Ritts, who had directed videos for both Janet Jackson
and for Madonna, signed on as the director of "In the Closet."

As a director of music videos, Ritts was an odd choice. He was mainly
known for celebrity photography, taking pictures of everyone from Jack
Nicholson to Mick Jagger. His photos had graced album covers, including
Madonna's True Blue in 1986. He'd photographed Cindy Crawford for both
the July 1988 and the October 1998 issues of Playboy. As a respected photographer, Ritts gained unprecedented access to many of his subjects, including a paralyzed Christopher Reeve and a post-brain surgery Elizabeth Taylor.

During the publicity associated with "In the Closet," Ritts proposed a daring concept: Michael would pose nude for a centerfold for publication in
either Vogue, Elle, Harpers Bazaar, Vanity Fair, or Rolling Stone.

When he saw the horror of Michael's face, Ritts assured him that in his
photo shop he could make a penis look bigger. Ritts later claimed that Michael
burst into tears at the suggestion and ran away from him. Ironically, despite
his horrified reaction to Ritts' proposal, within just a few short months,
Michael would be posing nude for a Santa Barbara police photographer-definitely against his wishes.

For six weeks prior to the filming of a third video, Michael hired a personal trainer "who looked like Arnold Schwarzenegger." Since he didn't plan
to show his legs, they worked mostly to build up his upper torso.

In spite of all his efforts, Michael still emerged, in the words of one critic, "as the 97-pound weakling in all those old Charles Atlas ads where bullies
on the beach kick sand in his face, embarrassing him in front of his girl."

On location in Palm Springs, Michael and the artfully underclad Naomi
executed their videotaped maneuvers together. Naomi comes on strong,
provocatively wrapping her bare legs around Michael's waist.

In the video, she reveals that she should have been a film star-not just a
"supermodel." In contrast, in the words of one critic, "He absolutely froze as
Naomi comes at him like a tigress. Michael was out of his element with a hottie like Naomi."

On a trivial note, Princess Stephanie of Monaco was credited with supplying the female vocal. The final track also included a brief appearance by rapper Heavy D, and an appearance by superstar Michael Jordan. In the video, he
dances and plays basketball with Jordan. Michael, even at this late date, was
still confusing Magic Johnson with Michael Jordan. To resolve the confusion,
he developed a somewhat insensitive way of differentiating the two athletes:
"Oh, Jordan is the one who's not HIV positive."

Some TV stations, perhaps because of Naomi's sexy dance, refused to air
the video. But despite their lack of cooperation, and despite Michael's frigidity, "In the Closet" emerged as the third consecutive number one hit from the
Dangerous album.

Back at Neverland the staff was being supervised by Bill Bray, Michael's
grizzled chief of security. Michael once referred to him as, "The father I never
had." But Bray needed help, and Michael hired Norma Staikos, a stocky, middle-aged immigrant from Greece. According to a staff member at Neverland,
"She wore a frown set in stone."

"Michael had his father in Bray," said a disgruntled staff member. "Now
he found another mother in Staikos. She soon became the virtual chatelaine of
Neverland." The same staff member claimed that Staikos operated Neverland
"like the Gestapo-we were terrified of her. Firings were frequent. You never
knew from day to day whether you had a job or not."

After a few weeks, Staikos issued orders that the security guards at the
gate were not to record the arrivals of "the little boyfriends," some of whom
began appearing at three o'clock in the morning. As increasing numbers of
young boys arrived at Neverland, Staikos became vigilant in her efforts to blot
out evidence of that, as if sensing some future trouble for her employer.

Hired as an assistant to Staikos was Orietta Murdock of Costa Rica.
Apparently, Murdock was hired because Staikos
thought she was a Latina. But when Staikos met
Murdock's sister, whose skin was much darker,
both Staikos and Michael learned that Murdock
was black. Michael said, "I prefer to think of her
as Latina instead of black."

Herb Ritts

Murdock was assigned to organize letters
and photographs from Michael's young fans. "I
felt bad seeing Michael separate the photos and
reading the letters he saw with children's handwriting," Murdock later said. `Black kids and
kids older than thirteen didn't interest him. And
when he was reading a letter and realized that it
was from a little girl, he threw it in the trash. He kept and took to his room only the
photos and letters from white,
Latin, and Asian children. As for
the rest, he told us it was useless to
answer them, so we had to fake his
signature. It was a shame that those
children didn't fit into his racial
tastes."