Michael Jackson: The Life of an Icon Page #10

where they laid off, like, a thousand people,

other companies were laying off people.

Everybody was losing their job.

But Thriller was so big,

it brought millions of people into the stores

and they not only bought Thriller;

They bought other product.

It was the music that will probably

influence contemporary artists

for a long, long time to come.

It gave us a...

A goal, a bull's-eye or a dream to get to,

something to aspire to.

KATHERINE:
After Michael made Off The Wall,

and then Thriller,

I knew then that it was like shooting a rocket

up to the moon.

Were you aware of the sales?

I pretty much did the album

and just sat back and watched.

He saw where he wanted to go.

Freda Payne SINGER

and he went there.

And nobody could stop him.

He went to a level

that only the very great have obtained.

He wanted to be the best

and he was the best.

(PEOPLE CHEERING)

TAYLOR:
God took that little man

and he says,

"Okay now, you take over the music world."

Bobby Taylor

ARTIST, GORDY / MOTOWN RECORDS.

"It now belongs to you."

ALEXENBURG:
What made him so special

is that he was held back

for so long

that when he was finally released,

all of it came out.

TITO:
He just lit the stage on fire.

He stole the show from everybody,

including the Jackson 5.

Tito Jackson MICHAEL'S BROTHER.

RANCIFER:
Michael was into his fans.

To make all these people that happy,

it charged him up, it really did.

Ronnie Rancifer

KEYBOARDIST, 'JACKSON 5' 1967-77.

SIMPSON:
My fondest memory

is the Motown 25.

ASHFORD:
Yeah.

SIMPSON:
We were on that show,

- and he premiered the moonwalk. Wow.

- That was something.

Valerie Simpson & Nickolas Ashford,

SINGERS/ SONGWRITERS,

'ASHFORD & SIMPSON'

GEST:
Michael called me

when he got home from doing Motown 25,

and said, "I've just given

the greatest performance of my life."

David G-est

MICHAEL'S CLOSE FRIEND.

WARWICK:
How excited we all were for him,

it was like, "I guess I've arrived,"

(LAUGHS) you know?

Dionne Warwick SINGER.

With an armful of Grammys.

It was wonderful.

In 1984 Michael won an unprecedented

8 Grammys for 'Thriller'.

'Thriller' became the best selling album

of all time with sales exceeding 11 C) million.

ALL:
(CHANTING) Michael!

During the eighties Michael had more

number 1 hits than any other artist.

GEST:
Michael Jackson is

one of the greatest artists of all time,

who transcended being labelled

black, white, red, yellow,

it didn't matter,

he appealed to everybody, everywhere.

I think he came here ready

'cause he always wanted to be a superstar.

He was wearing little rings on his fingers

when he was a little man, you know.

TARABORRELLI:
He was very conscious

of the iconoclastic nature

of "Michael Jackson,"

J. Randy Taraborrelli

JACKSON FRIEND AND BIOGRAPHER

and what it would mean historically.

ALEXENBURG:
Michael's image

was very important to him

because Fred Astaire

and the people that he studied,

Jackie Wilson, James Brown...

How are they being revered? Why are they

so terrific and what did they do?

And he was a great student.

Ron Alexenburg

SNR. VICE PRESIDENT CBS I EPIC RECORDS.

It just didn't come upon him,

he studied his craft, he worked at it.

GEST:
He was directing his careen

he was so street smart

and he knew how to make a campaign work,

and more importantly, how to make it last.

He believed that the biggest stars

left the biggest impression

and it was bigger than just their art,

you know.

What you thought of instantly

when you thought of these celebrities

and with Michael,

what you began to think of instantly

was the fedora hat, it was the one glove.

On the show that we did together

at Madison Square Garden,

he came out with a suitcase

and inside was the glove,

and he had the hat,

and he had everything he needed

to show them,

"Nobody does it better than I

and these are my trademarks."

TARABORRELLI:
The total package

of Michael Jackson became very important,

especially with the advent of video culture,

which happened at the exact same time

that Billie Jean and Beat It

were becoming hit records.

'Billie Jean' was the 1st video by a black

artist to receive heavy rotation on MTV.

Michael never officially left The Jacksons.

'Victory' (1984) was their last album together.

GEST:
It was an immense pressure

to be in the public eye

and he kept wanting

to look better and better.

He was very, very self-conscious.

Michael felt under pressure

where his image was concerned

because of who he is.

He was a black guy he was an inner-city guy.

How could he be the darling

of white society?

He had to change.

I think all that was what led

to the first plastic surgery, in 1978.

I went to interview Michael

at his home in Encino

and he showed up at the door

with bandages on his face

and his eyes were black and blue,

and I thought that he had been

in some kind of a fight.

He explained to me

that he had fallen on stage

and broke his nose.

This was why he had that first surgery.

His next major one was in 1981

and he stayed with me for four weeks.

I took care of him.

I always felt that he looked so good

after that second one,

he never needed to do more.

TARABORRELLI:
And then after that,

there were all kinds of other things

that were going on

that it was really hard to determine,

you know, what he was doing

and when he was doing it.

REBBIE:
I think he should have stopped

before he did, yes.

Being vulnerable and listening to others,

he just kept going.

Rebbie Jackson MICHAEL'S SISTER.

DILEO:
Steve Hoefflin, I believe,

and I said to Michael,

did too many operations

and made Michael not secure, but insecure.

GEST:
One of the ways

Steve stayed close to Michael

was constantly telling him what he needed.

Steve would probably disagree with that,

but I felt

you just went a bit too fan.

The disease that Michael had, vitiligo,

Katherine Jackson MICHAEL'S MOTHER.

Michael suffered from it and he...

He didn't wanna be spotted up and he...

He went to a skin doctor

and had him to get his whole face one colour

but below, his legs and things

were still spotted up

but he didn't show that part of his body.

Vitiligo Sufferer

only parts of his body like his hands

and his face and his neck and chest.

That's the part that he had bleached out

so it wouldn't look so bad.

Some people have their own ideas

of what they think it is,

but I know what it is.

TARABORRELLI:
If always felt unfair to me

and I think that Michael

always felt victimised by it.

I loved it when Michael said,

"Plastic surgery

was not invented for Michael Jackson.

"People have been having

plastic surgery for years.

"I'm not the first one to do it.

"Why am I always the one being picked

on about it?"

And I thought that was a really good point.

TITO:
We were doing a Pepsi commercial,

the year was 1984.

And we were just getting ready

to go out on the Victory Tour.

I went to the set the day they were shooting it

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