Michael Jackson: The Life of an Icon Page #11

and they had a lot of performances

that were great.

So it was the end of the day,

they called for a wrap,

I said goodbye to him.

And I was walking out the door

when I heard the producer say,

"We have to do one more take."

There was some pyro,

and Michael was coming down the steps

and I think somebody missed their cue.

One of the flames came

and landed on Michael's head,

which he had hairspray, something like that,

and it just...

After the accident, Michael had

to go through a horrific experience

to repair his scalp.

It was a form of tissue expansion

known as ballooning.

This procedure is often used on the scalp.

Dr. Michael May FRCS - HAIR TRANSPLAN SPECIALIST, THE WIMPOLE CLINIC

to treat burns, scarring.

This is done by the surgeon

inserting a plastic balloon

underneath the skin

and, over a period of time,

increasing the volume of the balloon,

and therefore, stretching the skin above.

The surgeons,

almost like drawing a curtain,

bring the normal tissue

over that area of scalp

and fill in the scarred area.

I actually spoke to Dr Steven Hoefflin,

who did the first ballooning procedure

on Michael after the Pepsi incident.

And he explained to me.

Michael continued

to do the ballooning procedure

with different doctors, throughout his career.

It was quite painful, you can imagine.

If a large balloon of saline

is placed beneath the skin,

is blown up to perhaps 1000 cc of fluid,

it causes quite a large amount of discomfort.

KATHERINE:
I think after he got burnt,

that was the first time

he was exposed to strong pain medicine,

because he did have a lot of pain in that spot

for a long time.

People don't realise

that his dependency on pills

was due to that one accident

that changed his life forever.

I used to give

a lot of private parties for Michael

because he'd wanna meet somebody.

My neighbour, when I was living in New York,

was Liam Neeson,

and he loved Liam Neeson's work

in Schindler's List.

And I invited Liam over

and some friends of mine.

DOZIER:
You gave him a party

and I remember.

Michael McDonald sang,

Gloria Gaynor sang.

Lamont Dozier

SONGWRITER, HOLLAND-DOZIER-HOLLAND.

You and Michael were clowning,

he had three bottles of wine, I think,

and he was having a food fight.

In the middle of Gloria Gaynor singing,

Michael threw some jellybeans at me,

and then he started throwing them

in the piano.

(CHUCKLES) And I remember Gloria Gaynor

looking up, like, "What's going on?"

I said, "He's just a kid at heart."

BRYSON:
We ended up

sitting at a table together

I got up and I went to talk

to some other people away from the table.

Peabo Bryson SINGER.

When I got back, Michael was in my seat,

in my date's ear; in her face.

I tried to wait a while,

maybe he was gonna go away soon.

No, he was so engrossed

in the conversation with my date,

he didn't even notice me coming back.

"Michael, get your own."

The first time Michael ever drank in his life

was at a dinner that I had

with Burt Bacharach

and he drank about a bottle and a half

of a vintage wine

and he loved the taste.

And I remember we went back to my flat,

and when we got out of the car,

he threw up in the parking lot.

He threw up in my house, everywhere.

And I was picking up all this mess,

and he said,

"You know, if I told Joseph,

you would be in real hot water.

"He would be really mad at you."

I said, "Don't tell him."

Not only did we have fun,

I got to set up a number of collaborations

with Michael and other artists.

Where I actually met him

was at a big do for him,

Petula Clark SINGER I ACTRESS

and he had asked for me

to come along and sing.

I sang Downtown, of course, inevitably.

But it seems that he was a great fan.

Bless his heart,

he financed a recording session for me.

He was a very giving person, Michael.

And very funny

and of course deeply, deeply talented.

David called me on one given day

and said that, "I think there's a possibility

"that you and Michael should sit down

and write together."

Paul Anka SINGER / SONGWRITER

(BALLAD PLAYING)

Michael and Paul were in the Jacuzzi

and came up with This ls It.

Not many people know that I was responsible

for putting them together.

Unfortunately it evolved,

and I don't know if you remember,

but Michael took the tapes out of the studio

in Los Angeles,

because he didn't want to finish the project.

He kept them, illegally.

We had the same lawyer, unfortunately.

I fired the lawyer because he couldn't

find the contract, all of a sudden.

So, what really happened was, after Michael,

under pressure, returned the tapes,

he obviously copied them.

Thus, years later, they went into his home,

and they found a copy,

on a cassette or whatever,

of my multi-tracks, from my studio,

which they thought was new,

they thought it was a new song.

What threw them off was when they heard

"This is it" as the first line,

it correlated with the tour

that he was gonna do.

After gathering all of the evidence, I realised

that there was an honest mistake made

and I don't wanna cause any problems.

So we sat down very quickly,

within a few hours,

and we hammered out a deal,

which I think is fair to all of us.

And that's the story about This Is It.

G-EST:
In 1990, I was producing

the American Cinema Awards,

which honoured legendary stars

of the cinema,

as well as great musical entertainers.

And over the years,

we'd honoured many great legends.

There was nobody more qualified

to win the award

for musical Entertainer of the Decade

than Michael Jackson.

Ladies and gentlemen,

I would like to express my gratitude

to those responsible

for the American Cinema Awards.

I thank David Gest. You're just fantastic.

Thank you so much.

And final, I thank little Christina and Michael.

I love you all, goodbye.

In 1993, Michael Jackson

was accused of molestation

by this kid, whose name was Jordy Chandler,

and by Jordy's father,

whose name was Evan Chandler.

These people were people

that Michael allowed into his life,

and he befriended them.

And the next thing we knew, this kid

was claiming that Michael had molested him.

Back in 1993, this was unbelievable

to all of us who knew Michael Jackson.

Because we just really didn't

think of Michael in any kind of sexual way.

He was sort of asexual in our minds

at that time.

If you know Michael, you know his heart.

Billy Davis, Jr.

SINGER, '5th DIMENSION'.

Michael was probably one of the most gentle

people that one would ever want to meet.

Michael always told me he loved children

because they were innocent.

They never wanted anything from him.

Michael was always so protective of children.

Marilyn McCoo SINGER, '5th DIMENSION'.

The side that I saw of him,

he was such a family-oriented person.

All of us, growing up, you may know about,

I mean, we always had a baby

in our arms, on our laps,

and we always gravitate to kids.

I mean, it's just an innocent thing

and that's as far as it would ever go.

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes