LOS ANGELES –
Michael
Jackson, the "King of Pop" who once
moonwalked above the music world, died Thursday as he
prepared for a comeback bid to vanquish nightmare years
of sexual scandal and financial calamity. He was 50.
Jackson died at UCLA Medical Center after being stricken
at his rented home in Holmby Hills. Paramedics tried
to resuscitate him at his home for nearly three-quarters
of an hour, then rushed him to the hospital, where doctors
continued to work on him.
"It is believed he suffered cardiac arrest in his
home. However, the cause of his death is unknown until
results of the autopsy are known," his brother
Jermaine said. Police said they were investigating,
standard procedure in high-profile cases.
Jackson's death brought a tragic end to a long, bizarre,
sometimes farcical decline from his peak in the 1980s,
when he was popular music's premier all-around performer,
a uniter of black and white music who shattered the
race barrier on MTV, dominated the charts and dazzled
even more on stage.
His 1982 album "Thriller" — which included
the blockbuster hits "Beat It," "Billie
Jean" and "Thriller" — is the best-selling
album of all time, with an estimated 50 million copies
sold worldwide.
At the time of his death, Jackson was rehearsing hard
for what was to be his greatest comeback: He was scheduled
for an unprecedented 50 shows at a London arena, with
the first set for July 13.
As word of his death spread, MTV switched its programming
to play videos from Jackson's heyday. Radio stations
began playing marathons of his hits. Hundreds of people
gathered outside the hospital. In New York's Times Square,
a low groan went up in the crowd when a screen flashed
that Jackson had died, and people began relaying the
news to friends by cell phone.
"No joke. King of Pop is no more. Wow," Michael
Harris, 36, of New York City, read from a text message
a friend had sent him. "It's like when Kennedy
was assassinated. I will always remember being in Times
Square when
Michael Jackson died."
The public first knew him as a boy in the late 1960s,
when he was the precocious, spinning lead singer of
the Jackson 5, the singing group he formed with his
four older brothers out of Gary, Ind. Among their No.
1 hits were "I Want You Back," "ABC"
and "I'll Be There."
He was perhaps the most exciting performer of his generation,
known for his backward-gliding moonwalk, his feverish,
crotch-grabbing dance moves and his high-pitched singing,
punctuated with squeals and titters. His single sequined
glove, tight, military-style jacket and aviator sunglasses
were trademarks, as was his ever-changing, surgically
altered appearance.
"For Michael to be taken away from us so suddenly
at such a young age, I just don't have the words,"
said Quincy Jones, who produced "Thriller."
"He was the consummate entertainer and his contributions
and legacy will be felt upon the world forever. I've
lost my little brother today, and part of my soul has
gone with him."
Jackson ranked alongside Elvis Presley and the Beatles
as the biggest pop sensations of all time. He united
two of music's biggest names when he was briefly married
to Presley's daughter, Lisa Marie, and Jackson's death
immediately evoked comparisons to that of Presley himself,
who died at age 42 in 1977.
As years went by, Jackson became an increasingly freakish
figure — a middle-aged man-child weirdly out of
touch with grown-up life. His skin became lighter, his
nose narrower, and he spoke in a breathy, girlish voice.
He often wore a germ mask while traveling, kept a pet
chimpanzee named Bubbles as one of his closest companions,
and surrounded himself with children at his Neverland
ranch, a storybook playland filled with toys, rides
and animals. The tabloids dubbed him "Wacko Jacko."
"It seemed to me that his internal essence was
at war with the norms of the world. It's as if he was
trying to defy gravity," said Michael Levine, a
Hollywood publicist who represented Jackson in the early
1990s. He called Jackson a "disciple of P.T. Barnum"
and said the star appeared fragile at the time but was
"much more cunning and shrewd about the industry
than anyone knew."
Jackson caused a furor in 2002 when he playfully dangled
his infant son, Prince Michael II, over a hotel balcony
in Berlin while a throng of fans watched from below.
In 2005, he was cleared of charges he molested a 13-year-old
cancer survivor at Neverland in 2003. He had been accused
of plying the boy with alcohol and groping him, and
of engaging in strange and inappropriate behavior with
other children.
The case followed years of rumors about Jackson and
young boys. In a TV documentary, he acknowledged sharing
his bed with children, a practice he described as sweet
and not at all sexual.
Despite the acquittal, the lurid allegations that came
out in court took a fearsome toll on his career and
image, and he fell into serious financial trouble.
Michael Joseph Jackson was born Aug. 29, 1958, in Gary.
He was 4 years old when he began singing with his brothers
— Marlon, Jermaine, Jackie and Tito — in
the Jackson 5. After his early success with bubblegum
soul, he struck out on his own, generating innovative,
explosive, unstoppable music.
The album "Thriller" alone mixed the dark,
serpentine bass and drums and synthesizer approach of
"Billie Jean," the grinding Eddie Van Halen
solo on "Beat It," and the hiccups and falsettos
on "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'."
The peak may have come in 1983, when Motown celebrated
its 25th anniversary with an all-star televised concert
and Jackson moonwalked off with the show, joining his
brothers for a medley of old hits and then leaving them
behind with a pointing, crouching, high-kicking, splay-footed,
crotch-grabbing run through "Billie Jean."
The audience stood and roared. Jackson raised his fist.
By then he had cemented his place in pop culture. He
got the plum Scarecrow role in the 1978 movie musical
"The Wiz," a pop-R&B version of "The
Wizard of Oz," that starred Diana Ross as Dorothy.
During production of a 1984 Pepsi commercial,
Jackson's
scalp sustains burns when an explosion sets his hair
on fire.
He had strong follow-up albums with 1987's "Bad"
and 1991's "Dangerous," but his career began
to collapse in 1993 after he was accused of molesting
a boy who often stayed at his home. The singer denied
any wrongdoing, reached a settlement with the boy's
family, reported to be $20 million, and criminal charges
were never filed.
Jackson's expressed anger over the allegations on the
1995 album "HIStory," which sold more than
2.4 million copies, but by then, the popularity of Jackson's
music was clearly waning, even as public fascination
with his increasingly erratic behavior was growing.
Jackson married Lisa Marie Presley in 1994, and they
divorced in 1996. Later that year, Jackson married Deborah
Rowe, a former nurse for his dermatologist. They had
two children together: Michael Joseph Jackson Jr., known
as Prince Michael, now 12; and Paris Michael Katherine
Jackson, 11. Rowe filed for divorce in 1999.
Jackson also had a third child, Prince Michael II. Now
7, Jackson said the boy nicknamed Blanket as a baby
was his biological child born from a surrogate mother.
Cardiac arrest is an abnormal heart rhythm that stops
the heart from pumping blood to the body. It can occur
after a heart attack or be caused by other heart problems.
Billboard magazine editorial director Bill Werde said
Jackson's star power was unmatched. "The world
just lost the biggest pop star in history, no matter
how you cut it," Werde said. "He's literally
the king of pop."
Jackson's 13 No. 1 one hits on the Billboard charts
put him behind only Presley, the Beatles and Mariah
Carey, Werde said.
"He was on the eve of potentially redeeming his
career a little bit," he said. "People might
have started to think of him again in a different light."
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AP Special Correspondent Linda Deutsch and AP writers
Derrik J. Lang, Solvej Schou, Anthony McCartney and
Thomas Watkins in Los Angeles; and Virginia Byrne, Hillel
Italie, Nekesa Mumbi Moody and Jocelyn Noveck in New
York contributed to this report.
