Memories Of Michael

In reviewing memories of the last fifty years of the ‘Daily Telegraph,’  (UK newspaper), one memory was of more interest to Michael’s fans than all the others; it is reprinted here, for you to read:

“DEATH OF MICHAEL JACKSON

Since it started in 1961, the newspaper’s strength has been in its ability to punch above its weight, to be more idiosyncratic than its rivals.

If one story of recent years captures this guerrilla approach best it is the one that appeared in the week Michael Jackson died suddenly in 2009. The Sunday Telegraph, like all other papers, wanted to find an original way to cover the event. We struck gold when we asked the eminent American writer Paul Theroux for his memories of Jackson. He
recalled how, after a rare tour of Neverland in the company of Elizabeth Taylor, the singer telephoned him in the early hours for a chat. The conversation was unguarded. “’He’ll talk to you if I ask him to,’ Elizabeth had told me. And at a prearranged signal, Michael called me, at four one morning. There was no secretarial intervention of ‘Mr. Jackson on the line.’ The week’s supermarket tabloids’ headlines were ‘Jacko on suicide watch’ and ‘Jacko in loony bin’, and one with a South Africa dateline, ‘Wacko Jacko King of Pop Parasails with 13-year-old’. In fact, he was in New York, recording a new album.

“My phone rang and I heard: ‘This is Michael Jackson.’ The voice was breathy, unbroken, boyish – tentative, yet tremulously eager and helpful, not the voice of a 40-year-old. In contrast to this lilting sound, its substance was denser, like a blind child giving you explicit directions in darkness.

“’How would you describe Elizabeth?’ I asked. “’Elizabeth is someone who really loves me… I can really relax with her, because we’ve lived the same life and experienced the same thing.’ “’Which is?’ “’The great tragedy of childhood stars.’”

Source: Daily Telegraph & MJWN