Michael Jackson has died at age 50. Like many, I've watched him degenerate from an articulate, confident child star to a strange, reclusive adult. Four years ago, I wrote this piece inspired by Jackson on the effects of fame on the famous.
If Michael Jackson had not been introduced to the addictive power of fame, might he have lived an obscure and happy life? We'll never know.
This video is of Jackson's performance at the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary bash for Motown Records back in 1982 or 1983. It was the first time most of us had seen the Moonwalk.
The evening was mostly given over to performances of past Motown hits. Two of the label's biggest stars, Jackson and Diana Ross, were no longer with the company. Each came back for performances that night. But Jackson insisted that in addition to performing Jackson Five hits with his brothers, the price for his participation would be allowing him to perform a tune from his newest LP, Thriller, which was on the Epic label.
This performance, probably more than anything else, was responsible for sending Jackson's already-successful career into the stratosphere.
Jackson may have been an evil man. Whatever the truth about his relationships with children, he was undeniably a mess. And, like Judy Garland, the tragic arc of whose life resembles his, he seems to have almost been destined for early death. But he was also a person of immense, jaw-dropping talent. It's too bad that success is so often accompanied by fame and the license to excess that entails.
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