Michael Jackson

by J. Randy Taraborrelli

  Jermaine Falls for the Boss's Daughter

  In early 1973, while Katherine and Joseph were distracted by the discord in their marriage, their son Jermaine was falling in love… with Berry Gordy's daughter. He had been dating Hazel Gordy for several months and, at just eighteen, seemed about to follow Rebbie's and Tito's lead by using matrimony to extricate himself from the Jackson homestead.

  It was clear to the brothers that Hazel had become an important and influential presence in his life. For example, at a rehearsal in March, the group had been attempting to solve a problem in choreography with Suzanne dePasse. After a decision had been made about how best to handle the situation, the brothers were in agreement. However Hazel, who had begun attending all practice sessions, pulled Jermaine aside and whispered something in his ear. Jermaine listened, nodded absently, and walked back to his brothers. ‘I think we oughta change this step,’ he announced, dutifully.

  ‘But why?’ Michael protested, according to a witness's memory. ‘It's perfect as it is.’

  ‘Because Hazel has a better idea. Look, Mike, you stand here,’ he said positioning his brother. ‘And Tito here, Marlon there, and Jackie over there.’ Jermaine then demonstrated Hazel's ‘great idea’ which, upon execution, made Jermaine more prominent in the presentation. When Suzanne realized what had happened, she shot Hazel a look. Hazel smiled innocently. Since Hazel was Berry's daughter, Suzanne had no choice but to agree with her suggestion. ‘Looks fine, guys,’ she said. ‘Let's keep it.’

  ‘Well, I hate it,’ Michael announced, looking at Jermaine. ‘C'mon, Jermaine,’ he said, ‘I thought we agreed.’

  Jermaine looked away.

  The other brothers tried to ignore what had happened. ‘It ain't that important,’ Tito decided.

  ‘Well, I think it is important,’ Michael concluded. ‘But you guys can do whatever you want.’ He then looked over to Jermaine, who now was in another conference with Hazel, shook his head and rolled his eyes.

  Jermaine had been attracted to Hazel when they first met in 1969, but not in the same way in which she fancied him. After a short time, Hazel told Jermaine she was in love with him; he made it clear that he was not sure he could return her affection. He was a teenage idol, a star, and could have his pick of dozens of willing young women. This kind of idolatry was heady stuff for a young man like Jermaine. It made the idea of settling down with one woman seem confining, no matter who she might be.

  ‘Jermaine likes girls too much to get married,’ Michael had said. ‘I think he'll be in his thirties before he does anything like that.’

  However, Hazel was a young, idealistic girl who wanted more than anything to marry and have a family. Not only had her father been divorced three times, she had witnessed his tumultuous, heart-wrenching affair with Diana Ross. Though young, Hazel believed that true love was elusive, she remained a romantic. ‘I can truthfully say that since I fell in love with Jermaine I have never even thought about any other man,’ she said.

  Delores Robertson, who was a friend of Hazel's at the time, recalled, ‘Berry Gordy had been lavishing Hazel, his only daughter, with gifts for as long as she could remember. She told him that she was in love with one of The Jackson 5 and she wanted him for her own. Her feelings for Jermaine were so strong, she was afraid to let him slip through her fingers for fear that no one like him would ever come along again. She was jealous when she would see Jermaine with female fans. “Michael can have fans, but you can't,” she used to tell him. Berry made sure she usually got what she wanted. Now she wanted Jermaine. Berry got to know Jermaine and, even though he felt there might be a problem with Joseph, believed that Jermaine was right for Hazel. When Jermaine asked Berry for her hand, he said, yes.’

  Though Berry thought Joseph might be a stumbling block to any union between his daughter and Jermaine, that wasn't the case, at least not at first. Hazel actually found an unexpected ally in Joseph, who might not have insisted on a pre-nuptial agreement anyway (as he had with Tito's wife). He was certain that marriage between his son and the boss's daughter would ensure job security for the Jackson clan at Motown, especially since he was having a difficult time of late in even getting Berry on the telephone. He did all he could to help the youngsters, even referring to her as ‘my Hazel’ and saying that he loved her.

  Had Joseph given the matter more thought, he might have been more concerned about the recent turn of events. When Berry's sister, Anna, was married to Motown singer Marvin Gaye, the alliance never gave Marvin special privileges at the company. In fact, according to Marvin, it only served to complicate his life and career because Anna acted as a spy for her brother during times of conflict. Marvin was rarely able to make a move that Berry didn't know about in advance. Also, Marvin said that he always felt a strong conflict of interest whenever he and Berry battled, which was often.

  Many other Motown artists felt as Marvin did, that Jermaine was about to be groomed by Berry to become a major star just as Diana Ross had been lifted from The Supremes to superstar status; that Jermaine's two solo releases for the company, ‘That's How Love Goes’ and ‘Daddy's Home’, had been successful, and he did have the potential to be one of the company's biggest stars. Actually, some critics cited strong similarities between Jermaine's vocal style and Marvin Gaye's. The truth is that Jermaine had his own sound, and it was a good one, too, full-bodied and always an interesting contrast to Michael's high-pitch on the many songs the two shared at Motown. (Actually, the reason Jermaine started singing leads at the company was that the group's producer, Deke Richards, was hospitalized with a slipped disk. He didn't want Fonce Mizell and Freddie Perren, to work with Michael without him, so he told them to write something for Jermaine. That song was ‘I Found That Girl’, the flip side of ‘The Love You Save’.)

  PART THREE

  Jermaine's and Hazel's Wedding

  In November 1973, Katherine and Joseph had another serious argument; distraught, she left town, leaving her family in a state of confusion and bewilderment. ‘The children were devastated, Michael in particular,’ recalled Joyce Jillson, a friend of Katherine's at the time. ‘He wanted to go with her. “If you're leaving, so am I,” he told her. “I'm not going to let you go without me.” Michael didn't want to find himself in that house with his brothers and sisters and father, unless Katherine was present as a buffer. To Michael, she was his only link to sanity. But now even she had become unpredictable. It was unlike her to disrupt the family, but she just couldn't take it another second. She told Michael to stay behind and assured him that she would return. He cried. “Why can't Joseph go?” he kept asking. “He's the one who should be going.”’

  When Katherine heard through friends that the press had become aware of problems in her marriage, she became concerned. She wanted Jermaine's upcoming wedding, not her separation from Joseph, to be the focus of media attention. Therefore, she returned home just days before the wedding. Sensing in Joseph injured pride rather than true contrition, she wasn't sure how long she would stay with him now, but she knew she'd have to be at his side at Jermaine's wedding. She felt an obligation to her son, to her family.

  Jermaine's wedding to Hazel Gordy on 15 December 1973 was an expensive, ostentatious affair. ‘If my kid is going to get married,’ Berry had said, ‘she's going to marry in style. Sky's the limit,’ he insisted. The wedding would cost him about a quarter of a million dollars, a lot for the times. Berry's money would create a winter wonderland at the exclusive Beverly Hills Hotel for the festivities. Artificial snow-covered pine trees, 175 white doves in white cages, and thousands of white camellias, chrysanthemums and carnations decorated the rooms in which the wedding, reception and luncheon took place. One hundred guests were invited to the ceremony; five hundred-plus to the after-gatherings.

  Ebony called it ‘the wedding of the century’. Guests were overheard comparing it to the royal wedding in London when Princess Anne had married Captain Mark Phillips a little more than a month earlier. Abe Lastfogel, a William Morris founde
r, called it ‘the most lavish merger I've ever seen’. To ensure that the media would report the details correctly, Motown handed out publicity releases to the invited reporters.

  Sixteen-year-old Marlon was the best man. Fifteen-year-old Michael, along with brothers Jackie (twenty-two), Tito (twenty), and Randy (eleven), were ushers. Michael's duties that day were not complicated: escort the guests to their seats before the ceremony, and escort one of the bridesmaids out of the chapel after it. However, people close to the Jackson family have indicated that Michael felt preoccupied on this day. Jermaine, who had always been his favourite big brother, was getting married and, in his view, it was going to make a difference in the way things were run.

  ‘At first Michael had thought it wouldn't matter,’ said one close family friend. ‘Tito was married and The Jackson 5 had continued as before. His wife never had anything to do with group business or politics. But Jermaine was marrying Hazel, the boss's daughter, a lady who had strong opinions and got her own way. As the wedding day got closer and closer, Michael noticed that Jermaine was looking at things differently – through Hazel's eyes. He was becoming less Michael's best friend and more Hazel's man. Michael would feel the loss keenly. He and Jermaine were so close, he felt he was losing his best friend.’

  In truth, Joseph had also become disenchanted with Hazel when he realized how much influence she had on Jermaine. He felt that she could be manipulative and, therefore, might interfere with group dynamics. Also, she had her dad's ear. There was no telling how things would work out, and Joseph couldn't help but be concerned.

  At the reception, in the hotel's Lanai Room, show-business luminaries such as Smokey Robinson, Diana Ross, Lola Falana, Diahann Carroll and Billy Dee Williams mingled with other notables such as Coretta Scott King, widow of Martin Luther. Katherine forced herself to act as if nothing was wrong, even though she was so unhappy. No matter how hard she tried to conceal it, her sadness was apparent. As soon as the photographers finished taking pictures of her and Joseph, she would pull away from him. At one point a concerned Michael asked her if she would like a glass of punch. Katherine shook her head absentmindedly as she gazed over her son's head at Joseph. ‘I don't feel like dancing, honey,’ she said. Michael watched, his eyes full of warmth for her, as Katherine turned away and walked into the crowd. To even the most casual observer, she seemed very alone.

  It wasn't long before Diana Ross became the centre of attention, posing and preening for photographers as only she can. ‘I brought him to Mr Gordy's attention,’ she said, pulling Michael into the frame, ‘and now look where he is today. Everybody wants to have their picture taken with this cutie,’ she said. ‘It's amazing.’ Diana squeezed Michael tightly, as if he were a trophy. A mixture of love and pride illuminated her face. ‘And just look at his little suit,’ she said, tugging at Michael's lapel. A flicker of annoyance crossed his face.

  ‘You're awfully grateful to Miss Ross, aren't you, kid,’ a reporter asked Michael, ‘for discovering you?’

  ‘Uh… yeah,’ Michael said. He must have wondered how long he was going to have to live with the fabrication that Diana Ross had ‘discovered’ him.

  ‘Oh, isn't he sweet?’ Diana cooed. ‘You see, how it happened was, I was in Gary, Indiana, and I saw this group perform, and I said to myself…’

  Las Vegas

  Joseph Jackson was always competitive. However, he seemed even more so after Jermaine's wedding, as if his son's new alliance with Berry Gordy had caused Joseph to consider himself a ‘David’ determined to slug it out with Motown's ‘Goliath’. To make more of an impression on the entertainment industry, Joseph formed his own record company, Ivory Tower International Records, and signed a female quartet from Ashtabula, Ohio, called M.D.L.T. Willis. The company and the group would not go far, which only served to reaffirm Berry's feeling that Joseph was well-meaning, but inept.

  However, one goal Joseph had that seemed to not occur to Berry, or to his right-hand man at Motown, Ewart Abner, was to break his sons out of the teen-idol mould and into a more secure niche. He realized that the careers of most teen idols last about two years before newer stars come along to replace them. Joseph wanted to change The Jackson 5's public image before it was too late.

  Joseph and Berry disagreed about the state of The Jackson 5's career. Joseph thought it was in trouble, citing the recent string of poorly selling records. However, Berry felt that the group was still popular, and he cited their latest record ‘Dancing Machine’, a rhythmic production by Hal Davis.

  As the onslaught of disco began to homogenize the pop-R&B scene, The Jackson 5 managed, with ‘Dancing Machine’, to maintain their originality while capitalizing on the new trend. A high-spirited Michael bantered the lyrics above his brothers' strong choral chants, all to an infectious beat. In the pop-music world, the Jackson brothers were clearly holding their own alongside the likes of The Temptations, The Spinners and The Four Tops, who were no longer idols, but peers. The Jackson 5 were many years ahead of their time and on to the electric sound of the eighties – the style of ‘Dancing Machine’ is similar to a sound that, a dozen years later, would be known as ‘techno-pop’.

  As puberty set in, Michael's voice changed. Gone was the pubescent shrill popularized on ‘I Want You Back’, ‘ABC’, and ‘The Love You Save’. It was replaced by a clearer, more refined tone, as heard on ‘Dancing Machine’.

  ‘Dancing Machine’ would eventually hit number two on the Billboard charts and sell 2,170,327 copies, the most single sales for the group since ‘Never Can Say Goodbye’. Therefore, as far as Berry was concerned, all was well in the Jackson 5's world. Most of those sales, though, were in America. In Europe, the song was not as successful, and in Britain it didn't even make the Top 50! (Future single and album releases in the UK would have such poor sales that they're not even worth mentioning further.) But Joseph didn't like such spotty sales; it was becoming impossible to predict when Motown would get behind the group and when it would not be supportive of the act. Joseph wasn't happy about any of it.

  In the winter of 1974 during a family meeting, Joseph made the announcement, ‘Boys, we're gonna play Las Vegas.’

  ‘But Vegas is the thing you do when you don't have hits,’ Jackie said, ‘when you don't have a choice.’

  ‘The brothers thought hangin' out in the hotels with white people would be no fun,’ Michael recalled later. ‘But I wanted to play Las Vegas. To me, Las Vegas was part of show-business tradition. At that meeting, our father told us two things: first, he said he was trying to show the world that we were every bit as good as The Osmonds; then he told us about Sammy Davis and what he went through so that guys like us could play Las Vegas.’

  Joseph explained to his sons that in 1945 when Sammy Davis, Jr., his father, Sammy, and his uncle, Will Mastin, were booked into the El Rancho Vegas hotel in Las Vegas for five hundred dollars a week. At the time, Las Vegas was the new show-business Mecca. However, even though the Davis act was invited to appear in the El Rancho showroom, they were not permitted to stay at that hotel because they were black. Rather, they had to check into a boarding house with the black porters and dishwashers who worked at the hotels. This was not unusual. Even a major star like Billy Eckstine, who was also working in Las Vegas at the same time, could not stay at the hotel at which he appeared. The showrooms and casinos were also off-limits to black patrons; blacks could entertain but not gamble or socialize with whites.

  In years to come, Sammy Davis, Jr., would break through these barriers by virtue of his talent and persistence – and, also, a little help from Frank Sinatra, who used his influence to open certain doors for his pal, Sammy. Sammy went from being a member of the Will Mastin Trio to being a solo star, paid over $175,000 a week in Las Vegas. By using his celebrity power and refusing to take no for an answer, ‘Mr Show Business’ was instrumental in de-segregating the town so that blacks could not only appear but also vacation and have fun there. By attending city hotel board meetings and working within the pol
itical system instead of against it, Davis also made it possible in the late fifties for more blacks to be hired at the Sands, where he performed. When Sammy died in May 1990, the Las Vegas strip went dark for ten minutes in his memory.

  ‘I wanted more than anything to be a part of that great tradition,’ Michael said years later when recalling his first Las Vegas engagement. He had been a Sammy Davis admirer since the age of ten. ‘To me, it was important. It was a giant step.’

  When it was finally confirmed that the Jackson 5 would open in Las Vegas in April at the MGM Grand, the newest and most prestigious hotel in the city, the Motown brass was unimpressed. ‘If you decide to do this thing, you'll be doing it on your own,’ Ewart Abner told Joseph. ‘Motown won't be involved. These kids aren't ready for Las Vegas.’ Later, Berry telephoned Joseph, personally, ‘You're makin' the biggest mistake of their career,’ he said.

  ‘Butt out!’ was Joseph's response. ‘These are my goddamn kids. Las Vegas has a good tradition, and I want them to know about it. It's time for them to grow.’

  ‘Hey, man, that's my son-in-law's career, too. I'm worried about him, about all of them.’

  Joseph hung up on him.

  Certainly, Berry understood the value and prestige of a successful engagement in Las Vegas for any performer. After all, he was the one who had championed the Las Vegas breakthrough of The Supremes in 1966. However, that engagement occurred only after years of carefully honing the trio's act to sophistication. Berry wanted his Motown performers to appeal to adults, especially to white adults, but he was certain that the Jacksons would fail miserably because of their lack of experience with the kind of material necessary to please a middle-of-the-road, predominantly white audience.