by Donald Bogle
• • •
Told each other everything.
Certainly, racial and cultural differences and distinctions were a part of their developing friendship. Perhaps they didn’t have protracted, heavy-duty discussions about the nation’s racial history. Or its sexual history and its gender inequalities. But they must have discussed such topics at times because such topics were always there in the sense of how each viewed the struggles of one another. And each was keenly aware of racial and social inequities and bigotry. Michael never forgot the incident when Katherine had been racially insulted when driving her Mercedes. His entire family had witnessed the civil rights movement. So had Elizabeth, who had always been liberal and progressive. At the same time, Elizabeth most likely discussed in some way women’s issues, especially in her recollections about her experiences in show business. In any kind of interracial relationship or friendship, there are always racial or cultural bridges that are established and crossed. Usually, the parties involved enjoy learning something about the other’s culture: the customs, the traditions, the histories, the esthetics, the use of language, everything from holiday celebrations to foods to religious observances. So it was with the two of them. The topic of race was never something ignored with Elizabeth and Michael.
• • •
Told each other everything.
Certainly, that involved health issues. Her ongoing back problems. The medication to ease some of the constant pain. The unending trips in and out of hospitals. For him, there remained the still-fresh pain from the burns during the filming of the Pepsi commercial. He also had other ailments and saw the prominent Beverly Hills dermatologist Arnold Klein, who examined splotches on Michael’s skin and would conclude in 1986 that Michael was suffering from vitiligo: a skin condition that causes discoloration over the body, which is due to a lack of pigmentation. Michael also would later suffer from lupus. Elizabeth, too, would have a bout with skin cancer. In time, medication for both would be something neither would seriously think about twice. Medication was essential just to keep them functioning.
But for Elizabeth there was something else about Michael that appealed strongly to her. He brought out the nurturing side of her personality. She had always loved focusing on loved ones, whether it’d been Mike Todd, during those days when he was promoting Around the World in 80 Days in the States and abroad; or Richard Burton during those years when she seemed determined that Burton get the big movie roles and when she herself was sometimes not working in order to push his career; or John Warner when she campaigned relentlessly to get him elected to the United States Senate. Of course, Michael was such a huge star that she knew there was nothing she could do to advance his career. But she could provide him with a comfort that might have been missing in his life.
With his lost-boy quality, with his heightened sensitivity, with his Pepsi accident, even with his use of drugs to dull his physical pain, he was reminiscent of Monty Clift, with whom she shared so much, and perhaps of James Dean and Rock Hudson, all troubled, all conflicted, all trying to come to grips with their childhoods and their fame. With each of them, she had felt there were no secrets. For her, they perhaps all called to mind those closing lines of Maggie in the Broadway version of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, although not in the movie: “Oh, you weak, beautiful people who give up with such grace. What you need is someone to take hold of you—gently, with love, and hand your life back to you, like something gold you let go of—and I can! I’m determined to do it—and nothing’s more determined than a cat on a tin roof—is there? Is there, baby.” Though Elizabeth never thought of Michael or the others as weak, she clearly believed she could save people, and perhaps she believed she could help Michael to save himself.
She hadn’t been able to do that with Monty. But maybe with Michael. Coming from different generations, from different classes, and from different races, they crossed those lines—as well as gender lines—without much to-do.
Michael would be more forthcoming about details of their friendship and their times spent together. Elizabeth would be reticent. For a woman whose life had been so hotly discussed, dissected, analyzed, criticized, and exploited by the media, notably the tabloid press, she was still a private person who kept the door shut on her experiences. Though she wrote four books about her life (including Nibbles and Me), and though she gave countless interviews to magazines and newspapers, which as a child of Hollywood she had been bred to do, there was much she refused to share, especially as she grew older. Once, when Barbara Walters asked her about her memories of life with Richard Burton she responded that she had many memories and that they were her memories. She turned down pleas to write a formal autobiography. Always she kept guarded her experiences with Michael. In the years to come when she was asked about the friendship by such skilled interviewers as Oprah Winfrey, Larry King, and Johnny Carson, she seemed to have a response set in stone: she referred to the demands and pressures of their professional childhoods and the things they had missed. Occasionally, something more personal would be discussed but not at length. Her children also helped maintain their mother’s privacy. They understood she needed room to breathe.
Michael, however, in time would discuss their times at Neverland or at the movies. He would also comment on the fact that both had tough, brutal fathers. And he would speak of her survival instincts in a general way. He, too, would only go but so far, aware that her need for privacy was greater than his.
When together, Elizabeth and Michael were clearly in their own world, one that few could understand. Or enter.
• • •
Then word of their budding friendship leaked out to the press. Michael’s friendships with other former child stars were nothing new. Nor were his relationships with older women, from Ross to Minnelli, from Fonda to Sophia Loren to Katharine Hepburn. Michael Jackson himself may have assumed at first it would just be such another one of those friendships. But she was different: warmer, more willing to listen, more simpatico, willing to devote more time to him. Having been under her sway from afar, now he was under her spell up close. The media took note in a way it hadn’t with those other women, except for Ross. For the media, Taylor was the deluxe item; so was he, which obviously accounted for the publicity they generated.
Soon they were seen together publicly at events. One evening they might turn up at a Liza Minnelli concert. Another evening they might be spotted at one of Bruce Springsteen’s concerts. Or later they might attend opening night of the Los Angeles Ballet with Lionel Richie and Mikhail Baryshnikov. Sometimes there was more excitement at watching the two of them than at seeing the performers onstage. When Michael signed to star in a special seventeen-minute 3-D science fiction film Captain EO—shown only at Disney theme parks from 1986 into the 1990s—directed by Francis Ford Coppola and produced by George Lucas, with costars Anjelica Huston and Dick Shawn, Michael saw it as a chance to continue a film career that until then had not progressed anywhere. With a cost of $30 million, maybe Captain EO would change things. He even wrote two songs for it. His costar was Anjelica Huston. Celebrity friends visited him on the set: Sophia Loren, Warren Beatty, and Barbra Streisand. Elizabeth also visited Jackson for several days. Sitting in his trailer, they were like two kids playing hooky, having food fights, gossiping, horsing around, being children all over again during those off-hours on the movie set.
• • •
Soon their trips to the races also turned heads and drew stares, with the media following and recording their every move. On Christmas Day 1985, they watched as Elizabeth’s racehorse, Basic Image—with jockey Willie Shoemaker astride him—came in next to last. Passersby heard Elizabeth unleash a stream of expletives, which seemed to embarrass Michael. He would need to get used to it, and soon he did. For Michael, who rarely cursed (at this point) and who, because of his religious upbringing, seemed to feel it “sinful” for people to beat on horses or casually curse up a storm, here was another kind of education. Soon the press was on the lookout for them at the
track.
But the big event that seemed to certify that Michael and Elizabeth were a “couple”—and which drew a horde of photographers, videographers, reporters, and onlookers was the 1986 American Music Awards ceremony, held on January 27. Hosting the ceremony was a ravishing Diana Ross. That night, Michael, Lionel Richie, and Quincy Jones walked off with awards for their 1985 recording “We Are the World,” recorded to raise funds for African relief during a devastating famine. The showstopper, however, was the appearance of Elizabeth—lustrous in a blue chiffon dress—on the arm of Michael, dressed in quasi-military regalia. The media had a field day. “Michael Jackson who nearly swept the awards two years ago when the Thriller album was hot, showed up backstage about midway through the show with friend Elizabeth Taylor. When photographers learned of the couple’s presence, several people were nearly trampled in the stampede to catch a shot of the pair,” wrote one reporter. “The couple also livened up things backstage in the crowded media area,” another breathlessly recounted. “When they appeared briefly, the area, which had been calm all evening suddenly turned into a madhouse. Photographers stampeded to a designated security line near the stage entrance. It was one of those frantic paparazzi scenes, with photographers jockeying for position, shoving their colleagues.”
With friends, the two continued hopping off to the tracks. So did the media. “The opening of Hollywood Park on Wednesday brought out all the potential winners, including this year’s really fun couple—the devastatingly slim and pretty Elizabeth Taylor and her buddy, pretty and slim Michael Jackson,” it was reported. “The yellow and black dress La Liz was wearing gave clear evidence that she is once again a knockout—and the best advertisement for the beauty book she is currently writing. In great spirits, Taylor . . . even kiddingly bopped Jackson on the head with her program for some laughing remark. It was a big day for that table.” Also in the group were Carole Bayer Sager, her husband Burt Bacharach, and Elizabeth’s lawyer Neil Papiano.
Other times, even when on a date, Elizabeth wanted Michael by her side. That occurred on another day at the racetrack with other friends, including her boyfriend, actor George Hamilton, who, like many, noted not only Michael’s delight in being with Elizabeth but also his boyish charm. During a day at the racetrack with Elizabeth and Michael, Hamilton asked Michael to pick a horse. Because he was still a Jehovah’s Witness, Michael refused. Hamilton suggested that he simply put his hand down on the racing form and select a horse, which he did. The horse won a race. According to Hamilton, it had been a 30-1 shot. Hamilton tried to give Michael his winnings. But Michael refused and ran off.
During the early years of their friendship, Michael—like the typical Taylor suitor—obviously loved playing the part of the gentleman escort, at her beck and call, making sure she was comfortable, making sure any request to a waiter or whomever was taken care of. Yes, she was high maintenance. Yes, he was, too. Still, when with her, he enjoyed keeping that high maintenance high. Michael’s friend, producer David Gest, recalled the time they were having dinner at La Scala in Beverly Hills. As people flocked around Elizabeth, Michael realized he wasn’t the center of attention, which he didn’t mind at all. “I remember he leaned over and whispered to me, ‘Now that’s what you call royalty.’ ” He also knew that she loved gifts, and like Fisher, Todd, Burton, and others, he would eventually lavish her with jewelry.
When Michael gave her a huge diamond ring, he urged her, “Put it on, put it on. Look at the way it sparkles. I bet it’s bigger than the Krupp.” Said Elizabeth: “So I asked innocently, ‘Really? How many carats is it, Michael?’ ‘Seventeen,’ he answered. I embraced him and whispered in his ear, ‘My honey darling, you missed.’ ” No one could ever really duplicate the jewels of Todd and Burton.
“Another time we were at an auction together and I was getting excited about bidding on a pair of long shaggy Marina B diamond earrings, so I told him that he had to buy something, too,” she recalled. “I showed him this delightful monkey necklace made up of diamonds, emeralds, and rubies with matching earrings. He probably thought I had something like ‘auction fever’ when I pointed out that the two monkeys symbolized us, bonded in friendship. In hindsight, I must have made some sense, because these little monkeys are perfectly at home with all my other beloved jewelry.”
Public appearances with Elizabeth—even their private times together—were for Michael a glorious wish-fulfillment, being part of classic old/midcentury Hollywood with its greatest star. Understanding what he was experiencing, Elizabeth appeared amused and delighted. For her, all the really big-time spenders had vanished. So had the grand gestures. Both she and young Michael were the last signs of larger-than-life stardom.
Special occasions were also spent at the Encino home. La Toya remembered that several times a week, Michael invited famous stars to the home, sometimes for what Katherine called his “star-studded dinners”: along with Elizabeth there were such other classic Hollywood stars as Gregory Peck, Cary Grant, Marlon Brando, Sophia Loren, Yul Brynner, Jane Fonda, and Muhammad Ali. Often at the homes of the stars or in their trailers, Michael tape-recorded the conversations, even of Elizabeth. “I think he was so enraptured by being with them,” Jermaine recalled, “that he wanted to make sure that he never missed a word they said. At night, back at Hayvenhurst, he played back those conversations, listened, and took notes. Michael was a prolific note-taker and note-sender.”
During the 1980s into the 1990s, other glittering evenings followed for Elizabeth and Michael. A special evening for Michael occurred on the occasion of Elizabeth’s fifty-fifth birthday party, held on February 28, 1987, one day after her birthday, at the home of her then married friends Carole Bayer Sager and Burt Bacharach. Elizabeth was escorted by George Hamilton. But she paid close attention to Michael. As Michael expected, it was a glamorous gathering. In attendance was a heady mix of stars: Stevie Wonder, Bob Dylan, Dionne Warwick, Joan Collins, Shirley MacLaine, Whoopi Goldberg, Bette Midler, Charles Bronson, and Barry Manilow. For Michael, a memorable moment was meeting actress Bette Davis. At the end of the evening, he excitedly asked Elizabeth to take a picture of him with Davis. But perhaps the highlight was when Elizabeth introduced him to another woman. It was her mother, Sara.
On another occasion in New York, Michael and Elizabeth attended a benefit at the Sheraton Hotel for the United Negro College Fund, where Michael was honored—and they posed for pictures with Liza Minnelli and Whitney Houston. All four stars—along with Quincy Jones—seemed giddy just to be in one another’s company, to be a part of an elite club, reserved only for the major players. One star’s appearance with the other certified megastardom. And there was the occasion of the 1989 Soul Train Awards, when Elizabeth stood at the podium with Eddie Murphy to present Michael with the evening’s Heritage Award. That night she called him the King of Pop—Rock and Soul. Michael’s publicist Bob Jones has said that he came up with the title; regardless, when Queen Elizabeth publicly anointed him the King of Pop, the title stuck. For Michael, it was all the more potent a certification of pop legendry because Elizabeth had done the honors.
Never could the media get enough of the pair. Carrie Fisher recalled an evening when Elizabeth and Michael attended an AIDS benefit at the Beverly Hilton hotel. Fisher accompanied the two, as did actress Shirley MacLaine. Fisher described it as a double date. Both she and MacLaine were obviously famous, each with adoring followings of her own. But when they arrived with Elizabeth and Michael at the Beverly Hilton to face a horde of paparazzi, Fisher said that she and MacLaine were “instantly rendered invisible . . . unrecognizable.” The two ended up being “spectators to the spectacle of Michael and Elizabeth. All you can really do in a situation like that is watch.”
As much aware as everyone else of the frenzied coverage they generated when together, Elizabeth and Michael could hardly have been said to be upset or annoyed by it—as they could be with other intrusions of the media into their individual lives. Instead, they seemed to delight as much in the
coverage as in each other’s company. During this period, each looked downright radiant. Though the public would always be fascinated by Elizabeth, no one had appeared wildly excited by seeing John Warner on her arm. Most fans couldn’t wait for her to get out of that marriage and back to Hollywood. With George Hamilton, there was mild interest primarily because they looked good together. But not wild enthusiasm. Nor was there much excitement at seeing her with Victor Luna and Dennis Stein, her various fiancées to come.
Indeed, the media coverage was the third party in their relationship.
For Taylor, some of the relentless attention with Michael must have called to mind the Todd and Burton days, although less intense. For Michael, it may have brought to mind his appearances with Brooke Shields—and even other evenings in 1991 with Madonna. He and Madonna were all smiles on those occasions. He confided to his friend Rabbi Shmuley Boteach that on one evening before they went out, she told him they were not going to Disneyland. “But I didn’t ask you to go to Disneyland.” She told him that they’d go to a restaurant and then a strip bar. “I am not going to a strip bar,” he told her. They ended up at the Ivy restaurant and a few nights later they attended the Oscars together. The paparazzi loved it. But Michael was not thrilled on either occasion nor when the two attended a birthday party for producer David Geffen nor when they dined at Spago. “She is not a nice person,” he said. He also called her a “nasty witch.” He most objected to her reaction when some little kids asked for their autographs. “Get out of here,” he said she told the kids. “Don’t ever talk to children like that.” “Shut up,” she told him. “You shut up,” he said. But he also said, oddly enough, inexplicably, he believed she was “sincerely in love with me and I was not in love with her.” He added: “I knew we had nothing in common.” But it was a different world with Elizabeth. Surely, it was no secret—nor did it go unnoticed that Elizabeth and Michael loved the glamour and megawattage stardom.
