All the right moves
Jackson’s personal life was a mess, but ‘This Is It’ shows him at his best
By REED TUCKER
October 25, 2009
If things had gone differently, Michael Jackson would have been about halfway through his residency at London’s O2 Arena as you read this. Instead, he’s gone, leaving behind a mountain of debt, millions of grieving fans and dozens of unanswered questions.
Among them, what would that final tour have been like, and could the King of Pop still rightfully lay claim to his crown? When “This Is It” hits theaters Wednesday, we may well find out. The movie is part behind-the-scenes documentary, part concert film, assembled by director Kenny Ortega from some 120 hours of rehearsal footage shot as Jackson prepared to return to the stage.
It’s a movie that will be impossible to view in a vacuum. Some will watch to get one last glimpse of their idol, others for hints that the singer’s demise was imminent. Few have seen the finished product, but The Post was shown two songs — “Human Nature” and “The Way You Make Me Feel” — and each found Michael singing on a partial set, occasionally stopping to check cues or make changes as the sound rattled around the empty Staples Center.
Those who worked closely with Jackson in his last days revealed to The Post what it was like on the set, and what the singer wanted to make of this farewell tour.
In March, Jackson held a rambling press conference to announce the tour — starting with a string of London dates. Shortly thereafter, rehearsals began.
Morris Pleasure (keyboards): We rehearsed in three different spots in LA. When rehearsals started, we were in a room at Center Staging in Burbank that I thought was huge, but the next place we went to was the Forum [the former Lakers arena]. Then we went to the Staples Center. You would think the Forum would be big enough — 10,000 seats — but you couldn’t even fit the whole set in the Forum. It kept getting bigger and bigger.
Dorian Holley (vocal director): Michael was always very involved, but in the past he’d do what most people do — hire people to head the departments and then go and work on his part of it. This time, instead of having the dancers videotaped, he’d be sitting right there. He’d give everyone a big hug. What’s really sad is that I felt he was trying to put a foot into normal life by being a part of everything, by touching people, by being there while we were doing our stuff. He wanted to have his hands on it. He wanted to say hello.
Kenny Ortega (director): I was watching Michael come to life during a period of his life when he was really beat down. He wasn’t looking for validation or to prove anything. I was in his dressing room and I said, “I can’t wait for the curtain to draw back. You’re going to get the validation that you so deserve and that people tried to rob from you.” He just laughed and said, “You’re so funny.” He said it like I was a kid. What he was really saying to me was that wasn’t what motivated him.
Lou Ferrigno (“The Incredible Hulk” actor, bodybuilder): He called me a few months before the tour, and he told me he wanted to get back into training. I would go to his house and we would work on his flexibility, conditioning and toning. His health was OK. He was 127 pounds. He might have been a little lighter, because he was under so much stress being half-a-billion dollars in debt. It wasn’t like he was anorexic or too frail looking. Michael’s problem was that he only liked to eat once a day. But I think he hired a dietician, so I think he was improving his diet.
Pleasure: I won’t say his health was perfect or not. He didn’t look like he wasn’t in good shape to me. He was tall and thin. I didn’t know of him being anything other than that. I’d never met him before. He had a firm handshake, you know? He was making 20-year-old dancers give him a standing ovation, so you know his dancing was on point.
Travis Payne (choreographer): A lot of people ask me if he had the ability to do some of the moves that he made popular, and I had not a doubt in my mind.
Holley: When we first started out, the show was two-and-a-half hours, and that was too long for him to do. I know when we were touring back in the day, he’d lose a couple pounds a show. You can do that when you’re a young man, not so much when you’re 50.
The tour budget, initially $7 million, had grown to $30 million, with Jackson constantly thinking up new ideas.
He even designed the ticket.
Michael Bearden (musical director): There were some surprise guests planned for the show. Nothing was confirmed, but he had a wish list and some people expressed interest in coming. So of course, Diana Ross was gonna come and do something, possibly Mariah Carey. Possibly Mick Jagger. Slash was going to come down and do his thing.
As far as new artists, he really liked Lady Gaga. He said, “Maybe we could do something with her.”
Ortega: A lot of people didn’t realize how much he was involved in conceptualizing the show.
One morning at 3 or 4 o’clock, I woke up with a phone call and it was Michael giggling. He said, “Are you up?” I said, “Michael, what do you want?” He said, “Victoria Falls.” I said, “What? It’s in Africa.” He said, “Victoria Falls. We need it on the stage.” What it was, we had the world’s largest HD, 3-D screen. Michael said it would be really beautiful if during “Earth Song” we had Victoria Falls gushing behind him on the stage. He said, “I want my fans to appreciate the majesty and the splendor of the planet.”
Jay Ruckel (La Crasia Gloves, maker of Jackson’s glove): Back in 1984, we made some gloves for Brooke Shields and for him. I used to joke that he was a lady’s size 7, and Brooke Shields was a ladies size 8.5. From his current hand tracing, he was more like a man’s size 9.His hand must have grown. [The glove for the last tour] had thousands of tiny Swarovski crystals on it. It had LED lighting run by a battery pack inside to outline the fingers.
Holley: His voice was — I’ll be honest with you — at the beginning, he was taking it easy. But when he was ready to show you, he would hit it. When people see the film, the people who thought Michael was driven to his grave and was forced to do this and all of that nonsense, they’ll be silenced.
Pleasure: Michael was a master musician. We were playing “Shake Your Body” for the first time with Michael. We finished it, and we were killing it and we thought we were done. Michael said, “There’s only one thing. That piano part is missing one note.” We’re all looking at each other like, really? Michael Bearden checked it out and Michael was right.
Holley: He was like a loving father, a loving general. Someone would say, “MJ’s in the building,” and you’d stand up straighter. I have seen Michael get mad. One night on the “Dangerous” tour, an illusion failed. He had his mike on, and I could hear him getting dressed in my monitor. He cursed and said, “You better fix that! That better not happen again!” My daughter was about six at the time, and she just happened to be with me. She looked at me and said, “Ooh, Daddy. Michael cussed!”
Payne: The approach to choreography would start with discussion and what we wanted to achieve with the piece. He would use words like “sizzle,” words like “bathe in the moonlight,” words like “power” and “structure.” He’d relate some movements to animals or use anything in nature to try and explain a color, feeling or sensation he’d like to convey.
Holley: He’d say how proud he was that the show was sold-out. He told me that he didn’t think it was fair to the rest of the world to only perform in England, and next he was going to take it to Africa, Asia or Japan or Australia. The world wanted it, and he said we were going to be doing this for three or five years.
Ortega: He wanted to take one more curtain call in these places. He imagined that this was going to be a couple of years, and then perhaps he would retire from that level of live performance. He had no intention of retiring from creating.
He wanted to be a filmmaker. We had two films in early development. We were going to do the Legs Diamond story that was based on his short film “Smooth Criminal.” And Michael wanted to do a full-length feature of “Thriller” in 3-D. He was going to direct and produce.
Jackson died June 25. Early in the day, Ortega told the musicians and crew not to believe what they were reading and that rehearsal was on for the day. Later, it became clear the news was true. By the time the other performers arrived at the Staples Center, the stage was already being dismantled.
Pleasure: I remember the circus was coming, and even with Michael Jackson gone, the business world marches on. They had to get all that stuff out of there. At that point, they weren’t even sure how he’d died, so things were confiscated. They were holding everything, just, “Lock it up.” The crew members were packing everything up, and here we were crying.
Holley: When I got there, I knew. The stage was dark. A third of the stuff was already packed up. The crew was standing around, some of them crying — these guys with muscles and hair on their arms. It was like a scene in a film where you haven’t gotten the bad news through anybody’s words, but you can look around and see that it’s final. It was the worst.
reed.tucker@nypost.com
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