[h=1]<nyt_headline version="1.0" type=" ">Frank Dileo, Michael Jackson’s Manager, Dies at 63</nyt_headline>[/h]<nyt_byline> [h=6]By
BEN SISARIO[/h]</nyt_byline>[h=6]Published: August 24, 2011[/h]<nyt_text><nyt_correction_top></nyt_correction_top> Frank Dileo, the stout, cigar-smoking former bookie who was Michael Jackson’s personal manager during much of his 1980s career peak, died on Wednesday in Pittsburgh. He was 63.
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[h=6]Chris Pizzello/Associated Press[/h]Frank Dileo in 2009.
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[h=6]Dave Hogan/Getty Images[/h]Frank Dileo, with cigar, and Michael Jackson in 1988.
The cause was complications from heart surgery in March, said his wife, Linda.
Mr. Dileo was one of a handful of advisers who shepherded Jackson through world tours, endorsement deals and a visit to the White House. Yet at 5 feet 2 inches tall and more than 200 pounds, his hair in a slick ponytail and rings on his pinkies, he cut an unlikely figure next to the Peter Pan-like Jackson.
“You couldn’t find two more different people,” Mr. Dileo once said. “He won’t eat meat; I’ll run out to get a cheeseburger. I’ll take a drink; he won’t touch the stuff.” He added: “Just look at us — he’s skinny, I’m fat. If we stand next to each other, we look like the number 10.”
From 1979 until Jackson hired him as manager in 1984, Mr. Dileo was vice president for promotion at Epic Records, working with acts like Culture Club, Cyndi Lauper and Quiet Riot. Jackson, who also recorded for Epic, credited Mr. Dileo with the radio campaign that helped make the “Thriller” album a worldwide success.
Released in late 1982, “Thriller” has sold well over 50 million copies, according to most estimates, making it the biggest-selling album ever.
Frank Michael Dileo was born in Pittsburgh on Oct. 23, 1947, and got his start in the music business stocking store shelves with new records. In the late 1960s and ’70s he worked in promotion for record companies in Cleveland, Nashville and New York, pitching songs to radio stations.
He had run-ins with the law. Twice in the late ’70s he was convicted of taking bets on college basketball games. At Epic he supported the use of independent promoters, a system of middlemen between labels and radio stations that was investigated by the federal authorities in the 1980s for payola and links to organized crime.
Mr. Dileo, who was not charged, defended the practice, which continues today.
“There’s not anything dishonest going on,” Mr. Dileo said of independent promotion in “Hit Men,” Fredric Dannen’s 1990 book about corruption in the music industry. “Organized crime?” he added. “There ain’t been organized crime since Capone died.”
As Jackson’s manager, he helped negotiate a 1986 endorsement contract with Pepsi that was reported to be worth more than $10 million. In those days Mr. Dileo drove a black Rolls-Royce, a gift from his employer, with the license plate “THANXMJJ.”
But in early 1989 Jackson fired Mr. Dileo, dissatisfied with the sales of his album “Bad.” (Jackson had wanted to sell 100 million copies of the album, but after a year and a half it had sold only 20 million.)
Mr. Dileo soon got a phone call from Martin Scorsese, who had directed the video for Jackson’s song “Bad,” offering a small role as a Mafioso in his next picture, “GoodFellas.” Mr. Dileo played Tuddy Cicero, who kills Joe Pesci’s character, Tommy. He also appeared with Mike Myers and Dana Carvey in the movies “Wayne’s World” and “Wayne’s World 2,” playing a flashy record executive.
In the 1990s Mr. Dileo continued his career as an artist manager, working with Taylor Dayne, Jodeci and Richie Sambora of Bon Jovi. In 2007 he was named chief executive of
ValCom, a film, television and theatrical production company.
Mr. Dileo was reunited with Jackson in 2009 as the singer prepared for a run of comeback concerts in London. He signed on as manager again about a month before Jackson died of an overdose of sedatives on June 25 that year; at the U.C.L.A. Medical Center that day, Mr. Dileo informed Jackson’s children that their father had died.
Besides his wife, he is survived by a son, Dominic; a daughter, Belinda; a sister, Rose Marie; and a grandson.
Throughout their time together, Jackson and Mr. Dileo played up their odd-couple image. On the record sleeve for “Bad,” released in 1987, was a picture of the men facing each other in silhouette, a cigar hanging from Mr. Dileo’s mouth. The caption: “Another great team.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/25/a...-jacksons-manager-dies-at-63.html?_r=1&src=tp
they did amazing work together.
