It sounds like something invented for a science-fiction movie, but designers once developed plans for a 50-foot robotic Michael Jackson as part of proposals surrounding a Las Vegas comeback. The enormous figure was supposed to appear in the Nevada desert, where people flying into the city could spot it from their planes. Even stranger, reports … Read more
In 1989 Michael Jackson released the short film for “Liberian Girl” from the Bad album. At first glance it looks like a simple gathering of A-list friends waiting for the King of Pop to arrive on set. Steven Spielberg, John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John, Whoopi Goldberg, Quincy Jones, Paula Abdul, Danny Glover, Dan Aykroyd, David Copperfield … Read more
Years before the finished short film reached audiences Michael Jackson was developing a horror project tied directly to Addams Family Values. He wanted something genuinely frightening and reached out to Stephen King. Original director Mick Garris later explained that the early concept was meant to accompany a song Michael was writing for the movie’s end … Read more
In 2006, Michael Jackson arrived in Ireland with his three children, Prince, Paris and Blanket, searching for privacy after one of the most turbulent periods of his life. Yet according to biographer Randall Sullivan, Jackson was looking for something else too. He reportedly told his children to keep their eyes open for leprechauns because he … Read more
At fifteen Michael Jackson already carried the weight of global fame as the young star of the Jackson 5. According to accounts in Randall Sullivan’s book Untouchable drawing from sister Rebbie Jackson and other family reports a male relative arranged for two adult sex workers to take his virginity. He was locked in a hotel … Read more
Michael Jackson was already one of the world’s biggest entertainers when he made an extraordinary purchase in 1999. By telephone, he bid on the Best Picture Oscar awarded to producer David O. Selznick for Gone With the Wind and paid about $1.54 million. The price stunned the auction world. Years later, the story became stranger … Read more
Plenty of famous people in the 1950s and 60s were handed honorary black belts they hadn’t earned. Elvis Presley wasn’t one of them. He trained in karate for nearly twenty years, under a string of serious instructors across three countries, opened his own karate school, and reached a rank most people who train their whole … Read more
In April 1975, Elvis Presley bought a Convair 880 jet airliner from Delta Air Lines. It was seventeen years old and had spent fifteen of them hauling ordinary passengers around America. He paid roughly $250,000 for it. Then he spent more than $800,000 — over three times the purchase price — turning it into something … Read more
Almost everyone on earth knows the phrase. It’s in films, in cartoons, in video games, in comedy routines. It has been said by sports announcers, politicians and stand-up comics who never heard an Elvis record in their lives: “Elvis has left the building.” What almost nobody knows is that the very first time those words … Read more
It is one of the most recognizable outfits in the history of show business. The gold lamé suit — jacket, trousers, belt, shoes and tie, all of it glittering — worn by Elvis Presley on the cover of 50,000,000 Elvis Fans Can’t Be Wrong. Even the Elvis Barbie doll wears one. The world was told … Read more