Michael Jackson (14 page)

The Jackson 5's next single, ‘Never Can Say Goodbye’, would be released in March 1971, and peak at number two a month later,
selling almost two million copies. It only managed a number thirty-three positioning in the UK though, so Gordy was becoming
a little concerned about the group's international appeal. Still, it was a memorable record. The song's writer, actor Clifton
Davis, recalled, ‘This was an emotional song that meant a lot to me when I wrote it. I was worried that Michael might not
understand the lyrics of pain and heartbreak. I recall him asking about one of the lines. “What's this word mean?
Anguish
” he asked me. I explained it. He shrugged his shoulders and just sang the line. “There's that anguish, there's that doubt,”
he sang. And I believed him.’

On 5 May 1971, after the boys returned from another national tour, the Jacksons moved into their large estate at 4641 Hayvenhurst
in Encino, California, the one in which Joseph, Katherine and miscellaneous other Jacksons (who aren't Michael and Janet)
still live today.

Joseph and Katherine purchased the property for $250,000; they moved in a day after Katherine's forty-first birthday. Katherine
had asked Joseph not to sell the two-bedroom home in Gary, ‘just in case the family fortunes took a turn for the worse and
they all had to move back to Indiana.’ Although Joseph didn't think that such a reversal of fortunes was likely, he decided
to rent, rather than sell, the house, at 2300 Jackson Street. (Today, the property is worth roughly $100,000, and still owned
by the family.)

Joseph and Katherine had never made as large a purchase as the Encino estate and were naive as to how to go about it. Joseph
wanted to pay cash for the estate (‘At least, then we own it and no one can kick us out.’), but he didn't have that much capital.
Anyway, Berry Gordy convinced him that the family needed as much of a tax writeoff on the property as possible, since their
income was increasing monthly, and that the interest on a loan could be written off their taxes. Although Joseph decided to
put down as little as possible on the Encino property, because his credit profile was not a good one he had to raise nearly
40 per cent in order to qualify for a mortgage. That was a lot of money for a down-payment: $100,000. Berry offered to lend
Joseph and Katherine the funds, but Joseph declined. ‘If we're going to live in that house, it's gotta be ours,’ he told Berry.
Motown already had too much control over his kids; Joseph didn't want Berry also to have a vested interest in the family home.

In the end, Joseph did manage to get the $100,000, but he had to secure a large advance on his sons' future earnings. Of course,
that advance came from Motown… which was, Berry.

Encino, which is a thirty-five-minute drive from downtown Los Angeles, is one of the wealthiest communities in Southern California
and home to many celebrities. The two-acre Jackson estate, resplendent with eighteen citrus trees and countless exotic plants,
was guarded by an electronic gate and flanked by a guest house, playhouse and servants' quarters.

Johnny Jackson and Ronny Rancifer, The Jackson 5's drummer and organist, moved into the household with the rest of the family.
This arrangement occurred because Joseph and Katherine were concerned about the influence both boys – but particularly Johnny – were
having on their sons. Both youngsters liked to spend what little money they were given, rather than save it. They were also
smoking cigarettes and drinking liquor. Joseph had considered letting them both go, but decided that it wouldn't be fair since
the boys had been a part of the band since the early days in Gary.

‘The house had five bathrooms and six bedrooms,’ recalled Susie Jackson, Johnny's former wife. ‘Jackie and Ronny shared a
room. Tito was with Johnny, Jermaine with Marlon, Michael with Randy, and LaToya with Janet. And then there was one left for
Joseph and Katherine, so there were a lot of people living there’.

The family room had a recessed floor surrounded by a wraparound couch. The walls were lined with numerous plaques, gold and
platinum records signifying million-selling singles and albums. One reporter noted that the room resembled ‘a cross between
a motel lobby and the foyer of a Sunset Boulevard record company.’

The grounds contained an Olympic-size swimming pool, a basketball half-court, a badminton court and an archery range. The
tranquil surroundings promised limitless peace for such a famous family. Hopefully, here they could be soothed and refreshed
in their time away from the invasive eye of the public.

Plans were made to add a hundred-thousand-dollar recording studio and a twenty-five-thousand-dollar darkroom.

Jackie Jackson's Datsun 240 Z was usually parked in the driveway, along with Katherine's new Audi, Joseph's gold Mercedes
300 SE convertible, and the family's huge van.

‘We had fun up the Big House,’ said Susie Jackson. (In time, many of the family's relatives referred to the Jackson estate
as the Big House because they felt it had become as much a prison to the Jackson sons and daughters as it had been a home.)
‘It wasn't all drama and backstabbing. There were parties and, in the beginning, we had a special closeness. I remember a
lot of fun times when they first moved in. Every time you were in that house, they were roasting peanuts.’

Though Katherine enjoyed the opulent estate and other aspects of her new life, she missed Gary. Simply put, she was not as
happy as she thought she might be in Los Angeles. She missed her old friends and relatives.

If Southern California had to be her new home, Katherine would not allow the glamorous surroundings to influence her or her
family to act in a pretentious manner. She was determined to maintain a sense of normality around the household.

Also, the Jackson family did not hesitate to show their appreciation to people who had helped them in their careers. Instead
of small, intimate gatherings, they preferred large, ostentatious affairs where quantity was the most important consideration.
Katherine looked at these parties as come-on-overs. Only instead of root beer and pretzels on the back porch, she put out
a lavish spread at the family estate. Always a gracious hostess, she made everyone feel welcome. Joseph's pride in the house
was obvious. He would give tours to anyone who seemed interested. In August 1972, after The Jackson 5 finished their engagement
at the Forum in Los Angeles, Katherine and Joseph held just such a party at the family home for about fifty press and show-business
friends.

Katherine and Joseph did not disappoint their guests. The twelve-foot-long buffet offered hamburgers, roast beef, chilli,
shish kebabs, fresh chilled fruit and seafood. Pastries were heaped on a cart decorated with red and yellow roses. In the
middle of the family's oval swimming pool, Joseph floated a huge J-5 logo made of roses and tinted carnations. For entertainment,
The Jackson 5 challenged The Temptations to a basketball game. The Jacksons won.

(This writer was a guest at many of the Jackson family's ‘come-on-overs’ between the years 1976 and 1981 at the Jacksons'
estate in Encino.)

The Jacksons' phone number would be routinely changed by the phone company every month to guard against outsiders having it.
Nevertheless, the number always got out. Once, a girl from Newark called to talk to Michael at two in the morning – just one
day after the new number was assigned.

As always, Joseph limited phone calls to five minutes and would not hesitate to use a strap on any junior family member who
broke that rule, pop star or no pop star. To say the least, the children were well disciplined. In fact, the boys were known
in Hollywood circles as the best-behaved youngsters in show business. ‘You sometimes thought they were too nice,’ said one
reporter. ‘It was as if something was wrong somewhere. They were sort of spooky.’

Jermaine has recalled that when the family moved into the Encino home their familial closeness began to dissipate, simply
because there was so much space. ‘We were real close when we had the other homes, before Encino,’ he remembered. ‘In Gary,
we had two bedrooms, one for our parents and one for all of us. You
had
to be close. You felt that closeness as a family. But in Encino, the place was so big we had to make plans in advance to
see each other. I think that Michael, in particular, was unhappy there. He felt, as I did, that we were all losing touch with
each other.’

In June 1971, The Jackson 5 released another single for Motown, ‘Maybe Tomorrow’, which went on to sell 830,794 copies, not
as many as previous efforts but still respectable. A month later, the group taped its first television special,
Goin' Back to Indiana,
for ABC-TV. (It would air in September.) Later, they would even have their own cartoon series, that's how popular they'd
become in such a short time. (The Jacksons' actual voices were heard in musical numbers, but their dialogue was provided by
young black actors.) That summer, The Jackson 5 performed fifty shows on tour, the longest series of one-night performances
ever attempted by the boys. ‘I wish for once we could finish a show and not have to leave before the end because of the crowds
rushing the stage,’ Michael complained. ‘We have a real good ending, but we never get the chance to do it.’

At Madison Square Garden in August of that year, the show had to be stopped after only two minutes when the audience stormed
the stage. ‘Return to your seats, please,’ a frightened Michael begged. Ultimately, though, the group had to be extracted
from the crowd and rushed away from the premises. The show resumed after the audience calmed down. Sixty minutes later, when
the concert was over, the Jacksons sprinted to waiting limousines, without finishing their last number, in order to get away
as quickly as possible. The audience went berserk. Once the fans realized that the group was gone, they surged on to the stage
like an angry mob, sweeping away police and security men, and swarming the dressing room looking for their idols.

This was a heady time for the boys from Gary, and they were never again to be as close as they were during these early days – nor
would they have as much fun. Insulated from outsiders by the Motown representatives and their father, they had only each other
for company. To occupy their free time, they enjoyed dropping water balloons and paper bags filled with water from hotel-room
windows, having pillow fights with one another, and playing Scrabble, Monopoly and card games. (They gave Jermaine the nickname
‘Las Vegas’ because he became such a skilled card shark.) Michael has fond memories of tag-team wrestling matches and shaving-cream
wars with his brothers while they were cooped up in hotels, ‘or fast-walk races down hotel hallways once our chaperone was
asleep,’ he said. Michael, who was twelve at this time, was quite a prankster. He liked to phone room service, order huge
meals, and then have them sent to the rooms of strangers in the hotel; and he especially enjoyed setting up a bucket of water
as a booby trap above the doorway to his and Jermaine's room (they always shared quarters), drenching whoever happened to
walk into the room.

‘Mike always blamed me,’ Jermaine recalled with a grin. ‘He loved practical jokes, locking us out of our rooms in our underwear,
squirting us with water pistols. They were almost always his idea. We had so much fun. It was all fun, all the time.’

Indeed, success was sweet and innocent for The Jackson 5. ‘We don't have no gold records,’ Michael once told me during this
time, a sad expression on his face. Then, after a beat, he explained, ‘They're all
platinum
! Ha-ha!’

Occasionally one of the Jackson brothers would show some interest in the opposite sex. Backstage at the Hollywood Bowl, when
the group performed there, Berry Gordy's sixteen-year-old daughter Hazel had her arm around Jermaine, also sixteen, and seemed
to be nibbling on his ear. Joseph watched with great interest and pulled Jermaine aside.

‘What's the deal with her?’ he demanded to know.

‘I don't know,’ Jermaine said, shrugging his shoulders. ‘She likes me, I guess.’

At first, Joseph was annoyed. Then, he became thoughtful and nodded his approval. ‘Berry's kid,’ he muttered to himself. ‘Hmmm.
Not bad. Not bad at all.’

During the concert, Jermaine decided to dedicate his solo of ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ to ‘Hazel, for her birthday’. The
audience's reaction was lukewarm. Whereas he usually got a standing ovation for the number, this evening it seemed that the
female fans in the crowd did not appreciate Jermaine's honesty about his friendship with Hazel.

Jermaine recalled, ‘My father pulled me aside, I remember, and he said, “You'd better not do that again.” And I said, “You
know, you're right. I'd better not.” And I didn't.’