Michael Jackson in Vegas: celebrity vs. reputation
By coincidence, there is an auction beginning today at Planet Hollywood including items that once belonged to Michael Jackson. According to the Las Vegas Sun:
"The 21 Jackson- and Jackson 5-related auction items, which include vintage photos of Jackson from the '70s, early concert posters and Jackson-worn costumes, are expected to be sold Friday between 2-5 p.m."
This will be the second Michael Jackson-related auction in Vegas in recent years. The last one in May 2007 (pictured) was at the Hard Rock and provoked, as with most things Jackson, a lawsuit,
The Sun also has the image I remember best of Jackson in Vegas. It was taken on Nov. 20, 2003. It was a time of typical Jackson craziness. Jackson needed to be on his way back to California to face accusations of child molestation. Instead, Jackson spent two hours or so being driven seemingly randomly through Vegas streets in a black SUV. Following him were the media helicopters, police and fans in cars. Eventually Jackson arrived at Green Valley Ranch resort and casino, directly across the street from my home where I am typing this now. The photo shows a pale spectral Jackson in the back seat of the SUV with a serene expression. Moments earlier he had been blowing kisses like all the world was a fan. In the photo, Jackson looks like he could be leaving a stadium concert undeterred by the chaos and stress of the car's other occupants, not to mention the nuttiness outside at the edges of the frame. But it was not a concert; it was a freak show. By morning Jackson was on his way back to California. (And there would be more scandal and court time spent over a surreptitious recording made during that plane trip.)
But while it seemed obvious that Jackson was no longer in any condition to be an entertainer, 2003 -- to me, at least -- was not the end of Jackson's Vegas time; it was a beginning.
Vegas was often home during Jackson's final years. He was a physical and mental wreck, and anyone looking at a photo could tell he was not likely to work again. But in Vegas he engaged in talks -- fantasies, really -- about a Vegas residency, a possible Cirque show, a themed Michael Jackson casino with a giant statue in front ... and who knows how many other projects that never happened. Celine Dion reminisced on "Larry King Live" about how Jackson peppered her with questions backstage at her Vegas show about how challenging it was headlining in Vegas.
Jackson also toyed with retuning to creating music in Vegas; he recorded sporadically at the Palms, but no new disc was released. Even at the end of his life, those ill-fated London shows were seen as an audition for an eventual Vegas residency. Vegas is a town filled with money and people who like to gamble. To Vegas, Jackson was potential gold if someone could just find the right angle. No one ever did.
Yet, while business ostensibly was Jackson's reason for being in Vegas, I don't think it was any longer about career for him. In these last years, Jackson's life was all about keeping up appearances, illusion and image against the overwhelming evidence coming out in tabloids, lawsuits, a criminal case and his own bizarre behavior.
One enduring memory: Jackson, on a documentary shown on ABC, going through a casino "buying" everything in sight. Of course, most of the stuff was never ultimately purchased. This was television meant to show financial clout and celebrity power to the folks at home. No one complained; Vegas resorts are always happy to help out with creating spectacle.
Vegas is the only place where celebrity will always matter far more than reputation. There is a reason people like Pete Rose and Mike Tyson still find Vegas welcoming. With Jackson's trashed talents and shredded credibility, he probably needed that reassurance of blind celebrity worship that Vegas so expertly provides.
Jackson would always claim he wanted the childhood he never had. But that is not what his life arc shows. His adult drive was always to be the biggest star on the grandest scale. This was an unsustainable position for anyone, and after "Thriller," as each disc sold less than the one before, Jackson's troubles took greater control and his world became filled with an unsavory collection of rotating sycophants. Las Vegas was perfect for that sort of person. This is a town where O.J. Simpson could still raise a posse of near strangers to head off and commit kidnapping and armed robbery with him, because he was famous. And, of course, Vegas enjoyed the attention of Michael Jackson's media circus.
But in the end, Vegas was bluffing at least as much as Jackson was. As I wrote for years on this blog as the topic of a Jackson residency periodically resurfaced in publications like the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, no resort company was ever going to bankroll a Michael Jackson show here. Some risks were too big even for a city of gamblers.
Photo credit: Sarah Gerke
You're comments are ignorant and arrogant. people like you make this world a terrible place
Posted by: AB | June 28, 2009 at 08:33 PM
I was at the auction on May 2007 and have been a long time Michael Jackson fan. The LA Times has always been informative and acurate in reporting the life and times of Michael Jackson. While I bid on a few of the items at the auction I was indeed outbid in the process however Michael will always live in the memory in all of us and may he rest in peace. Our thoughts go out to the family.
Mary
Posted by: Mary | June 30, 2009 at 07:35 PM