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"On Golden Pond" Set Visit

The 10 days Michael spent with Fonda were within this filming date range, taken from AFI Catalog.

Michael Jackson, “Interview” magazine (October 1982) (archived) (article scan archived)

When I was on the Golden Pond set I stayed with Jane in the cabin and we were all alone on the water and we'd just talk, talk, talk about everything. It was the greatest education for me—she'd learn and I'd learn and we'd just play off of each other. We talked about all kinds of things, you name it: politics, philosophers, racism, Vietnam, acting, all kinds of things. It was magic.

Jane Fonda, actress, “Time” magazine (March 19, 1984)

Jackson spent more than a week with Fonda on the set of On Golden Pond, talking far into the night about "acting, life, everything. Afrinight about "acting, life, everything. Africa. Issues. We talked and talked and talked. His intelligence is instinctual and emotional, like a child's. If any artist loses that childlikeness, you lose a lot of creative juice. So Michael creates around himself a world that protects his creativity."

(Jimmy Kimmel, December 9th 2011)

Jimmy Kimmel: I wanted to ask you, this is a little off topic, but I was told, that you at one time, went skinny dipping with Michael Jackson.

Jane Fonda: I did, yes, and Greta Garbo.

Jimmy: Together? (audience laugh)

Jane: No, no, different times.

Jimmy: What kind of crazy pool was that? (laughing) How did this happen and when did this happen?

Jane: Well, Michael was a friend of mine and he’d done me a bunch of favors and he called me and I did him a favor. I was making On Golden Pond and he wanted to come up and watch us all act. He wanted to become a movie actor. He’d just done The Wiz. So he came up and he lived with me. My family had gone back to LA and he stayed with me and we went… skinny dipping.

Jimmy: Whose idea was that?

Jane: … I don’t remember. (audience laugh, Jane laughs) It was an old moon out, I couldn’t really see, he just disappeared into the darkness. I couldn’t really…

Jimmy: He turns into a wolf sometimes in the darkness you have to be careful. So at that time was like, before, it was after he made The Wiz…

Jane: It was before he made the changes to his face. He was SO cute.

Jimmy: He was like twenty years old?

Jane: No, he was older than that. I think he’d done… but he still had that adorable face of his. He hadn’t done the Thriller.

Jimmy: So the two of you were like together naked in a pool together?

Jane: In (Swan?) Lake, New Hampshire.

Jimmy: In New Hampshire.

Jane: Yeah.

Jimmy: Wow. You’re lucky TMZ wasn’t around back then.

Jane: (laughing and Jimmy laughs)

(Jane Fonda, March 5, 1984)

It was Jane Fonda who originally connected Michael with “Peter Pan.” When Michael visited Jane on the set of “On Golden Pond,” Michael became very friendly with Henry Fonda. Jane noticed, and says, “Dad was also painfully self conscious and shy in life, and he really only felt comfortable when he was behind the mask of a character. He could liberate himself only when he was being someone else. That’s a lot like Michael.

“In some ways Michael reminds me of the walking wounded. He’s an extremely fragile person. I think that just getting on with life, making contact with people, is hard enough, much less to be worried about whither goest the world.

“I remember driving with him one day, and I said, ‘God, Michael, I wish I could find a movie I could produce for you.’ And suddenly I knew. I said, ‘I know what you’ve got to do. It’s “Peter Pan.’”

“Tears welled up in his eyes and he said, ‘Why did you say that?’ with this ferocity. I said, ‘I realize you’re Peter Pan.’ And he started to cry and said, ‘You know, all over the walls of my room are pictures of Peter Pan. I’ve read everything that Barrie wrote. I totally identify with Peter Pan, the lost boy of Never-Neverland.’

“Oh, I can see him leading lost children into a world of fantasy and magic. From Gary, straight on to Barrie!” Fonda exclaims.

(Kansas City Star, Apr 22, 2005)

“That she was the only person in the world who went skinny dipping with both Michael Jackson and Marlene Dietrich,” Brown says. “It was during the filming of `On Golden Pond.’” Michael called her and said, “Can I come up and watch the filming?” So he came up and stayed for 10 days and they went skinny dipping for 10 days. And one of those days Marlene Dietrich came up and went skinny dipping with them.”

(Miami Herald, April 28th 2006)

Not that such a criterion necessarily transfers to the book itself, which omits this beguiling anecdote: Barbarella once went skinny-dipping with Michael Jackson.

In the late 1970s, fresh off The Wiz, Jackson apparently had acting aspirations. When he found out that his buddy Jane was filming On Golden Pond in New Hampshire with her father and Katharine Hepburn, he asked if he could visit the set.

“He spent the week with me, and I was living in a little cabin on a lake, and one night we went skinny-dipping,” Fonda says. “I didn’t put that in the book, because it was too long, but it was hard for me to cut, because the punch line was: `I think I’m the only person in the world who can say they went skinny-dipping with Greta Garbo and Michael Jackson.’”

(Post Gazette, May 1, 2006)

Q.You do talk about swimming with naked Garbo in the book. What a moment. In the DVD you mention you skinny-dipped with Michael Jackson, too? A. Yeah (laughing). Yes, the book was too long, so I didn’t include that. It was while I was making “On Golden Pond,” he [Michael Jackson] came and stayed with me for a while.”

“Piers Morgan Tonight” (December 8, 2011) (archived)

Jane Fonda told Piers Morgan that Michael Jackson's 1981 visit to her California ranch inspired him to purchase what was to become Neverland Ranch.

The actress and author of the new book "Prime Time" -- which is about the last third of life -- is a guest on tonight's "Piers Morgan Tonight."

"I had a ranch in Santa Barbara," said Fonda. "And he came and visited me once. And I was walking him around. It's how he was introduced to that area -- where he eventually bought Neverland -- is when I had him to my ranch."

The King of Pop, who was in his early 20s at the time, spent a week on the set of "On Golden Pond."

"He came and he wanted to watch my father and Katharine Hepburn work," said Fonda. "He was interested in becoming a movie actor."

Fonda also recalled pointing out to Jackson the spot on the ranch's grounds where she intended to be buried.

"I thought he was going to have a meltdown," Fonda stated. "The notion that I could countenance the fact that I was going to die was anathema to him. He just -- he screamed."

The actress recalled Jackson insisting that he was never going to die.

"He talked about how he would get into an oxygen tank and he thought that was going to keep him, you know, alive forever."

Mark Bego, author, “Michael!” book

When I interviewed LaToya in New York City in July of that year. I commented how I liked that “Camp” song with the funny title. LaToya laughed, and explained, “Camp Kuchi Kaiai!” … it’s a camp that takes place in the movie that Katherine Hepburn did with Henry Fonda.”

You mean “On Golden Pond,” I said of the film which had yet to be released. “Did you go to that camp?” I asked.”Actually,” she continued, “Michael went on the set for a month; he and Jane together, and they stayed in a cabin, and watched Katherine and Henry shoot… the entire month. So, he came back from the camp with all these tee-shirts, “Camp Kuchi Kaiai.” I asked him, “What is it?” and he said it’s a little thing that takes place in the movie, Camp Kuchi Kaiai, and so I used the title in the song.”

FROM 1981 RANCH VISIT (DATE UNSURE):

(Jane Fonda’s blog, June 26, 2009)

I remember one day he was visiting me at my ranch north of Santa Barbara. It was the first time he had been in that region but he must have liked it because later he bought his ranch in that same area. Anyway, as we walked around the ranch which was perched right at the edge of the mountain overlooking Goleta, I pointed to a spot where I told him I wanted to be buried. Michael had a melt down right then and there when he heard this. He shrieked and bent over and said “no, no, no!” “ What’s the matter,” I asked. “Don’t ever talk about your dying,” he answered. “Don’t ever think about it.

Dick Sutton, unit driver, WMUR

“I showed [Michael] how to fish,” Sutton said. “I showed him how bait his hook and everything like that. He’d never fished before. First time fishing. I said, ‘You ever gone fishing?’ He said, ‘Nope.’”

Doug McKeon, “On Golden Pond” actor of “Billy Ray”, Chris Cadman’s “Michael Jackson the Maestro”

I only met him once during that time, and the most memorable event was that he had lunch with us. While Henry and Katharine usually ate lunch in private, the rest of us (crew included) would eat outside the house where picnic tables and benches were set up. I was fourteen at the time. Michael was very quiet, and I actually landed up sitting next to him - Jane sat across the table and introduced him to me as "her friend, Michael". He seemed very nice, but sat and listened to our conversation rather than join in. I didn't see him again after that one time. Jane, herself, was busy with other things and often flew back and forth from California, so he may have flown back with her after that day.

Chris Cadman, author, “Michael Jackson the Maestro”

When Michael returned home from the set of ‘Golden Pond’ he took back with him a set of tee-shirts with "Camp Kuchi Kaiai." printed on them. When sister La Toya enquired what the print was on them, Michael explained that it was something that’s in the film. This inspired La Toya to write the song "Camp Kuchi Kaiai" with sister Janet, that was eventually released in 1981 on the B- side of ‘Stay The Night’, and featured on her album MY SPECIAL LOVE.