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February 1, 1988 - "Moonwalk" Autobiography
Available here (very cheap used): http://amzn.com/0307716988
Behind the Scenes: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2010/12/04/jacqueline-onassis-edits-michael-jacksons-moonwalk.html
Michael Jackson, promotional cardboard cutout, from Chris Cadman’s “Michael Jackson the Maestro
One of the reasons that I haven’t given interviews over the years is because I’ve been saving what I have to say for my book. Love, Michael.
Robert Hilburn, writer, LA Times (June 27, 2009)
Michael had signed a book deal with Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, an editor at Doubleday, before the “Victory” tour, and he wanted me to help him write it. I spent several weekends on the road with him during the tour. I soon discovered that Michael -- who guarded his privacy at all costs -- wanted to put together a picture book, while Onassis wanted a full-scale biography.
After a showdown between the two, Michael’s longtime attorney and friend John Branca called to thank me for my efforts and said Doubleday was going in a different direction. My involvement ended.
During our time together, my conversations with Michael sometimes led -- once the tape recorder was off -- to darker moments from his past. One night when we were going through a stack of old photos, a picture of him in his late teens triggered a sudden openness.
“Ohh, that’s horrible,” he said, recoiling from the picture.
Michael explained that his face was so covered with acne and his nose so large at that time that visitors to the family home in Encino sometimes wouldn’t recognize him. “They would come up, look me straight in the eye and ask if I knew where that ‘cute little Michael’ was.” It was as if the “whole world was saying, ‘How dare you grow up on us.’ ”
Michael said he started looking down at the floor when people approached or would stay in his room when visitors came to the house.
Michael vowed to do whatever it took to make people “love me again.” The rejection fueled his ambition to be the biggest pop star in the world and to try to make his face beautiful. Unfortunately, Michael’s need was so great that no amount of love seemed to be enough.
Stephen Davis, writer of second manuscript, “Boston Phoenix” (June 25, 2009) (archived)
“Boston Phoenix”: What are your memories of working on Moon Walk?
Stephen Davis: I was in California, and I was working on a book with Fleetwood Mac at the time. And my agent called me up and said that Jacqueline Kennedy Onasis had hired Michael Jackson to write his autobiography and was having trouble -- they'd assigned a couple of writers already, and Michael either didn't like them or, well, I don't know what happened. I was the third writer on the project. And I had some of their previous transcripts, and they weren't very good. And I'd been interviewing Mick Fleetwood a lot and living with my family in Malibu and they said, "Well, we'd like you to go over and have an audience with Michael Jackson and see if he likes you, and the deadline is approaching." So I went there to his house in Encino, California. And the zoo was there, and the candy store and all this stuff.
“Boston Phoenix”: This is 1987, pre-Neverland?
Stephen Davis: He moved, later on, to Neverland Ranch. But this was in his LA house, his mother's house, where he was living all through the '80s, when he was doing Thriller and Bad and those records. He was extremely kind, he took me up to his bedroom and showed me all his collections and obsessions -- y'know, the hyperbaric oxygen chamber. And we talked about the situation. He was afraid to look at me in the eye, at first. He was very shy. Remember, he'd never been to school, never been socialized, never learned to play well with others. Grew up sleeping in hotel rooms with his brothers and cousins. Just never been to school a day in his life, so he was very shy. And a little freaky. But, y'know, I'm cool -- I just said, "Y'know, Mrs. Onasis sent me, wanna see if we can do this?"
So I started going to his house every day at two o'clock in the afternoon. I decided early on that I would treat this like a therapeutic hour -- 50 minutes or an hour, at most, at a time, because he had a short attention span. So that's how we did it: every day I'd go over there, we'd talk for an hour, maybe an hour and a quarter. Sometimes I'd take my wife and kids, and then we'd screen a movie, and we'd be served lunch in his screening room while watching To Kill A Mockingbird for the third time. And he was extremely nice to my seven-year-old daughter. And when someone like that is nice to your kids -- I feel very loyal to him.
“Boston Phoenix”: After writing the book, did you ever have any contact with him again?
Stephen Davis: No. And that's what everyone wants to know. I was with him for a very intense period -- maybe eight months it took to get those texts together. And then the book was published, it was the #1 NY Times Bestseller, and it also came out in England -- and then he refused to let a paperback come out. I think he and Mrs. Onasis kind of fell out over it. Because he kind of blackmailed her into writing a forward, which she never did [for her authors]. And I think she was kind of miffed about that. That was the take the I got on it.
...“Boston Phoenix”: What was the most surprising thing that Michael told you when you interviewed him for the book?
Stephen Davis: Oh, well -- that there had been some physical abuse by his father. But that wasn't really surprising: what was surprising was that he told me. It had been kind of obvious for years. And he only called it abuse - he didn't say it was sexual or anything like that. The rest was how he got to where he was, with Diana Ross discovering them and the early days on the Ed Sullivan show. It was a pretty straightforward meat-and-potatoes -- it was kind of a clip job. I just realized I have eight hours of Michael Jackson telling me his life story, but I don't think there's anything on those tapes that I didn't put in the book.
...“Boston Phoenix”: When you remember Michael, do you have an epigraphic moment that you'll think fondly of?
Stephen Davis: Michael had this monkey called Bubbles. And they brought in Bubbles one day after lunch when my daughter was with me - she was seven at the time, her name is Lilly. And there weren't many kids around at that time. This was in the Encino house, before he moved out to Neverland. And the monkey comes in and takes one look at Lilly, my little seven year old girl, and grabs her by the arm - and then starts dragging her out of the room. And Michael Jackson grabs Lily's other arm. And he says to the monkey, "Hey Bubbles - Where you goin' with my girlfriend?"
Meanwhile, I notice that the hand that is being held by the monkey is turning blue, because he's got this vice grip on it. So I said, Mike, this is getting a little old here, I'm a little worried about the hand turning blue. So he kind of intervened, sort of kicked the monkey with his foot. But it's that moment - where the monkey is pulling one way, and Michael is pulling the other, and Lilly looks up at me, and Michael goes, "Hey Bubbles - where you going with my girlfriend?" And my heart just went out to him, it was such a sweet thing to do.
Shaye Areheart, original editor, “MTV News” (October 9, 2009) (archived)
One of his original editors, Shaye Areheart, told MTV News that the Michael Jackson found within the book's pages is not the one we've come to hear so much about in the years after the molestation accusations and the months since his death from an overdose of surgical anesthetic in June.
"I didn't believe those stories," she said. "I thought it was untrue. I think you don't change that much. I knew Michael pretty well for those years. He was a fundamentally gentle, kind, decent person who revered children, who felt that children were angels on Earth. That's not the sort of person that would take advantage of a child. I never did believe those stories."
During the four-year production process on "Moonwalk," Areheart would sit with Jackson in his Encino, California, home, asking the singer questions and recording his answers about his childhood and family, his early Motown experiences, the isolating effects of superstardom and the bizarre rumors that often enveloped him.
As the book neared completion in November 1987, Jackson was in Australia for the international leg of his Bad tour. Areheart traveled to Melbourne, and for the next two weeks, they sat in hotel rooms as she read aloud the story of his life.
"He loved to be read to," she said, adding that the idea of reading through the manuscript seemed like "the most boring idea he'd heard in his life."
But weeks before the book was to be published, MJ hesitated, worried about all that he'd revealed, fearful that his effort to tell the truth about his life would only feed the tabloid fire.
"He really wanted to do this book," Areheart explained. "He wanted to set the record straight. He felt like there had been so many falsehoods. And then all of sudden, he felt like somebody who'd just been exposed and thought, 'Maybe I don't want to publish this book.' "
MJ eventually decided, though, that publication should move forward. "Moonwalk" hit bookshelves in 1988 and shot to the top of the New York Times best-seller list. The reissued version carries a new introduction from Motown head honcho Berry Gordy, as well as an in-depth afterword by Areheart. The pages are filled with color photos that Jackson himself selected, including behind-the-scenes looks at video shoots, old family photos and one of him in a red-and-gold kimono with a huge smile on his face.
Areheart found out about Jackson's death while she was at a book party. She'd spent time with MJ in the years since the publication of "Moonwalk," collaborating on a collection of poetry, short stories and paintings and making plans for future books.
…[Regarding Michael’s health] "When I knew Michael, he didn't even drink," she said. "The guy did nothing. He was healthy and very proud of his health. He was a vegetarian. He was constantly exercising and dancing and moving.”
Chris Cadman, author, “Michael Jackson the Maestro”
In 1983 Jackie Onassis flew out to Los Angeles with Doubleday’s editor Shaye Areheart to strike a deal with Michael to publish his autobiography. The code name for the book when sent to the printers was ‘Neil Armstrong.’ When the US leg of the Bad tour opened in Kansas City, he invited Jackie and daughter Caroline. Unfortunately both were too ill to attend. So Michael had a specially hooked up phone line for them both to listen to the show. Robert Hilburn music editor of the Los Angeles Times was the first assigned to help Michael write Moonwalk. Hilburn accompanied Michael on several dates on the Victory tour but was unable to get him to open up. Michael had first wanted to do a picture book and not a full scale biography.
Steven Davis was brought on board in 1987, at that time he was writing a book on Fleetwood Mac. He met with Michael at the Hayvenhurst home, where he showed him his collection of items. They agreed to meet for hourly sessions to go through what to include in the book. Davis took his wife and daughter along several times and met Bubbles.
When Michael read it he wasn’t entirely happy and asked Shaye Ayreheart a few months before it was officially released. Ayreheart worked on MOONWALK every day, even in Australia while Michael was on tour.
When Michael read it he wasn’t entirely happy and asked Shaye Ayreheart a few months before it was officially released. Ayreheart worked on MOONWALK every day, even in Australia while Michael was on tour.
Michael was also involved with the book’s designer and chose all the photos to be included, in addition to supplying an illustration he had drawn.
Doubleday provided a huge marketing campaign with cardboard cut outs, TV commercials and serialisations in newspapers around the world. On the cardboard cut outs was a note from Michael.
“One of the reasons that I haven’t given interviews over the years is because I’ve been saving what I have to say for my book. Love, Michael.”
MOONWALK stormed to no. 1 on the bestseller lists published in both the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times. Sold nearly half a million copies in the States alone, in the space of just six months.
Upon its blistering opening sales Editorial Director of William Heinemann Dan Franklin said: “It’s the fastest selling title we’ve ever had. It went straight to the top of the bestseller list and is outselling the number two title two to one.”