Note: If viewing Michael Jackson Ultimate Archive on archive.org (Wayback Machine), please view the latest snapshot of this page for the most up-to-date information and media.
Harrison Funk
Harrison Funk, personal photographer for 30 years, The Guardian (June 20, 2018)
‘Me and Michael had our own language,” says Harrison Funk. “The buzzword was always the same. He would ask, ‘Harrison, can you make magic?’ Anything less wasn’t acceptable.” Funk was the photographer who got closer to Michael Jackson than any other, working with the singer from the late 1970s right up until his death in June 2009, witnessing and capturing his many changes, as the star rose to be the most famous person on the planet.
Funk was born 12 days before Jackson, on 17 August 1958, just outside Brooklyn. He was inspired to pick up a camera by his uncle, Leo Friedman, a famous Broadway photographer. Starting off with street photography and shooting local basketball matches, Funk worked his way up to such magazines as Time, Life and Newsweek. But a chance meeting with Jackson at New York’s infamous nightclub Studio 54 (where Jackson, a regular, would dance in the DJ booth to avoid autograph-hunters) set Funk’s career on a different trajectory.
…Funk, who seems to have an endless supply of Jackson stories, speaks softly in a New York accent, energetically recalling their nine consecutive rides on Space Mountain at Disneyland. Jackson attempted to persuade Funk to ride it for a 10th time but by then the photographer felt sick and his legs had turned to jelly. They would also regularly take the Viking boat ride at Jackson’s Neverland ranch.
“I was sitting across from Michael,” says Funk, “shooting him with my camera, as he told the guy controlling the ride to go higher and higher. I screamed at Michael that he’d make me lose my camera. He screamed back, ‘I don’t want to lose my cookies!” These were in his shirt pocket.
While millions around the world know Michael Jackson as the King of Pop, a local photographer was able to see a different side of the icon as his personal photographer for 30 years.
Harrison Funk watched as Jackson evolved from teen idol to a bona fide superstar. Jackson became known as a perfectionist whose personality was very complex.
"What genius is not complex?" Funk asked. "I would put him up there with Da Vinci and Michelangelo and Beethoven and Picasso."
Funk was the man tasked with documenting the life of the legendary pop singer. Funk said Jackson would ask him every night if he had "made magic."
"He couldn't wait to see the pictures because he wanted to see the magic," Funk recalled.
Looking over albums of photographs, Funk pointed to the moments in which Jackson performed in concerts with massive crowds.
"That was the overriding drive," Funk explained. "To perform for people. His show was absolute perfection."
Funk said that Jackson always maintained a sense of wonder.
"He was a child within. He knew the child within, and he never wanted to lose that," he said. "And that was part of the magic. He wanted to make other people get in touch with their own inner child".
Jackson received his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1984. Funk said it was a huge day for Jackson as he was at the height of his career.
But a defining moment in Jackson's career came when he did the moonwalk on stage at Wembley Stadium in England.
Funk said Jackson actually learned the move from Jeffrey Daniel, who was in the group Shalamar. Daniel had performed it on the British show "Top of the Pops," only he called it the backslide.
Jackson learned it, perfected it and re-branded it as the moonwalk.
"When Michael came out with it, people were just blown away," Funk said. "I've never seen any other artist that got that response."
Another big moment for Jackson was when he met Nelson Mandela. But, according to Funk, it was equally as big a moment for the world leader, who brought his entire family from South Africa just to meet Jackson.
Jackson and Mandela met in a penthouse in Beverly Hills along with actress Elizabeth Taylor. Funk said by the end of the day his photograph of the three icons appeared in more than 200 newspapers.
"Michael was looking to change the world. He didn't just record 'We are the World' or 'Man in the Mirror.' He recorded music because he wanted to make an impact on people," Funk said.
When Michael died on June 25, 2009, Funk said it was hard to grasp that he was gone.
"It's hard to articulate," he said. "I think the whole world changed. It was the end of an era."