With all the coverage of Michael Jackson's untimely death, this story about his relationship with Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis seemed worth sharing. A book written by art director JC Suares who worked with Jackie on this project didn't make their relationship seem quite as contentious: He said Jackie was perplexed why she'd been assigned this project as she knew little about his music and wanted to call an animal rescue society because she found the conditions Michael's many pets were living in "absolutely deplorable."
Sat Jul 4, 2009
By Dean Goodman
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Michael Jackson crossed swords with a lot of people when he was alive, but perhaps none more important than Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.
The former first lady, in her capacity as an editor at Doubleday Books, secured a coveted book deal with the pop star in 1984, when he was still riding high on the success of his "Thriller" album released two years earlier.
"She was only person in America who could get him on the phone," Stephen Davis, the ghostwriter of "Moon Walk," said in a recent interview with Reuters.
According to a People magazine article at the time, Onassis paid Jackson a $300,000 advance for the book. Davis received what he termed "a generous flat fee."
The book came out in 1988, topped the New York Times Best Sellers list, and quickly sold out of its initial print run of almost 500,000 copies, he recalled.
"That was an extremely successful book. They made money on it," Davis said.
The obvious next step was to print more copies, and then prepare a paperback version. But Jackson, who had total control of the project, vetoed both plans -- annoying Onassis.
"There was so much bad feeling when it didn't go back to press," Davis said. "It wasn't a great experience for her."
Relations between the two cultural icons were already strained, because Jackson had threatened to block the book's publication unless Onassis wrote a gushing foreword.
Onassis, who fiercely guarded her privacy and did not want her name in any book she edited, reluctantly made an exception and turned in a three-paragraph blurb.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Hello, just stumbled across this blog.To me, Jackie was stylish,smart and quite talented and by all accounts she was a huge force in her husbands campaign for the presidency.
There are two things that come to mind in regards to this story.
1.I remember a few years back, one of the entertainment news shows played an audio tape of Jackie talking to someone about Michael Jackson (can't remember exactly who this person was but he gave the tape to them and gave an interview too)
on the tape she says something along the lines of how she can't believe that they asked *her* to edit the book and that someone must have told him(MJ)about her.The weird part is i could remember her voice it was soft yet you could hear the smoker in her voice.(almost raspy)
2.She had made a few comments regarding some of the items in Michaels home, the life size statues of small boys was one of the things she mentioned to be odd and also predicted that he would get married and have children-this was before his marraige to Lisa Marie Pressley.
Keeblerc, looking through this blog- your comments are intelligent,classy and thoughtful.
In my opinion you would have made a great friend to Jackie.
-Mrs L.
Post a Comment