Michael Jackson, fears of an untimely death, visions of eternal fame

When New Orleans resident Kevin McLin, former personal publicist to Michael Jackson, heard that his former client had been rushed to UCLA Medical Center due to cardiac arrest, he picked up his phone:  "So I called Michael's dad Joseph, who was in Las Vegas, and he didn't know (that Michael had been taken to the hospital) either."

Joe Jackson sought further confirmation. "He got on the horn, and he called, made some phone calls, and Katherine, Michael Jackson's mother, and Toya, they went over to the hospital, to UCLA Medical Center," said McLin in an interview with WDSU TV, New Orleans, June 25, shortly after Jackson's death.

McLin is Chairman of the Mass Communications Department at Dillard University and a local musician. He is also a friend of the Jackson family. He was Michael Jackson's  publicist from 1976-2005. Like many others, McLin is still absorbing the world's loss of the King of Pop at 50.

"I really haven't come to grips with it yet. When I heard, it was such a sinking feeling. It was almost like a family member ...," he told anchor Norman Robinson.

McLin learned Jackson had been rushed to the hospital from national media, Robinson said in his report, and also relayed per McLin that "ironically" Jackson "always feared dying from a heart attack after it happened to his idol, the late R&B legend Jackie Wilson."

Wilson, famous for hits such as "Lonely Teardrops" and "(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher," died at age 50 in 1984 after being in a coma for eight years. According to Wikipedia, "Wilson suffered a massive heart attack while playing a Dick Clark show at the Latin Casino in Cherry Hill, New Jersey on September 29, 1975, falling head-first to the stage while singing the line from his hit "Lonely Teardrops": "My Heart is Crying". This story is supported by his biography at the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame. His work and performances influenced not only Michael Jackson but many other stars, including Elvis Presley.

Presley's daughter, Lisa Marie Presley, was Jackson's first wife, and today she shared a story about the mega-star that echoes McLin's recollections about Jackson's fear of an untimely death. Presley said Jackson fixated on dying the way her father did. Elvis Presley died at age 42 in 1977. Like Jackson he died before he was scheduled to start a big tour. At first the cause of his death was reported as "cardiac arrhythmia" but later it was revealed that he died from a prescription drug overdose.

Lisa Marie Presley wrote of Jackson at MySpace:

Years ago Michael and I were having a deep conversation about life in general.

I can't recall the exact subject matter but he may have been questioning me about the circumstances of my Fathers Death.

At some point he paused, he stared at me very intensely and he stated with an almost calm certainty, "I am afraid that I am going to end up like him, the way he did."

I promptly tried to deter him from the idea, at which point he just shrugged his shoulders and nodded almost matter of fact as if to let me know, he knew what he knew and that was kind of that. (Lisa Marie at Myspace.com)

Jackson drove himself constantly toward perfection. McLin has been quoted by other news sources, such as ABC, to have said, "When you continue to try to sustain those kind of standards, you can really bring unwanted stress upon yourself ... He had been working non-stop since he was 9 years old."

McLin, who is still considered a Jackson family spokesperson, has talked openly about Jackson before. In one book about Jackson's life written by other authors, Michael Jackson: The Man Behind the Mask, McLin is reported to have said that Jackson offered to do the movie Men in Black for free if he could replace actor Will Smith. The book has a section about the phenomenal entertainer being "desperate" to be a movie star. 

Fans will remember Jackson's first film performance as the scarecrow in The Wiz (1978). Perhaps it was after appearing in this movie that the teenager Jackson decided he'd like to do more movies. The story that he lobbied to replace Will Smith in Men in Black rings true and it may be the bigger punchline behind the joke in one of the movie's scenes in which Jackson, portraying an alien, begs the character Zed to be on the the MIB team.

The book, Man Behind the Mask, by Bob Jones and Stacy Brown, is a tell-all book. Jones was a public relations manager for the singer until Jackson fired him. However Jackson's foray into movie projects such as Moonwalker, which includes the "Smooth Criminal" music video, and his 3-D movie Captain EO, a big budget 3-D fantasy movie, may support stories that the singer longed to be a movie star.

According to the WDSU interview, McLin first met the Jackson family in 1971. In addition to being Michael Jackson's personal publicist for a time, McClin was part of a local band, Windjammer, which in 1979 was managed by Joe Jackson.

Photo credit: Michael Jackson picture from Getty Images taken when Jackson announced his comeback tour "This is It."

Lagniappe Links:

• Michael Jackson's message on a napkin -- have mercy
• Michael Jackson Slideshows
• A Personal Remembrance of Michael Jackson at Nordette's blog
• Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett: Too Soon, Too Much
• WDSU TV New Orleans's interview with Kevin McLin
• More news on Michael Jackson at Examiner