by Donald Bogle
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On January 7, 1953, twenty-year-old Elizabeth gave birth via cesarean to a seven-pound three-ounce son, Michael Howard Wilding, named after her husband and her brother. Or, as her uncle Howard might have liked to think, after him as well. Pictures of mother and son and of mother, father, and son ran in newspapers around the country. In May, Elizabeth was named Mother of the Year by the Society of American Florists. She really looked like the “girl” who had everything.
But MGM was impatient to put its prized commodity back to work. There was talk of teaming her with Robert Taylor in yet another historical film based on Sir Walter Scott’s Quentin Durward. The film would later be produced, but without Elizabeth. Sometimes it appeared as if the studio considered her for just about any of the big-budgeted pictures, but, from her vantage point, not for the dramatically challenging ones. Elizabeth knew she had to get back to work. She needed the money. Though Wilding went into the film Torch Song opposite Joan Crawford, no one was pounding on the door to give him a role.
Then came a request for Elizabeth from Paramount. The studio had been filming Elephant Walk, a romantic drama set against a backdrop of a tea plantation in British Ceylon. Starring in it were Vivien Leigh, Peter Finch, and Dana Andrews under the direction of William Dieterle. Emotionally fragile and bipolar—although her condition at the time was undiagnosed—Vivien Leigh had preferred, after her Oscar-winning triumph in Gone With the Wind, to act on the stage in England and only occasionally did movies, which was unfortunate. Film captured perfectly the moods and tones of this subtle, sensitive actress, born for the power of the close-up. In 1951, she had won a second Oscar for her performance as Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire. She, of course, was the actress to whom the girl Elizabeth had been compared. She was also reported to be Elizabeth’s favorite actress.
Now the talk in Hollywood was about what had happened during Leigh’s work on Elephant Walk. Married to Laurence Olivier, Leigh had a disastrous love affair with her costar Finch. In the midst of filming, she suffered a nervous breakdown so severe that the production lurched to a halt. Paramount was in a panic. Finding a replacement for Vivien Leigh was not going to be easy. Some long shots of her already filmed would be kept in the movie. Now the studio wanted Elizabeth, who was rushed into the picture without much time to prepare.
Moviegoers would always remember the action sequence that marked the climax of Elephant Walk. The tea planter and his lonely wife, played by Finch and Taylor, live in a luxurious mansion that sits on the migration path of the region’s elephants. Throughout the film, those elephants struggle to return to their grounds and finally do so in a spectacular sequence during which they bulldoze the walls surrounding the home, then enter, almost by the front door, and stomp away, trapping Taylor. As she runs up a staircase, the elephants demolish the staircase itself. The sequence would be pure delirious movie fun, more so than the critics would be willing to acknowledge, and though Elizabeth was not a damsel-in-distress kind of actress, she—with the help of a stunt double—handled the sequence beautifully as audiences jumped and screamed along with her.
But as Taylor noted, “It was about this time in my life that I began my really ludicrous series of accidents—and there have been too many to be believed.” Surprisingly, an accident occurred while Taylor was posing for stills in a jeep with costars Andrews and Finch. Because it had to look as if their hair was blowing in the wind, “an airplane propeller was trained on us,” said Taylor. A tiny piece of metal had flown in her eye. “Every time I blinked, there would be the most awful scratching sensation.” Later a doctor told her, “My dear, you have a foreign object in your eye.” “Anybody I know?” asked Taylor. But it was a far more serious accident than anyone realized at first. There was soon a fear she might lose that eye. Not only was the metal deeply lodged, it had also rusted. Surgery was performed. “They can’t knock you out because you have to keep your eye open and stare at a certain spot on the wall. They have a needle with a tiny knife at the end and you can hear them cutting your eye.” Later an ulcer formed on the eye, and there was another operation. Fortunately, the surgery was successfully performed. But there were weeks of recuperation, during which both of her eyes were bandaged.
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Afterward, MGM immediately put Elizabeth into Rhapsody, another romantic-triangle film in which she played a spoiled wealthy young woman torn between two classical musicians, played by Vittorio Gassman and newcomer John Ericson, under the direction of Charles Vidor. On the day after completing Rhapsody, Elizabeth took off with her husband and son for a much-needed two-month vacation abroad.
Their first stop was London. “We want little Michael to meet his grandparents,” said Elizabeth. “He’ll stay with them when we go on to the Continent.” Then Elizabeth and Wilding traveled to Stockholm. But suddenly Elizabeth took ill with influenza, or so the press was informed. Bed rest was ordered, but she flew to Copenhagen, despite the fact that she now suffered from a blinding migraine. Plagued by migraines for years, the debilitating headaches came more frequently than the public knew. But that was not her only ailment. Also suffering from back problems, she was in excruciating pain. Once at her hotel in Copenhagen, she collapsed. The story broke that the twenty-one-year-old star had heart problems and that she had also suffered a nervous breakdown. Though reports of the heart problems were dismissed, the breakdown stories continued. Wilding himself said it was a “nervous collapse” but “nothing serious.” But how could someone have a nervous collapse that in some way was not serious? And what would bring on a “nervous collapse”? Was it the heavy movie schedule? Was it the fact that she, as the principal money earner in the marriage, was worried about her finances? Was it postpartum depression? No one was saying. A statement was issued that her influenza had “worsened her condition.”
With lingering questions about what precisely ailed her, the couple ignored the press and left Copenhagen by car to go to the countryside in search of peace and quiet. But in less than a half hour, they rushed back to their hotel. Elizabeth was ill again. A doctor was called in. A few days later their son, Michael, was brought from London to join his parents. Surprisingly, a relatively composed-looking Elizabeth greeted her son at the airport. But for those who looked more closely, it was apparent that she was troubled and tense. Leaving the airport, the family returned to their Copenhagen hotel. Elizabeth and young Michael each immediately went to bed.
“Reports of her illness have all been wildly exaggerated,” Wilding said when the couple returned to London in October. “She has a nervous heart but it is nothing very serious. She has been overdoing it.” Clearly, she was strained and restless. But about what was anybody’s guess. Was her life not playing out the way she had been programmed—by Hollywood—to believe it should? A happy perfect marriage. An adorable son. A successful career. These were early signs of discontent and discord in the marriage. Tending to Elizabeth’s particular crises—and her mood swings and her need for attention—was Wilding, who may have now fully realized that his child bride was precisely that—a child bride. The studio’s official line was that she suffered from “nervous exhaustion.” Nonetheless, MGM’s remedy for such exhaustion was simply to put her to work in a period drama being shot in London, Beau Brummell, opposite Wilding’s longtime friend Stewart Granger.
At the end of the year, when asked her New Year’s resolution, Elizabeth stated simply: “It would be a wonderful new year for me if when next Christmas season came around I had succeeded in overcoming many of my faults. My wish is to develop the qualities I admire so much in my husband. I love his patience, calmness, and his wonderful live-and-let-live philosophy.”
Not long afterward, stories circulated that there were serious problems in the Wilding household.
Chapter 8
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PUTTING OUT FEELERS about producers to work with on a solo album, Michael spoke to Quincy Jones, who, during the making of The Wiz, observed Michael’s still untapped po
werful potential. “I saw his sensitivity,” said Jones. “He didn’t miss a thing.” This kid could one day own the business. To Michael’s surprise, Jones suggested himself as producer for the proposed album. Therein the two began their extraordinary collaboration.
By then, Jones had smashed through barriers and established himself as one of the most accomplished and respected creative artists in the music industry. Having started his career while still in his teens, the Seattle-born Jones had studied at Schillinger House (later the Berklee College of Music), was a talented trumpeter, had toured around the world, and had served as an arranger or producer or musical director with some of the most talented, original music stars of the twentieth century: Dinah Washington, Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, Lionel Hampton, Count Basie, Sarah Vaughan, Billy Eckstine, and the contemporary funk team the Brothers Johnson. He also became an executive at Mercury Records, emerging as one of the first African Americans to hold such a position at a white-owned company, no small feat during the years of his rise. But he had achieved even more. One of the first African Americans to write scores for Hollywood films, including In the Heat of the Night and The Pawnbroker, he was also one of the first to be Oscar nominated for his scores on such films as In Cold Blood and Banning. Jones clearly knew the music business inside and out, yet the bigwigs at Epic Records balked at bringing Jones in to produce Michael’s album, saying he was too associated with jazz. Aware of what he wanted, Michael, however, saw something the Epic executives didn’t and was insistent. Jones came on board.
Working on the album that became Off the Wall, Jones and Michael recorded music by England’s Rod Temperton, who composed the title song “Off the Wall” as well as “Rock with You”; Carole Bayer Sager and David Foster’s “It’s the Falling in Love”; Paul McCartney’s “Girlfriend”; Tom Bahler’s “She’s Out of My Life”; and Stevie Wonder and Susaye Greene-Brown’s “I Can’t Help It.” Also included were songs by Michael: “Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough,” “Workin’ Day and Night,” and—with cowriter Louis Johnson—“Get on the Floor.” On all but two songs—“She’s Out of My Life” and “I Can’t Help It”—Michael not only performed the leads but also the background vocals. And at times, it was partly a family affair. The openings—musical intros of sorts—for the songs “Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough” and “Workin’ Day and Night” were the syncopating sounds of Michael, Janet, and Randy on “a casaba, cowbell, and glass bottle” that were originally done for a demo tape but used in the final production. Who could ever forget that, following the opening of “Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough,” there is suddenly another sound: “Jackson screams and the orchestra explodes,” said music critic Tom Fusilli. “Sweeping strings, punch horns, bass, drums and handclaps form the foundation under Jackson’s vocals.” Michael also went to town on “Burn This Disco Out.”
Making the album Off the Wall was a demanding but exhilarating experience. Jones pushed Jackson to explore new emotional aspects within himself to expand his vocal range. “I wanted him to sing down low,” said Jones. “A lot of his habits came from Motown. They wanted him to sing high, but by then we had a relationship of trust, an honesty with each other.” Quincy Jones recalled that after recording the ballad “She’s Out of My Life,” Michael was so emotionally drained by this tale of lost love that he broke down. Originally, Jones thought the song would be good for Sinatra, which of course it might have been. But Michael’s version was perfection. The same was true of his other ballads on this classic album. On those earlier songs with his brothers—“Got to Be There,” “Never Can Say Goodbye,” and “I Wanna Be Where You Are,” he had set the stage for these new ballads. Yet he believed his brothers had never been enthusiastic about performing the material. Michael himself said: “The ballads were what made Off the Wall a Michael Jackson album.”
Released in 1979, Off the Wall not only carried Michael musically in a new direction but also brought the Jackson image forward. He was no longer a precocious kid possibly one step removed from the deeper emotions in some of his music but was now right in its grip. One could imagine him smoothly dancing in the clubs or maturely talking about matters of the heart—and heartache. Michael Jackson became Michael the young man who appeared to have experienced the music he sang. Whether he actually had was still open to question. But who cared—at this point, the music was so good.
Publicity photos for the album also displayed a more mature Michael. Dressed in a dark suit and bow tie, he looked like a dapper yet sensitive and sweet-tempered young man ready to go out on the town. He appeared different from the Motown kid in other ways. By this point, he had undergone cosmetic surgery to slenderize the “big nose” that had tormented him when he looked in the mirror—and especially when taunted by his father. His nose job became an open secret not only in the industry but within the general public. Some criticism within the African American community started—and grew within the next few years—that he was trying to escape being black, but the criticism at this point was nothing drastic. Most were too excited by the music and the emergence of the new Michael Jackson.
The critics praised the album. “Off the Wall presents Michael Jackson as the Stevie Wonder of the Eighties,” wrote Stephen Holden in Rolling Stone. “Jackson’s vocal syncopation is reminiscent of the master’s breathless, dreamy stutter. Throughout, Jackson’s feathery-timbered tenor is extraordinarily beautiful. It slides smoothly into a startling falsetto that’s used very daringly. The singer’s ultradramatic phrasing, which rakes huge emotional risks and wins every time, wrings the last drop of pathos from Tom Bahler’s ‘She’s Out of My Life.’ ” Holden concluded: “A triumph for producer Quincy Jones as well as for Michael Jackson, Off the Wall represents discofied post-Motown glamour at its classiest.” It earned three American Music Awards for Michael’s solo efforts, but Michael was disappointed that only one song on the album garnered two Grammy nominations. Though “Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough” was nominated as Best Disco Recording, it lost. The song won, however, for Best R&B Vocal Performance, Male. Years later, in 2008, Off the Wall was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. For Epic, the best news was that it was a huge commercial success. It was the first album by a solo artist to have three US top ten hits: “Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough,” “Rock with You,” and the title track.
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Following the success of Off the Wall, Michael was even more pursued, discussed, and sought after as he not only further captured the imagination of the fans but also of other celebrities. In many respects, he was always starstruck, no matter how famous he himself became. But now in what turned out to be a very outgoing period for him, he seemed eager to meet even more of the famous, the powerful, the much-discussed. During this time, he was to meet an array of such stars as Gregory Peck, Gene Kelly, Yul Brynner, and Cary Grant.
He formed special friendships with established female stars, women who seemed to offer him a motherly comfort and perhaps a motherly wisdom. He struck up friendships with such stars as Liza Minnelli and Jane Fonda, both adult children of stars of the Old Hollywood that fascinated Michael, both accomplished in their own right, each an Oscar-winning actress, Minnelli for Cabaret, Fonda for Klute and Coming Home. His interest in Liza Minnelli, daughter of Judy Garland, was not a surprise. He was thrilled when she took him to meet her father, director Vincente Minnelli.
But no doubt many observers were indeed surprised by his friendship with the controversial, highly political Fonda, who had shocked and alienated some Americans during the war in Vietnam when she was an antiwar activist and was sometimes called “Hanoi Jane.” Michael was hardly a political firebrand; if anything, he seemed apolitical. And Fonda seemed too serious about politics and social causes to take an interest in anyone who didn’t have such interests, although later Fonda would make some twenty-two exercise videos that became hugely successful and altered her public image. But Michael was different for Fonda. That immense talent and that boyish innocence were obviously appea
ling. Michael also was now more intrigued than ever by the prospect of an acting career in films. He could learn from Fonda.
At one point, she invited him to visit her in New Hampshire, where she was shooting the film On Golden Pond with her father, Henry, and Katharine Hepburn. Before his arrival, Jane Fonda spoke to Hepburn, known for her feisty temperament, seeking her permission to have him on the set. Hepburn was not happy, Fonda recalled. “Then the crew said, ‘You don’t understand. It’s Michael Jackson!’ ”
In the beginning, Hepburn didn’t seem to have any idea who he was, but she liked him, even seemed captivated by him. “He wanted to be a movie star,” said Fonda. “And he had a tape recorder with him, and every day I would bring him to the set, and in between scenes she would sit down in a chair and pull over a chair for him and tell him stories. I wish I knew where those tapes were.
“And every story embedded a lesson. For example, she talked about Laurette Taylor—and anyone who was alive to see Laurette Taylor in [The] Glass Menagerie [on Broadway] has seen as great a moment of acting as [there is]. So she described to Michael seeing this transcendent piece of acting [and how].” Hepburn stressed that an artist has to stay hungry. New challenges always had to be taken. Said Fonda: “What a great thing to say to a young, rising star like Michael. ‘You gotta stay hungry.’ ”
Michael, of course, was eating it all up. He was coming face-to-face with history told to him by an eyewitness. He also talked to Henry Fonda and, afterward, remained in touch with Hepburn.