Amor como arte: actividad, cuidado y preocupación

In September 1986, Michael Jackson's Captain EO was set to premiere both at Epcot Center in Orlando, Florida, and at Disneyland in Anaheim, California. It was probably the most expensive and most ballyhooed short subject (seventeen minutes) in film history, and it took over a year to complete it.

Captain EO was directed by Francis Coppola. The executive producer was George Lucas. Estimates of the 3-D film's budget ran as high as twenty

million dollars. Both parks had to build special theatres for the film with floors that tilted to coincide with the space-age action on the screen. It was also a light-and-sound show, with smoke emanating from the screen. Michael played a space commander with a crew of robots and fuzzy creatures battling a hideous queen (Anjelica Houston). Through song and dance, a planet's inhabitants are transformed into peace-loving creatures. Michael performed two songs, ‘We Are Here to Change the World’ and ‘Another Part of Me’.

Michael felt that he needed some kind of dazzling gimmick to promote the film. The publicity designed to create a buzz about Michael and his

Captain EO is an excellent example of how he could manipulate the press to do his bidding.

Earlier, in 1984, when Michael was burned while filming the Pepsi commercial, he saw an oxygen chamber at Brotman Memorial Hospital called a hyperbaric chamber, used to help heal burn victims. The machine is about the size and shape of a casket with a clear, plastic top. It encloses the patient in an atmosphere of one hundred per cent oxygen under increased barometric pressure up to several times the pressure at sea level, thereby flooding body tissue with oxygen. When administered by trained medical personnel, hyperbaric therapy is safe. However, in the hands of the untrained user, risks include oxygen toxicity, seizures and danger of an oxygen-fed fire. When Steven Hoefflin told him that he had a theory that sleeping in this machine could prolong life, Michael became fascinated by it and, immediately, wanted one for himself. The cost was about $200,000.

Though Michael could well afford it, Frank Dileo talked him out of wasting his money on such a contraption. ‘Well, I'd at least like to have my picture taken in it,’ Michael decided. When Frank arranged for Michael to be photographed in the chamber, at the hospital, word began to spread that he was interested in the chamber and, eventually, the story found its way to the tabloid, National Enquirer. ‘ I had a phone-in from a source in Los Angeles who said that Michael was seen going to a hospital and taking pictures in this chamber,’ said reporter Charles Montgomery who worked for the Enquirer at the time. ‘It sounded like a sensational story. I wanted to be the one to break it.’

Charles met with Frank Dileo and asked for details. ‘He didn't want to discuss it, told me to get lost,’ Charles said. ‘I got some information on the phone from Steven Hoefflin, but not much. Without cooperation, the story had to be put on hold.’

Not for long, though…

When Michael heard that the Enquirer was asking questions about him, his wheels started turning. Earlier in the year he had given Frank Dileo and John Branca a copy of a book about P. T. Barnum, his theories and philosophies. ‘This is going to be my Bible and I want it to be yours,’ he told them. ‘I want my whole career to be the greatest show on earth.’

Michael's idea was to promote the story that he was sleeping in the hyperbaric chamber in order to prolong his life to the age of 150. He would add that he planned to take the machine on the road with him on his next tour. He wasn't certain that the public would believe such a fantastic story – at this time, such wacky stories were not as associated to Michael as they are today – but he was eager to see how much of a buzz he could start. John Branca thought the idea was odd, but it seemed harmless enough as far as publicity stunts go.

It fell upon Frank Dileo to find a way to disseminate the fabricated story. He called Charles Montgomery and gave him the information he had sought earlier and, to make the story even more irresistible, he promised a photograph of Michael actually in the chamber – as long as Charles could guarantee the weekly's cover. He also made Charles promise not to reveal his source for the information.

‘I honestly didn't know if the story was true or not,’ Charles Montgomery said. ‘But Michael Jackson said it was true, his manager said it was true, and his doctor verified it. How many more sources do you need? Then, there was a picture. It turned out to be a great shot, the guy laying there in the chamber. We knew what they were after in giving it to us, though. They said they wanted us to use words like ‘wacky’ and ‘bizarre'. We knew the Captain EO thing was coming up, and figured he was probably trying to promote some kind of sci-fi image. Still, it was a good story.’

With the Enquirer in place, Frank wanted to strategize a way to distribute the story to the mainstream press, but without anyone knowing he was involved with it. Planting it in the Enquirer did not risk his credibility since he could easily deny having had anything to do with it. Certainly, no one would take a National Enquirer reporter's word over Frank Dileo's. However, other more legitimate press might be tougher to crack. Since the media knew that veteran publicist Norman Winter worked for Michael Jackson, Norman could not be the one to promote the bizarre story to the press. Frank would have to hire an outside publicist for the job.

As it happened, Frank's Sunset Strip office was next door to that of leading show-business publicist Michael Levine. Frank invited Michael to his home in Encino and told him about his idea, but with a few embellishments. Frank took Michael's idea a step further. He wanted the press to believe not only that Michael was sleeping in the chamber, but also that he and Michael were locked in a strong disagreement about its safety, and that Frank did not want him to take the machine on the road with him during his next tour. Michael Levine was told that if he wanted to represent the story to the media, he would have to do so without having any contact with Michael Jackson – and without informing the media that he (Levine) was involved in any way. In other words, Michael Levine's task was to publicize one of the most ridiculous stories ever concocted without anyone knowing he was doing it.

The next day an envelope was delivered to Michael Levine's office. The messenger had strict instructions that only Levine be privy to its contents. He opened the envelope to find a single colour transparency of Michael Jackson lying in the hyperbaric chamber in his street clothes, but without shoes. There was no covering letter or return address.

It was time for Michael Levine to go to work. He brought a well-known Hollywood photographer to Brotman to take pictures of the empty hyperbaric chamber for any publication that might need additional photos.

One reporter recalled, ‘Levine telephoned me and said, “Look, I don't represent Michael Jackson. I don't even know Michael Jackson. But I was up at Frank Dileo's house, and I overheard that there's this wild feud going on.’ Then he told me this story about Michael sleeping in an oxygen chamber and the fact that he and Dileo were feuding about it. In about three days, I was hearing this damn story all over town.’

About a week later, the pieces of the puzzle came together. The picture of Michael lying in the chamber made the front page of the National

Enquirer on 16 September 1986, as planned. Most people had never heard of a hyperbaric chamber, so it was difficult to know if the picture was a set-

up. In truth, patients and medical personnel who enter such a chamber must wear fire-retardant clothes due to the high concentration of oxygen, not street clothes as Michael had on in the photograph. And why take off his shoes?

With Michael Levine's assistance, word of Michael Jackson's exploit quickly spread around the globe, a perfectly orchestrated public relations coup. If his goal was to appear ‘wacky’… he certainly achieved it. The hyperbaric chamber story was carried by the Associated Press and the United Press International. It appeared in Time, Newsweek and practically every major newspaper in the country. Television and radio news covered it. Suddenly, the words ‘hyperbaric chamber’ were on the lips of many people as they gossiped about crazy Michael's plan to live to 150 and how he and his manager were fighting about it.

When contacted by the Associated Press, Frank Dileo confirmed the report. ‘I told Michael, “That damn machine is too dangerous. What if something goes wrong with the oxygen?” But Michael won't listen. He and I are in disagreement about this. He really believes this chamber purifies his body – and that it will help him accomplish his goal of living to be a hundred and fifty.’

And to Rolling Stone: ‘ Michael knows if I tell him something, it's the truth. I don't have to agree with things if I don't want to. In other words, because I know this is eventually going to come up in this interview anyway, the hyperbaric chamber. I'm one hundred per cent against that. I don't want it around. I've spoken about it publicly. Some managers couldn't have that conversation with their artist. They'd be too afraid. He respects my opinion. He doesn't always listen.’

He added to Time, ‘ I can't figure him out sometimes.’

Even Michael's plastic surgeon, Steven Hoefflin, got in on the act and said he tried to talk Michael out of ‘this wacky idea'. However, Michael ignored everyone's fears and made room for the chamber in his bedroom.

When Joseph Jackson heard the story on the TV news, he ran up to Michael's bedroom to see if Michael had a hyperbaric chamber in there. ‘But I didn't find anything,’ he recalled. ‘So I figured, well, either the story is untrue… or the chamber is on its way.’

‘I don't think I allowed Michael to have that thing in the house,’ Katherine added.

Michael's family was obviously not let in on the joke. ‘Joseph always stood behind Michael when it came to these kinds of rumours,’ said his friend of twenty-five years, Jack Richardson. ‘He'd say, “Michael's not sleeping in no chamber. Don't believe what you hear about my son.”’

‘I never asked him about that chamber thing,’ Janet said. ‘I have no idea what that was about. It's not in the house, or I would know it. But knowing Michael, if he is doing something like that, it probably has to do with his voice.’

‘I realized then that Michael Jackson liked to see himself portrayed in an absurd, bizarre way,’ Charles Montgomery said. ‘In the years to come, I would do the biggest number of stories on Michael in the Enquirer. Before I ran anything, I would always check its accuracy with people close to Michael. I almost always had full cooperation from his camp. Michael is one of the smartest entertainers in the business. He knows how to get his name out there. He knows about PR. He knows how to control his career. I think he's brilliant.’

Michael was astonished by the way his fiction made headlines. Many untrue stories had been written about him in the past, and he had been angry about them. Now, he was exacting his revenge against the media. ‘I can't believe that people bought it,’ he said of the hyperbaric chamber idea. ‘It's like I can tell the press anything about me and they'll buy it,’ he added, as if recognizing the full potential of his communications power. ‘We can actually control the press,’ he concluded. ‘I think this is an important breakthrough for us.’

Once, Frank Dileo was asked about the wisdom of doing whatever he could do to make Michael seem as incredible as possible or, as he put it, ‘to keep him as popular and in demand as anyone can be.’ ‘Might all this hoopla damage the singer's already fragile psyche?’ asked reporters Michael

keep him as popular and in demand as anyone can be.’ ‘Might all this hoopla damage the singer's already fragile psyche?’ asked reporters Michael Goldberg and David Handleman for Rolling Stone.