FARRAH & MICHAEL

Posted By: Peter DavidPosted On:

Two people who were never connected in life, now connected in death.

I never met Farrah.  I wish I had.  Seeing her in her latter days bereft of her famous mane of hair would seem to reinforce the notion that fate can be ironically cruel.   On the other hand, I did meet Michael Jackson.  Well, “meet” is a bit strong.  “Encounter” would be more accurate, and it was   one of the strangest experiences I’ve had in my rather strange life.

I was walking around Disneyland.  I was by myself, which probably means that it was after the San Diego Comicon.  I was at the far end of Main Street near the Magic Castle, and I saw what looked like the wife of a sultan coming toward me.  Very tall, swathed from head to toe in robes, with only the eyes visible.  She was bracketed by four Disney security guards:  guys dressed in black suits with Disney name tags.  Her gaze was darting around; she looked nervous.  Also, for some reason, the eyes looked vaguely familiar.  And there was just something…odd…about the way she moved.  She didn’t actually seem to walk so much as glide.  The only other part of her body that was visible were her hands.  They looked rather large for a woman, the fingers tapered, the skin pale.

I put it together in about three seconds and, as I passed, I said just loudly enough to be heard, “Nice disguise, Michael.”  Michael Jackson’s head snapped around, the eyes crinkled slightly as we made eye contact, and I heard a very soft chuckle even as he kept going.  Later on I happened to encounter another Disney security guy who wasn’t among the force I’d seen earlier, and I said, “Excuse me…I was just wondering.  Earlier today I saw what appeared to be a robed woman walking around, except was that Michael–?”  “Jackson, yeah, that was him,” said the guard.

My bet is that he could have walked around wearing a t-shirt, jeans, a baseball cap and sunglasses, and people would have thought, “Check out the Michael Jackson impersonator.”

PAD

50 comments on “FARRAH & MICHAEL”

  1. With the passing of Ed McMahon earlier this week, that brings to mind the urban legend of celebrity deaths happening in groups of 3.
    Does anyone know where this belief originated, and is it accurate, or just eerily coincidental?

    1. The idea of deaths happening in threes just isn’t true. Mainly because people are looking at it in terms of celebrities/famous people. People dies in ones, or in groups of varying sizes.
      .
      Looking at the obits section of my local newspaper, I see 1 person died on the 22nd, 7 on the 23rd, and 1 on the 24th.
      .
      Additionally, if we are counting deaths in threes, what span of time do we use? 1 day, 3 days, a week, a fortnight? Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson, and David Carradine have all dies recently. That’s 4 celebrities.

    2. Alan’s right in that it’s just coincidence, but in this case I hope it’s true. That would mean that Walter Cronkite is safe for a while — he’s been ill as well, and I do not look at all forward to his passing.
      .
      Heck of a week, though. Just numbing.
      .
      TWL

    3. The “three” legend has been around for some time but has gotten very popular on the Internet. It’s actually a basic principle of probability that random events will tend to group together over time. It’s possible to calculate various probability distributions and use them in planning and staffing (for example, “how many employees do you need to staff your drive-through” or “how many people will show up for this ride at Disneyland”). Specific probability groupings exist for certain random series (like the Poisson distribution).

      So yes, these things happen in groups. The “three” part is subject to debate, and is usually resolved by adjusting the “fame” level or the time period to remove statistical outliers so you come up with the required “three.”

  2. yeah, the 3 thing is odd that it seems to shake out that way. I have no idea why.

    Farrah Fawcet was kind of before my time so I didn’t know much about her Charlie’s Angel’s work, but I will say my favourite Michael Jackson song that I think it really powerfull and rockin’ is “Man in the Mirror”. Great tune.

  3. People just naturally see patterns of three, even when they’re not necessarily there. It’s how our brains are wired.

      1. I think it’s a natural thing for people to see a pattern and you need 3 to make the simplest pattern–a straight line. (Yeah, yeah, 2 points make a straight line but ANY two points do. If 3 points line up you have a genuine line.)
        .
        So we take any 3 disparate events and try to line them up. I don’t think we picked three because of the Church, I think it more likely that the Church picked 3 because of our essential nature.

      2. I don’t recall anything in the bible about people dying in threes. The number seven is far more a part of society thanks to the Bible than three. Our obsession with three comes from the Multiplication Rock song by Bob Dorough.

        It’s a foma, a little lie people tell to themselves to get through the day.

        It’s also a self-fulfilling prophecy, as people will wait around for “the third one” when a couple of famous people die. Once you’ve established something as “true”, people will find their own evidence to back it up.

        I’m waiting for the conspiracy theories to pop up as to “how he was killed”. One paper pushed a rumor that Jacko left Paul McCartney the rights to the Beatles songs in his will. There’s motive right there…

        This morning I’ve heard Liza Minnelli, Usher and Orlando Jones (Who is playing the Scarecrow in the Broadway revival of The Wiz, the role Jackson played in the movie, talk about a stretch). About the only people I haven’t seen interviewed yet about this are Sir Paul and Weird Al Yankovic. Anyone want to start a pool?

      4. Where do you think the church doctrine of the trinity came from? A father/son duality didn’t seem “right” to early Xian theologians, so they posited Casper the Holy Ghost as a third aspect, and called it a trinity.

  4. Bad day for 70’s icons.

    Then again, Jackson already looked like a corpse. The only difference is that now he is one in more than name only.

    At least now all young boys can breathe a sigh of relief.

    1. And in spite of the fact that NO evidence was ever presented against Jackson in a court of law, that doesn’t keep certain people from posthumously convicting him.
      I thought better of you than that, Luigi. (Or, perhaps, you’re just trying out your Ann Coulter impression.)

      2. And OJ didn’t murder his wife.
        There was plenty of evidence provided, with at least three people coming forward to say he molested them, the jury choose celebrity over justice.
        Being declared not guilty is a legal ruling, not a declaration of the truth.

      3. Well, people already had their minds made up well before Jackson died. They’ve also been voicing said opinion all along, as well. So, it isn’t some simple piling on because he’s kicked the bucket.

    2. I truly doubt there were any boys scared of Jackson. The guy was supremely talented and was tucked up in equal proportion to that talent.

      I feel bad for his family.

  5. I have a feeling, after all the jokes are finished and accusations are made, the life of Michael Jackson will be looked upon largely as a tragedy, as has been the case with many musicians in history. His on-stage career began at five, and there seems to have been much abuse of him and his brothers at the hands of their father. It does not excuse what Jackson may or may not have done, but it should be kept in mind before passing judgement on him.

    How much truth to suspicions about what Jackson did or didn’t do with the children at his Neverland Ranch probably won’t be known for years. It should not affect his music, any more than Lewis Carroll’s relationships with the young girls of his time affected Carroll’s work.

    I do have a feeling that, eventually, Jackson will be regarded by his fans, past, present, and future, in the same way that Elvis is regarded by his fans.

    I live about 2 – 3 hours from Gary, Indiana. I’ll be curious to see what happens to the Jackson home over the years.

    2. The only thing that Jackson was ever OFFICIALLY found guilty of was having a replica of the Academy Award statue in his Neverland Ranch theatre. It was there, big as life, during a tour taped for an episode of the Oprah Winfrey show, and Oscar officials came down hard on him after seing the show.
      But UNOFFICIALLY, it did strike me as odd that both the amount of actual accusations, let alone the out of court settlements, were high during his life.
      Personally, it would seem to me that an innocent person, let alone a celebrity, would challenge any such accusation the first time it rears its ugly head in order to cut off the possibilities of it ever happening again quickly.
      Whether or not Jackson ever did do anything he was ever accused of remains to be seen. But still, why not nip it in the bud when you have the chance?

      1. Oh, really? And do you REALLY believe that Tom Cruise isn’t gay?
        I mean, Tom’s been pretty quick to attack any rumor of his being gay, but that hasn’t stopped people from repeating the rumor for the last quarter-century or so.
        “Nip it in the bud” sounds great but, for celebrities, it’s not often going to actually stop anything.
        Um, I do suppose you’re familiar with Liberace? There’s a guy who took serious action to “nip it in the bud”, but it didn’t stop people from speculating about his being gay. (They were more circumspect about doing so but was anyone REALLY surprised when the truth finally came out?)

      2. Re: fighting court cases.

        It depends on how strong your case in defence is, and how much you’re scared of jail.

        If you’re REALLY scared of jail, any amount of money to avoid it is necessary. And trials can be won or lost. As good as his lawyers were, sometimes the answer to whether you win or lose is “it depends”.

  6. Not connected? What about the September 18, 1979, episode of the “Tonight Show” with Johnny Carson and Ed McMahon plus guests Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson? (Thanks to Aaron Barnhart of the Kansas City Star for revealing this odd bit of trivia.)

    1. That’s false for two reasons:

      1. There was no new show on September 18, 1979. Only a clip show.

      2. Michael Jackson never appeared on The Tonight Show as a solo performer, only as a member of the Jackson Five.

      They did barely miss each other one time. Michael appeared with the Jackson Five on August 19, 1974, and Farrah Fawcett appeared on August 20, 1974. However, any spooky connection to Ed McMahon is lost, because Ed was off both those nights.

      1. According to Snopes, Johnny wasn’t even there the night the Jacksons were: Bill Cosby was the guest host.

        I remember watching that episode, because I remember Cosby teasing young Michael about his braces. “When are going to get rid of that metal ’round your mouth?”

  7. Poor Micheal,
    I believe that he really had an innocent way of looking at the world and that some rights and wrongs may have been blurry in his life, as they are for some uber famous people. Not saying anything about what he may or may not have done.

    Still he had a gift that he shared with the world and even his hardest critics will enjoy one his songs if it happened to be on the radio. So rather then do nothing he entertained, and thats commendable.

    However I think like when after Priness Diana died, you’ll have loads of nutjobs in the papers in the coming months saying “no-one knew him like me”, and I do think alot of his life will be made public now.

    But what words for the tombstone of the king of pop, maybe this:

    He touched us all

  8. Grim epiphanies: Two good things about Michael Jackson’s death.

    1. It is now okay/acceptable to like Michael Jackson again.
    2. MTV is actually playing music videos.

    . . . .

    The King of Pop is dead; long live the King.

    1. Mark Evanier has declared himself the new king. And for all the naysayers, he says you are just jealous you didn’t think of it yourself.

  9. I remember having a picture of the Jackson Five from Tiger Beat magazine on my bedroom wall when I was a little girl. I thought Michael was really cute back then. One of the tribute shows had a plastic surgeon estimate that he had at least 50 surgeries to make him look the way he did. What kind of person does that to himself? How messed up was he that he thought sleeping with young boys was OK? (This is in his own words. Whether it was innocent or not, I will not comment on.) What a tragic figure. I hope he is finally at peace.

  10. Man,

    2 icons of my younger years passing in one day.
    I know Farrah had been ill for a few years now, sad to see her go.

    Michael Jackson was so talented, it’s just a shame he felt he had to go so weird. He was cute as a young man and the amount of God given talent he had was amazing. Hopefully he we will remembered more for that than the weirdness of the more recent years that probably killed him. Only 50 years old too.

  11. I would also like to jump in and say this — it would’ve been interesting to be in the offices of, say, People magazine yesterday. Everyone was probably busy gearing the magazine to talk about Farrah, when they hear about Michael. It might’ve been a real “STOP THE PRESSES!” moment.

  12. I actually did encounter him at Disneyland when he wasn’t in disguise. We’d heard he was there earlier in the day, being rushed from ride to ride, but in the evening we suddenly heard a commotion coming toward us. A cloud of about a dozen security guards rushed by, followed by a crowd of several hundred screaming young people, mostly women. I just caught a glimpse of an eerily pale face, looking back over his shoulder at the crowd, from amidst the security guards. This was Christmas 1991, I think.

  13. I don’t think he is dead.
    .
    I had to take a trip this morning, and I swear I saw him in the Burger King in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
    .

      2. “I was flying back from Lubbock
        Saw Jesus on the plane
        Or maybe it was Elvis
        Y’know, they kinda look the same.”
        — D. Henley

  14. Now is the time for condolences to family and fans. I remember when the Thriller video came out. He was an amazing entertainer. I also recall when he recorded the lyrics “kick me kike me.” Nothing alleged about that. Of course, he apologized, but I don’t believe he ever claimed he was anything but 100% sober when he made the recording. Still, he was an amazing entertainer. His quirks, alleged and certified, will undoubtedly, as Shakespeare once said, live long after him. However, I think his music will too.

    One friend’s recent comment sticks out – since it was so obvious that Michael wanted to remain a child forever, it is perhaps a kindness he wasn’t forced to experience old age.

    For those wishing to group together notable deaths, in 3s, 4s, or whatever, here’s Wikipedia’s list

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recent_Deaths

  15. Best Quote so far-

    “He was not only a talented person, but he was unique – a genius. It’s such a loss. It feels like when Kennedy died.”
    — Celine Dion

    Celine Dion was born in 1968, 5 years after Kennedy was assassinated.

      1. Erm, I mean fetus. Dion is a national treasure, you can’t say anything bad about her or the Royal Canadian Mounted Police take you away.

      1. Cool story about running into him at Disneyland. Along with Mark Evanier’s, the two stories really humanize him and show he had a sense of humor about both his notoriety and his whims and needs.

    3. I saw somebody in another article comparing it to the Kennedy assassination. This guy was in Time Square and received a text msg about Jackon’s death, and the man was all of 36. Ugh.
      .
      Sorry, but I guess I have a bit more respect for assassinated presidents, compared to pop icons that had long ago brought about their own downfall.

      1. Pete Hoekstra just tweeted that he now knows what people went through when Kennedy was shot.

        …and he lived through that.

  16. Totally off topic, actually, but I had to comment on this. As a denizen of New York City who is not gay, but knows numerous gay men and in particular, gay hairstylists, I can tell you that if Tom Cruise is not gay, he most certainly swings both ways.

    As for Michael Jackson, if he was not a child molester I’d be shocked, but at the very least he apparently was a drug addict.

  17. I wish Michael and Farrah death’s would not have overshadowed Neda Agha-Soltans death. Michael and Farrah had an impact on my life. They also achieved about the only form of immortality we recognize this century.

    It would be great if Neda had just a tad longer to become more of a rallying point here.

  18. Not trying to be smart or cynical but the truth is – in life – they were also ‘united’ in the need for plastic surgery.

    In Farrah’s case it was almost “Joan Rivers” grotesque, in Michael’s that ship sailed a few decades (and plastic surgeries) ago.

  19. The worst thing in his legacy may be some of his fans instead of himself. The New York TIMES reported:

    “In Los Angeles, hundreds of fans — some chanting Mr. Jackson’s name, some doing the ‘Thriller’ dance — descended on the hospital and on the hillside house where he was staying.”

    So, outside the house in which he was stricken, and the hospital where he was pronounced dead, his fans were dancing the dance he created for his role as a zombie, an undead creature come back to a shambling semblance of life, which had climbed out of its grave.

    Even setting aside the poor taste, that’s *way* too creepy for me.

  20. There is one connection between Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson.

    TATUM O’NEAL

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