Michael Jackson praised as 'magical person' in Jacksons V AEG Live Trial.

by WeAreTheWorld. Sun May 12, 2013 6:57 pm

Michael Jackson praised as 'magical person' in AEG lawsuit

By: Rory Carroll
5/10/2013

It was the Michael Jackson his fans love to remember: a creative genius, a lean, muscular athlete and a doting father.

A court case which is expected to shred his reputation took a detour into the positive this week with testimony about the singer's talent and kindness.

A makeup artist and a former dancer depicted Jackson as a hardworking "magical" star who inspired those around him, softening the tone of a trial set to scrutinise his darker side.

"He was a gentleman. He was elegant. He was brilliant," Karen Faye, who did the king of pop's hair and makeup for nearly 30 years, told a packed Los Angeles superior court on Thursday. "I found myself working with this magical person."

Faye said she had never seen another performer with such energy or drive. "Michael would do five songs to the dancers' one. I never saw anything like it."

On Wednesday Alif Sankey, a dancer and associate producer, said she yearned to recreate Jackson's magic. "Michael's imagination was endless. He would visualise it, and it happened. It was amazing … It was like living a dream of working with an artist like that, and I will treasure it and have it in my memory forever."

The glowing recollections followed grim testimony last week from a police officer and a paramedic who detailed circumstances of Jackson's death in June 2009 at the age of 50 while preparing for This Is It, a series of comeback shows.

His doctor, Conrad Murray, was convicted in 2011 of involuntary manslaughter for giving him the surgical anaesthetic propofol as a sleep aid at his rented home in Los Angeles.

Jackson's family is suing the concert promoter AEG Live for wrongful death on the grounds that it negligently hired Murray and pushed the singer to breaking point. Lawyers for both sides have said they will detail his addiction to drugs.

AEG's legal team warned of "ugly stuff" to come, a reference to revisiting Jackson's child molestation trial in 2005.

In a separate development it emerged that Wade Robson, an Australian choreographer who testified in 2005 that Jackson did not molest him during sleepovers at the singer's Neverland ranch, now claims he was abused, according to court documents filed on 1 May and reported this week by the Los Angeles Times.

Allegations of sex abuse are expected later in the trial, which may last all summer. But this week a sunnier image of Jackson emerged.

Faye hugged Jackson's mother, Katherine, 82, and on occasion joked with Brian Panish, the family's attorney, as she related the singer's creativity and popularity. She also recalled the pain and anguish he suffered from two accidents during a 1984 Pepsi advert and a 1999 Munich concert.

She told the court about an incident before a concert in Bangkok where Jackson was dazed and stumbling in his dressing room. She told a doctor – a man she knew as "Dr Forecast" – he should not go on stage.

"I put my arms around Michael and said, 'You can't take him.' "

"Forecast replied, 'Yes I can,' " she testified.

Faye said the man pushed her against a wall and put his hands on her neck, choking her until she couldn't breathe. "He said, 'You don't know what you're up against,' " Faye testified.

On Wednesday Sankey described Jackson as being indomitable during a 1987 recording of his Smooth Criminal video.

"That was my first time as a dancer, as an artist, that I was completely inspired by his craft and inspired by his attention to every detail. He was so detailed and he never missed a thing."

Sankey said his three children would visit him during rehearsals, clearly adoring their father.

By the time Jackson was rehearsing for the 2009 comeback tour, however, he was a gaunt, enfeebled figure who said he could hear God's voice, said Sankey.

She and Kenny Ortega, the tour director, were so distressed by his condition during a costume fitting that they cried after he left, she testified.

On her way home Sankey stopped her car to call Ortega. "I was screaming into the phone at that point. I said he needs to be put in the hospital now. I kept saying that Michael is dying, he's dying, he's leaving us, he needs to be put in a hospital."

Ortega organised an emergency meeting with Jackson, Murray, the physician, and Randy Phillips, the head of AEG Live. In an email after the meeting Phillips wrote of his "immense respect" for Murray. "This doctor is extremely successful (we check everyone out) and does not need this gig, so he (is) totally unbiased and ethical," Phillips's email said.

The lawsuit claims AEG did not, in fact, investigate Murray, who was in debt and allegedly felt pressured to keep Jackson performing at all costs.

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