Michael Jackson leaves legacy, legal morass

By Elizabeth Guider

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Overnight, Michael Jackson has entered the realm of myth -- and of mushrooming legal maneuvering.

On the first count, he already has ascended to the pantheon of such A-list stars as Elvis -- whose own demise 32 years ago seems eerily similar -- Princess Di and Marilyn, iconic figures now remembered by just their first names, and whose own lives, and deaths, have become the stuff of legend.

On the latter count, the King of Pop will live on as the centerpiece of court cases that will make the critique of the chancery system in Dickens'' "Bleak House" pale by comparison.

But first things first.

Through the long, hot weekend, there were outpourings of grief, tributes from everyone from Nelson Mandela to Liza Minnelli and spontaneous celebrations of the man and the music from Tokyo, London, Paris as well as in and around the icon''s star on the Walk of Fame on Hollywood Boulevard.

Whatever the weird, wacky or downright unsavory aspects of Jackson''s life, appreciation of his talent dominated most of the early reactions to his untimely death Thursday at age 50. Producer Quincy Jones remembered him as "the oldest and the youngest man he''d ever known" and whose music was "like a narcotic." Smokey Robinson, speaking at the ASCAP Awards on Friday, described Jackson as having "revolutionized the delivery of a song."

The BET Awards show Sunday night was hastily transformed into a blowout celebration of Jackson''s music, with performers revamping their routines and an onslaught of news outlets descending on the Shrine Auditorium. The red carpet was elongated to accommodate the overflow.

There also was a messianic-like note sounded in news commentaries, disparate blogs and bulletins that issued from the grieving family, with patriarch Joe Jackson telling one outlet that he believes his son will be "larger in death than he was in life."

What the pop star''s 50-concert comeback tour in London might or might not have achieved, his death seems to have done instantaneously, catapulting Jackson again to the top of the charts and top-of-mind worldwide. As one hand-scrawled sign held up by a visitor to the makeshift shrine in front of his rented Holmby Hills home read: "He was the soundtrack of my life."

Jackson''s albums also became, in a nanosecond, the top 15 sold on Amazon and the top half-dozen downloaded to iTunes during the weekend. The fervor among young people over the political protests in Iran suddenly has petered out as this personal tragedy takes center stage in the pop culture psyche.

And that''s only the beginning. There''s now speculation, and moves by Colony Capital, the new co-owners (with the Jackson estate) of Neverland, that the ranch Jackson owned and inhabited for 20-odd years will be turned into the new Graceland.

"If Jackson is buried there and, in any case, because it is so close to a major metropolis like Los Angeles," one source said, "it could turn into a gold mine, helping wipe out the $500 million in debt in just a few years."

Just like Elvis and Marilyn, the business that is likely to grow up around Jackson''s image -- ranging from books and series to coffee mugs and T-shirts -- already is being reckoned as a multibillion-dollar bonanza for those who can successfully claim a piece of it. (That''s probably why SUVs came and went so expeditiously from the Holmby Hills home and Staples Center, where he was rehearsing for the tour, boxing up anything that might have been eBay-able by outsiders.)

Meanwhile, the media found itself switching from the solemn to the near salacious during the weekend as tributes gave way to instant psycho-babble, medical experts, friends and hangers-on from past iterations of the Jackson entourage holding forth on various aspects of what has become a series of mini-mysteries surrounding his death. Among the most tasteless to take advantage of the situation so far: the former nanny, Grace Rwaramba, who tattled to the London Times that Jackson was "a drug-addled nut" and "a bad father."

After the Los Angeles coroner ruled the cause of death was not foul play or trauma but inconclusive, authorities said an official toxicology report wouldn''t be available for four long weeks. At the same time, Jackson''s father released a statement saying that he does not believe his son died as a result of stress related to his upcoming tour.  Continued...