World Mourns as American Icon Michael Jackson Remembered
July 07, 2009
By Keith McLeod
Mariah Carey will sing the Jackson Five's classic I'll Be There as Tinseltown pays tribute to the King of Pop today.
Maria, who had a hit with the haunting ballad in 1992, is one of dozens of A-list celebrities who will mourn Michael Jackson at a service at the Staples Centre in Los Angeles.
The red-carpet guest list, including Jackson's old friends Diana Ross and Liz Taylor, will be joined by 17,500 fans chosen by lottery from 1.6million who applied to be there.
But Jackson's ex-wife Debbie Rowe, mother of his two older children, has backed out of earlier plans to be in the VIP section alongside the family, including sisters Janet andLaToya. Her attorney Marta Almli said it would be "an unnecessary distraction"and Rowe would "celebrate Michael's memory privately".
The memorial service will take over TV schedules on news channels CNN and MSNBC for the whole day as well as being shown on at least three other TV stations.
Each hopeful on the internet lottery for tickets stood a one in 183 chance of grabbing one of the 8750 pairs of tickets available.
A spokesman for the memorial service said 8750 names were chosen in the draw, with each person receiving two tickets and notified by email.
Early yesterday, excited fans received the news about whether their applications had been successful.
Deka Motanya, 27, of San Francisco, announcing her success via Twitter, said: "It's surreal."
Jubilation And David Gobaud, 25, who studies computer science at California's Stanford University, was scrambling to find his way down to Los Angeles.
He said: "It's amazing. It's quite a surprise. I didn't believe it was real in the beginning.
"It's Michael Jackson, one of the greatest musical stars of all time."
Another winner was Zach Moss, a 21-year-old Chicagoan working for the summer as a DJ in Las Vegas.
He said clubgoers have responded strongly to Jackson's music since his death.
He added:"You can play two, three Michael Jackson songs back to back and people are going to have this huge jubilation celebration." The tickets will admit 11,000 people to the centre plus 6500 in an overflow section.
And the streets surrounding the Staples Centre will be closed to prevent those without tickets from trying to attend.
Los Angeles assistant police chief Jim McDonnell last night warned the ticketless to stay away.
"You'll be standing in the hot sun on a city street with a lot of other people," he said. "But not within eyeshot of Staples."
The ceremony will not be shown on the centre's giant outdoor TV screen and there will be no funeral procession through the city.
Few details were available last night about the actual memorial events.
The joyful anticipation among the chosen fans comes as the courts continue to untangle the future of 50-year-old Jackson's estate and police probe the circumstances of his death.
The Jackson family want to delay the appointment of two men as temporary administrators of the estate.
Lawyer John Branca and music executive John McClain were given the task of turning Jackson's assets into a private trust in a 2002 will.
But the family yesterday asked a judge for more time to investigate the estate to see if another will emerges.
Gaining even temporary control of Jackson's estate is key, lawyers for Branca and McClain argue, because they can begin tapping into the singer's earning potential by licensing "records, music, TV, publishing, pay-per-view, theatrical" properties.
The revived interest in Jackson has meant money pouring into the estate from massively increased sales of his music.
Judge Mitchell Beckloff denied Katherine's request to be appointed as a co-administrator with Branca and McClain.
But he said the two men would have to post a $1million bond on the estate and their authority will expire on August 3, when another hearing on the estate will be held.
Judge Beckloff stressed that Katherine, 79, who was named in the will as guardian to Jackson's children, Prince, 12, Paris, 11 and Blanket, seven, should be given complete information about major transactions.
Paul Gordon Hoffman, an attorney for Branca and McClain, said Katherine's concerns about conflicts of interest were unfounded.
In contrast, he said, Katherine had more of a potential conflict administering the estate because she is a likely beneficiary of it.
(c) 2009 Daily Record; Glasgow (UK). Provided by ProQuest LLC. All rights Reserved.
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