|
|
在纽约时报headline上看到这个雷人的消息：LOS ANGELES — Michael Jackson, whose quintessentially American tale of celebrity and excess took him from musical boy wonder to global pop superstar to sad figure haunted by lawsuits and failed plastic surgery, was pronounced dead Thursday afternoon at U.C.L.A. Medical Center after arriving in a coma, according to a city official. He was just 50 years old, 39 of which he spent in the public eye he loved.
洛杉矶：迈克尔 杰克逊， 这典型的美国名人故事——从爱音乐的男孩奇迹到全球流行超级明星到官司缠身到失败的美容手术，在他昏迷后送往U.C.L.A. Medical Center，并于周四下午被宣布死亡，这消息来自一个政府官员。他刚过50岁，其中有39年奉献给倍受他爱的公众。
Doctors pronounced him dead at 1:07 p.m. The singer was rushed to the hospital, a six-minute drive from the rented mansion in which he was living, shortly after noon by Los Angeles Fire Department paramedics. A hospital spokesman would not confirm reports of cardiac arrest..
医生宣布他死亡时间是在下午1点07分。这位歌手被紧急送往医院，洛杉矶消防救助人员用六分钟时间从他租住的住所到医院。医院发言人无法正式心脏骤停的报告。As with Elvis Presley or The Beatles, it is impossible to calculate the full impact he had on the world of music. At his height, he was indisputably the biggest star in the world and has sold more than 750 million albums. Radio stations across the country reacted to his death with marathon sessions of his songs. MTV, which was born in part as a result of Mr. Jackson’s groundbreaking videos, reprised its early days as a music channel by showing his biggest hits.
同猫王和披头四乐队一样，人们无法完全估量他对世界乐团产生的巨大影响。在他的高度上，他是无可争议的世界巨星，他曾卖出7.5亿张唱片。全国音乐电台针以马拉松式播放他歌曲来悼念他的去世。
From his days as the youngest brother in the Jackson 5 to his solo career in the 1980s and early 1990s, Mr. Jackson was responsible for a string of hits like “I Want You Back,” “I’ll Be There,” “Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough,” “Billie Jean” and “Black and White” that exploited his high voice, infectious energy, and ear for irresistible hooks.
As a solo performer, Mr. Jackson ushered in the age of pop as a global product – not to mention an age of spectacle and pop culture celebrity. His early career with his brothers gave way to a solo act in which he became more character than singer: his sequined glove, his whitened face, his Moonwalk dance move became embedded in the cultural firmament.
But not long after his entertainment career hit high-water marks — Thriller,” from 1982, has been certified platinum 28 times by the Recording Industry Association of America – it started a bizarre disintegration. His darkest moment undoubtedly came in 2004, when he was indicted — though later acquitted — on child molesting charges. A young cancer patient who claimed the singer had befriended him and then sexually fondled him at his Neverland estate near Santa Barbara, Calif.
But Mr. Jackson was an object of fascination for the press since the Jackson 5’s first hit, “I Want You Back,” in 1969. His public image wavered between that of the musical naif, who only wanted to recapture his youth by riding on roller-coasters and having sleepovers with his friends, to the calculated mogul who carefully constructed his persona around his often baffling public behavior.
Mr. Jackson had been scheduled to perform a 50 concerts in at the O2 arena London beginning next month and continuing into 2010. The shows were positioned as a potential comeback, with the potential to earn him up to $50 million, according to some reports.
But there has also been worry and speculation that Mr. Jackson was not physically ready for such an arduous run of concerts, and Mr. Jackson’s postponement of the first of those shows from July 8 to July 12 fueled new rounds of speculation about his health.
“The primary reason for the concerts wasn’t so much that he was wanting to generate money as much as it was that he wanted to perform for his kids,” said J. Randy Taraborrelli, whose biography, ”Michael Jackson: The Magic and the Madness,” was first published in 1991. “They had never seen him perform before.”
Mr. Jackson is survived by three children: Michael Joseph Jackson, Jr., Paris Michael Katherine Jackson and Prince \"Blanket\" Michael Jackson II.
The performer’s eccentric lifestyle took a severe financial toll. In 1987 Mr. Jackson paid about $17 million for a 2,600-acre ranch in Los Olivos, Calif., 125 miles northwest of Los Angeles. Calling it Neverland, he outfitted the property with amusement-park rides, a zoo and a 50-seat theater, at a cost of $35 million, according to reports, and the ranch became his sanctum.
But Neverland, and Mr. Jackson’s lifestyle, were expensive to maintain. A forensic accountant who testified at Mr. Jackson’s molestation trial in 2005 said that Mr. Jackson’s annual budget in 1999 included $7.5 million for personal expenses and $5 million to maintain Neverland. By at least the late 1990s, he began to take out huge loans to support himself and pay debts. In 1998 he took out a loan for $140 million from Bank of America, which two years later was upped to $200 million. Further loans of hundreds of millions followed.
The collateral for the loans was Mr. Jackson’s 50 percent share in Sony/ATV Music Publishing, a portfolio of thousands of songs, including rights to 259 songs by John Lennon and Paul McCartney that are considered some of the most valuable properties in music.
In 1985 Mr. Jackson paid $47.5 million for ATV, which included the Beatles songs -- a move that estranged him from Paul McCartney -- and 10 years later Mr. Jackson sold 50 percent of his interest to Sony for $90 million, creating a joint venture, Sony/ATV. Estimates of the value of the catalog exceed $1 billion.
In many ways, Mr. Jackson never recovered from the child molestation trial, a lurid affair that attracted media from around the world to watch as Mr. Jackson, wearing a different costume each day, appeared in a small courtroom in Santa Maria, Calif., to listen as a parade of witnesses spun a sometimes-incredible tale.
The case ultimately turned on the credibility of Mr. Jackson’s accuser, a 15-year-old cancer survivor who said the defendant had gotten him drunk and molested him several times. The boy’s younger brother testified that he had seen Mr. Jackson fondling his brother on two other occasions.
After 14 weeks of such testimony and seven days of deliberations, the jury returned not-guilty verdicts on all 14 counts against Mr. Jackson: four charges of child molesting, one charge of attempted child molesting, one conspiracy charge and eight possible counts of providing alcohol to minors. Conviction could have brought Mr. Jackson 20 years in prison.
Instead, he walked away a free man to try to reclaim a career that at the time had already been in decline for years. |
本帖子中包含更多资源
您需要 登录 才可以下载或查看，没有账号？注册
×
|
发表于 2009-6-26 08:46:34
发表于 2009-6-26 08:53:02
发表于 2009-6-26 13:39:34
