(Originally published by the Daily News on June 26, 2009. This story was written by David Hinckley.)
Michael Jackson, whose brilliance as an entertainer was matched only by his eccentricity, died of cardiac arrest yesterday – as dramatically and mysteriously as he lived.
The 50-year-old music icon fell unconscious and stopped breathing at his rented home on Sunset Blvd. in Bel Air, officials said.
“His personal physician, who was with him at the time, attempted to resuscitate my brother,” his shaken brother Jermaine Jackson said last night.
Paramedics summoned by a 911 call at 12:26 p.m. local time also tried to resuscitate the faded King of Pop as an ambulance sped him to UCLA Medical Center.
“You’ve got to save him!” Jackson’s aides screamed after he was wheeled into the hospital on a stretcher at 1:14 p.m., the Web site TMZ.com reported.
Emergency room doctors tried to revive him but he was in full cardiac arrest and was pronounced dead at 2:26 p.m.
The cause of death was unknown, but London’s Sun reported that Jackson aides told doctors he had received an injection of the painkiller Demerol.
“He started to experience slow, shallow breathing,” a source told the paper.
“His breathing gradually got slower and slower until it stopped. His staff started mouth-to-mouth and an ambulance was called, which got there in eight minutes.”
Jackson’s manager told his brother Marlon that a doctor had visited Jackson the night before because he was feeling ill, CNN reported.
Around 7 last night, Jackson’s body, shrouded in a white sheet, was moved to the office of the Los Angeles County coroner for an autopsy today.
Jackson – who had battled addiction to painkillers and among myriad health problems – died in the midst of a comeback bid, with 50 soldout concerts planned for London this summer.
He was training for the gigs with “Incredible Hulk” Lou Ferrigno. Longtime Jackson family lawyer Brian Oxman accused “enablers” of pushing the star too hard physically as he prepared for the tour.
News of his death brought a swift and stunned reaction, with celebrities expressing sadness on Twitter and fans thronging to Times Square.
Ex-wife Lisa Marie Presley, Elvis’ daughter, said she was heartbroken for Jackson’s three children and other family members.
“I am so very sad and confused with every emotion possible,” she said. “This is such a massive loss on so many levels, words fail me.”
Madonna said she “can’t stop crying.”
The Rev. Al Sharpton flashed a 25-year-old snapshot of Jackson and himself during a press conference outside the Apollo Theater in Harlem.
“We thought we’d see him moonwalk one more time,” Sharpton said.
Known as the “King of Pop” for his musical achievements and “Wacko Jacko” for some of his antics, Jackson was one of the best-selling and most-honored artists in modern music history.
“What sets Michael apart is that he isn’t just a musician,” “Thriller” producer Quincy Jones said in 1998. “He’s an entertainer, a throwback to artists like Sammy Davis Jr. He writes, he sings, he produces, he performs. There’s no one else like him today.”
“Thriller” alone sold more than 50 million copies worldwide, making it the best-selling album of all time. It is also widely credited with helping to spark the multibillion dollar pop music boom of the 1980s and forcing MTV to play black artists.
On the comeback trail
Jackson’s popularity dated to his early days as the cute lead singer of his family’s pop group, The Jackson 5, in the late 1960s.
While his U.S. popularity had faded in recent years as he pulled away from music to raise his three children, he remained a star in many parts of the world, and the London comeback concerts had sparked great interest.
Some of his musical achievements were overshadowed by behavior that could charitably be described as unusual: extensive plastic surgery and an obsession with giving himself the childhood he often said he was denied.
He bought a large ranch in California and turned it into a theme park called Neverland, where he entertained children, including many with disabilities.
Friends including Elizabeth Taylor said that was an innocent passion, but it took a darker turn when he was accused of molesting several of those children.
In a guarded 1988 autobiography and in some of the rare interviews he granted, Jackson attributed his reputation to misunderstanding.
Offstage, he said, he was almost pathologically shy and had trouble relating to strangers.
He also had a soft voice and retiring demeanor that made him seem childlike.
That sometimes hid the fact, friends said, that he was also a shrewd, hard-nosed businessman who understood the market value of his music and his image.
“People underestimate Michael all the time,” Jones once told the Daily News. “He knows exactly what he wants and exactly what he’s doing. And if he really wants something, he will get it.”
When Jackson collaborated with Paul McCartney on two songs in a summit of 1980s pop royalty, McCartney casually mentioned the value of music copyrights. Soon after, Jackson bought the copyrights to all McCartney’s Beatles songs.
Jackson also frequently made less positive news.
His longtime publicist Bob Jones said Jackson ordered anonymously “leaked” stories that made him sound weird – including sleeping in a hyperbaric chamber and bidding to buy the Elephant Man’s bones – as a kind of a practical joke on the gossip industry.
Yet even critics who shook their heads at his shenanigans admired his music and showmanship.
His 1983 moonwalk during a Motown anniversary special was one of the most electrifying moments in musical TV history, and videos like “Beat It” and “Thriller” are still considered some of the most sophisticated ever made.
He was launched into a music career as a child in Gary, Ind., when his father, Joe, a session musician, formed his sons into a group that would become The Jackson 5.
While Michael was the youngest, his charisma and striking voice made him a natural lead singer. The group became a phenomenon in the late 1960s with songs like “I Want You Back,” “ABC,” and “I’ll Be There,” which Jackson’s precocious vocals turned into a timeless ballad.
He broke off on his own in the 1970s, scored a novelty hit with the movie theme song “Ben,” a love song to a rat, and took off with his 1979 album “Off the Wall.”
He backed off from music in the 1990s, when he had his first two children – a son, Prince, and a daughter, Paris – with his second wife, Debbie Rowe.
They divorced in 1999, and he had a third child, Prince II, in 2002 – reportedly by artificial insemination with an unidentified mother.
Life shrouded in mystery
Before and after the sex abuse allegations, there were reports Jackson was having financial problems, which he repeatedly denied.
That was one of several mysteries in which he remained shrouded at his death – another being his sexuality.
His biographer, J. Randy Tarraborelli, said he heard too many conflicting stories to know for sure.
“I just hope he’s having sex with someone,” Tarraborelli once said. “I would hate to think his life is as lonely as it sometimes looks.”
Jackson had plenty of hardware to keep him company at Neverland. Over his career, he won 13 Grammys and the American Music Awards’ Artist of the Century Award, among many others.
He had 13 No. 1 singles and was a double inductee into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame. He won numerous awards for charitable projects, like the 1986 “We Are the World” record, which he co-wrote.
He sold an estimated 750 million albums worldwide, making him the best-selling pop artist of all time.
He is survived by his three children, his parents, his four brothers, three sisters and an army of fans who correctly assume he cannot be replaced.
“We will never see his likes again,” Larry King said on CNN yesterday. “It was hard to love him, but hard not to.”
