I Want My MTV (27 page)

 

RAQUEL PENA:
I had posters of Michael Jackson on my wall when I was a kid, and then I spent fourteen hours alongside him for “Billie Jean.” They took my picture and superimposed it on a big billboard, and they put me in bed right next to him. He got in and laid down, and we both giggled. He was the gentlest guy, hiding and playing on the set, just having fun. His brothers came—I think he had six or seven siblings there.

WAYNE ISHAM:
I worked on several Michael videos in those days. Years later, when I directed “You Are Not Alone,” I said, “Michael, I've worked with you before.” And he goes, “Really, Wayne? When?” And I go, “Dude, I'm the one who picked up the tiger's shit from ‘Billie Jean'!”

 

PAUL FLATTERY:
While we were making “Billie Jean,” MTV called and said, “We don't want ‘Billie Jean' first, we want ‘Beat It.'” Because “Beat It” had Eddie Van Halen playing guitar on it. We didn't have any control over which videos the labels were going to make, or in what order. But MTV was green when they started out. They thought we owned the videos.

 

GALE SPARROW:
We wanted “Beat It” to be the first
Thriller
video, because Eddie Van Halen was on it. But “Billie Jean” was fabulous. We started to realize that we had to open up the playlist a bit. We realized we had a broader audience than we'd thought.

 

LES GARLAND:
We got a copy of “Billie Jean.” I had huge speakers in my office. I mean, I'd rock the fucking building. And so we popped in the video and invited everybody in, and it became a party. And from the first shot, I was mind-blown. It was like the first time I saw “Hungry Like the Wolf.” We got it on the air as quick as we could.

 

SUSAN BLOND, record executive:
In those days, we usually had a messenger bring a new video to MTV, but in this case, we realized it was special. I brought them this amazing video, and they said, basically, “This doesn't fit onto our network.” I first met Michael when he was a kid, and he was obsessed with the Osmonds—they were getting more coverage than the Jacksons, because Michael was black. This had been a major thing with Michael—his whole life, he had been excluded from the media because he was black.

 

BRUCE DICKINSON:
All I can tell you is what I heard Walter Yetnikoff say. I was sitting in Bob Sherwood's office while Walter was talking to Don Dempsey, who was the head of Epic Records, and Sherwood, the vice president of marketing for Columbia Records, who was there because what Walter had to say affected both labels. Walter goes, “If they don't play this, I'm going to pull all the CBS videos.” That's the way Walter was. He liked to fight. MTV would always say, “Well, it doesn't quite fit our format.” They'd use every euphemism for “He's black!” It was really sick stuff.

DAVID BENJAMIN, record executive:
I was vice president of business affairs for CBS Records. I helped negotiate our contract with MTV, and there was a clause that allowed us to pull all our videos on twenty-four hours' notice. This was for our own protection, in case we hadn't negotiated the proper clearances with our acts to supply their videos to MTV. We hadn't intended it, but that clause gave us a heavy hammer to wield.

The “Billie Jean” video came in, and it was brilliant. Susan Blond was doing video promotion, and she came back from MTV and told me they didn't want to play it. I knew Bob Pittman well, so I called him. He didn't take the call. Then I called Les. He didn't take the call. Eventually, I got Sykes on the phone. I said, “The fickle finger of fate points at you, John. If you don't play ‘Billie Jean,' we're pulling all our videos off the air.” We were CBS. You didn't fuck around with us.

After I hung up, I walked around the corner to tell Walter Yetnikoff what I'd done. When I got there, his secretary Bonnie said, “He's on the phone with Bob Pittman.” Walter waved me in and he was laughing. He said, “It's your friend Bob Pittman. Bob says they'll play ‘Billie Jean.'” And let's face it, that video
made
MTV, right? Because all of a sudden they started playing black videos. We integrated MTV.

 

JOHN SYKES:
That's David's recollection of what happened. I've heard that before. But I don't remember having that conversation with him. And I wouldn't be the person to get that call. Discussions about “Billie Jean” would have come down to Bob and Walter—not even Bob and David, but Bob and
Walter
.

 

CAROLYN BAKER:
I don't know if Walter ever talked to Bob directly, but I think that's exactly what the hell happened: CBS threatened to pull its videos, and Bob and Garland tried to cover that up. MTV was a white boy's trip. That's what it was.

 

RON WEISNER, manager:
We submitted “Billie Jean” to MTV, but they didn't add it that first week. We were not only appalled, but surprised, too, because production-value wise, it was a great video, especially for the times. If you looked at “Billie Jean” versus everything else that was out there, there was no comparison. It was a different animal. But then what happened was, the video sort of leaked out; people saw it and were raving about it, and then MTV jumped on it. They were getting beat up because they weren't playing black artists, so we became a test case for them.

RON McCARRELL, record executive:
When Ron Weisner brought in the video, we all flipped out, because it was ground-breaking. But he told us he'd run into some resistance at MTV—they were playing Journey and Van Halen, and said Michael Jackson wasn't “right for our audience.” Our position was,
How can you not play this?
Ron told me his next stop was Walter's office. Then Walter called me and said, “I just spoke to MTV and they're gonna add the Michael Jackson video now.” I heard this directly from Walter, and also from Ron Weisner.

Pittman and Garland are friends of mine, and they have a different version of it that's almost dismissive: “I don't know what you're talking about, we loved that video, we put it right on.” I believe our version of the story. There's a mountain of circumstantial evidence that to me, proves it beyond a reasonable doubt.

 

FREDDY DeMANN, manager:
Ron Weisner and I were comanaging Michael Jackson when “Billie Jean” came out. I had a good relationship with MTV, and I pitched the video. They said, “No, we can't play it.” We all called MTV. We persevered like crazy. I went to Walter. Walter was very colorful. He called MTV and made the appropriate threats. “Billie Jean” was just too great a song not to. And it worked. They acquiesced.

 

WALTER YETNIKOFF:
My recollection about “Billie Jean”—and I was drinking and drugging a lot during that period, so my memory's a little spotty—is that I called Pittman and said, “You have to play this video.” He said, “We're a rock station, Walter, we don't play black music.” I said, “That's great. I'm pulling all my stuff. Then I'm gonna tell the whole world what your attitude is towards black people.” Then I said, “
And
I'm calling Quincy Jones.” Quincy produced
Thriller
, of course. But just as important, Quincy was close to Steve Ross, who ran Warner Communications and was part owner of MTV. If Quincy called Ross to complain about MTV, that would be that. And Pittman said, “All right, all right, we'll play it.” Now they say they played “Billie Jean” because they loved it. How plausible is it that they “loved it”? Their playlist had no black artists on it. And at the time, Michael Jackson was black. So what is this bullshit that they loved it? They were forced into it by me.

 

LES GARLAND:
I love him dearly, but I believe Walter Yetnikoff cooked up that story about threatening to pull CBS videos if we didn't play “Billie Jean.” I got more grief from Walter for not playing Barbra Streisand!

BOB PITTMAN:
If anybody at CBS thought that we weren't going to play Michael Jackson, they were out of their minds. Walter Yetnikoff claims that he made us play the video. That's such a typical Walter trick, to make himself seem important to his artists. Quincy Jones, Michael's producer, is my oldest son's godfather. He and I often laugh about Walter.

 

RONALD “BUZZ” BRINDLE:
We may have declined it initially. It seems to me CBS threatened to pull their videos. My reaction was “Great, go tell your rock acts they're not getting exposed on MTV because we're not gonna play Michael Jackson's video.” There was a confrontation.

 

LARRY STESSEL, record executive:
I heard from some fellow executives at CBS that Walter was out of his mind about “Billie Jean” and was going to pull all of our videos at MTV if they didn't play it. The story I heard—I don't know if it's true—was that Walter called Pittman. But even if MTV didn't play black videos, they were going to play “Billie Jean.” It's one of the most perfect songs ever made. It's like “I Want to Hold Your Hand”—how can you not like it? It's “Billie Jean,” for God's sake.

 

JOHN SYKES:
Michael Jackson was the reason MTV went from big to huge. He put us at the center of the culture.

 

SUSAN BLOND:
Eventually, when “Billie Jean” went on the air, someone from CBS sent champagne to MTV. I thought that was disgusting, because they'd given us such a hard time and been so awful.

 

TREACH, Naughty by Nature:
Are you kidding me? The “Billie Jean” video was major. I rocked a red pleather jacket, can't lie. I wasn't too hardcore for that.

 

RALPH TRESVANT:
When “Billie Jean” came on the TV, I lost my brains.

 

PAUL FLATTERY:
Steve Barron was initially hired to do both “Billie Jean” and “Beat It.” I think his “Beat It” was going to be set on a slave boat.

 

RONALD “BUZZ” BRINDLE:
For the “Beat It” clip, Michael originally wanted to do it on a white slave ship with him as the slave master. I heard that from a director in Roberta Cruger's office.

 

SIOBHAN BARRON:
CBS originally wanted Steve to direct “Beat It” as well, but they didn't like our concept. It was more political. It had something to do with a slave ship. All the Americans were flipping out.

 

PAUL FLATTERY:
Michael was very mercurial, and he saw something by Bob Giraldi and asked him to direct “Beat It.” And it was fantastic, obviously.

 

BOB GIRALDI, director:
I was disappointed. “Billie Jean” had been the track I really wanted to direct.

 

STEVE BARRON:
I have friends who say “Billie Jean” changed their lives. But “Beat It” quickly came along and stole a lot of the thunder, because it was harder and edgier.

 

FREDDY DeMANN:
Bob Giraldi was
the
hot commercial director. His reel was phenomenal. He found a dilapidated area in downtown LA. Michael went up to the apartment where we were shooting interiors, jumped on the bed as if it were his own bed, in his own room, in his own house. He became part of it. The beat and melody of “Billie Jean” are phenomenal, but “Beat It” was a better visual. It brought out who and what Michael really was.

 

RON WEISNER:
For “Beat It,” Michael and I spent a lot of time trying to define exactly what we wanted, and to find somebody who could translate that. I looked at hundreds of demo reels, and the one that stuck out was Bob Giraldi's. He had a PSA on his reel for a free clinic or something. It was very street, and that's what we wanted: we wanted to do a contemporary version of
West Side Story
.

 

BOB GIRALDI:
Everybody says “Beat It” was taken from
West Side Story
. It's not true. I had no idea what
West Side Story
was. My inspiration was the streets of Paterson, New Jersey, where I'm from. I listened to the song over and over, and realized it was about all the Italian hoodlums I grew up with—everybody trying to be tougher than they are, but really, we're all cowards at heart. The budget was $200,000, which was unprecedented. The art form, if you want to call it that, was not clear yet. It was sort of like,
What is this?

Michael was beautiful. His complexion was stunning. Don't forget, I knew him as young Michael, not the getting-older, let-me-destroy-myself Michael. He had a gentle way. He didn't like me using the F word and told me so. “You use the F word too much.” He was a gentle soul who exploded when he performed. Why did he do “Bad”? Why did he grab his crotch? Why did he do “Smooth Criminal”? Most of his stuff was about being macho. This is the psychiatrist in me: I think Michael suffered a bit from being too androgynous. There was always a contradiction going with Michael.

On the first night, I came this close to walking off the set of “Beat It.” Michael had the idea of getting the Crips and the Bloods for the video. We were shooting the pool-hall scene and the Crips and Bloods got rambunctious. They started smacking each other around. They didn't love being directed. I lose it when I direct, and they looked at me like they'd never been talked to like that in their lives. Everybody was scared to death. The cops came and they were going to shut us down.

So I called over Michael Peters, the choreographer. Michael was a legitimate Broadway dancer who'd choreographed major Broadway shows. It was a two-night shoot and we were supposed to dance on the second night. I said, “Let's shoot the dance scenes right now.” He said, “We're not ready.” I said, “Get ready.”