‘Believe me, trouble's ahead’
The upcoming Victory tour promised forty concert dates and, at least as far as Michael was concerned, forty million opportunities for something to go wrong as long as Don King was in the picture. Michael felt that he needed someone to protect his interests. John Branca was an excellent attorney, but now he needed a hands-on manager since Weisner and DeMann were gone and Joseph was no longer managing him.
As it happened, Motown had just released a collection of songs by Michael that he had recorded in the early seventies. The album was called
Farewell My Summer Love 1984
, a misleading title since the songs were recorded more than ten years earlier. The record only sold about a hundred thousand copies, a minuscule number considering the thirty-three million copies of
Thriller
that had by then been moved in record stores. Michael believed that Motown was trying to cash in on his fame, and he didn't like it. ‘It's not fair,’ he said. ‘I had no control over that music. I don't even like some of those songs. I need someone to stop things like that from happening in the future.’
Michael took meetings with a number of managers, including Colonel Tom Parker, Elvis Presley's Svengali, hoping to find the most qualified person. When it came to choosing a manager, Michael was extremely cautious. He questioned everyone he knew about certain people, trying to determine their worth in the entertainment industry. He would talk to his brothers to see what gossip they had heard; he would check with record company executives. In the end, his choice would surprise many observers.
Seven months earlier, in August 1983, Michael had asked Epic Records head of promotion, Frank Dileo, if he would be interested in managing him. The two were having a meeting about
Thriller
in a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Michael firmly believed that Frank was largely responsible for
Thriller's
success, and also for the huge sales of all of its single releases. After his search, he again went back to Frank Dileo, even though the man had virtually no experience as a manager. Many industry observers wondered, why Frank? (‘I asked Michael the same question: why me?’ Dileo said.) Michael felt that the aggressive way Frank worked in the record industry could prove an asset to him. In Frank Dileo, Michael knew he was hiring a terrific record promoter, who may or may not turn out to be a good manager – but he was willing to take a chance.
At the time, Frank Dileo, whose nickname is ‘Tookie’ (Michael used to call him Uncle Tookie), was thirty-six, born and raised in Pittsburgh. He had got his start in the record industry as an assistant to a record promoter in the Midwest, and in the early seventies when he was twenty-one, landed a job with RCA Records in New York as national director of promotions. While at RCA, he turned that label's promotion department into the record industry's finest. In 1979, Frank was named Epic's vice-president of promotion. There, he developed a reputation at the label as being a confident man in complete charge of everything around him – even matters that didn't concern him. A flashy character, he would wear a sweat suit to the office, along with an eight-thousand-dollar Rolex watch given to him by the Epic recording group REO Speedwagon. He was largely responsible for successes by Meat Loaf, Culture Club and Cyndi Lauper.
A few years after joining Epic, Frank was invited to the recording studio to watch as Michael recorded
Thriller
. It was then that he and Michael developed a rapport, though opposites in almost every way: Michael was shy and retiring, Frank was loud and boisterous; Michael was a health-food junkie, Frank liked a good hoagie and a Budweiser with which to wash it down; Michael never smoked, Frank loved cigars, the smellier the better; Michael weighed about 120 pounds; Frank weighed twice that. Still, Michael admired the way Frank set goals for himself and then achieved them. ‘I'd like to be like Frank Dileo,’ he said. ‘He gets the job done.’
Also, Frank was a close friend and confidant of Walter Yetnikoff, president of CBS Records, and socialized with attorney Nat Weiss, one of Yetnikoff's trusted friends. Michael understood how politically valuable those relationships could be to him. However, Michael told Frank that if he took the job as his manager, he would not be allowed to manage anyone else. He had to be exclusive to Michael. Frank agreed.
By March, the Victory tour battle lines were drawn. Though the point of the tour was that the family presented a united front to the public, the business behind the scenes was so fragmented, it was almost impossible to find any commonality among the participants.
If Michael had to do the tour, he wanted more control of it. Not only was he exerting his independence at this time, he knew that if the show flopped it could hurt his career. Whereas his brothers only wanted to make a decent living, that was the least of Michael's concerns; he already had plenty of money. Still, since Michael now had his own manager, the brothers felt they had to have one, too. Therefore, they hired Jack Nance, who had been the group's road manager during the early days at Motown. So, now he had
his
manager, and they had
theirs
.
Making matters worse, Michael wanted nothing to do with Don King, especially when Frank filled Michael in on Don's reputation. Frank told Michael that Don had been criticized for his handling of the defunct US Boxing Championships on ABC Television. He also heard of charges, which King has denied, that he skimmed money from closed-circuit fights and sold five-hundred-dollar tickets to boxing matches but did not report the sales. If Michael had to do this tour, he decided, he would do everything in his power to distance himself from Don King. ‘I can tell you one thing,’ he told John Branca. ‘I don't want that guy telling
me
what to do, and I don't want him to touch
one single penny
of my money.’ Or, as Don King would later say, ‘With Michael, you're always on trial.’
Through John, Michael dispatched a series of instructions to Don stating:
1. King may not communicate with anyone on Michael's behalf without prior permission.
2. All monies will be collected by Michael's representatives and not by King.
3. King may not approach any promoters, sponsors or other people on Michael's behalf.
4. King may not hire any personnel or local promoters, book halls, or, for that matter, do anything at all without Michael's prior approval.
Don appeared perplexed by Michael's demands but he had no choice but to abide by them. Still, Don felt that Michael was too easily swayed by the opinions of his white manager, Frank Dileo, and white lawyer, John Branca. ‘I see that Michael has nobody black around him,’ Don said to a reporter. ‘Nobody.’ That might have been true, but it was a mistake for Don to say it to the press. ‘Fire him,’ Michael said, angrily. ‘Who does that guy think he is?’
But Don had a contract, and he wasn't going anywhere.
John and Don then had dinner at the Beverly Hills Hotel to try to work matters out. ‘Look, Johnny, there's no reason why you and me gotta be on bad terms,’ King told Branca. ‘I like Michael. I like you. Let's work with one another.’
They agreed that they should try to work things out. However, by this time, the brothers were also ambivalent about Don King, especially after that press conference.
At this time Chuck Sullivan, head of Stadium Management Corporation, of Foxboro, Massachusetts, and former owner of the New England Patriots football team, was brought in to watch over Don King. He would be organizing the concerts. Michael was also able to convince the brothers to allow Irving Azoff, head of MCA, to come aboard as a tour consultant. Meanwhile, in the background, there was still Joseph Jackson, who did everything he could to stay involved and not allow Don to overshadow him. Then, there was Katherine, watching and waiting until the next time she would have to speak to Michael in order to get him to do something he didn't want to do.
‘I said the Pepsi accident was a bad omen,’ Michael told Frank Dileo one day as they sorted out all of the characters. ‘But I didn't know what it meant. Now I know. Believe me when I say that trouble's ahead.’