0
Michael Jackson, 50, Is Dead
By The New York Times
June 25, 2009, 5:41 pm
Joel Ryan/Associated Press
This post is written by Jon Pareles, Ben Sisario and Brian Stelter in New York and Brooks Barnes in Los Angeles.
Michael Jackson, the singer, songwriter and dancer who earned the title “King of Pop” in a career that reached unprecedented peaks of sales and attention, died Thursday at 1:07 p.m. Pacific time, a Los Angeles city official confirmed. He was 50.
The circumstances of Mr. Jackson’s death were not immediately clear. He was unconscious when rushed to UCLA Medical Center on Thursday afternoon by paramedics who performed C.P.R., according to the Los Angeles Fire Department.
Mr. Jackson’s 1982 album “Thriller” is the best-selling album of all time, claiming global sales of more than 100 million copies. But Mr. Jackson was a star before and after “Thriller,” from his days as the piping lead singer of the Jackson 5 to his increasingly bitter final albums.
He was forever a paradox: a precocious child star, a childlike grown-up, a superhumanly skilled performer who always appeared vulnerable, a figure who pursued worldwide fame only to find himself besieged and embittered by media attention.
In the 1980’s, he was the embodiment of American pop success, with his ubiquitous hits and video clips, his one white glove and his moonwalk, dancing across stages and heard on radio worldwide. But that success could not last forever, and Mr. Jackson struggled in its aftermath.