FBR Opening Soon
December 13th, 2007
Comments Off
I was out at the TPC this week shooting a story, and I was surprised at how much is already done for next months FBR Open.
Archive
Archive for December, 2007
Confessions of an ambulance chaser–Elizabeth Taylor, Michael Jackson and that Romantic Flight to Singapore
December 3rd, 2007
I’ve done a lot of wacky interviews in my time, but ambushing actress Elizabeth Taylor on board an airplane bound for Singapore was probably one of the most crazed in a gonzo-journalism kind of way.
It was back in 1993 at the very beginning of Michael Jackson’s first sex scandal–the first time a little adolescent boy accused the self-proclaimed “King of Pop” of being a pedophile.
Jackson’s multi-million dollar “Dangerous Tour” was just getting underway in Southeast Asia when the scandalous story broke in the United State.
Suddenly the “Gloved One”–arguably the most famous person on the planet–was suspected of being a sexual predator with an appetite for prepubescent boys.
Jackson had decided to open his giant world-wide tour to promote his “Dangerous ” album in Thailand.
But while Jacko was moonwalking in Bangkok, word of the boy’s allegations leaked and suddenly the tabloid feeding frenzy was on.
At the L.A. offices of “A Current Affair” we got a tip that Jackson’s long time friend and mentor Elizabeth Taylor was going to board a Singapore Airlines jumbo jet at LAX and rush off to support and protect her persecuted pal.
My assignment: get out to the airport on the quick and look for Liz. If she gets on an airplane, get on with her. If she doesn’t, don’t waste the money.
Oh, she showed alright, literally at the last minute as Australian cameraman Alex Fragnito and I stood in the doorway of the tunnel leading to the plane. We knew she wasn’t on board, we had watched every single passenger enter.
Then suddenly as the plane’s engines began to rev, through the terminal’s windows, we spotted a limo out on the tarmac pulling right up to the side of the plane.
Doors swung open and popped some burly men, followed by Larry Fortenski–Taylor’s husband at the time, the one she met at the Betty Ford clinic –and then there was the two time Academy Award winning actress herself.
She and her entourage had obviously pulled this little last minute stunt to avoid people like me. But sadly for her it did not work.
After watching Taylor and company climb up some hastily positioned stairs and enter the plane, Alex and I went charging down the elevated tunnel into the first class section of the 747 and took our 6-thousand dollar seats just a couple of rows behind the world famous actress, her sort of bewildered looking husband and her brawny Israeli bodyguard–a scary and humorless looking s.o.b. who immediately spotted us and shot us an unmistakable look–a look that said “just because we’re going to be flying at 30,000 feet doesn’t mean I won’t kill you and throw you off this plane.”
Now the games had really begun! ….more to come…..mw