1977-1979 Tatum O’Neal

Tatum, Michael, Dan Aykroyd, Randy Jackson, Margot Kidder, photographed together, 1979


1979: Actress Tatum O’Neal and actor Dan Aykroyd sit at a table and pose fora portrait with pop singer Marlon Jackson, basketball player Earvin ‘Magic’ Johnson, pop singer Michael Jackson and actress Margot Kidder at an event in 1979.

Michael interview, 1979


Because Jackson is such an introvert, his life isn’t as glamorous as many assume it is. He could obviously be part of that frantic show biz social circle but chooses, nearly all the time, to avoid it “That way of life isn’t for me,” he said. “It’s not what I want. I don’t go out much. Oh, if Tatum (actress O’Neal, a close friend) calls and wants to go out I may go to the Roxy or some place like that. But I spend a lot of time by myself. That’s the way I want it.”

Sat next to Tatum O’Neal at the Grammys, 1979


Soon after, Michael made a solo album, “Off the Wall,” produced by brilliant pop composer Quincy Jones. It was more sophisticated than anything he and his brothers had ever done, and Michael won the 1979 Grammy for Best Rhythm and Blues Male Vocal for one of the singles from it. He sat in the audience that night next to his friend Tatum O’Neal, his conventional cuteness suddenly replaced by a sharply original handsomeness.

Taken inside a bank vault in Beverly Hills to celebrate a gold record for the Destiny album, June 1979

























Photographer Brad Elterman on these photos


Michael Jackson made sure that I got these cool photos of him dancing with Tatum O’Neal at a party held inside a bank vault in Beverly Hills. They were best buddies and Michael wanted copies of all the photos.

The alleged encounter between Tatum and Carole Mallory and Michael Jackson, printed in Star Magazine 8/2/1988


Magic/Madness quoting a Star magazine exclusive (originally printed 8/2/88 “How Tatum O’Neal Stripped to Seduce Michael Jackson”) on what happened a few weeks later between them

Says Sarah Jackson (no relation to Michael) who was a friend of Tatum’s at the time, “Tatum told me that Michael was a nice guy, but so shy, how can any girl have a relationship with him? When we’re together, he hardly says two words. I know he’s a virgin. Someone needs to have a talk with him about it. I wonder if he’s afraid to have sex. He doesn’t seem very interested.”

Michael’s romance with Tatum lasted a couple of years and apparently ended the night of a Hollywood party at the guest house at Rod Stewart’s Beverly Hills home in 1979. The occasion was a rock concert Michael had attended with Tatum and some of her friends.

A lawsuit has been filed regarding reported events that allegedly took place at that party. According to one published report in Star magazine, Tatum persuaded Michael to go with her and a few friends, including model novelist Carole Mallory, to a small party at Rod Stewart’s. Stewart was not home.

According to the assertions of the complaint filed by Carole Mallory in her lawsuit, Alasdair Buchan reported that Tatum tried to convince Michael to have sex with her and Carole Mallory. Mallory and O’Neal were supposed to have made a pact that this evening would be “let’s bed Jackson night.” Mallory reportedly told O’Neal, “Well, if you don’t want him, I’ll have him, darling.” To which Tatum said, “Even better, why don’t we let him decide.”

The two starlets then supposedly climbed into a bed with actor Leif Garrett. “Come to bed with Carole and me,” Buchan reported Tatum O’Neal as having told Michael Jackson.

As the other at the party cheered him on, the shy Michael stood up and headed for the bedroom with Tatum and a scantily dressed Mallory. But Buchanan reported that, in the end, Michael refused their offer of sex. As a result, he was taunted and embarrassed in front of the other party goers.

According to “Starfucking as Research” a Playboy magazine article about Carole Mallory, the “ex model was inspired by her nights under the stars – some forty celebs, she says,” to write a sexy Hollywood novel, Flash, published in 1988. The dust jacket of Flash describes the book as portraying “the wild fantasies, the perverse desires, the amorous delights the way a woman really experiences them. And what the boys don’t know, Carole Mallory tells.”

Even though Carole Mallory is popular for living a rather sensational life style, when asked to clarify the accuracy of the report thtat she and Tatum O’Neal tried to seduce Michael Jackson, she became outraged and indignant. “How dare you? How dare you ask me such a question?” she said. “If you so much as use my name in your book, I will sue you, I swear it!”

The next dat Mallory’s attorney, Elliot Livingstone, reiterated her threat. Finally, Mallory would insist that the story was not true, and that she was suing the tabloids that published it. Indeed, she did file suit against The Star and NOTW for $50 million, in September 1988, claiming that “as a result of the extraordinary personal effort, struggle and hardship, [I} for at least approximately eight years [have] been and [continue] to be a reformed and rehabilitated alcohol, cocaine and sex addict.”

Whatever really happened that night remains a mystery, Michael Jackson has never commented on the matter.

Michael mentions Tatum, Ebony, September 1979
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=bIA6iL8dktsC&lpg=PA38&dq=jane%20fonda%20michael%20jackson&lr=&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false


At 21, Michael is unmarried but is reported to have “a thing” going with actress Tatum O Neal, who is 15.

Michael says that he has “plenty of time” to think about marriage, and he is not eager to discuss his friendship with Ryan O’Neal’s daughter Tatum, 15. He says she is the first girl he ever dated, admits they are “very close” — then says no more. The relationship has already created too much controversy — involving Tatum’s age, mainly, and then there’s the interracial thing, too, and the Jackson’s avoid controversy at all cost.

Michael mentions Tatum, Melody Maker, March 1, 1980


I wonder if most of Michael’s friends are entertainers, and he agrees.

“Most of the time you understand each other easier, Tatum (O’Neal) will call me up and say, “Hey, you wanna go somewhere?”

Fan asks if rumours about Tatum and Michael being back together are true, Gossip Column, Feb 22 1983


Q: We keep hearing rumors of a romance between Tatum O Neal and singer Michael Jackson. Are the reports true?

A: Tatum and Michael may have shared some innocent dates in the past, but that was it. A while back I checked out a rumor that Jackson’s interest in Tatum was much more intense than vice versa. Didn’t turn out to be true.

February 28th, 1984, Grammy Awards


Magic/Madness


Poor Tatum O’neal was at the entrance door with four friends, watching the madness.

Michael, Brooke and a coterie of security guards rushed right by her. “Michael. Hey, Michael!” Tatum shouted. Too late. He was gone. She turned to her friends. “I’ll introduce you to him later. I promise.”

…As he left the auditorium with Brooke and Emmanuel, fifty people were elbowed out of his way by his guards–including Tatum O’ Neal and her four friends. “I’ll introduce you to him later,” she promised them, again.

Michael and Tatum go to a Kool Aid And The Gang concert together, Michael in disguise, May 11th 1984





At first glance you wonder what beaming young actress Tatum O’Neal sees in her older date, his features obscured by a huge afro and bushy beard.But the eyes are the giveaway – beneath the elaborate disguise is a 24-year-old Michael Jackson, hoping to enjoy a concert with his first girlfriend in blissful anonymity.The 1982 snap documents one of the many “crazy nights” Tatum, then 18, says she shared with Jackson. And while the singer came to be mocked for the crazy disguises he adopted, this one was clearly a work of genius.

When the snap resurfaced recently, a now 45-year-old Tatum told pals: “We were going to a Kool And The Gang concert, but Michael didn’t want to be spotted. “He got a special effects guy to help. We had an amazing night. No one recognised us, but we did get some strange looks as he appeared so much older than me.”

A Jackson insider reckoned the get-up – put together by Oscar-winning special effects artist Rick Baker, who worked on the Thriller video – cost thousands of dollars.They added: “Michael loved it. He thought it was so much fun. Rick created this beard and did some work on Michael’s lips. He also gave him make-up to make his skin darker.”

Tatum seen with Michael during Victory Tour in New York, Jul 6, 1984





Where is His Hotness staying?


Rumors abound: He is in the Alameda Plaza Hotel because it is swanky. He is in the Westin Crown Center because it is easily secured, and President Reagan stays there. (The possibility that Jackson is a Republican remains.)

He is at a private home. He has been here all week, and saw “Gremlins” Wednesday night. He is not here at all, but will be air-lifted in at concert time.

Jackson almost scotched the last rumor when he appeared at a news conference here yesterday.

The problem was that Jackson was only in the room for three minutes and you had the feeling that a first-rate look-alike could have pulled off his act.

The press, three hundred strong, quivered with anticipation and fear of losing their seats.

“Somebody said Brooke Shields is out in the hall!” exclaimed one unfortunate reporter, ignorant of the fact that His Hotness was most recently cited with Tatum O’Neal, not Shields.

Jermaine Jackson mentions her, early 80s


But he dates other women, including a former Miss Universe and Tatum O’Neal.

MJ talks about Tatum in his Moonwalk autobiography, 1988


I saw Paul [McCartney] for the first time at a party on the Queen Mary , which is docked in Long Beach. His daughter Heather got my number from someone and gave me a call to invite me to this big party. She liked our music and we got to talking.

later on:
My first real date was with Tatum O’Neal. We met at a club on Sunset Strip called On the Rox. We exchanged phone numbers and called each other often. I talked to her for hours: from the road, from the studio, from home. On our first date we went to a party at Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Mansion and had a great time. She had held my hand for the first time that night at On the Rox. When we met, I was sitting at this table and all of a sudden I felt this soft hand reach over and grab mine. It was Tatum. This probably wouldn’t mean a lot to other people, but it was serious stuff to me. She touched me . That’s how I felt about it. In the past, girls had always touched me on tour; grabbing at me and screaming, behind a wall of security guards. But this was different, this was one-on-one, and that’s always the best.

Ours developed into a real close relationship. I fell in love with her (and she with me) and we were very close for a long time. Eventually the relationship transcended into a good friendship. We still talk now and then, and I guess you’d have to say she was my first love – after Diana.

Photo of Michael in disguise with Tatum in '84 offered for sale, The Deseret News, August 22 1989


Jackson: Pricey Pic
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=BAwPAAAAIBAJ&sjid=TIQDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6969,2835757&dq=michael+jackson+tatum-o-neal&hl=en


Could any fan of Michael Jackson be fanatical enough to pay $400,000 for a photograph of His Weirdness? That’s the asking price for an original Polaroid showing Jackson, in a bushy afro wig and bogus beard disguise, sans glove, hugging his pal Tatum O’Neal. The photo was snapped by an employee at the Helmsley Palace, where Jackson was staying. The Palace paparazzo, who is accepting bids until October at a Bronx post office box, tells Eavesdropping that Jackson paid $10,000 for the get up.

Michael speaks about Tatum, Glenda audio, June 1992


Michael’s phone conversations with Glenda Stein, tape 4-5


G: Tell me something, you know what? You told me before that you’re the loneliest person
MJ: I am!
G: Then how can you be that way when there are so many people…
MJ: Because I don’t love those people like that! I want to be with someone…I want to know what a relationship is all about before I die, can’t you understand that girl? I never had… I mean I’ve been with Tate… I’ve been, well not with… I been with Tate.

[...]

G: Where did Tatum and that..what was that other girls…
MJ: Tate..I dealt with Tate when I was a little bit younger..She came up to me in a club..we were in a club..(she came up to me?) and she put her hand on mind and I couldn’t believe it (break in tape)

“Growing Up In The Jackson Family” Latoya’s Autobio (pub. 1991)


My brother had been as sheltered from the opposite sex as I was. He too believed that sex came after marriage, and marriage was the goal of dating. Up till then (1984) he’d had only one close friendship, with Tatum O’Neal in the late 1970s. Tatum, just fifteen then, was in some ways more sophisticated than Michael, running with an older, faster crowd. We always found it so strange that her father, actor Ryan O’Neal, regularly left her and her younger brother Griffin unsupervised for days at a time, but for them, and many kids in Hollywood, that was considered normal.

Tatum speaks about Michael, VIBE magazine; June/July 1995


I never worked with Michael, but he and I had a really wonderful friendship when I was 12 and he was 17. He used to dance with me, we’d talk on the phone all the time, and he’d say how funny it was that I was 12 and I could drive and he was older and couldn’t. Michael used to come to my house when I was living with my dad, and I remember him being so shy. Once he came into my bedroom, and he wouldn’t even sit on my bed. But another time when he was over, he played the drums, my brother played guitar, and someone else played another instrument, and we had a jam session. I had the tape of it, but I lost it somewhere.When I was 12, he asked me to go to the premiere of The Wiz with him, and my agent at the time said it wasn’t a good idea, maybe because they felt he wasn’t a big enough star yet. He never talked to me after that. I think he thought I just canceled, but it wasn’t me at all. I was a child doing what I was told. I want you to print that, because I don’t think he ever knew that. I lost touch with him because of it, so I don’t really know him anymore. But I love him; he’s one of the nicest, most innocent people I’ve ever met. I love “She’s out of My Life” because I think it describes our friendship at that time.

Michael speaks about Tatum, Rabbi Schmuley's book, conversations in 2000/1


MJ: Yes, my first girlfriend, Tatum O’Neal she’d won the Academy Award for Paper Moon… I was 16, she was 13. And I was very naiive. She wanted to do everything and I didn’t want to have sex at all, because there were a lot of valuses associated with being a Jehova Witness. I said, “are you crazy?” One of those was to be kind to everyone. When I held Tatum’s hand it was just magic, better than anything, kisisng her, anything. Her, Ryan O’Neal and myself went to this club and were watching a band and underneath a table she was holding my hand I was was melting. It was magical. There was fireworks going on. It was all I needed But that means nothing to kids today. She grew up too fast. She wasn’t into innocence, and I love that.