1977-1979 Tatum O’Neal

Michael speaks about Tatum, London, Disco Dancing, 1978


He admits to often still being shy and embarrassed in front of girls.

“But I love them,” he says. “I’d love to meet the right girl and get married. But at the moment I can’t because there’s so many things I’ve got to do.”

Michael’s name has been recently linked with film star, Ryan O’Neal’s daughter, Tatum. But he says, “We’re really good friends. She’s helped me a lot with my acting.”

Interview with Michael by phone from California, August 3, 1978:
http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2009/09/michael-jackson200909?currentPage=3


L.R. You’ve been seen out with Janelle Penny Commissiong, the former Miss Universe. Is it a romance?

M.J. [Laughter, giggling.] That’s a hard question to answer. Like most of the people you may see me out with, like Tatum [O’Neal] and Janelle, they’re kind of on and off, they’re friends, and [hysterical laughter] … I talk to them. I don’t know how to describe it, really [more laughter]. I don’t know what to say.

Michael says Tatum wants to take him camping, People Weekly, November 1978
http://www.the-michael-jackson-archives.com/mjtopofworld.html


They met at record producer Lou Adler’s private club, and she later took Michael on a date – he claims it was his first with anyone – to an open house at Hugh Hefner’s mansion. Yet Tatum has so far failed to persuade Michael to move up to Malibu to be near her. ”Girls,” he complains, ”want all your time.”

[..]

(Michael is) planning a three month tour with his brothers of, among other places, Saudi Arabia, the Philippines and Singapore. (A new LP , Destiny, the first completely written and produced by the Jacksons, has just shipped gold.) At some point, though, Michael wants to fit in a pleasure trip with Tatum. “She wants to take me camping. I’ve never done any of those things,” he says wistfully. “I been knowin’ this business all my life so there’s no way of quittin’-but I am ready for a nice long vacation.”

Michael wanted to go with Tatum to the premiere of the Wiz, 24 Oct, 1978


Michael invites Tatum to be his date for The Wiz but she turns him down and he goes alone.

Michael attends Tatum O'Neal's Birthday Party, November 5 1978


At 5:43 on Tatum and Ryan’s 2011 show The O’Neal’s where Tatum talks about the craziest birthday she ever had at a dinner.





Tatum: But for 16, dad, we had a party and we invited a couple hundred people and a couple of thousand came.
Ryan: I remember 15 now…
Tatum: 16 or 15.
Ryan: Oh I have to sit down.
Tatum: Sit down now. So, I remember Brooke Shields came.
(Someone mentions Michael)
Tatum: Well, Michael was there. Michael was there. (Show a picture of her and Michael) And it was just the craziest birthday and I remember going ‘Where were you dad? Where were you?” You were at the beach house.’

Michael talks about Tatum, Jet Dec 14, 1978


Michael Jackson’s first date is still his current one – but he isn’t saying it goes beyond that.

Jackson, who is part of the box office success of the film version of The Wiz, still dates teen actress Tatum O’Neal, who he said was really excited for me when I was cast for (it).

“She helped me, too, with advice on how to stay cool through it all. She and her dad (actor Ryan O’Neal) have been just great for me,” he told a Philadelphia Daily News interviewer.

Tatum interview, The Beautiful Brat, 1978


“He doesn’t believe in birthdays or Christmas or Halloween or any of those things. It’s so strange because I’d like to send him a Christmas card and he says I mustn’t do it. Strange, no presents. I think that’s so weird. I love presents more than anything and I thrive on them.”

Ryan O Neal characterized their relationship as “no big thing.”

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.