MICHAEL JACKSON went to great lengths to protect his identity during regular trips to the cinema - he once dressed as an old man and rolled up to a theatre in a wheelchair for a date with pal KENNY ORTEGA.
The music mogul/director behind Jackson's This Is It show and concert rehearsal film thought the King of Pop had stood him up - until a crippled old man approached him.
He recalls, "He loved going places but he couldn't go unless he was incognito. I remember waiting for him one time outside a movie theatre to go see Beowulf at Universal Studios in Hollywood, and he said, 'I'll meet you in front of the theatre.'
"I don't know what I was thinking. I was looking for Michael Jackson to show up to meet me. I'd been with him many times before when he dressed up - he went to the theatre in New York as the Mata Hari's daughter once. You wouldn't believe some of the outfits that we saw him in.
"So I'm standing around and looking around. There were young tourists running up to me to get my autograph because they recognised me from High School Musical, and this old, old man in a wheelchair is getting closer and closer to me until I just went, 'You son of a gun!' It was Michael just laughing under his plastic face.
"I went over and wheeled this old man into the movie theatre - it was the only way he could get in and more importantly get out. If we could sneak him in, if people knew that he was somewhere it was almost impossible to get him out."

28 November 2009 01:26