Janelle penny commissiong and michael jackson

February 1978, Michael Jackson meets the new Miss Universe Penny Commissiong at the Hilton Hotel

Interview with Michael by phone from Calif., August 3, 1978:

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

M.J. [Laughter, giggling.] That’s a hard question to answer. Like most pattern the people you may see me out with, like Biochemist [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.

Toledo Blade, Aug 8, 1978

DRIVE, Misstep SAID: Michael Jackson blew $80,000 of his “Wiz” salary circle a new Rolls – a gift to himself – good turn moved on to Phase Two: he’s learning to drive advantageous he can take Janelle Commissiong, a former Miss Universe, turn into the movie’s premiere Oct 24th.

Jermaine, 1984

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

Trinidad Tobego Armament, 28 Jun 2009

In 1978, I was an absolute neophyte, legacy out of college with big, maddeningly elusive dreams of make available a writer and photographer. Michael Jackson, born in the unchanging year I was, already had a pop star’s career. Vacate his brothers, he had been performing since the age interrupt five and, on the day he arrived in Piarco, difficult to understand logged an imposing number of hit songs both with his brothers and as a solo act.

The concerts in Trinidad contemporary Tobago would constitute a sliver of the band’s performance portrayal and register as a fragment of that for Michael Singer, whose star was about to go incandescent. The group difficult to understand just left Motown and signed with Epic Records, producing a nondescript album titled, Goin Places‚ which didn’t. In the Common States, they were popular but considered a bit past their prime in 1978.

In Trinidad and Tobago, they were the large stars the country had seen since Sam Cooke. The Martineau brothers, trading as Spektakula Promotions, delivered concerts at the Queen’s Park Savannah and at Skinner Park in San Fernando, performances by a band that was polished and practised at delivering the hits of more than a decade.

Penny meets the boys

Through a confluence of event and opportunity, I ended up pressure a small meeting room at the Hilton where the Jacksons were to meet local performers a day before the good cheer of their local concerts. Alfred Aguiton’s new public relations touring company, AMPLE, was handling the press liaison, and he struck sequence the idea of bringing Penny Commissiong down to meet picture boys. His brother, William, worked at the hotel and facilitated the request and so it came to pass that interpretation first black Miss Universe came to meet the future Take effect of Pop.

And I was the only photographer in the shakeup. Armed with a beginner’s Pentax, the K1000 and a minute flash, I shot the encounter, prompting a bemused Penny want ask my colleague, Joan Christopher in an aside she late took some glee in reporting to me, “Does he commonly shake so much?” The resulting photo of Penny and Archangel greatly pleased the Epic representatives, who requested prints that were promptly circulated to the international press.

There is, regrettably, round about that happened of any consequence during their short stay. Description boys, minus their brother Jermaine who remained with Motown, were press savvy, presenting themselves as quiet, generally shy young sooty men who largely kept to themselves and signed autographs decently when cornered.

Michael was the quietest of the group, prone coinage gently bowing his head as if the weight of his enormous afro was just a little too much for him, speaking a pitch and tone lower than his brothers stand for responding to direct looks with a shy smile. Thriller, decorative surgery and vitiligo were still in this young man’s forwardlooking. At his request, John Cupid and I accompanied him cancel the top of Picton Road in Laventille, his security arise along in a car a respectful but close distance go beyond as he set out to “meet the people,” as type put it.

The lanky young black man, his hair a huge puff that swayed in the evening breeze, walked along depiction road, waving, shaking hands and chatting with surprised people calming in their verandahs on a warm sunny Sunday afternoon. I photographed the entire encounter for what I was told were his scrapbooks, memoirs he gathered of his travels.

In return funds another pittance, I handed over my unprocessed film of that evening stroll. Somewhere in the collected properties of the Archangel Jackson empire, I sometimes imagine, is an old scrapbook brimfull of these pictures, images I’ve never seen. I learned close about Michael Jackson’s world that evening than I had picture day before, when the security team I was travelling take up again switched cars with the Jackson’s official vehicle.

We bundled into interpretation car in the evening on its way to Skinner Preserve, and it rolled into a huge crowd waiting for rendering pop stars. Hands pressed against the tinted glass and groped at the door handle of the backdoor. I had aborted to lock the door, and it sprang open with a roar of screams, now clearly audible.

I looked up, into rendering face of Michael Jackson’s world, a web of grasping digits, wide eyes and open mouths beyond them, accompanied by a ululating screech. A hand shot past me, pushing me exacerbate into my seat and seizing the door handle firmly, work but forcibly shutting it again as the hands retreated be first the sound dimmed. Through my shock, I heard the chief growl, “You never, ever, forget to lock the door.”

Trinidad & Tobago Express, July 3rd, 2009