The team of paparazzi who took the now infamous final photograph of Michael Jackson had fixated on the King of Pop—both with their cameras and without—for years, camping outside his gate and communing with his most fervent fans. In exclusive interviews, they recount the play-by-play of the shot seen round the world.
Weiss, whose voice has the clear, generous intelligence of a Boy Scout, remembers, “The girls would huddle outside the hotel gate that was closest to Jackson ’s bungalow, sitting very quietly so that security would not find them. And sometimes Michael would come out and say hello. One time he handed out five handwritten letters that said things like ‘I can feel your energy through the walls. You inspire me so much. I love you all. Thank you for being there. Thank you for being my friend. Thank you for loving me. With all the love in my heart, Michael Jackson.’ I was always impressed by that, how deeply he seemed to care for these girls. When he hugged one of them, he would put one hand on her neck, behind her head, that extra-comforting move like you would do to a person you know. The writing in those letters had a style that was personal, deep, flowery, ornate. It was not ‘Thanks guys. Have a good night. I hope you like the music.’”
This, too, may sound like a sentimental exaggeration, but it is not. I spent a week with the women that Weiss and Evenstad are talking about, while researching Starstruck, a book I wrote about relationships between celebrities and fans. No star was more generous to fans (every member of the core group of Jackson fans that I met had, at some point, been invited into his house to have dinner or to watch movies and hang out), and no group of fans treated one another with more generosity than these women.
“To figure out who would get the letters that Michael wrote to the group,” Weiss says, “the girls would draw straws. They would write their names on pieces of paper and throw them in my camera bag, and I would reach in and draw names. The girl who got the letter would take it and make photocopies and give them to all of the others.”
On June 25, National sent a photographer named Alfred Ibanez to the house. Just after noon, Ibanez called Evenstad, panicked: “There is an ambulance here. Get your video camera and get here now.”
On the way to the scene, Evenstad called Weiss and the rest of his photographers on their cell phones, ordering them to Jackson ’s house immediately. Weiss, who was staking out Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s driveway (the couple had spent the previous night at the Hollywood Roosevelt hotel, Pitt had just returned home in his black Prius, and Weiss was waiting in hopes of getting a shot of Jolie, as well), raced 7.9 miles to Jackson’s. He arrived to find the National photographers (the only paps there) talking to two fans and three autograph collectors who’d been in front of the house all morning. Weiss saw an ambulance inside the gates and a fire truck parked on the street. Ibanez had zoomed in through the window of the fire truck with his telephoto lens and snapped a picture of the call screen, which provided a few details about the situation inside. At this point, Weiss’s experience as an E.M.T. came in handy. He read from the digital image: “50-year-old male … not breathing … ”
“That told me this was probably serious,” Weiss says, “and not just an anxiety attack like he’s had in the past.” Still, he adds, “you can never know exactly what ‘not breathing’ means at that point. It’s laypeople being quoted in a clinical context.” The more time passed, the less serious Weiss figured Jackson ’s problems must be. “We were there for 20 minutes,” he says, “and if you’ve got a full arrest”—when a patient really has stopped breathing—“the paramedics usually load and go within 8 to 10 minutes.”
Having been scooped in the past, Evenstad knew anything could happen. As the ambulance started backing down the driveway toward the gate, he barked orders at his guys: “This might be the biggest picture ever, so get up to the windows of that vehicle and shoot. I don’t care if you can’t see. Just shoot.” When he saw Weiss standing a foot from the window, he worried that Weiss would get nothing more than a picture of the reflection of his own camera flash. Weiss says, “Ben told me, ‘Put your lens against the window, and shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot.’”
“We couldn’t see inside the ambulance,” Weiss continues. “For all I knew when I was taking the pictures, Michael could have been sitting up on a gurney with oxygen on.”
The National photographers jumped in two cars that followed the Jackson entourage’s two blue Escalades that followed the screaming ambulance to the emergency room at U.C.L.A. medical center—and by then, TMZ and other paps were on the scene. When Evenstad rushed the ambulance, one of Jackson ’s bodyguards tried to block his camera and said, “‘C’mon man. Don’t do this. This isn’t cool,’” and Evenstad said, “‘When it’s this big, we have to,’ and I ran around to the other side, because at a certain point there’s no delicacy. We gotta do what we gotta do.”
Weiss saw a look on the guards’ faces that made him believe something was really wrong: “They were being aggressive, but it was remorseful aggressiveness. ‘Please guys, please just stop.’ They kept saying ‘please.’”
By then, Weiss had checked the last few frames he’d shot through the ambulance window, and all he saw was a reflection on the glass. “I thought, I didn’t get it. I was depressed that I missed a shot that could have been a big deal.”
中文來源：mjjcn.com 翻譯：阿重
Christopher Weiss，還有他的老闆Ben Evenstad 是拍攝Michael Jackson被搶救的最後一張近身照的狗仔隊。
Evenstad說：“作為一個狗仔隊，你得花大量的時間來追蹤那些性感明星，但是，Michael Jackson他不一樣，他是一個像霍華德休一樣的隱士。面具，遮陽傘和神秘，我覺得他比任何其他明星都有趣。
他還有一群比任何明星所擁有的，都更有趣的fans——這群人，大部分都是女性，她們會追著他滿世界地跑。
如果他去愛爾蘭、法國、巴林、Neverland，那接下來，她們也會出現在那兒。總是這麼一群人。沒有人擁有過他所擁有的fans。我想瞭解這是為什麼。”儘管Jackson有戴面具的習慣，但他並不害怕和他的fans面對面的接觸 2008. 10
Weiss說：“這些女孩子會蜷縮在離他房間最近的飯店門口，非常安靜地呆著，這樣保安就不會發現他們。
然後，有時候Michael會出來跟他們打招呼
有一次，他給了她們寫了5張手信
上面寫著‘隔著牆，我可以感覺到你們的力量 你們給我了很大的鼓勵 我愛你們所有的人
謝謝你們在那兒等我 謝謝你們願意和我成為朋友 謝謝你們給我的愛 我從心底愛你們——Michael Jackson’我對那些話印象深刻，他看上去是多麼地在乎那些女孩子。
當他擁抱她們其中一個的時候，他會把手放在她的後頸上，她的後腦勺上。一個非常舒服自然地動作，就像你會對一個你認識的人所做的那樣。
那些信上的內容讓人感覺是私人的，真心的，還有點兒辭藻華麗的。
這不是一封敷衍的草草打發你的信，像是“謝謝你們，祝你們晚上愉快，我希望你們會喜歡我的音樂。”
沒有一個明星會比他對fans更慷慨了（幾乎每個中堅歌迷團中的人都被邀請進過他的家，和他一塊兒進晚餐或者看電影，非常輕鬆隨意）
也沒有別的歌迷團比她們之間更相親相愛的了
“為了選出誰能獲得Michael寫的信，這些女孩會抽籤。她們把名字寫在紙片上扔進我的照相包裏，然後我抽出一張。
這個獲得信的女孩會把這封信影印，然後分給所有其他的女孩。
他是唯一一個會讓你進他家的明星，如果你真的表現的那麼熱誠的話。
你以為憑著幾句“i love you，i love you”就能夢想走進布魯斯威利斯的家？他八成會打電話報警的。
幾乎所有的明星都會這麼做，幾乎所有的，除了Michael Jackson。
如果你和他說“i love you ，i love you”他就會認為你是真的愛他
然後，他就讓你進了他的家門。”
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