Michael Jackson

Their internationally recognized names sell music and movie tickets. They promote perfumes and presidents. But when it comes to selling their own houses, celebrities often find that their cachet doesn't pull in the cash. Actors Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell haven't found a buyer for their Malibu beach house, which comes with a raft of celeb-friendly amenities including a covered outdoor living room, a spa-like bath retreat and a meditation room. So the couple have nipped $3.5 million from last year's price, listing the Balinese-influenced oceanfront spread at $11.2 million.

Their internationally recognized names sell music and movie tickets. They promote perfumes and presidents. But when it comes to selling their own houses, celebrities often find that their cachet doesn't pull in the cash. Actors Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell haven't found a buyer for their Malibu beach house, which comes with a raft of celeb-friendly amenities including a covered outdoor living room, a spa-like bath retreat and a meditation room. So the couple have nipped $3.5 million from last year's price, listing the Balinese-influenced oceanfront spread at $11.2 million.

On Aug. 16, 1977, the day Elvis Presley died, folklorist William R. Ferris remembers that in Memphis "it was like the ground began to shake." Within hours, hundreds of pilgrims had descended on Graceland, and the process by which a beloved public personage is transformed into a mythic figure was underway. But which Elvis would be mythologized, and whose legacy would be preserved? The youthful rock rebel or the Las Vegas glitter god? The sultry crooner who gyrated his way into a nation's (and eventually the world's)

This post has been corrected. See the note at the bottom for details. Michael Jackson and Simon Cowell are hot. Elvis Presley, Larry King and Christina Aguilera -- not so much. At least those are the sentiments of tourists who requested views of celebrity homes from StarLine Tours, the largest tour bus company in Los Angeles. Based on such requests, the tour company Friday released its top 10 list of most requested celebrity homes for 2011 and the Holmby Hills mansion where the King of Pop died in 2009 was the most requested stop, followed by the Beverly Hills estate of former"American Idol"judge Cowell.

BEIJING - "Beijing power struggle heralds end of China Communist Party," screams one headline. More sensational headlines purport to reveal how the wife of recently sacked Politburo member Bo Xilai poisoned an Englishman, who may have been her lover. And if that weren't enough, other stories claim that "Bo planned airline crash" and "slept with more than 100 women. " It's payback time for Chinese exiles, especially those with a printing press, television station or just a computer at their disposal.

Behold, the second signing of Michael Jackson . . . by Pepsi-Cola for an estimated $50 million and duly noted by the Guinness Book of World Records as the biggest personal endorsement deal in history. For weeks, America's gossip journalists have dutifully printed teasers that the multimillionaire recluse might be on the verge of emerging from his post-Victory Tour retirement.

Los Angeles County coroner's officials said Wednesday that they have discovered security breaches involving the investigation into Michael Jackson's death, including hundreds of improper views of the pop star's death certificate and the discovery of weaknesses in two other computer systems in which more sensitive records are stored. At least half a dozen staff members inappropriately accessed Jackson's death certificate, officials said.

The surge in sales of Michael Jackson's music catalog continued Wednesday with the announcement that his recordings dominated the pop charts for the third consecutive week, and a source told The Times that more than 9 million of Jackson's albums have been sold worldwide since his death June 25. Nielsen SoundScan said Jackson's albums sold 1.1 million copies over the last seven days and had combined to sell an impressive 2.3 million in the U.S. in the nearly three weeks since he died.

Lying on the floor of his posh, newly remodeled Fifth Avenue apartment overlooking Central Park while getting a shiatsu massage, Hollywood mega-manager Sandy Gallin tells a reporter on the phone that he is finally ready to step out of the background and talk about the crisis plaguing his superstar client Michael Jackson. "Let me read you something," says Gallin, 53, who also represents such other pop icons as Dolly Parton and Neil Diamond. Reading an emotionally charged statement he has prepared for The Times in defense of Jackson--who five months ago was accused of molesting a 13-year-old boy and now faces a civil lawsuit set to go to trial March 21--Gallin finally breaks his carefully cultivated low profile, saying, "I can no longer remain a silent witness.

A Northridge doctor's license was suspended Thursday after medical authorities found that he had been injecting his daughter at home with propofol, the same drug that killed pop star Michael Jackson. Robert S. Markman, a retired anesthesiologist, constructed a treatment area in his adult daughter's "filthy" house, in a bedroom she rarely left, the Medical Board of California alleged in a ruling on an interim suspension order made public Thursday. Markman, according to the board's order, injected his daughter, referred to only as L.M., with the surgical anesthetic about 500 times over five years.

Michael Jackson's last Los Angeles-area residence, a French chateau in Holmby Hills, is back on the market at $23.9 million — $400,000 above what it was listed for last summer. The pop icon was leasing the 17,171-square-foot mansion for $100,000 a month when he died there in 2009 after receiving the surgical anesthetic propofol for insomnia. His doctor, Conrad Murray, was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in November and sentenced to four years in prison. "Crime scenes have a perceived stigma," said real estate consultant and appraiser Randall Bell, whose work has taken him to the homes of O.J. Simpson and Jon Benet Ramsey.

A judge ruled Friday that the doctor convicted in Michael Jackson's death must remain behind bars while lawyers appeal his case. Dr. Conrad Murray had asked to be released from jail, where he is serving two years for manslaughter, but Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Michael Pastor denied the bail motion, saying the physician is a flight risk. "The bottom line is the defense does not have significant property or employment or family ties in the Los Angeles or California area," Pastor said of Murray, a native of the Caribbean who practiced medicine in Nevada and Texas.

'Michael Jackson: The Immortal World Tour' Where: Staples Center, 1111 South Figueroa St., L.A. When: 8 p.m. Saturday and Sunday; new shows added Aug. 14-15 Price: $50 to $175 Info: (213) 742-7326; staplescenter.com

MUSIC Wilco Over its 17-year career, Jeff Tweedy's band has gradually moved from roots rock to something a bit more nebulous, as though the bandleader were with each album further distancing himself from his whiskey bottle and Levis past. The band is having fun not only with sound but with structure on "The Whole Love," without sacrificing catchiness. Nearly every song contains some tangential surprise, odd hook, sonic back flip or mid-song redefinition. Hollywood Palladium, 6215 Sunset Blvd., L.A. 7 p.m. $45. livenation.com.

In a dark booth at the Polo Lounge, just down the street from his Beverly Hills home, tour director extraordinaire Jamie King struggles to recall the day he hung up his dance shoes for good. Though his management badly wants this interview to stay on the topic of his current feats as the director-writer of the Cirque du Soleil/Michael Jackson tribute world tour, "The Immortal" (Tuesday and Wednesday at the Honda Center and Friday through Jan. 29 at Staples Center), as well as his stint directing Madonna's heat-seeking Super Bowl performance (Feb.

If the new Cirque du Soleil tribute to Michael Jackson, "Immortal," confirms one thing, it's that the King of Pop's presence, even in death, sure can rile up a crowd. Every time the late singer's image popped on-screen during the show's Las Vegas premiere on Saturday night, whether as a tyke with a golden voice as part of the Jackson 5 or as a Thriller with a sequined glove and a miraculous body for dance, the sold-out venue erupted, if only for a snapshot moment. But clips of Jackson being MJ, however magnetic, can't sustain an hour-and-a-half show dedicated to his music, nor can a dancing Bubbles the chimpanzee, big-Afroed J5 impersonators, a baffling mid-show cello solo, a sexy contortionist act atop a children's book, groups of synchronized mummies in hoop skirts and, most curiously, a life-sized dancing glove that looked more like a half-dead starfish.

End of the camp Re "LAPD, protesters face off," Nov. 30 Our city must congratulate the Police Department on its excellent work in sweeping out Occupy L.A. from the City Hall lawn. The department showed the organization of a world-class army. The protesters did not have a logical reason to be at City Hall, which does not have much of a say in the nation's economy. Perhaps they should organize against corporations that outsource jobs, or they could encourage people to buy U.S.-manufactured goods.