Michael Jackson

The posthumous affairs of Michael Jackson boiled down to two things Tuesday: His memorial service will draw a huge crowd and the settling of his estate will be complicated. Beyond that was a storm of rumor, supposition and educated guess interrupted by snatches of information more intriguing than complete. An entertainment attorney who had worked for Jackson produced a 7-year-old will that named him and a music executive as executors.

Authorities investigating the circumstances of Michael Jackson's death are relying in part on several bags of evidence they have removed over the last week from the pop star's Holmby Hills mansion, including prescription drugs that one source said were not in Jackson's name. It will be several weeks before the Los Angeles County coroner's office determines whether prescription medications played any part in the singer's death. But experts said prescriptions in multiple names would raise concern.

Michael Jackson couldn't have picked a better time to make a comeback. There he was on Thursday, the fashion muse of the fall season, announcing his "final" tour in London while dressed in a sparkly, "Thriller"-era jacket that looked a lot like the ones coming down the runway at Balmain just hours before at Paris Fashion Week.

Michael Jackson's death is unlikely to result in murder charges against any of the performer's doctors, according to a senior law enforcement official familiar with the evidence being assembled by a multiagency investigation. "There's nothing I have been told that would suggest a murder charge. It's just so remote and so unsupported by the facts as they've been gathered," said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the probe is continuing.

Moving quickly to capitalize on fans' appetite for anything related to Michael Jackson, administrators for the singer's estate have mapped out elaborate plans for merchandising deals, a tribute concert, a television special and even a traveling exhibition of Jackson memorabilia. In a court filing last week, Jeryll S. Cohen, a lawyer for the administrators, said she expected the deals to generate an amount in the "high eight figures" -- tens of millions of dollars -- for the singer's estate.

From his rented mansion on Carolwood Drive, Michael Jackson sketched out ideas for the merchandise he planned to sell in conjunction with his "This Is It" concert series at London's O2 Arena, including a varsity jacket and a red handbag with a diagonal black stripe that evoked his costumes from the "Thriller" music video. The May brainstorming session resulted in designs for more than 300 items, including jigsaw puzzles and games for children and rhinestone dog tags.

With his love of old-time Hollywood glamour, showy art and showmanship, Michael Jackson would probably have welcomed his family's announcement Tuesday that his remains will be interred in the star-laden, sculpture-speckled confines of Forest Lawn Memorial-Park in Glendale. Jackson will be interred Aug. 29, which would have been his 51st birthday, in an intimate morning service for family and friends in the expansive cemetery's Great Mausoleum, according to a statement from the family publicist.

In the days after his death, Michael Jackson's mother reportedly worried that if her son's funeral was too long delayed, his soul might wander the earth. In a more secular sense, that is exactly what has been happening. Remembering Jackson -- debating his legacy, listening to his music, trying to make sense of his life -- has become the world's favorite activity. The shape of Jackson's shadow grows only more complicated as these thoughts and memories accrue.

I'll always regret that my last conversation with Michael Jackson ended with him angrily hanging up the phone -- at least I've long thought of Michael's mood that day more than a decade ago as angry. I realize now that a more accurate description would be "wounded." Michael was among the sweetest and most talented people I met during 35 years covering pop music for the Los Angeles Times. I was fortunate to be present at many of his proudest moments. I was in the audience the night in 1983 that he unveiled the electrifying moonwalk on the Motown TV special and in the studio in 1985 for the all-star "We Are the World" recording session.

Of all the myths enshrouding Michael Jackson's too-brief life, none was more potent than his image as the isolated artist, the tormented creative soul cut off from ordinary mortals. It's an archetype with a strongly American pedigree, as grizzled and hoary as Citizen Kane clutching his snow globe while he sits alone in Xanadu, brooding on happier days. Thoreau took to his cabin in the woods. Howard Hughes hid out naked in germ-free hotels. Elvis holed up in Graceland under the sway of drugs and a byzantine retinue of friends and false comforters.