"Thriller" Director Remembers Jackson

John Landis: Star Was Disciplined Talent But Tortured And Complex Celebrity

(CBS)  Michael Jackson's ground-breaking music video, "Thriller" transformed the face of pop music. The director of the video, John Landis, is now sharing his memories of Jackson with CBS News correspondent Richard Roth.

"Michael was the biggest star in the world at the same moment in Asia, in Africa, in South America, in North America, in every corner of the world. He was the number one star," Landis said.

Landis didn't create Michael Jackson, but as director of "Thriller" - the most phenomenally successful music video ever made - Landis did create what became Jackson's most startling image as pop idol more than 25 years ago.

The music video had its roots in Landis' movie "An American Werewolf In London." Jackson had seen the film and told Landis he wanted to become a monster.

"There was a kind of innocence in coming to you with that request," Roth remarked.

"Yes and no, because when you are the king, and when you are royal and when you have a certain amount of fame and or money - I thought Michael Jackson? Little Michael Jackson?" Landis remembered.

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He found Jackson a profoundly gifted performer. An enormous, disciplined talent, said Landis, but a tortured and complex celebrity. "I always got on well with Michael. He was not stupid. This was not an ignorant person. He was childlike. He was emotionally stunted. He clearly, he had no childhood, he named his ranch Neverland - these are not subtle clues," Landis told Roth.

Nor was there any subtlety in what Landis calls "the bizarre plastic surgery."

"When I worked with him on 'Thriller' he had had some surgeries. He looked good but had had some cosmetic surgery. Why, I don't know," Landis said.

And by the time of their next collaboration, Landis found Jackson's appearance unsettling. "When we came to do 'Black or White' I was quite taken aback by what he did to his face and his body. I was kind of distressed by it. It was like, 'Why did you do that?'"

Landis told Roth he said that to Jackson, and that the star didn't speak to him for two years.

He says their friendship survived that; but they had not spoken recently - and Landis still has lawsuits against Jackson over unpaid royalties: a legacy now left for the estate to untangle.

[Henri_Rochard]

"...the most phenomenally successful music video ever made..."

Personally, I liked 'Hot For Teacher' of approx. the same time period.