The Peter Pan of Pop

For nearly 14 years Jackson has been making his own breathless brand of show-business history. He first burst into view in 1969, as the 10-year-old dancing dynamo who dipped, spun and sang for the Jackson 5, a quintet of buoyant young brothers. Over the next decade he helped sell more than 90 million records, both with that group and as a solo artist. Heir to a great tradition of black stagecraft, he has become a whirling dervish of the modern recording studio. In 1979 he helped bring black music into the '80s with "Off the Wall," a luminous set of high-tech dance hits, including four Top 10 singles—the most from any one album by any solo performer in the history of recorded music.

Supercharged: Now, at 24, Jackson seems poised for another surge. He wrote and produced Diana Ross's recent Top 10 hit, "Muscles." He narrated and sang a song for the storybook album of "E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial." And for "Thriller," his long-awaited sequel to "Off the Wall," he has fashioned a supercharged pop classic for the '80s—flashy, futuristic, floridly upbeat.

Despite his showy style, Michael Jackson remains something of an enignia. Onstage in one of his sequined jump suits, he's a flamboyant picture of grace, a sleek jaguar ready to pounce. In photographs he's a creature of sweet sensuality, beguiling, angelic, androgynous. In person, though, he's quiet and reserved, a gangling young man of cagey reticence, with a childlike aura of wonder.

He lives with his mother and two younger sisters in a Tudor-style estate in the San fernando Valley. On the grounds he keeps a small menagerie that includes a llama named Louis, a boa constrictor named Muscles and a sheep named Mr. Tibbs. "I think they're sweet," says Michael in his willowy whisper of a voice. "I like to pry into their world and watch the way they move about. I just stare at them." He is equally fascinated by the world of children: "When I'm upset about a recording session, I'll dash off on my bike and ride to the schoolyard, just to be around them. When I come back to the studio, I'm ready to move mountains. Kids do that to me. It's like magic."

Magic is the key. It's a word that Jackson uses with disarming frequency, as if to conjure up a never-never land of constant enchantment. Beethoven, Rembrandt, Charlie Chaplin—all these things to him are magic. It was certainly magic when he met E.T.: "He grabbed me, he put his arms around me. He was so real that I was talking to him. I kissed him before I left." And the magic doesn't stop there: "I have dreams to this day about flying," he says, explaining his love for Steven Spielberg's airborne Extraterrestrial. He pauses and leans forward: "We can fly, you know. We just don't now how to think the right thoughts and levitate ourselves off the ground."

Michael Jackson as Peter Pan? The notion sounds ridiculous—until you consider Michael's point of view. His saga has the flavor of a modern-day fairy tale.

Growing up in the dingy ghetto of Gary, Ind., the fifth child in a family of eight, he virtually stepped from his crib to the stage. He was coached by his father, a crane operator who had once played with the Falcons, an early rock band. "There was a big baseball park behind our house," recalls Michael. "You could hear the cheers of the crowd. But I never had any desire to play baseball. I would be inside working, rehearsing." At the age of five he played his first paying gig with the Jackson 5. "When we sang, people would throw all this money on the floor," says Michael—"tons of dollars, 10s, 20s, lots of change. I remember my pockets being so full of money that I couldn't keep my pants up. I'd wear a real tight belt. And I'd buy candy like crazy."

Rewarded: The group began to win talent shows. Back home in Gary they took time to perform at benefits for Muigwighania, a local black-pride organization led by a man named Richard Hatcher. When Hatcher later became the city's first black mayor, he rewarded the Jacksons by spotlighting them at a 1968 civic "Soul Weekend" starring Diana Ross and the Supremes. "He won me over the first moment I saw him," Ross told NEWSWEEK in 1970. "I saw so much of myself as a child in Michael. He was performing all the time. That's the way I was. He could be my son." She convinced her boss, Berry Gordy, to audition the group for his legendary Motown label.