The Curious Case Of Michael Jackson And The Perth Telethon

Ian “Molly” Meldrum says it’s one of the strangest phone calls he’s ever received.

It was supposedly from Channel Seven in Perth. “The gentleman on the phone explained that Seven had an annual telethon and this year’s special guest was going to be Michael Jackson,” Molly recalls.

Would Molly be able to fly to Perth to look after the artist?

Molly thought it was a silly prank. Michael Jackson was the biggest star in the world – the King of Pop. Why would he go all the way to Perth for a telethon?

“And at this stage, there were so many weird and wonderful stories floating around about Michael, from talking to animals, befriending a chimpanzee named Bubbles, to collecting the bones of the Elephant Man … in fact, the English tabloids were calling him ‘Wacko Jacko’. So I put down the phone and thought nothing more of it.”

That is, until Channel Seven called back. After several more calls, Molly agreed to go.

“I doubted that Michael would be there, but it was all for a good cause, particularly the Princess Margaret Hospital for Children.”

When Molly landed in Perth, he headed straight to the Entertainment Centre, where the superstar was scheduled to appear on stage. There was a huge crowd, but no Michael.

About 30 minutes later, a limo pulled up and out jumped a little man wearing a hat. Molly recognised him straight away – it was Bill Bray, Michael’s personal bodyguard.

“That’s when I knew Michael Jackson was in Perth.”

The Lord Mayor, Mick Michael, presented Michael with the keys to the city as fans rushed the stage to mob the King of Pop. 

The telethon was still to come, but Michael’s minders said he’d done his bit by appearing on stage, and he was not going to go to the studio. But Janet Holmes à Court, the wife of Channel Seven’s owner, Robert Holmes à Court, had other ideas.

Janet and Robert – who was Perth’s first billionaire – had an afternoon party at their house. Molly was there, but there was no sign of Michael. He later discovered he was in the study watching tapes of Sammy Davis Jr performing at previous telethons. Michael was impressed because he loved Sammy.

Janet then asked Michael if he’d like to go out on their boat, which he did, leaving his minders back on shore. Janet suggested he might like to go to the studio for the telethon. The Sammy Davis Jr trick worked – Michael said yes.

“He arrived at Channel Seven with Janet, looking very nervous,” Molly remembers. “He kept squeezing Janet’s hand, whispering, ‘This is so embarrassing.’”

Michael eventually agreed to sit next to Molly and the telethon host, Peter Waltham. He also said hello to the “Little Telethon Stars” Helen Francis and Luke Smith. “It was a real treat for everyone. Michael then returned to Janet’s side, again clutching her hand.”

At the end of the night, Michael reappeared, standing in front of a host of celebrities, including Barry Crocker, Greg Evans, Jack Klugman and Molly.

Robert Holmes à Court thanked the American star: “To our special guest, Mr Michael Jackson, who has travelled across the world to be here. Michael has put in time with the children at the hospital … many of whom will remember for the rest of their lives that they met Michael Jackson.”

And Fat Cat presented Michael Jackson with a red cowboy hat.

Michael donated a pair of his white socks to the telethon, which were auctioned on the night. He signed a certificate of authentication: “I, Michael Jackson, do hereby certify that this pair of socks is from my personal collection and they have been worn by me in concert.”

The telethon raised a record $2.8 million for the Princess Margaret Hospital.

While in WA, Michael also met a group of young Aborigines in Fremantle, recording their didgeridoo playing on a tape recorder. He spent time at an antique bookshop, buying two 19th-century medical books on skin disease. He shopped for toys at City Liquidators, posed for photos with local police, and held a koala at Cohunu Koala Park, then located in Gosnells, about 20km from Perth.

“It was,” Molly notes, “a surreal weekend.”

Michael told Molly, “I’m happy to be here, everybody has been so wonderful and so kind, it’s worth the trip. It’s a long flight, but it’s worth it.”

But as the music guru flew home to Melbourne, he still had no idea why the biggest pop star on the planet had agreed to fly halfway around the world for a telethon that was shown only in WA.

And then Molly found out the real reason – it was a business deal.

Unbeknownst to Molly, Robert Holmes à Court had acquired ATV Music Publishing, which had a catalogue of more than 4000 songs, including 251 Beatles songs. The Perth media and mining magnate had no real interest in music publishing, so the businessman known as “The Great Acquirer” put the catalogue up for sale.

Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney were friends. Thriller’s first single was a Jackson/McCartney duet, The Girl Is Mine. And when they recorded Say Say Say, a duet for Paul’s Pipes of Peace album, Paul and his wife, Linda, spoke with Michael about the importance of music publishing.

Michael informed Paul that he would one day buy the Beatles’ songs. Paul laughed. “Great. Good joke.”

Initially, Holmes à Court’s people thought that Michael was acting on behalf of Paul, in a ploy to keep the price down. 

Paul and Yoko Ono had been keen to buy the Beatles’ catalogue. But Michael wanted it more. And when Robert Holmes à Court told Michael he’d do the deal if Michael did the telethon, Michael got on the plane.

“As my dear friend Michael Gudinski was fond of saying,” Molly smiles, “if you want something badly enough, ‘no flight is too long’.”

Robert Holmes à Court’s right-hand man, Bert Reuter, claims Paul was given first right of refusal, but he decided the deal was “too pricey”.

After more than 10 months of negotiations, described as “a game of poker”, Michael bought the publishing company for $47.5 million. He was so happy, he presented a new Rolls-Royce to both his manager, Frank DiLeo and attorney John Branca.

Paul McCartney was not so happy. “Years later, he told me he tried several times to buy the Beatles catalogue from Michael, but it got to the point where Michael wouldn’t even return his calls,” Molly says.

Michael would later explain, “If he didn’t want to invest $47.5 million in his own songs, then he shouldn’t come crying to me now.”

The year after acquiring the catalogue, Michael covered the Lennon-McCartney composition Come Together, which would later turn up on his 1995 best-of, HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I.

Also in 1995, Sony offered Michael $110 million for 50 per cent of ATV. In 2016, Sony bought the rest of the company for a reported $750 million.

When Michael Jackson died in 2009, Janet Holmes à Court remembered “an astonishing experience” in Perth in 1985. “He was like a tiny, immature little boy who never had the chance to grow up.”

Two of the other key characters in this story are also no longer with us. Robert Holmes à Court died suddenly of heart failure in 1990, aged 53. And the telethon host, Peter Waltham, died in April of this year, aged 83.

In October 1985, Michael flew home from Perth with what he wanted. But a piece of the Beatles’ catalogue remains in Australia.

Before doing the deal, Robert Holmes à Court called his teenage daughter Catherine. “What’s your favourite Beatles song?” he asked.

Like Channel Seven contacting Molly, this was another strange phone call. Catherine had no idea why her dad was asking about a band that broke up not long after she was born.

When pressed to reveal her favourite Beatles song, she finally replied:

Penny Lane.

Robert Holmes à Court agreed to sell the entire catalogue to Michael Jackson – apart from Penny Lane.

He kept that for his daughter, who now owns the song.