JACKO CAME AND SPLASHED IN OUR POOL

AFTER the success of Born Free, a composer named Walter Scharf called me and said he was working on a song for a movie called Ben, about a boy with leukaemia whose best friend is a rat. Walter said: ‘You wrote a number about a lion, now write one about a rat. What’s the difference?’ The tune was so lovely that the words came easily: ‘Ben, the two of us need look no more/ We both found what we were looking for.’ Now all we had to do was find someone to sing it. Lots of names were mentioned including Donny Osmond. Michael Jackson’s name came up because he was the hottest singer around as part of The Jackson 5. He had just announced that he was going solo. It was arranged for us to meet Michael at Walter’s studio in Brentwood, a fashionable area of Beverly Hills. He arrived with his father Joe and a couple of heavy-looking minders. Michael sat next to Walter on the piano seat as he played the tune and I sort of spoke/sang the lyric. There was a wonderful reaction from Michael and before long he was singing it. He particularly loved the lyric of the middle section: ‘I used to say I and me/ Now it’s us, now it’s we.’ Later on, in his autobiography, he wrote that they were his favourite lines of any of the songs he’d sung.

I got to know Michael very well throughout this period and he was a joy to be with. He was only 14 and as innocent as any normal kid of that age. When I moved to Los Angeles in 1974 we became even closer.

We rented a house on Somera Road in Bel Air and Michael would come and swim and play pool with my sons, Grant and Clive.

Shirley was learning to paint at that time and she and Michael did a drawing together of a Mexican peasant. This drawing became one of our most prized possessions.

I had the most surprising conversations with Michael about songs.

He told me his favourite song was Inchworm from Hans Christian Andersen and he sang it to us all around the pool table.

But one day I got a phone call from Michael’s father saying that if I or my family wanted to speak to Michael, from now on I would have to go through him.

It really shocked us all because every time he came over we all had such a fun time — particularly Michael.

I never called his father, and Michael and I sort of drifted apart.

The last time I saw him was at a Hollywood party. When he saw me, his face broke into a wide grin.

I got the feeling, though, that he didn’t smile much any more.