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Thread of pain ran through Jackson career
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-06-28 21:28

In 1990, he was hospitalized with chest pains. In 1993, he canceled a performance due to dehydration and later cut his tour short because of his painkiller addiction. In 1995, he collapsed on stage at the Beacon Theater in New York and was hospitalized.

Then there was London. Mounting a comeback aimed at least in part on erasing the taint of years of scandal, Jackson was to perform a staggering 50 shows at the O2 arena, the first of them in mid-July.

Thread of pain ran through Jackson career
Michael Jackson performs during the halftime show at the NFL's Super Bowl XXVII in Pasadena, California, in this January 31, 1993 file photo. [Agencies] 

It was a schedule daunting enough that Jackson was training in recent months with Lou Ferrigno, the star of TV's "Incredible Hulk." And while a 50-show run would be challenging even for an athlete in his prime, Jackson was 50 years old. As he aged, his appearance had become famously, almost spectrally, drawn.

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Those involved in the production said Jackson was heavily involved in all aspects of the concert rehearsals. He had hired a personal trainer and was practicing with backup dancers and choreographers several hours a day.

"He was working hard, setting the example, overseeing the choreography, kicking butt and taking names," said Johnny Caswell, president of CenterStaging Musical Productions Inc., a Burbank, California, sound stage where Jackson rehearsed until late May. "He was ready to blow everybody out of the water."

Randy Phillips, president and CEO of AEG Live, the producers of the London show, said Jackson was dancing "as well or better than the 20-year-old dancers we surrounded him with. ... He was riveting."

Maryss Courchinoux, a 29-year-old from Paris who said she had been selected as a backup dancer for the show, described the tour rehearsals as more arduous than the performances themselves.

"A heart is a muscle," she said. "If you don't build it up little by little, you will have problems and start cramping up. I don't know what his lifestyle was before he started rehearsing."

Jackson's family said he died of cardiac arrest on Thursday at UCLA Medical Center. A person familiar with the situation, speaking on condition of anonymity because the person had not been authorized to speak publicly, said it was an apparent heart attack.

Others familiar with a life in dancing and performing spoke similarly of its physical demand, in particular, the need for consistent practice. It is not, they said, a line of work in which a performer can figuratively jump from zero to 60 mph (100 kph) or more.

"You can never stop," said Jodi Moccia, a dance teacher and a choreographer who works with the cast of "Mamma Mia!" to prevent injuries. "Once you stop, those muscles don't come back like they usually do."