Free Michael Jackson by J. Randy Taraborrelli Page B

The delay had been caused when Ralph Seltzer discovered
     The Jackson 5 were still committed to Steeltown Records, despite Richard Aron's previous efforts to extricate them from that
     deal. Motown had to make a settlement with Steeltown, much to Gordy's chagrin. By this time, according to Ralph Seltzer, Motown
     had spent in excess of thirty thousand dollars on The Jackson 5, and this sum did not include any settlement made to Steeltown.
     Gordy was anxious to begin recouping his investment.
    In August 1969, more than a year since their audition, the call came from Motown: Gordy wanted Joseph, his five sons and Johnny
     Jackson and Ronny Rancifer to move to Los Angeles. They would attend school on the West Coast while recording at Motown's
     new Hollywood facilities. Though Gordy wasn't enthused by any of the Jacksons' songs, he was impressed with young Michael.
     ‘Michael was a born star,’ he would later say in an interview. ‘He was a classic example of understanding everything. I recognized
     that he had a depth that was so vast, it was just incredible. The first time I saw him, I saw this little kid as something
     real special.’
    Joseph, Tito, Jack Richardson, drummer Johnny Jackson, and keyboardist Ronny Rancifer drove to Los Angeles in the family's
     new Dodge Maxivan. Motown paid for Jackie, Jermaine, Marlon and Michael to fly out a few days later. It was Joseph's decision
     not to move the entire family from Gary to Los Angeles until he was certain that their future there would be secure. It was
     possible, after all, that Berry could be wrong, that the group would be a failure, and that they would have to start all over
     again. So Janet, Randy and LaToya stayed behind with Katherine in Gary.
    Berry registered the family at one of the seediest motels in Hollywood, the Tropicana, on Santa Monica Boulevard. Michael,
     Marlon and Jermaine shared one room while Tito and Jackie were in another. Joseph was down the hall. The family saw little
     of their rooms. Since it was still school vacation, they spent most of their waking hours at Motown's Hollywood studios rehearsing
     and recording.
    Eventually, Gordy pulled the family out of the Tropicana and moved them to the Hollywood Motel, across the street from Hollywood
     High and closer to Motown headquarters. This was an even more dreadful residence for young boys; prostitutes and pimps used
     it as a place to conduct business. However, none of that mattered to the Jacksons. Why would it? They were living in California.
     Even if they didn't see movie stars on every corner as they had dreamed, Los Angeles was heaven compared to Gary.
    To the Jacksons' young eyes, everything seemed new. Michael had never seen a real palm tree before he got to California. ‘And
     here were whole streets lined with them,’ he once recalled. There were expensive, luxury automobiles everywhere they looked,
     and everyone driving them seemed to wear sunglasses, even on those overcast mornings when the sun didn't emerge until noon.
     In fact, as the young Jacksons would soon learn, many people wore their sunglasses at night too. ‘Now
that's
Hollywood livin',’ Joseph said.
    One afternoon, Berry called a meeting of the gang at Diana Ross's home. This was the first time the boys had seen her since
     the show they gave at Berry's home in Detroit the previous winter. Diana's house may not have been spectacular by Hollywood
     standards – she was a single woman, at the time, living in a three-bedroom temporary residence in Hollywood Hills while in the
     process of purchasing a new, more opulent home in Beverly Hills – but when the five Jackson boys and their father compared her
     digs to their garage-sized house in Gary, it was hard for them to act cool.
    Michael has recalled that Gordy sat the boys down in Diana's living room and had a talk with them. ‘I'm gonna make you kids
     the biggest thing in the world,’ he told them. ‘You're gonna have three number-one hits in a row.