Show Business: He Hasn't Gone Crazy over Success

Inside his world: swans, a soda fountain and a very private wonderland

Michael Jackson stays in his fantasy kingdom, away from public and press alike. His parents also avoid the press, but TIME Correspondent Denise Worrell was able to talk at length with them and be taken through the family's Encino home. Joseph and Katherine Jackson offered a unique look into their son's childhood, his talent and his inner world.

Until the last minute, there was no assurance I would see Joseph Jackson, Michael's father. I doubted I would. The meeting place had already been changed from his home in Encino, a wealthy Los Angeles suburb, to his office, on the seventh floor of the Motown Building in Hollywood. At 1:30 p.m. my contact put in a call to the elder Jackson's office to remind him we were on our way. He wasn't there. We waited and waited. Finally Jackson's office returned the call. We got there at around 4 o'clock.

Jackson stands up when we enter the room. He is wearing black pants, a black short-sleeved shirt, a maroon tie decorated with the official Olympic seal. He is not quite 6 ft. tall, with thin legs and a slight paunch. On one wrist is a gold watch, on the other a gold chain bracelet with colored stones. He wears a gold-and-diamond ring on the fourth finger of his left hand. His hair falls over his ears, the thin corkscrew curls shiny. His eyes are green, his mustache a pencil line over his lip. His nose looks as if it might have been broken once. There is a black mole the size of a nickel on his right cheek.

The office is unimpressive: regulation furniture, except for a rectangular brown marble desk that sits like a sarcophagus on a chrome stand. There is a glass-and-metal étagère with a stereo and records. An ink sketch of a lion's face with blue eyes hangs on the wall, and there is a small bronze lion on the desk. Jackson tells me he is a Leo. A picture of Michael onstage in a silvery costume hangs above a small table along with two ivory elephant tusks carved into totems. Jackson is nervous, wary. He talks very gently. I get the sense that he is used to trying to protect himself. He seems to think that people are out to get him, and they probably are. He is not sophisticated, but he is canny. Instinct is definitely the light in his eyes.

At first the conversation is strained. He warms up after about 20 minutes, talking about his boys and how he trained them, and especially about Michael: ".I remember when Michael was a little kid. We used to do personal appearances on Friday and Saturday nights. I'd take the children out all over the city and into other cities. Michael would get his allowance every week from the tours. I gave him $20, and he would buy a lot of candy. He would call all his friends in the neighborhood and Michael would give them candy, and he would enjoy them eating candy. That was the main thing he liked to do, and he loved to sing and dance. Michael's got the gift all right. It's in the record sales and it's in his voice. When he was only about five years old he sang songs like Tobacco Road and Cloud Nine by the Temptations, some of the other songs from Motown. We had a record player and we had our records. We had to learn those types of songs to be able to go out on Saturday night and sing to people.