Michael Jackson: Celebs mourned at funeral

Michael Jackson: Celebs mourned at funeral

Michael Jackson was mourned by his family and celebrities including Elizabeth Taylor, Barry Bonds and Macaulay Culkin at a private funeral service that was held on Thursday night outside the elaborate mausoleum where the King of Pop will be entombed.

The funeral started nearly an hour and a half late because of the late arrival of his parents, Joe and Katherine, and other family members. They included the singer's three children, Prince Michael, 12, Paris Michael, 10, and Prince Michael II, 7, known as Blanket.

The invitation notice indicated that the service would begin promptly at 7 p.m.; it began closer to 8:30.

The 77-year-old Elizabeth Taylor and about two hundred other mourners were left waiting in the late summer heat, with the temperature stuck at 90 degrees just before sunset. Some mourners fanned themselves with programs for the service at Forest Lawn Glendale.

A vivid orange moon, a mark of the devastating wildfire about 10 miles distant, hung over the cemetery.

Police had escorted the family's motorcade of 31 cars, including Rolls-Royces and Cadillacs, from Encino to Forest Lawn, with the hearse bearing Jackson's body at the end.

A large, blimp-like inflated light, the type used in film and television production, and a boom camera hovered over the seating area that was placed in front of the elaborate marble mausoleum. The equipment raised the possibility that the footage would be used for the Jackson concert documentary "This Is It."

Nearly two hundred and fifty seats were arranged for mourners over artificial turf laid roadside at the mausoleum. Nearly double the number of media credentials, 435, was issued to reporters and film crews who remained at a distance from the service and behind barricades.

The Rev. Al Sharpton, who gave a rousing eulogy at Jackson's public memorial two months ago, posted on his Twitter account — while the service was still under way — that he made a repeat performance Thursday night.

Sharpton wrote, "I just spoke at the conclusion of tributes," "Gladys knight sang her heart out. Now we prepare to lay him top rest."

The few clusters of fans who gathered around the secure perimeter that encircled the cemetery entrance struggled to see much. Maria Martinez, 25, a fan from Riverside, Calif., who was joined by a dozen other Jackson admirers at a gas station near the security perimeter, gave a handful of pink flowers to a man with an invitation driving into the funeral.

"Can you please put these flowers on his grave?" she told him. Martinez said she picked them from a nearby park.

"They were small and ugly, but I did that with my heart," she said. "I'm not going to be able to get close, so this is as close as I could get to him."

The man consented, adding, "God bless."

Glendale police said all was going smoothly early in the evening and there were no arrests.

Jackson will share eternity at Forest Lawn with the likes of Clark Gable, Jean Harlow and W.C. Fields, entombed alongside them in the mausoleum that will be all but off-limits to adoring fans who might otherwise turn the pop star's grave into a shrine.

After the burial, the closest that the public will be able to get to Jackson's vault is a portion of the mausoleum that displays "The Last Supper Window."It is  a life-size stained-glass re-creation of Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece. Several 10-minute presentations about the window are held regularly 365 days a year, but most of the building is restricted.
By late afternoon Thursday, media tents had cropped up all along the boulevard across from the wrought-iron gates that serve as the main entrance to Forest Lawn. That vantage point offered no view of any mausoleum — just a fountain and a building containing the gift shop.

The family members of Michael Jackson had booked an Italian restaurant in Pasadena for a gathering Thursday night, said Alex Carr, assistant operations manager at Villa Sorriso, in the city's Old Town district. She wouldn't specify the menu or number of people, but said the entire restaurant, which can accommodate 200 guests, had been reserved for the event and that security would be present.

The ceremony ends months of speculation that the singer's body would be buried at Neverland Ranch, in part to make the property a Graceland-style attraction. An amended copy of Jackson's death certificate was filed Thursday in Los Angeles County to reflect Forest Lawn as his final resting place.

In court on Wednesday, it was disclosed that twelve burial spaces were being purchased by Jackson's estate at Forest Lawn Glendale, about eight miles north of downtown Los Angeles. However  no details were offered on how they would be used.