'King of Pop' Is Dead

Michael Jackson, 50, the dazzlingly talented Motown child star and pop innovator who defined the MTV era with his massively successful 1982 album Thriller, and remained a worldwide icon even as his achievements as an entertainer were overshadowed by child-molestation charges and personal eccentricities, died yesterday in Los Angeles.

Mr. Jackson, the songwriter and scintillating performer who proclaimed himself the "King of Pop," and whose appearance and skin color altered dramatically over the course of more than 40 years in show business, was rushed to the hospital from his home in Los Angeles yesterday.

He was not breathing when paramedics arrived, and was in a deep coma when the ambulance got to Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, where he was later pronounced dead. The circumstances of his death were unclear.

The one-gloved singer unified the pop-music universe with hits such as "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough," "Beat It," and "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin,' " which represented a perfect synthesis of syncopated African American dance music and pure pop.

He was an elegant, acrobatic dancer who combined the grace of Fred Astaire with the physicality of James Brown. In remaking the pop-music world in the '80s, in his androgynous, Jheri-curled image, his music and celebrity achieved a global notoriety equaled in the second half of the 20th century only by Elvis Presley and the Beatles.

Mr. Jackson broke down racial barriers at MTV with his hit "Billie Jean," and was propelled to unprecedented levels of pop stardom when he did his trademark backward "moonwalk" on the 1983 television special Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever. In the process, he changed how music was marketed: After Mr. Jackson and Thriller, which by some accounts is ranked the biggest-selling album of all time, it mattered just as much how you looked and moved as how your music sounded.

Mr. Jackson was about to attempt an epic comeback. He was scheduled to begin a record-breaking, sold-out 50-show engagement at London's O2 Arena on July 13. (In 2007, Mr. Jackson's '80s rival, Prince, played 21 sold-out shows at the arena.)