This death of two icons ushered in a sad farewell to the end of an era. For us who are in our thirties to fifties, we grew up listening to Michael Jackson and The Jackson Five and watching Farrah Fawcett (or Farrah Fawcett-Majors as she was known during the mid to late 70's) on Charlie's Angels.  They were apart of our childhoods and adolescence. Farrah's best-selling poster turned boys into men and were apart of their masturbatory fantasies and wet dreams.  Girls and women alike got their hair styled like her.  Guys wanted to do her, girls wanted to be her.  She was graceful and naturally beautiful. She was down-to-earth and not one bit pretentious.  She dropped the hypenated part of her name after she met Ryan O'Neal and divorced Lee Majors.  Theirs was a love story for a lifetime but not without its bumps and bruises. 

Michael Jackson was a performer extrordinare-he could sing and dance like Fred Astaire or Gene Kelly.  After the arrival or MTV, we could see his videos like Billie Jean, Bad, Black or White and the best one of all, Thriller.  He was a dancer without any formal training.  When he performed his dance moves on Motown's 25th Anniversary Special, Fred Astaire  himself called and congratulated him. He had the pleasure of working with all the Who's Who in the business-Quincy Jones, John Landis, Bob Geldof, Macauley Culkin and Diana Ross. 

He was Peter Pan, a man-child who never grew up or had much of a childhood.  When I hear the song by Smokey Robinson, "Tears of a Clown", I think of him.  A sad, tragic figure later in life who fell prey to the stigma of being labeled as a child molester, even though he was acquited of any charges. He suffered in silence and kept to himself pretty much of the time.  He was never the same after being put on trial and having to sell his beloved Neverland ranch.  Can one say he died of a broken heart or a broken man?