The Wiz (film) certain we didn't use anything from it. They made a brilliant movie, and even though our concept is different – they're Kansas, we're New York; they're white, we're black, and the score and the books are totally different – we wanted to make sure that we never overlapped in any area." Michael Jackson, a former Motown star and close friend of Diana Ross was cast as the Scarecrow. By the start of development on "The Wiz" in 1977, he and his brothers The Jacksons, had left Motown for Epic Records, though Jackson had yet to make a solo album since
Michael Jackson and a live broadcast of his public memorial service was viewed around the world. According to "Forbes", as of August 2018, Jackson's total career pretax earnings in life and death is $4.2 billion. Jackson's estate earned $825 million in 2016, the highest yearly amount ever recorded by the magazine." Forbes" ranked Jackson as the top-earning deceased celebrity for the seventh consecutive year in 2018. Michael Joseph Jackson was born in Gary, Indiana, a part of the Chicago metropolitan area, on August 29, 1958. He was the eighth of ten children in the Jackson family, a working-class African-American family living in