The Man Behind the Throne Page #3

I assisted the choreographer,

Michael Peters,

for Beat It and Thriller.

As the assistant,

you cleaned everything.

And I was considered,

like, THE best assistant around,

because I was crazy.

I made every finger precise,

every head precise,

everywhere you looked precise,

every movement precise.

So when it became my turn

to actually create

and be the choreographer,

that was one of the things that

I felt I really wanted to do.

So, Annie, are you OK?

Are you OK, Annie?

Annie, are you OK?

Will you tell us that you're OK?

There's a sign in the window

That he struck you

a crescendo, Annie

He came into your apartment

And left the bloodstains

on the carpet

And then you ran into the bedroom

You were struck down

It was your doom...

I remember we worked hard

on that precision part.

The moves were extremely tight.

I do remember one time

Vince came in and said,

"You know, now, we need

to work a little harder here

"because it's not really

as sharp as it needs to be."

And Michael asked me, "Are these

really the best dancers in LA?"

It's like the gauntlet

being thrown down, you know?

You'd better show

that you are the best.

- Annie, are you OK?

- Are you OK, Annie?

Ow!

- Annie, are you OK?

- I don't know

- Will you tell us that you're OK?

- I don't know

- There's a sign in the window

- I don't know

- That he struck you a crescendo, Annie

- I don't know

- He came into your apartment

- I don't know

- And left the bloodstains on the carpet

- I don't know why, baby

And then you ran into the bedroom

You were struck down

It was your doom...

Vince really approached this...

giving us the assignment.

All the dancers were

asked to come up with characters,

like names of characters,

and have a backstory

so that there was a reason

why we were in the setting

that was given to us.

He brought, to a dance job,

a theatrical storytelling point

of view, not just dance technique.

Dag gone it, baby

- There's a sign in the window

- Dag gone it, baby

- That he struck you a crescendo, Annie

- Hoo! Hoo!

He came into your apartment.

This is the area that I grew up in.

And this was a very conservative,

fairly, you know, repressed,

depressed area.

We lived sort of

on the wrong side of the tracks,

but close enough that

you could smell what was going on

on the other side, you know?

I guess a little bit like

Elvis Presley, actually.

Where he could...

He was on the white side

and the blacks were on the other.

With us, it wasn't a racial thing.

But I kept wandering

into those other little worlds.

Wow. Bizarre.

It's so small.

Can you imagine seven of us

living in that house?

If you want.

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