World mourns the King of Pop

Michael Jackson's death dominated news bulletins, radio airwaves and social networking sites the world over yesterday as tributes poured in for a man called the "King of Pop" and "natural heir to Elvis".

The 50-year-old, whose towering musical legacy was tarnished by often bizarre behaviour and sex scandals, was pronounced dead at 2.26 p.m. PDT (2126 GMT) on Thursday after arriving at a Los Angeles hospital in full cardiac arrest.

"King of pop is dead. Black day for music," was the simple message on the Twitter messaging site left by johnyvergosa.

Other contributors expressed disbelief at the suddenness of Mr Jackson's death, which came less than three weeks before he was due to launch a series of comeback concerts in London.

The singer's lasting appeal, despite life as a virtual recluse since his acquittal of child abuse charges at a sensational 2005 trial, was underlined when 750,000 fans of all ages snapped up tickets for the sell-out gigs.

From Thriller to Billie Jean and Rock With You to The Way You Make Me Feel, Mr Jackson's hits filled the airwaves.

Local politics and global affairs were bumped off the front pages of newspapers, trading rooms across Asia were abuzz with the news and entertainment websites saw a surge in traffic.

The King Of Pop Is Dead read the main headline of Britain's Independent newspaper, below a full-page portrait.

Rina Masaoka, a 21-year-old college student in Japan, said: "This will probably be as shocking as Princess Diana's death."

On Thursday, dozens of fans gathered near Mr Jackson's modest boyhood home in Gary, to pay their respects to the entertainer who left the city long ago. Commentators reflecting on Mr Jackson's life focused on his flaws as well as his global fame and musical flare.

"For all his tragic flaws as a human being, Jackson could legitimately be seen as the greatest entertainer of his generation, the natural successor to Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley," Richard Williams wrote in the Guardian newspaper.

Mr Jackson sold an estimated 750 million records, a figure that is likely to rise with the expected posthumous re-release of his hits. Thriller, which came out in 1982, remains the best-selling album of all time.

Mr Jackson also won 13 Grammy Awards, made boundary-breaking music videos and his slick dance moves were imitated by legions of fans, and fellow pop stars, around the world.

When he came to London to announce his residency at the O2 Arena starting on July 13, bookmakers immediately took bets on whether he would turn up for the first show, amid concerns and rumours over his physical and mental health.

His sudden death, nevertheless, came as a surprise.

Concerns about his health had been rampant during his 2005 trial in California on charges of child sex abuse - at which he was acquitted - and in 2008 when he was photographed in Las Vegas in a wheelchair for reasons that were never explained.

AEG Live said Mr Jackson had passed a lengthy physical exam early this year, before the London concerts were announced.

Mr Jackson was credited as the first black entertainer to gain a strong crossover following on music channel MTV.

Music videos such as Thriller, featuring dancing zombies, and Beat It, pushed the boundaries of the fledgling art of music videos, while his spectacular stage performances created armies of devoted fans around the world.

After the release of Thriller, Time magazine described him as "the hottest single phenomenon since Elvis Presley" and said he was a "star of records, radio, rock video".

But Mr Jackson's belief that "I am Peter Pan in my heart", his preference for the company of children, his friendship with a chimp called Bubbles, his high-pitched voice and numerous plastic surgeries earned him the name "Wacko Jacko".

The gradual change in his skin colour to a pale white - which he said was caused by the skin pigmentation condition vitiligo - and his penchant for wearing surgical masks and shrouding his children with veils in public, added to his reputation as an eccentric.

After two, ultimately unproved, allegations in 1993 and 2003 of sexually abusing young boys during sleepovers at his Neverland Ranch in California, Mr Jackson never recovered the exuberance and musical creativity that marked his youth.

After his acquittal in 2005 on charges of sexual abuse of a 13-year-old boy, Mr Jackson shut the gates of Neverland and began a nomadic lifestyle in Bahrain, Dubai, Ireland and Las Vegas while battling lawsuits over his dwindling finances.

Mr Jackson said repeatedly that he loved children and would never harm them but he was often forced to defend his views on sharing his bed with children. "Children love me. I love children ... They want to be with me. But anybody can come in my bed. A child can come in my bed if they want," he said in a 1996 US television interview.

Born on August 29, 1958 in Gary, Indiana, Mr Jackson started singing as the youngest member of brother group the Jackson 5, which clinched its first record deal in 1968 when he was 11.

Hits like ABC and I'll Be There helped the brothers become the first group in pop history to have their first four singles top the US pop charts, and by 1972 Mr Jackson released his first solo album.

Those early years, under a strict father, took their toll. Mr Jackson said later that he built his home Neverland, with a zoo, train rides, movie theatre and carousel, because he "wanted to have a place that I could create everything I never had as a child".

He teamed up with producer Quincy Jones to make Off the Wall (1979) which yielded four hit singles and then Thriller with its dance, rock and pop tunes that produced seven Top Ten singles and stayed on US charts for over two years. By 2009 it had sold more than 45 million copies worldwide.

In 1985, he wrote the famine relief charity single We Are the World with Lionel Richie, which became one of the fastest selling singles of that era.

The hit albums Bad and Dangerous followed and Mr Jackson began calling himself the "King of Pop" as rumours mounted about his odd private life. In 1994, he made an out-of-court payment to settle accusations that he molested a boy in California.

A few months later, he stunned the world by marrying Elvis Presley's daughter Lisa Marie Presley, but the couple divorced in 1996. The same year, he married former nurse Debbie Rowe and had two children - Prince Michael Jackson I and Paris Michael Katherine. They split up in 1999. Four years later he had another son, Prince Michael Jackson II with an unidentified surrogate mother.