Dancer who worked with Michael Jackson says she gave warnings about singer's health

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  March 9, 2007: Michael Jackson delivers his speech to fans during an event "Fan Appreciation Day" in Tokyo.AP

LOS ANGELES –  A dancer who worked with Michael Jackson throughout his career testified on Wednesday that she told the director of Jackson's ill-fated concert tour that she was worried about the singer's health.

Witness Alif Sankey told a jury deciding a lawsuit that the pop star appeared thin and unprepared in 2009 for the rigors of his planned comeback concerts known as "This Is It."

The singer showed up at one rehearsal with shoes that had holes in the soles, missed rehearsals and appeared much thinner than earlier in his career, Sankey testified.

Sankey showed jurors an email she wrote to tour director Kenny Ortega in early June 2009, urging him to try to improve Jackson's health and spirits. She never got a direct reply but testified that Ortega raised the concerns with concert promoter AEG Live.

"Please help me help you to get him back into that Magical Light, please let me help you help him find what was lost, his GRAIL," Sankey wrote to Ortega, who she had worked closely with for a number of years.

Testimony showed Ortega copied Sankey on several email messages that he sent to AEG executives about Jackson's condition and the need for him to receive physical therapy and better nutrition.

"He requires more attention and management," Ortega wrote in one email. "I truly believe he needs nourishment guidance and physical therapy (massage) for his fatigued muscles and injuries. He is not in great physical shape. I believe he's hurting."

Sankey met Jackson while working on his 1987 video for "Smooth Criminal" and was an associate producer and planned to dance onstage during "This Is It."

She was testifying at the trial of a negligent hiring lawsuit filed by Jackson's mother against AEG Live LLC. Katherine Jackson claims AEG failed to properly investigate the doctor who was caring for her son and later administered a fatal dose of the anesthetic propofol to the singer in June 2009.

The promoter has denied wrongdoing and its attorneys have said the singer hid his addiction to propofol. Jackson's former physician, Conrad Murray, was convicted in 2011 of involuntary manslaughter.

Plaintiff's attorney Brian Panish asked Sankey about one message in which AEG executive Paul Gongaware told Ortega that he planned to talk to Murray.

"We want to remind him that it is AEG, not MJ who is paying his salary," the message said. "We want him to understand what is expected of him."

Sankey said she based some of her impressions of Jackson over the years on how he felt when they hugged.

"When I hugged him, he just felt like marble," Sankey said about Jackson early in his career. "But when I hugged, when I saw him briefly in 2006, he didn't feel like that anymore. He felt thin."

On cross-examination, Sankey acknowledged that her impressions were formed from brief interactions with the singer and she never had a long conversation with him.

She was, however, trusted enough to be around Jackson's children, whose privacy he fiercely protected.

Sankey testified that Paris Jackson once shared a secret, saying she didn't want her father to find out about candy stuffed inside her purse.

There were also several tiny pictures inside her purse -- all of her father.

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Whitney Houston file released by FBI, shows agency investigated singer's fan mail

The FBI has released its files on a trio of investigations the agency conducted on behalf of Whitney Houston.

The records, released Monday, reveal the agency investigated an alleged attempted extortion of the singer back in 1992.

Documents included in the 128-page file about Houston detail a time when someone the star “[considered] to be a friend” threatened to go public with personal information about the singer.

In one letter sent to Houston, the “friend” boasts to have already received several offers for the personal information about the singer that are “in the six figures range.” He then notes he would “expect a similar offer from you” if he decides not to go public with the information.

The FBI interviewed Houston about the alleged extortion, but the records from that conversation are heavily redacted.

Eventually, agents and prosecutors determined no extortion crime occurred.

The records also shed light on the FBI’s investigation into a seemingly obsessive Whitney fan. The unnamed fan sent Houston more than 79 letters, some of which are included in the file. He also sent letters to her family, friends and business associates, according to the documents.  

In one letter, the fan expresses his desire to meet Houston. “I might hurt someone with some crazy idea…” he writes.

He also threatens to take his story to The National Enquirer, in the hopes of getting the star to acknowledge him publicly.

After the investigation, agents also found no evidence of criminal threats in the fan mail. Copies of the letters were sent to the FBI in 1988 and 1999.

The Houston file covers the height of the Grammy-winning singer's popularity but does not contain any new personal details. The file was released in response to Freedom of Information Act requests submitted by FoxNews.com and other media.

Houston drowned in a hotel bathtub on the eve of the 2012 Grammy Awards.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

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Staples Singers vocalist Cleotha Staples dies at age 78

In a family of vocalists, it was Cleotha Staples' smooth and velvety voice that helped set apart the sound of the influential and best-selling gospel group The Staple Singers.

Staples, the eldest sister and member of the group her father Roebuck "Pops" Staples started in the 1940s, died Thursday at age 78. She was at her Chicago home and had been suffering from Alzheimer's disease for the past decade, said family friend and music publicist Bill Carpenter.

The group included sisters Pervis, Yvonne, Mavis and Cynthia, but Cleotha was the backbone, defining herself by being the "strong, silent type," said Carpenter, author of "Uncloudy Day: The Gospel Music Encyclopedia."

"When she was young they used to call her granny because she acted like a granny in terms of being wise and always sure of the best thing to do," Carpenter said.

Staples, known as "Cleedi," was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with her family in 1999 and received a lifetime achievement award from the Grammys in 2005. The Staple Singers gained a huge audience with their first No. 1 hit "I'll Take You There" in 1972 and followed with top 40 hits "Respect Yourself," ''Heavy Makes You Happy," and "If You're Ready (Come Go With Me)."

The family's music career had its roots with Pops Staples, a manual laborer who strummed a $10 guitar while teaching his children gospel songs to keep them entertained in the evenings. They sang in church one Sunday morning in 1948, and three encores and a heavy church offering basket convinced Pops music was in the family's future.

The Staple Singers was born. Two decades later the group became an unlikely hit maker for the Stax label. The Staple Singers had a string of Top 40 hits with Stax in the late 1960s, earning them the nickname "God's greatest hitmakers."

When the children were younger, it was Cleotha's high voice that influenced Pops Staples' guitar playing and in turn influenced The Staple Singers sound, Carpenter said.

"When Pops used to sit them in a circle and play music with them he was sort of feeding off of her voice," Carpenter said. "It was high in a light way, sort of soothing and velvety so his guitar playing bounced off of that."

Cleotha Staples was born April 11, 1934, in Drew, Miss., the first child of Pops and his wife, Oceola. Two years later, the family moved to Chicago, where Pops worked a variety of jobs performing manual labor and Oceola worked at a hotel. Chicago also was where the family's four other children were born.

Pops and Mavis primarily took the lead on the group's vocals, but a 1969 recording of duets featured Cleotha's voice on the song "It's Too Late," a bluesy ballad about a lost love.

The family also became active in the civil rights movement after hearing the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. deliver a sermon while they were on tour in Montgomery, Ala., in 1962. They went on to perform at events at King's request. It was during that period that the family began recording protest songs, such as "Freedom Highway," as well as gospel. The group even covered Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind."

At the end of her life, Cleotha Staples lived near her sisters Mavis and Yvonne on Chicago's South Side. Carpenter said the sisters were vigilant caretakers of Cleotha, just had she had been when the sisters were younger.

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