For author Mark Bego, 2026 is proving that “everything old is new again” in his career, thanks to the success of the movie Michael about the life of Michael Jackson.
In 1984, Bego scored the biggest hit of his writing career when his book Michael! became a huge New York Times best-seller and sold over eight million copies worldwide. The book was such a success that his publisher at the time, Pinnacle, decided the only way to follow it up was to send Bego on The Jacksons’ famed Victory Tour, for the first three-months of the tour, yielding Bego’s next million-selling book, On The Road With Michael!
“Thanks to Michael Jackson, I had the most exciting year of my writing career,” says Bego. “At the time I was also the Editor-In-Chief of Modern Screen magazine, so I was instantly on the ‘A’ list for everything ‘Jackson’ that summer. I attended the gala press conference at Tavern On The Green in New York City where the tour was announced, I was in the audience for the first 30 shows of the Victory Tour, I met Michael, and I was consistently on dozens of radio and TV shows, reporting on the mega-Jackson tour.”
Furthermore, since Michael was not doing any press during the run of the concert tour, Bego found himself cast as the “Number One Michael Jackson expert” in the country, so he was constantly on TV talking about Jackson and the tour. At the time Alan Thicke’s Thicke of The Night was a top late-night talk show. Thicke had Bego as the special guest for a four-night run of Michael Jackson reporting.
“I will never forget the opening night of The Victory Tour in Kansas City, and the electrifying excitement of that mega-tour. Michael Jackson was in top form, and the crowd went absolutely wild,” recalls Bego.
When the new movie Michael was released, suddenly Bego now finds himself in the Jackson spotlight all over again. According to Mark, “What this film has accomplished is to brilliantly follow the facts about Michael’s life to show his amazing and unique talent, while sufficiently demonstrating how he was abused by his forceful father / manager Joseph Jackson, and how he lived a child-like existence as a way to preserve his soul. The film resists going down the road to show so many possible simultaneous side stories, and to keep the camera focused on Michael and his budding talent as a performer.”
For Bego, his book on Jackson isn’t the only biography in his catalog that is suddenly in the spotlight, his book on Madonna, Blonde Ambition is suddenly revived by that singer’s recent Number One hit on the Dance charts. And to top it all off, the forthcoming September 60th anniversary of the debut of the TV show The Monkees has caused Lyons Press to release an updated version of the book I’m A Believer, which Bego wrote with Monkee -Micky Dolenz. The new edition of I’m A Believer, which will be released late this summer, has the distinction of becoming Mark Bego’s 70th published book.
“And, I’m not done yet! Michael Jackson is back, and so am I,” proclaims Bego. “My hat is off to Michael!
