In 1995, the King of Pop came through the back door of a little bookstore in San Diego. The man who ended up serving him was Jan Tonnesen.
Jan was the manager of Wahrenbrock’s Book House, a used and rare bookstore on Broadway in downtown San Diego. It was the kind of place where people came to dig through shelves for an old title they couldn’t find anywhere else. And that’s exactly what Michael Jackson wanted to do.
Michael was in town for a music industry award at the San Diego Convention Center. With him was his wife, Lisa Marie Presley, Elvis’s daughter.
How did a superstar from Los Angeles hear about a little shop in San Diego? Another bookstore tipped him off. “He shops frequently at Heritage Books in Los Angeles, and they apparently recommended us to him,” Jan told the San Diego Union-Tribune.
Michael’s team asked if the store could close while he shopped. Jan and his staff said no. Years later he explained why to NBC 7 San Diego: “we didn’t want to kick out other customers so we just said, No.”
So Michael came and went through the back door instead. He showed up in “his famous black-and-gray fedora and a red satin surgical mask,” and he signed autographs for the few lucky shoppers who happened to be inside that day.
Then he got down to business. For more than two hours, Michael went through the shelves.
He picked out books on poetry, herbal healing, Southern cooking, Italian architecture and Norman Rockwell. He found “a two-volume set of the letters of Michelangelo.” He asked about books on Marie Antoinette and about how Beethoven and Mozart made their music. At one point, holding a reprinted Mozart book, Michael said, “I’ve been looking for this.”
Lisa Marie took her time. Jan remembered that “she was just looking, but didn’t pick anything for a while.”
By the end, Michael had three large boxes full of mostly out-of-print books. The total came to $1,300.
Then came the moment at the register.
A member of Michael’s group handed over an American Express card. The trouble was, the little store didn’t take American Express. Someone from the entourage had to head back to the hotel for a different card before the sale could go through.
So for a little while, the King of Pop’s money was no good there.
Jan’s own summing-up was simple: “I’m a bookseller, and I was doing my job.”
There was one more surprise in those boxes, and it may be the sweetest part of the story. Among all the poetry and history and art, “He also got a stack of 12 Hardy Boys books and 12 Nancy Drew books,” Jan said.
If you’d like to see the two of them side by side in public, this fan-saved clip shows Michael and Lisa Marie arriving together at the 1994 MTV Video Music Awards.
Michael and Lisa Marie together at the 1994 MTV VMAs
Back at Wahrenbrock’s, the visit gave the staff quite a tale. The most famous man in music had walked out the back door with Michelangelo’s letters and two dozen kids’ mysteries in his boxes, paid for on the second try.