Description

The white suit on the cover of the best-selling album of all time belonged to the photographer. During the session, Michael Jackson saw what Dick Zimmerman was wearing and said, "That's the look I like, do we have anything like that?" Zimmerman offered his own suit, and it fit Jackson as if it had been tailored for him. Worn over a zip-up shirt, it became the image of Jackson at the start of the Thriller era.

The shoot lasted about six hours across three set-ups, and the team had planned for an animal co-star: a six-week-old tiger cub. Jackson loved the cub but, according to Zimmerman, kept it away from his face in case it scratched him. In the published cover he reclines alone against a dark backdrop, and the cub appears only in the gatefold, lying at his leg. Another frame from the shoot, with Jackson holding the cub, was used for the 2001 special edition.

The sleeve is restrained compared with what followed. Thriller came out on 29 November 1982, before the music videos for "Billie Jean", "Beat It" and "Thriller" made Jackson's image inescapable. Zimmerman's portrait offers a relaxed, approachable star rather than a spectacle, and that simplicity let the photograph travel across record shops worldwide.

Credit

Photography by Dick Zimmerman; cover art direction by Tony Lane and Nancy Donald