Rock star in Soviet news

Press, 23 June 1984, Page 28

Rock star in Soviet news

NZPA-AP Moscow A Soviet newspaper, in its second commentary on the rock star, Michael Jackson, reports that an American school official has told students to copy the singer’s practice of wearing one white glove. “Sovietskaya Kultura” (Soviet Culture), a newspaper published by the Communist Party Central Committee, carried a commentary on June 14 on Jackson’s music, style, and personality. In a second item, the newspaper noted that it was a fad at a New Jersey high school to wear one white glove. “The director of the school is trying to fight against this new fashion, dissuading pupils by a very telling argument, ‘Don’t adopt white gloves because after graduating from school you will have to put on the gloves of an unskilled

worker’,” the newspaper said.

The Soviet newspaper did not name the New Jersey school. Officials at Bound Brook High School in New Jersey rejected a request by about 60 students to wear white gloves in imitation of Jackson on grounds that such attire — along with studded black leather gloves and untied sneakers — was inappropriate for school.

The article in “Sovietskaya Kultura” said that an incident earlier this year in which Michael Jackson, aged 25, had suffered burns while filming a commercial for Pepsi-Cola had pushed aside important world and domestic news in the American news media.

“Sovietskaya Kultura” also noted that Jackson “is religious, a vegetarian, he does not drink or smoke, is not a drug addict and he likes children and is sentimental. What an example to follow.”