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THE JACKSON SHOW: Behind the scenes at E! Networks' trial reenactments
Actors do an end run around ban on cameras in courtroom

By SCOTT STEEPLETON
NEWS-PRESS ASSISTANT METRO EDITOR

The entertainer shuns visitors when he's "putting on his face," can moonwalk with his eyes closed and never knows which armband to wear until the morning of testimony.

And, yes, he wears a wig.

Michael Jackson impersonator Ed Moss has to be quick on his feet -- and deft with a sewing machine -- to keep up with the ever-changing singer for E! Networks' reenactment of the King of Pop's child molestation trial.

With dialogue ripped from the courtroom and "reenactors" portraying the case's real-life personalities, "E! News: The Trial of Michael Jackson," 9 p. m. weekdays and 4 p. m. Saturdays on Cox Channel 66, is a wickedly fun way around Superior Court Judge Rodney Melville's no-cameras policy -- and as a visit to the set in Los Angeles last week revealed, getting it right is a lot like preparing for a day in court.

Mr. Moss' "day in court" starts about 9:30 a. m., when he logs on to a photo service Web site to see what the singer is wearing that day. Then it's off to find the pieces he'll need for the outfit du jour.

By 1:30 p. m., he's in his dressing room at E!'s Wilshire Boulevard headquarters, and he won't leave for about 10 hours.

The first order of business is the costume. "I literally do everything on my own," says Mr. Moss, while hunching over a sewing machine an hour before the 4 p. m. taping. "I don't have people buying me clothes."

THE MANY FACES OF ED MOSS

It's St. Patrick's Day and hanging on the door is a maroon coat, gold vest and green shirt similar to what Mr. Jackson wore earlier that day, when NBC4 weatherman Fritz Coleman took the stand in Santa Maria.

Mr. Moss has already stitched together an armband; now he's working on a crest, which he sews in a matter of minutes.

He has concerns about the faux medal, but after hanging it around his neck, he says, "I'm really happy with this one."

Soon, the 6-foot-3 actor who has been impersonating Mr. Jackson since 1996 will ask everyone to leave so he can get to work on his makeup, a process that takes about 30 minutes.

When he finally makes his way to Studio A, Mr. Moss will look, move and act like Mr. Jackson.

So far, how he sounds hasn't been all that important because Mr. Jackson has uttered just a few words in court, telling the judge one day that he couldn't hear him.

For the most part, Mr. Moss uses facial expressions as he reacts to the sometimes graphic testimony, hoping to give viewers a sense of what Mr. Jackson might be doing.

"This is my role. I have to play it as him," says Mr. Moss, who's never been to the real courtroom and said his only Jackson moment was a chance meeting one day on Hollywood Boulevard.

"There's no making a mockery of the trial," he adds later. "There's a boy who says he was molested and a man who says he's innocent of these charges."

Nielsen Media Research says the show has attracted an episode-high 517,000 viewers. That's in addition to E! International Network viewers in 50 countries and viewers in Europe, where it's carried by co-producer British Sky Broadcasting.

But Mr. Moss, who has performed around the world as the pop singer on stage, on television and in films, says this is just another job -- hopefully one of many more to come.

"Everything I've done has just been a chain reaction. It's just kind of snowballed," he says.

Like any good production, this one starts with the script, only here there's no room for ad-libbing. Every "um," "ah" and "you know" comes right from the courtroom, and even the slightest slip-up means a scene must be shot again.

And sometimes again.

"We're saying that we're doing this right from the court transcript, so they have to get it right," says Sam Mendoti, stage manager.

The old-timers -- those actors who have been with the show since its Feb. 28 debut -- know not to stray, a point they quickly yet playfully brought Fritz (Scott Stevenson) around to when he threw in a word that wasn't in the script.

"Adding a 'which' throws it off?" Mr. Stevenson asks.

"Adding anything throws it off," replies a cameraman.

Just about every scene is a cold read, says Mr. Mendoti, with the final scripts sometimes not ready until about 30 minutes prior to taping.

The actors read their lines as the text scrolls on large screens positioned around the studio -- and for the most part, none of them know what they're going to say until they take their places.

Extras play Jackson family members and the others in the gallery.

Taping lasts about six hours, including a dinner break. The next day at 6 a. m., the panel of experts -- host James Curtis and commentators Rikki Klieman, Shawn Chapman Holley and Howard Weitzman -- comes in to provide analysis.

Another episode is ready to go, and what viewers see each night of the week is an hour-long recap of the previous day's proceedings. That would explain why the commentators were dressed in green on the episode that ran March 17, while the actors popped up in green the following night.

Jack Donner, who portrays Judge Melville, marvels at the process.

"It's so strange to know this is really going on somewhere out there and we're just the mirror," he says.

While the crew strives for realism, from the seal of the state of California to the seating arrangement of the "attorneys" -- even the white hair on Rigg Kennedy, who plays defense attorney Thomas Mesereau Jr., is real -- some things had been overlooked.

When informed that Mr. Jackson sometimes takes candy from a large jar sitting on a railing near the bailiff, Simon Bucks, Sky's associate editor, springs into action.

"What's it look like? We're going to have to get one, aren't we?" he says.

Even if the jar doesn't appear, that would be OK, because, above all, the goal of this production is to give viewers who will never set foot in the courtroom a sense that they are there.

This is Hollywood, all right, built on a foundation of reality.

"It's really all an illusion," says Mr. Moss. "An illusion with costumes, makeup and wigs."

email: ssteepleton@newspress.com