I was cleaning out file cabinets in my home office recently when I picked up some TV books I’d produced when I was a newspaper television editor. Whenever I interviewed an interesting celebrity, I’d save a copy of the book.

One interview I’ll never forget was with Wylie Draper, whom I interviewed for a story that ran on Nov. 15, 1992.

Draper bore a very strong resemblance to Michael Jackson. I first saw Draper in 1984 after he’d won a “Michael Jackson Masquerade” at the Macon Coliseum. He’d come to The Macon Telegraph newsroom for a photo to accompany a story we were writing about him. We couldn’t help gawking: He looked exactly like Jackson, that is, before the superstar messed around with his facial features. 

Then in 1992, Draper’s rep asked me to interview him after Jackson selected Draper to portray him in the ABC miniseries, “The Jacksons: An American Dream.” Draper was also a dancer in the megastar’s video “Remember the Time,” released in January 1992.

Draper was born on May 5, 1969, in West Virginia, and was a year old when his family moved to Macon, GA. When he was 5, they moved to Warner Robins, GA, where he attended elementary and high schools. His high school photo is at right.

I interviewed him over the phone from Miami while he was taking a break from his public relations job with Norwegian Cruise Line. ”I started imitating him in elementary school because a lot of competitions were held on campus and I could do him better than anyone else,” Draper said.

When he was a student at Northside High School, Draper spent a lot of time lip-synching to Jackson’s songs and perfecting the singer’s energetic dance moves. But he wanted to develop his own personality, so he joined theater programs at his high school and at Pointe Park College in Pittsburgh, PA, and decided to pursue a professional career in show business.

During summer breaks from college, he landed a job with the Pleasure Island dance group that performed choreographed dance steps every 30 minutes for Disney World audiences. Later, he got a job with Norwegian.

In March 1992 when his ship was in the Port of Miami, Draper learned of the Michael Jackson role in the family’s movie. He auditioned at ABC’s Los Angeles studios.

Draper spent two months taping his scenes. He portrayed Jackson from ages 18-25 with Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs and Angela Bassett as his parents. He was first seen in the movie when the Jackson brothers reunited for their Victory Tour that began in Las Vegas.

In the movie, Draper danced and lip-synched to the gloved-one’s songs, including “Victory,” “Dancing Machine” and “Never Can Say Goodbye.” But the show-stopper came when he performed the infamous moonwalk while lip-synching to “Billie Jean.“ (Click to see side-by-side videos of Draper and Jackson performing to the song).

Although he enjoyed dancing like Jackson, Draper said, he ultimately wanted to ”dance as Wylie Draper.” Unfortunately, that never happened. Draper battled leukemia for about six months, and died on Dec. 21, 1993, at 24 years old.

In 2001, I talked with his mother for a booklet I was producing on notable African Americans in Bibb and Houston counties in Georgia. She updated me on his life after the Jackson movie.

She said that he was a dancer in the cable show “Red Shoe Diaries,” which aired after his death. Also, he had roles in the USA cable network movies “Twilight” and “The Disappearance of Christina.” He helped Michael Peters - choreographer of Jackson’s “Beat It” and “Thriller” videos – arrange dance steps for the movie “Sister Act II: Back in the Habit” with Whoopi Goldberg.

A memorial scholarship was given in his name for about five years from royalties received from his work in show business, his mother said.

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