Alan Duke
Los Angeles (CNN) -- Michael Jackson's oldest son, Prince, compared putting the singer's shoe and glove imprints in cement at Hollywood's Grauman's Chinese Theatre to accepting a Grammys lifetime achievement award two years ago on behalf of his late father.
"For me, and I think I speak for him as well, this right here is his lifetime achievement award," Prince Jackson said. "This is what he strived to get."
Prince and brother Blanket pressed a pair of their dad's shoes into wet cement, while sister Paris used one of his famous sequined gloves to create an impression. All three children added their own handprints in a ceremony on the Hollywood Boulevard sidewalk Thursday.
"It's a very good celebration and I know if Michael was here he would agree, to see all his friends and loved ones, and especially his fans here to celebrate this with him," family matriarch Katherine Jackson said.
It was part of the promotion for Cirque du Soleil's "Michael Jackson The Immortal World Tour," which makes its Los Angeles debut Friday night.
Quincy Jones, who produced Jackson's best-selling "Thriller" album, and Smokey Robinson, who called Jackson "my little brother," spoke, but there was little doubt Paris Jackson, 13, was most excited about her chance to introduce teen pop star Justin Bieber.
"I know my father would've wanted to be a mentor to someone like him, and would be very proud that he came to today's celebration," Paris Jackson said.
Michael Jackson is his role model, inspiring him to be the best he can be, Bieber said.
"I want to have that perfection, I want to, you know, be the best I can be, that's what Michael did," Bieber said. "He always wanted to be the best he could be."
Jackie Jackson said that a 300-pound block of cement with his brother's footprints and signature, found in the basement of a closed Las Vegas hotel just before it was torn down, would be placed on the Grauman's forecourt next to the imprints created Thursday. It was created in 1994 for a Las Vegas walk of fame project "that never materialized," he said.
"Michael, we miss you," brother Tito Jackson said. "There's hardly a day that goes by without him going on in mind somehow, some way, and I know that he is here today with us. That's for sure."
Prince, Paris and Blanket Jackson have been more public in recent months in contrast to their lives before their father's 2009 death, when they were shielded from public view.
The children attended the Canadian premiere of the traveling Cirque du Soleil show with their grandmother in October.
The "Immortal" show is touring the United States and Canada through this year before taking up residency in Las Vegas.
Show biz legends who left their handprints and footprints in Grauman's concrete courtyard on Hollywood Boulevard include Fred Astaire, Elizabeth Taylor, Judy Garland, Marilyn Monroe, Sidney Poitier, Clark Gable and Mary Pickford. The tradition started in 1928, a year after the historic theater opened.
Michael Jackson's Hollywood Walk of Fame star is on the sidewalk in front of the theater.
Source http://edition.cnn.com/2012/01/26/showbiz/jackson-graumans-footprints/index.html
You can watch the whole ceremony here
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