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LOS ANGELES - The final act of Michael Jackson's life has come into clearer focus, a picture of a fallen superstar working out with TV's "Incredible Hulk" and under the care of his own private cardiologist as he tried to get his 50-year-old body in shape for a grueling bid to reclaim his glory.
While the exact circumstances of his death remained unclear, the Los Angeles County coroner's office said there were no signs of foul play or trauma.
Ed Winter of the coroner's office told reporters Friday night that Jackson's body had been transported to a mortuary at around 9:15 p.m. PDT.
Jackson's remains had been "moved to an undisclosed location per a family privacy request. There is also a security hold and so I can't discuss the location," Winter said.
The autopsy was completed in a matter of hours, but an official cause of death could take up to six weeks while medical examiners await toxicology tests. No funeral plans have been made public.
Jackson's brother Jermaine has said the pop singer apparently went into cardiac arrest on Thursday, leading to his death.
Craig Harvey, a spokesman for the coroner, said earlier that further tests would be needed to determine the cause of death. He said Jackson was taking some unspecified prescription medication but gave few other details.
Police said they had towed the doctor's BMW from Jackson's home because it may include medication or other evidence.
Authorities said they spoke with Jackson's private doctor briefly Thursday and Friday and expected to meet with him again soon. Police stressed that the doctor, identified by the Los Angeles Times as Cardiologist Conrad Murray, was not a criminal suspect.
"We do not consider him to be uncooperative at this time," said police Deputy Chief Charlie Beck said. "We think that he will assist us in coming to the truth of the facts in this case."
As grief for the King of Pop poured out from the icons of music to heartbroken fans, and the world came to grips with losing one of the most luminous celebrities of all time, an autopsy showed no sign of trauma or foul play to Jackson, who died Thursday at UCLA Medical Center after paramedics not could not revive him.
Desperate 911 call:
Meanwhile, an emergency dispatch call released by fire officials shed light on the desperate effort at the mansion to save Jackson's life before paramedics arrived Thursday afternoon. Jackson died later at UCLA Medical Center.
In the recording, an unidentified caller pleads with authorities to send help, offering no clues about why Jackson was stricken. He tells a dispatcher that Jackson's doctor is performing CPR.
"He's pumping his chest," the caller says, "but he's not responding to anything."
Asked by the dispatcher whether anyone saw what happened, the caller answers: "No, just the doctor, sir. The doctor has been the only one there."
The president of the company promoting Jackson's shows said Murray was Jackson's personal physician for three years. Jackson insisted Murray accompany him to London, said Randy Phillips, president of AEG Live.
Phillips quoted Jackson as saying: "Look, this whole business revolves around me. I'm a machine, and we have to keep the machine well-oiled." Phillips said Jackson submitted to at least five hours of physicals that insurers had insisted on.
Jackson had remained out of the public spotlight during intense rehearsals for the London concerts, but those with access said he was upbeat and seemingly energized by his planned comeback. Ken Ehrlich, executive producer of the Grammys, said he watched Jackson dance energetically as recently as Wednesday.
"There was this one moment, he was moving across the stage and he was doing these trademark Michael moves, and I know I got this big grin on my face, and I started thinking to myself, 'You know, it's been years since I've seen that,'" he said.
Lou Ferrigno, the star of "The Incredible Hulk," said he had been working out with Jackson for the past several months.
Precarious health:
Still, Jackson's health had been known to be precarious in recent years, and one family friend said Friday that he had warned the entertainer's family about his use of painkillers.
"I said one day we're going to have this experience. And when Anna Nicole Smith passed away, I said we cannot have this kind of thing with Michael Jackson," Brian Oxman, a former Jackson attorney and family friend, told NBC's TODAY. "The result was I warned everyone, and lo and behold, here we are. I don't know what caused his death. But I feared this day, and here we are."
Oxman claimed Jackson had prescription drugs at his disposal to help with pain suffered when he broke his leg after he fell off a stage and for broken vertebrae in his back.
The worldwide wave of mourning for Jackson continued unabated for the man who revolutionized pop music and moonwalked his way into entertainment legend.
"My heart, my mind are broken," said Elizabeth Taylor, who was one of Jackson's closest friends and married one of her husbands at a lavish wedding at the pop star's Neverland Ranch in 1991. She said she had heard the news as she was preparing to travel to London for Jackson's comeback show, and added, "I can't imagine life without him."
Tributes:
Hundreds made a pilgrimage to the Jackson family's compound in Los Angeles, leaving flowers and messages of love. They did the same at his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and at the home in Los Angeles' Holmby Hills where Jackson was stricken. Some camped out overnight.
In New York, people stopped at Harlem's Apollo Theater, where Jackson had performed as a child with his brothers in one of rock's first bubblegum supergroups, the Jackson 5.
Diana Ross, the former lead singer of the Supremes who introduced the Jackson 5 at their debut on "The Ed Sullivan Show" in 1969, said she could not stop crying. "I am unable to imagine this," she said. "My heart is hurting."
His two ex-wives both said they were devastated. One of them, Lisa Marie Presley, posted a long, emotional statement on her MySpace page in which she said her ex-husband had confided to her 14 years ago that he feared dying young and under tragic circumstances, just as her father, Elvis Presley, had.
"I promptly tried to deter him from the idea, at which point he just shrugged his shoulders and nodded almost matter of fact as if to let me know, he knew what he knew and that was kind of that," Presley said.
Presley's father, the King of Rock 'n' Roll to Jackson's King of Pop, died in 1977 at age 42 of a drug-related death.
The White House also weighed in for the first time, with a spokesman saying President Barack Obama saw Jackson as a spectacular performer and music icon whose life nonetheless had sad and tragic aspects. The House of Representatives observed a moment of silence.
At rehearsals for Sunday's Black Entertainment Awards show, stars like Beyonce, Wyclef Jean and Ne-Yo were frantically revamping their performances in an effort to turn the evening into a Michael Jackson tribute.
Taking a toll:
When he was on trial on child molestation charges in 2005, Jackson appeared gaunt and had recurring back problems that he attributed to stress. His trial was interrupted several times by hospital visits, and Jackson once even appeared late to court dressed in his pajamas after an emergency room visit.
After his acquittal, Jackson's prosecutor argued against returning some items that had been seized from Neverland, the Santa Barbara County estate Jackson had converted into a children's playland. Among the items were syringes, the powerful painkiller Demerol and other prescription drugs.
Demerol carries a long list of warnings to users. The government warns that mixing it with certain other drugs can lead to reactions including slowed or stopped breathing, shock and cardiac arrest.
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