Keeper Of the Famed

Downstairs there is precious little adornment, save for a glass wall overlooking the back yard. In one corner, piles of letters and packages, all from Jackson fans, are stacked, ready to be shipped to him.

Two men work at a large folding table. A pair of women who look eerily like Bain -- deep brown skin, extravagant manes of honey blond hair, jeweled crosses and French manicures -- work the phones, as does another woman, who, with her silvery hair and sweatshirt, clearly isn't adhering to the uniform. Wandering about, sniffing at ankles, is Mikey, a Yorkie with a baby-blue ribbon in his hair. He is Bain's constant companion, her baby, his name dropped into e-mails with a casual "Mikey says hello."

For the interview, she settles into a chair in the library upstairs, wagging a stern finger at Mikey, who begs to be let up onto her lap. William Marshall, one of the men from downstairs, enters the room, armed with a legal pad and pen. He plops down on the couch next to a reporter. And proceeds to take notes.

"He's my media guy," Bain explains.

Control is a word that crops up frequently in her conversations, as she recounts the days of the Jackson trial and her 12 years as an agent for boxers such as Hector Camacho and Thomas "Hitman" Hearns. She never planned on making public relations a career, she says; it just sort of happened. She thought she'd be a criminal trial attorney, maybe even run for political office. Then she figured she could make a bigger impact being the woman behind the curtain.

"As I got older, I realized you can effectuate change in so many ways," she says.

Effecting change was something that was instilled in her early. Her father, an insurance executive, died of a heart ailment when she was 6. Her mother never remarried. Her grandfather filled in, cocooning her in an atmosphere of love and discipline in their Augusta, Ga., home. ("He used to say, 'You have a lot of book sense; I can't wait until you get some common sense.' ") Between Brownies and dance lessons, between bowling and Catholic school, she was taught that to whom much is given, much is expected. The civil rights movement was in full sway, and it was hard to ignore its pull: the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Andrew Young, Bobby Hill, Julian Bond, Jesse Jackson . . .

"Back then," she recalls, "people really stood for something."

She majored in political science at Spelman College in Atlanta, signing up for Jimmy Carter's presidential campaign her junior year, thanks to a professor who introduced her to Carter and told her that the campaign trail was the best classroom. So Bain hit the road, studying between debates and news conferences and recruiting celebrities to endorse Carter. After graduation in 1976, she began work as a special assistant in the Office of Management and Budget. Even then, politics and entertainment worked hand-in-hand. Together with Martin Luther King III, a young Bain organized voter registration drives at Earth, Wind & Fire concerts.

It was an exciting time for those who fit W.E.B. DuBois's criteria of the Talented Tenth, a time when, if you were young, gifted and African American, the possibilities seemed endless. The worlds of black business, politics, sports and entertainment were often linked, and for someone like Bain, unafraid of burning candles at both ends, it was easy to flit between them.

"That was before many of us grew our hair long and could wear designer clothes," remembers Democratic operative Donna Brazile, who met Bain when the two were lobbying to make King's birthday a national holiday. "We had a passion for public service, a commitment to civil rights. We were young; we were vocal. And we were restless in a way."

Jesse Jackson remembers her as "young and bright and ambitious." She went to law school at night, finishing in December 1983. Instead of taking the bar, she accepted an offer to represent Hector "Macho" Camacho in a contract dispute with boxing promoter Don King, he of the outlandish do and the famous temper. It turned out to be a momentous decision. She says she never looked back on her would-be law career.