Jack Michaelson

Jack Michaelson is a character in Channel 4 soap Brookside played by Paul Duckworth for the final three episodes in October and November 2003. Due to the proposed cancellation of the show, the inside of Michaelson's house was never shown saving on designing an internal set.

Jack moved into Number 8 Brookside close, several months after The Farnhams had previously sold up and moved to Woolton. Jack was quite rude to his neighbours and had run-ins with them on frequent occasions.

Upon seeing Jack move in, Sean Smith decided to offer his services erecting a television aerial for Jack. Jack was deliberately rude to Sean. Later when Jack's delivery man turned up late, Jack intimidated him and gave him unreasonable orders. When Jack complained about the mess and the man apologised but told Jack to 'keep his hair on', Jack gave him a vicious beating in front of all the neighbours.

He then had a run-in with Tim O'Leary when Michaelson complained about Tim and Steve's limousine apparently blocking his drive. Michaelson gave Tim a stern warning to move the limo. When Steve decided to move the limo, Tim shouted at Steve and told him not to give into Michaelson.

He also supplied drugs to Ali Gordon and his mate Tommo. When he heard that Ali got arrested for taking drugs, he called 'round to the Gordon's house where he threatened to murder Ali if he mentioned to the police about where he really got the drugs from. Ali continued to take drugs but this would result in a near tragedy when his nephew Luke whom he was babysitting picked up and took one of the drugs which Ali had dropped on the floor.

When Jack found out his daughter Suzi was taking drugs he barged his way into the Murray's house and cornered Tony. When Tony's mother, Jan tried to restrain Michaelson, he hit her across the face.

In retaliation for this, Jan's eldest son Steve, his father Marty and Uncle Christy jumped Jack and attacked him with two-by-fours. Later, Jack cornered Christy and beat him up badly, leading to Christy having to have a kidney removed, despite Ron, Bev and Josh's attempts at stopping Michaelson from attacking Christy.

Jack caused further trouble when Anthony wound up in hospital after smoking a crack joint and having a bad reaction to it. Jack's daughter, Susie had given Anthony the joint.

After a conversation, Tim O'Leary had with former resident Barry Grant, the residents of Brookside Close lynched Jack from his own window. The culprits who did this were never made clear, however when everyone was moving out Jimmy, Tim, the Gordons and the Murrays all used the same type of rope that hanged Jack to attach their possessions to their cars. This is somewhat reminiscent of when Sue and Danny Sullivan were pushed from the scaffolding of Brookside Parade and all the suspects were wearing the same clothes to prevent viewers being able to detect the killer. The police wrote his lynching off as a drugs killing as everyone involved had an alibi and nobody on the street claimed to see his killers. A few years after Brookside had finished the killers were revealed to be Barry Grant, Jimmy Corkhill and Sean Smith. Jack's hung body was found by a passing milkman the morning after the night he was lynched.

The name Jack Michaelson was a play on the name of Channel 4 Chief Executive Michael Jackson, who had cancelled the show.