Even in death Michael Jackson had a final surprise in store for his fans: the Jackson family took his golden casket in a funeral cortège along the highways of Los Angeles in a classic Tinseltown farewell.

Jackson’s coffin, bedecked with red roses, was loaded into a navy blue hearse after a private service at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in the Hollywood Hills.

About 100 family members and friends, led by Jackson’s parents Joe and Katherine, attended the half-hour private service at the cemetery’s neo-classical Hall of Liberty.

The often-fractious Jackson family left their Encino home for the service about 20 minutes late, after reportedly disagreeing about who would ride with whom.

Nineteen news helicopters beamed the funeral procession live to a worldwide TV audience in an eerie echo of the O. J. Simpson low-speed car chase in 1994. The hearse, shadowed by a police Swat team, led a 30-car convoy of Rolls-Royces, Bentleys and ten black Range Rovers for 13 miles from the “cemetery of the stars” to the public memorial service at the Staples Centre arena in the city centre.

Because police had said that the body would not be moved, few fans lined the route. There had been reluctance to risk moving Jackson’s casket by road for fear that it would be mobbed. A fire department helicopter stood by at the cemetery to move it by air if road transport proved impossible.

The highways were closed for the procession to pass, but passers-by leaned over motorway bridges to watch the hearse below. Traffic going in the opposite direction slowed to a crawl.

“It’s as big and insane and crazy as Michael was. It’s to be expected because he is the biggest icon in the world, but it’s still amazing to watch,” said Sheila Barajas, an apprentice mortician and lifelong fan watching from outside the cemetery.

Ariel Aguire and his friend Yana Kiten both wore white suits to celebrate their hero’s life. She wore an enamel pendant of a single white glove. He wore a black armband. “All the true fans are dressed in white today. We agreed on it, because Michael lives for ever,” Ms Kiten said.

It remained unclear last night whether Jackson’s body would be returned to Forest Lawn Memorial Park and laid to rest near such Hollywood greats as Sammy Davis Jr, Humphrey Bogart, Clark Gable and Jean Harlow, rather than at his fantasy Neverland Ranch.

President Obama added his voice to those of the mourners from his summit in Moscow.

“I think like Elvis, like Sinatra, like the Beatles, he became a core part of our culture,” Mr Obama told CNN. “His extraordinary talent and his music were matched with a big dose of tragedy and difficulty [in] his private life and I don’t think we can ignore that.” But Mr Obama said it was important to “affirm what was the best of him and that was captured by his music”.

Mr Obama said it was “music that Michelle and I listened to from the time we were little kids. I remember listening to ABC when I was 8 or 9 or 10, and he kept on producing extraordinary music for years after that.”

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