Mark Lester: for years the child star of “Oliver!” lived in relative obscurity as a London area osteopath. He was Michael Jackson’s friend, but kept out of the limelight.

Back during Michael’s child molestation trial years, Lester and I spoke often. After Jackson was arrested in November 2003, Lester stayed with him on New Year’s Eve at the home that was rented for Jackson by the Nation of Islam.

Lester was also at Neverland, by coincidence, when Martin Bashir was filming “Living with Michael Jackson.”

We talked a lot about Michael, his health and well being, and his children. During all those conversations, Lester never once mentioned that he thought he was the biological father of Michael’s daughter, or that he’d donated sperm to an insemination project.

It is true that Lester rode in the car with Michael and promoter Randy Phillips to the AEG press conference at the O2 Arena last March announcing the “This Is It” concerts. And Michael often visited Lester, his wife and chilren with his own kids during his year and a half out of the U.S. following the trial.

But the former Oliver Twist as Paris’s dad? It’s unlikely. Lester, to my disappointment, seems as though he’s sold his story to the British tabloids. He’s cashed in on Michael’s death like everyone else. You can almost guess that a book is forthcoming, too: “My Friend, Michael.”

What a shame.

Lester claims his daughter resembles Paris. She does not. Harriet Lester looks just like Mark Lester when he was Oliver. She has that same bright blonde hair. Paris Jackson ‘ whom Debbie Rowe still insists was conceived in Paris, and thus is named ‘ has brown hair.

But even more preposterous is the idea that Michael, who was paranoid about his kids, would want to spend so much time with the man who was their biological father. It makes no sense.

Of course, stranger things have happened. But if Lester did feel he was Paris’s father, was going public for money the way to announce it? He certainly could have contacted Michael’s attorneys, set up quiet meetings, and done any number of things that wouldn’t have embarrassed and scared the child. And he could have done it all for free.

To paraphrase Lester’s famous line from the movie: “Please, sir, no more.”

Michael Jackson’s mother, Katherine, is a nice lady with a big heart. But she doesn’t have an MBA or any other business degree despite an Associated Press article yesterday that made it seem as though she was the Warren Buffet of Encino.

Indeed, before a judge decides to add Mrs. Jackson as a decision maker in her’son’s complicated estate, he might consider’a few things.

To wit: Michael Jackson trusted his mother because’there was no one else to trust in the’family.

At the Hayvenhurst’Ave. Jackson home, Katherine’has had to make do over the years with hand outs from Michael and daughter Janet. The household came to a’grinding halt a couple of years ago when’Michael’though he loved his mother’didn’t make payroll at Hayvenhurst or Neverland. The situation was a total disaster, with much of the remaining staff leaving their jobs. Janet finally stepped in to help out.

Katherine Jackson ‘ despite other reports that she helped Michael decide to buy the Beatles catalog ‘ in her own words, in her book, “My Family, the Jacksons,” Katherine wrote: “I’m sure that his conversations with his celebrity friends and other successful people helped Michael make the decision to buy the Beatles’ catalogue.” She knew nothing else about it.

Also, the idea that Michael had anything to do with Little Richard’s music’catalog is preposterous. Michael had little or nothing to do with the actual administration of Sony/ATV Music Publishing from when it was created’in the mid-90s.’Although the idea of Michael Jackson’as a clever businessman was advanced by press geniuses like the late Lee Solters, the company was handled by lawyers and executives including Michael’s now executor, John Branca. Michael’s involvement was simply in using Sony/ATV as a leveraged asset.

Debbie Rowe is just fine with the ruling yesterday that Katherine Jackson is the permanent guardian of her children.

Michael Jackson’s ex knew that his mother would be named the adult in charge of raising Prince Michael and Paris Katherine (as well as now orphaned “Blanket”).

The idea behind the arrangement was to let the kids stay where they’re comfortable until they get to know Rowe’a woman they met maybe once, four years ago.

Insiders who know about the custody agreement put it this way: “Katherine is 79 years old. Permnanent guardianship? Debbie will have a relationship with those kids long before Katherine dies.”

Rowe and Katherine Jackson should meet this week, followed by the first meeting of Rowe with the kids and a psychologist. Eventually it’s hoped that the children, even Blanket, will go to live with Rowe outside the glare of the Jackson spotlight in Encino.

Meantime, it’s interesting to note who showed up in the courtroom yesterday with Katherine from the Jackson family’just Randy, LaToya, and Rebbie, aka the “stable” Jackson. There was no sign of Janet, who various websites and blogs went crazy speculating as a possible guardian. And as I noted over the weekend, Joseph Jackson is now totally out of the picture, as per the agreement with Debbie Rowe.

Dr. Arnold Klein, Michael Jackson’s longtime dermatologist, currently under investigation, has banned his former nurse from his office.

Klein, sources say, has decreed that Debbie Rowe is not allowed in his office when he’s present. Last week, Rowe accompanied a friend to see one of Klein’s partners for an office visit. “Klein went nuts,” a source says.

Klein should be worried about Rowe. “She knows where all the bodies are buried,” an insider tells me. It’s possible that investigators, in fact, have already talked to Rowe about Klein’s involvement with Jackson.

It’s ironic too because for the last couple of weeks, various gossip sites and magazines (US Weekly) declared Klein the biological’father of Rowe’s children with Jackson. Nothing could be farther from the truth. A friend of Rowe’s laughed, telling me: “When Debbie heard that, she said it made her skin crawl.”

Meantime all the doctors in the Michael Jackson saga should start worrying: a hidden deadline is drawing near.

I’m told that LAPD Police Commissioner William Bratton returns from vacation tomorrow, August 5th, to hear a complete update about the various investigations.

Bratton, sources say, didn’t want anything to happen while he was away. But once he’s back in town, look for Bratton to push the start button on what ever arrests are to be made. This could be as early as tomorrow but more likely at the end of the week.

The doctors involved could be Dr. Conrad Murray, who stayed overnight with Jackson in his rented Holmby Hills estate and may have given him anesthesia to let him sleep; as well as the aforementioned Dr.’ Klein. As I reported here a few weeks ago, Jackson was visiting Klein’s office three times a week minimum just to be put to sleep for a few hours every afternoon. That’s why rehearsals were starting so late.

Two players in the Michael Jackson saga are getting ready to sue website TMZ. The accusation: that Harvey Levin’s information gatherers obtained a ‘scoop’ from stolen materials found in the files of the Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Department.

Debbie Rowe, the mother of Michael Jackson’s two eldest children, and Marc Schaffel, Jackson’s former business partner, have already had several email exchanges with the TMZ lawyers through their attorney, Howard King.

The issue: a video clip that TMZ posted on July 20th of Rowe from outtakes of an interview Schaffel produced in early 2003.

Among the issues: whether or not TMZ, which has paid for interview materials in the past, bought the clip from the Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Department.

King sent a strongly worded letter to the Sheriff’s Department on July 27th that was the culmination of a week of frustration determining where the clip had come from and how it had been obtained.

King’s letter demands an investigation. ‘We can conceive of absolutely no reason for the County Sheriff or the District Attorney to have made the video available to the news media and to have permitted copying of the same.’

He also wrote: ‘One can only surmise that a government official was compensated to alert TMZ to the existence of video still in the possession of the County Sheriff”

The problems began just three days earlier, on July 24th, when TMZ’s attorney,’Jason Beckerman, admitted in an email to King that the video clip had indeed been obtained from the Sheriff’s Department. He wrote in an email to King that the clip was simply found in ‘the publicly accessible files of the Sheriff’s Department,’ and that no one directed TMZ to it or helped them find it.

Six days later, Beckerman changed his mind. He wrote to King in a second email on July 30th: ‘My earlier comments on this subject were inaccurate. TMZ did not, in fact, obtain the DVD in question from the Santa Barbara County Sheriff Department’s files.’

Following Jackson’s acquittal, all those materials that formed the evidence from the child molestation trial were supposed to have been returned to the people from which they taken, or destroyed.

The video clip has since been removed from the TMZ website.

King tells me: ‘When TMZ ran the outtake from Marc’s interview of Debbie, we immediately accused them of copyright infringement and publication of clearly stolen materials. They agreed to remove the item and identify the source so as to assure me they had not illegally obtained the footage, in exchange for me not suing. After I agreed, they identified the source as the sheriff. But then, TMZ retracted and told me they got the tape from another source that they would not identify. The only other sources would be the lawyers in the molestation case, who would have had access to all fruits of search warrants, under strict obligations not to disclose.’

King says after an investigation, Rowe and Schaffel will sue TMZ for, among other things, copyright infringement and misappropriation of Rowe’s name and likeness without consent.

And there are other issues still to come in such an investigation since there may be other materials thought only to have been obtained in the Sheriff’s Department investigations of Jackson that may have turned up in the media. As for TMZ, they’re part of the Time Warner empire through its syndication arm, Telepictures, and not subject to the same journalistic rules applied to Time Warner’s magazines such as Time or People.