Across the United States, people reacted in stunned disbelief yesterday as word spread that Michael Jackson had collapsed and died.

Within minutes of Jackson's arrival by ambulance at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, people began arriving by the hundreds, the crowd quickly filling a grassy entrance outside the hospital. Overhead, news helicopters whirred noisily and TV trucks clogged the streets.

As word spread a few minutes later that Jackson had died, several people burst into tears. Others stood silently, looking pensive, as they waited for official word from the hospital. Still others whipped out cellphones and began calling or texting friends to pump them for information.

A similar scene played out just a couple miles away, in front of Jackson's tony Holmby Hills home, where a fire department ambulance had arrived to take him to the hospital.

"I'm in shock," said Becky Williams, a 26-year-old Jackson fan from Salt Lake City, who happened to be visiting her sister just down the street.

"He's gone. The legend of music," Williams said in disbelief as she stood outside Jackson's home.

In Holmby Hills, cars, many of them with stereo systems blaring songs from Jackson's classic Thriller album, began to clog the streets.