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LOS ANGELES — The death of Michael Jackson drew hundreds of fans as well as the curious to the hospital where he was treated and the house where he was staying.

His trials and tribulations for the most part were overlooked; most people came seeking a connection with an icon or simply

celebrated, sang and played his music while others barely familiar with his work recorded the occasionally tumultuous scene with cellphone cameras.

“We were just lucky to be here today,” said Kyle Joyce of Sacramento, who came to the hospital after hearing the news while walking on Venice Beach. “We just wanted to see it with our own eyes.”Local television showed people converging outside the gate of the Holmby Hills home where Mr. Jackson was living while rehearsing for a planned series of summer concerts overseas. A black S.U.V. pulled up to the gate and a few women, apparently friends or family members, got out and then left, saying to one another they would go to the hospital.That is where the larger gatherings swelled. The crowds were mostly orderly, and by dusk traffic still flowed, if somewhat slowly, through the streets around the hospital abutting the U.C.L.A. campus. Many pedestrians walked past with just a glance, saying they were not fans or were disturbed by his troubled past.“He was kind of icky to me,” said Rhonda Parker, 26,

a waitress on her way to work.

“A molester,” another man muttered as he hurried past, referring to accusations that Mr. Jackson had molested children at the compound he once had near Santa Barbara, Calif.

But, though Mr. Jackson had been secluded for the most part and bereft of a big hit for years, the horde demonstrated that he maintained a committed fandom. Many hung on any word that might emanate from the hospital.

They mixed with reporters from around the world. At one point, when word spread that an evening news conference would be held at a different location, the mass that had gathered on Westwood Boulevard surged like an amoeba up the street as many people chanted “Michael!”

Some carried flowers and others brought candles and scrawled messages on paper and poster board.

A green sign lettered “RIP MJ” hung outside a fraternity house while Mr. Jackson’s music blasted from inside.

Tourists from Spain snapped pictures of each other at the scene after friends back home sent instant messages urging them to record and transmit the scene.

Later, a group of men appeared selling $10 T-shirts with a silhouette of Mr. Jackson and reading “in loving memory of Michael Jackson.” There were few takers.

“Guess what? We are going to be on TV, in Asia!” one said.

Entertainers influenced by his career came out, too.

Veenchel Ednilao, a performer who goes by the name Vice and sings at weddings, said, “if it weren’t for MJ and my parents making me moonwalk across the living room floor, I wouldn’t be the entertainer I am now.”