Mention 'The King' and most people will know you are referring to Elvis Presley, the undisputed 'King of Rock and Roll'. Second only to the Beatles in total Number 1 records (17), the rock genre's first real star exploded into the national consciousness in 1956, thanks to appearances on "The Milton Berle Show" (NBC), "The Steve Allen Show" (NBC) and especially "The Ed Sullivan Show" (CBS). His ten consecutive Number 1 hits beginning with that year's "Heartbreak Hotel" was a record not even the Lads from Liverpool could top, as were his 107 Top 40 hits, 38 of which reached the Top 10. He starred in 31 fiction features that grossed more than $180 million, and though most were formulaic affairs pumping Presley's squeaky-clean screen persona, films like "Jailhouse Rock" (1957), "King Creole" (1958), "Flaming Star" (1960) and "Wild in the Country" (1961) showed evidence of a talent that could have grown had Hollywood not confined him to banal properties. Frustrated with the movies, he entered the final phase of his career in 1969 with a four-week engagement at Las Vegas' International Hotel, maintaining a taxing touring schedule despite declining health until his death in 1977.
Born in Tupelo, Mississippi, Presley grew up an only child, his twin brother Jesse Garon having died at birth, a fact interpreted by mother Gladys as a divine omen for her son's destiny. When he was three, his father Vernon served an eight-month prison term for writing bad checks, and thereafter the senior Presley's erratic employment kept the family just above the poverty level. The Pentecostal services attended by the Presleys first exposed the young Elvis to music, and his second place finish at the Mississippi-Alabama Fair and Dairy Show for a rendition of Red Foley's "Old Shep" was the first indication that singing would play a major role in his life. The family's move to Memphis, Tennessee then placed him in the ideal environment to forge his distinctive style. Hanging around the city's historic Beale Street, Presley absorbed the black blues and gospel heard there and bought clothes that reflected the milieu. Choosing to wear his hair long and slick (for the times), he let his sideburns grow and created the image of a good-natured misfit, the prototype for the sneering rebel who would rocket to fame.
On his first visit to Sun Records, where he made a two-sided single as a belated birthday present for his mother, Presley did not meet Sam Phillips, but their paths crossed later. On July 5, 1954, backed by Scotty Moore (guitar) and Bill Black (bass), he recorded three songs for Phillips: "I Love You Because", "Blue Moon of Kentucky" and what would become his debut, Arthur 'Big Boy' Crudup's "That's All Right". Play on a Memphis radio station led to a local following, and despite a tepid reaction at the Grand Ole Opry in September, Presley began appearing on "The Louisiana Hayride" radio broadcasts out of Shreveport, eventually signing a one-year contract that would effectively limit his exposure to the South through 1955. Though Presley was by far the most charismatic of the phenomenal first wave of rock'n'rollers (e.g., Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, Charlie Rich), who recorded at Sun, Phillips needed money and could not pass up the deal Presley's future manager 'Colonel' Thomas Parker brokered with RCA; $40,000 for Presley's contract and the rights to the five singles recorded at Sun. The deal set the stage for the singer's explosive success with his new label.
Presley made his national TV debut on the Dorsey Brothers' "Stage Show" (CBS) on January 28, 1956, followed soon by six consecutive appearances on the series, but it was his second performance on "The Milton Berle Show" on June 5th of that year which earned him the nickname 'Elvis the Pelvis' and sparked controversy across the country. Pornographic in the eyes of the tightly buttoned-up Eisenhower generation, his suggestive gyrations were the very expression of the pent-up sexuality of 50s teenagers, who (particularly the girls) responded enthusiastically to him. On his 1956 return to his hometown of Tupelo, Mississippi for Elvis Presley Day, he performed once again at the Mississippi-Alabama Fair and Dairy Show, but this time the National Guard had to step in to maintain order. (Presley concerts often ended early when frantic teenagers stormed the stage.) Opponents foresaw the end of Western civilization, but Ed Sullivan, the arbiter of wholesome entertainment declared Elvis a "good boy", although ironically only photographed Presley from the waist up for his third and final appearance on that show.
Presley, however, considered his singing career primarily as a means to an end; his real ambition was to be a movie star. He signed a seven-year contract in April 1956 with Hal Wallis and Paramount and was promptly loaned out to 20th Century-Fox for his first picture "Love Me Tender" (1956). An automaton for many of the nearly identical by-the-numbers movies, Presley rose to the occasion for properties that broke the mold. "Jailhouse Rock" (1957) captured Presley in all his snarling, shaking teen-idol glory, and featured his choreography for the terrific title number. "King Creole" matched him with veteran director Michael Curtiz, who together with the script by Herbert Baker and Michael V Gazzo (based on a Harold Robbins novel) elicited arguably his finest performance while still making time for more than a dozen songs. Don Siegel's "Flaming Star" (1960) offered Elvis' genuine turn as a half-breed Indian who must choose sides when his mother's people go on the warpath, while Clifford Odets provided the screenplay for "Wild in the Country" (1961), which offered Presley the enjoyable dramatic role of a back-country hothead with literary aspirations.
Unfortunately, Colonel Parker may have had as much to do with Presley's lackluster film career as anyone. The tyrannical manager approved all scripts and was loath to stray from what he viewed as tried-and-true, failing to comprehend that the mind-numbing fare thwarted the instinctive actor in Elvis. "Viva Las Vegas" (1964), despite being hampered by a typical plot, paired Elvis with the explosive Ann-Margret, the only co-star who equaled him in musical talent and sexual charisma and rumor has it that Parker was uncomfortable seeing Presley play opposite someone who could hold her own with him. As the scripts became increasingly mediocre through the 60s, the Colonel insured that no co-star would steal the spotlight from Elvis and though the movies consistently made money at the box office, Parker's greedy short-sightedness cost money in the long run as Presley's artistic reputation suffered. During his sojourn in Hollywood, Elvis dropped off the charts while the likes of Bob Dylan, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones dominated the rock'n'roll scene.
In 1968, friends persuaded Elvis to veto Colonel Parker's concept for a sappy TV Christmas special. Instead, Presley made a triumphant comeback in "Elvis" (NBC), his first TV special, during which, clad from head to toe in black leather, he literally wiggled out of the "wholesome" movie persona that had so severely constrained him for more than a decade (not until 1968's "Live a Little, Love a Little" did an Elvis character "go all the way"). Leaving Hollywood behind, he returned live performing after more than seven years with a four-week engagement at Las Vegas' International Hotel (beginning July 26, 1969) and also enjoyed his first Number 1 hit since 1961 with that year's "Suspicious Minds". Presley's renewed popularity continued to grow through his concert appearances, recordings and two documentaries, "Elvis: That's the Way It Is" (1970) and "Elvis on Tour" (1972). In April 1973, more than half (51 percent) of the viewing audience tuned in to watch the TV spectacular "Elvis: Aloha from Hawaii" (NBC), which had initially aired live via satellite in January.
Despite declining health, Presley maintained a full schedule of live appearances up until his death at the age of 42. The ballooning waistline of the compromised performer he was at the end, a prisoner to prescription drugs, allowed another image of 'The King' to take up residence alongside the young sleek rebel who changed the face of music in the 50s. In death, he is every bit as big (if not bigger) as he was in life, thanks in large part to the excellent job done by ex-wife Priscilla Beaulieu Presley's management of his estate. Her decision to open Graceland to the public in 1982 was just one of her savvy business moves that elevated Elvis' net worth far beyond what it was when he passed. By 2005 he routinely topped Forbes magazine's annual list of celebrities who are the top moneymakers from beyond the grave, raking pulled in an estimated $45 million in that single year. Recent years have brought fewer and fewer Elvis sightings, and most people have accepted that he is indeed dead.
In reality, 'The King' will never die. He has been the subject of numerous TV shows, telepic and feature films and no fewer than 25 movies during the 90s have featured Elvis as a song performer, and posthumous album collections and even obscure singles remixed for club dancing--like "A Little Less Conversation" which would go on to serve as themes for the film "Ocean's Eleven" (2001) and the NBC TV series "Las Vegas"--would continue to be top sellers. Among the more memorable and/or intriguing projects about Presley were director John Carpenter's 1979 TV biopic "Elvis" (ABC) which starred Kurt Russell as The King alongside Shelley Winters his mother and Season Hubley as Pricilla; NBC's "Elvis & the Beauty Queen" (1982) with Don Johnson as Presley and Stephanie Zimbalist as his last major companion, Linda Thompson; Pricilla Presley's memoir-turned-ABC biopic "Elvis and Me" (1988), with Dale Midkiff and Susan Walters as the couple; the short-lived ABC series "Elvis" (1989-1990), which starred Micheal St. Gerard and focused on Presley's life from 1954 to 1958; NBC's telepic "Elvis & the Colonel" with Beau Bridges as Presley's manager Col. Tom Parker; the 1998 mockumentary "Elvis Is Alive, I Swear I Just Saw Him Eating a Ding-Dong Outisde the Piggly-Wiggly"; "Elvis Meets Nixon" (1997) a Showtime biopic chronicling the real-life 1970 weekend encounter between the King and the President; and CBS's 2005 miniseries "Elvis," a multiple Emmy nominee which starred Jonathan Rhys-Meyers as the rocker with Randy Quaid as Col. Parker and Rose McGowan as Ann-Margaret. Others projects using the Presley mythology and mystique as a jumping-off point include "The Woman Who Loved Elvis" (ABC, 1993) with Roseanne Barr as a devoted fan; "3000 Miles to Graceland" (2001) in which a gang of ex-cons--including Kevin Costner and Kurt Russell--rob a casino during an Elvis convention; and the bizarro but delightful "Bubba Ho-Tep" (2002), in which Bruce Campbell plays an allive-and-well-and-incognito King who teams with JFK (Ossie Davis) to battle ancient mummies; while Val Kilmer played the ghost of Elvis speaking to Christian Slater's character in "True Romance" (1993) and Nicolas Cage was featured in two Elvis-evoking projects, "Wild at Heart" (1990), as the Elvis-worshipping Sailor Ripleyand "Honeymoon In Vegas," in which he joins the Flying Elvises to parachute into Las Vegas. Presley's iconic power might convince an alien from another world that Presley was the focal point of a religion as evidenced by the adoration of his fans which borders on the cultish.
Long live 'The King'!