by Joe Bensam
Meanwhile, Parker was busy ramping up the Elvis money-making machine. He signed merchandising deals that resulted in a flood of Elvis-related products hitting the market, from Elvis Presley lipstick and clothing, to perfume and bracelets. Parker also arranged for the production of ‘I Hate Elvis’ badges, so that they could profit from Elvis’s detractors, as well as his fans. No profit-making stone was left unturned. The merchandising operation grew into a multi-million dollar business with many tentacles and profit streams.
Chapter 5 - Taking on Hollywood
Much more significant, however, were the Hollywood deals arranged by the Colonel. Elvis had always loved movies, and was interested in trying his hand at becoming a serious actor. Parker saw that getting Elvis to appear in the right movies would soften his image and broaden his appeal with the public. To this end, he arranged for Elvis to appear in a movie based on family strife during the Civil War. The film was hastily renamed Love Me Tender to benefit from the publicity surrounding Elvis’s current single. The film was never destined to be a classic, with a few Elvis songs awkwardly wedged into a fairly serious plot. But the fans loved to see their hero on the big screen, and the movie was a success. The Colonel was worried about how the fans would react when they saw their hero die in the climactic seen of the movie. But as it turned out, only one woman was seriously affected by the sight - Elvis’s mother.
While this movie was being made, the Colonel was also working on inking a longer-term movie deal. Producer Hal Wallis had seen Elvis on TV in 1956, and he realized that the singer had the charisma and magic required to hold an audience spellbound. He saw that if this magic could be parlayed into movies, then the sky was the limit. A deal was signed, and Wallis created Loving You and Jailhouse Rock as vehicles designed to make the most of the singer’s talents.
Jailhouse Rock was a movie that Elvis enjoyed making
In each movie, the plot was at least partly based on Elvis’s own life, with parallels clear enough for the dimmest teenage fan to know whose life they were based on. Loving You told the story of a working-class Southern singer whose performances drive fans crazy as he rises to stardom. Jailhouse Rock tells the story of an ex-con who redeems himself by learning to play the guitar and starting a singing career based on his unique sound. It came as no surprise to anyone when Elvis played the part of another singer in King Creole.
In each case, the plot of the movie was constructed to allow Elvis to sing a number of songs, even if the excuses for launching into song were sometimes a little implausible. But the inclusion of the songs allowed RCA to produce a soundtrack album as an income generator, as well as a means of further promoting the movie. Despite his dreams of being taken seriously as an actor, Elvis was never in any danger of winning Oscars for his performances. But he could find plenty of consolation by looking at the impressive box-office takings that each movie generated.
Elvis starred with Dolores Hart in ‘Loving You’ and ‘King Creole’
Elvis found himself playing alongside some of the most beautiful leading ladies in Hollywood, and soon rumours abounded about his romantic involvement with them, or with other female members of the cast. There is no doubt that Elvis did enjoy many such relationships during his movie career, but as the ladies all chose to remain tight-lipped about these romances, many of the stories are based on legend rather than fact. But we can safely say that although Elvis found the movie-making process something of a trudge at times, there were compensations that made the exercise worthwhile.
Chapter 6 - Private Presley Joins the Army
Just as Elvis’s career was getting into full swing, it was sideswiped by Uncle Sam. Like all young men at that time, Elvis was eligible to be called up to serve his country in the Armed Forces for two years of national service. His draft notice finally arrived just as he was hitting the peak of his fame.
At that time, Elvis was filming King Creole, and there was still a great deal of filming to complete. He managed to get a postponement to finish the movie, but there was no avoiding the required two years of army service. He had originally thought that he would ask to join the special services unit, where he could spend his time singing to troops on army bases. But Parker thought there was much greater publicity value in the world seeing Elvis serve as a regular soldier. Elvis was philosophical about it all.
‘It’s a duty I’ve got to fill, and I’m gonna do it. I guess the only thing I’ll hate about it is leaving my Mama. She’s always been my best girl.’
Parker saw this issue as both a challenge and an opportunity. The danger was that with Elvis out of the public eye for two years, he could easily be forgotten by a fickle public, making a comeback next to impossible. On the other hand, this provided a great opportunity to showcase Elvis as a good American, doing his bit for his country.
Elvis served as a regular solidier
Whatever faults he may have had, Parker probably justified his management of Elvis’s career through his adroit handling of what could have been a career-killing event. He milked the whole scenario for all the publicity he could get. He arranged for Elvis to travel by train from Memphis to Hollywood to complete King Creole, with hundreds of fans flocking to each station along the route in the hope of catching a glimpse of the soldier-to-be. When Elvis first reported for duty, Parker ensured that the whole event was filmed, including his medical and the shaving of his famous hair. The sight of Elvis being obliged to trade his sideburns and D.A. for a regulation army crew cut made the TV news across the world.
Parker also made certain that Elvis recorded enough material beforehand to enable RCA to release his records throughout his absence.
Sadly, Elvis’s fears about leaving his mother proved to be well founded. Not long after Elvis had commenced his service at Fort Hood in Texas, Gladys was taken ill. Elvis rushed to her side, and was heartbroken when she died a short time after he arrived.
This was undoubtedly the biggest tragedy of Elvis’s life, and in many ways he was never the same again. In fact, some of his closest friends felt that if his mother had lived, he may never have suffered the decline that finally killed him nearly twenty years later. But army life goes on regardless, and Elvis was soon shipped overseas to continue his army service in Germany.
Serving in a tank division, Elvis played his part just like many thousands of other G.I.s, the only concession to his fame being the decision to allow him to live off base to get some privacy. His father, grandmother and friends joined him at his rented home. Parker, however, decided not to visit Elvis in Germany, probably out of fears that he might not be re-admitted to the USA on his return. Apart from a brief trip to Paris, Elvis didn’t get to see much of Europe, or even Germany, his celebrity status making it impossible even to go for a meal at a local restaurant.
Priscilla as a young teenager
Private US53310761 passed his service period uneventfully, apart from one chance meeting that was to prove very significant later. A couple of months before leaving Germany, Elvis met teenager Priscilla Beaulieu - the daughter of a US Air Force Major. The two hit it off immediately, despite the fact that Priscilla was only fourteen. Elvis was particularly impressed by the fact that she was unfazed by his fame, making her very unusual for teenage girl at the time. They spent a lot of time together over the next few weeks, and by the time Elvis returned home, there were already rumours about the ‘girl he had left behind.’ But at the Colonel’s advice, Elvis quashed the rumors in a press conference, in case the news of a potential wife should affect his popularity with the millions of American women who dreamed of becoming Mrs. Presley.
When the two years of service was complete in 1960, the Colonel ensured that his boy returned home in style, with another long train journey taking him back to Memphis from Washington. The huge crowds that turned out to see him showed that his reputation and popularity were undiminished, and soon Elvis was back on track to continue his career.
Chapter 7 - Rebuilding His Career
Now that he was back h
ome, the most important question was how to re-launch his career and put him back in the spotlight. Parker wanted Elvis to return to public performance in style, so he arranged for his ‘boy’ to appear in a TV special with Frank Sinatra. He asked for a fee of $125,000, and knowing that no other star could attract a comparable audience, Sinatra agreed. The act proved to be a mutually-beneficial experience. Sinatra was able to reach out to a younger generation through his association with the newcomer, while Elvis was presented to Sinatra’s audience as an acceptable act. They sang a duet together, with Elvis singing a Sinatra hit, while Sinatra sang Love Me Tender.
Elvis sings with Frank Sinatra
The next priority was to record some fresh musical material, and Elvis went into the studio to lay down some new recordings. It was immediately apparent that Elvis had lost none of his singing talent. On the contrary, his voice had matured into a deeper, richer sound. The next single, Stuck On You, quickly rose to the top of the charts. In the same sessions, he recorded songs for the aptly titled, Elvis is Back, album which also hit the number one spot soon afterwards.
Sadly, that was to the last spark of genius from Elvis for some time to come. John Lennon later said that ‘Elvis died when he joined the army.’ It is certainly true that the King’s career took a turn for the worse artistically when his post-army career began in earnest. Parker saw his protegee as a cash cow to be milked for as much money as it could deliver - and if that meant signing Elvis up to do a series of questionable but profitable movies, then so be it. The rock ‘n roll rebel of the 50s was about to become the Hollywood leading man of the 60s.
Parker saw the business rationale as being very simple. With Elvis as the leading man, a movie was almost guaranteed to be a hit, which meant that the Colonel could negotiate extortionate terms with studios desperate for sure-fire winners. Each movie generated a soundtrack album, which produced additional sales and more singles to hit the charts. These in turn kept Elvis in the public eye, and drove them to the movies to watch his next film. That process could be repeated until the last drop of profit was squeezed from the Elvis well of talent. Parker had no qualms at all about doing exactly that.
In the early 60s, the movies that Elvis starred in were not destined to become classics, although they did have some merit. But as the decade progressed, the quality of the movies declined dramatically. Because Elvis (and therefore Parker) earned a share of the movie profits, Parker saw it as being in their interest to reduce the cost of making each movie. The lower the budget, the sooner the movie got into profit, and the sooner the Elvis team saw dollars in the bank. This resulted in production values being cut to the bone, as various camera shots were dropped, and songs were recorded in single take wherever possible. The exciting locations settings of the earlier movies were replaced by cheaper studio sets, which offered none of the glamour or visual excitement.
Elvis plays a tank crewman who likes to sing...
As time went on, Parker became more blatant about cutting costs, hiring producers who were notorious for shooting extreme low-budget movies. The plots became nothing more than an excuse to limp from one Elvis song to the next, and all attempts at characterization and meaning were abandoned. Movie production became an exercise of bringing another poor product to market as quickly as possible to make money fast.
Worse still for the King of Rock ‘n Roll, the quality of the music declined sharply, too. Parker wanted Elvis to only record songs published by the music publishing companies under their control, so that they could get a cut of the earnings. This meant passing on many great songs by composers associated with other publishers, and instead using whatever trashy songs were available internally. As a result, other singers achieved major chart hits with songs that Elvis could have recorded, while the songs from the Elvis movies barely troubled the attention of the chart makers.
The strategy was obviously a very short-sighted one, and as the 60s progessed, Elvis’s reputation within Hollywood circles declined steadily. Nevertheless, the Elvis name still did the trick of pulling in the audiences, and Elvis became the highest-paid entertainer in Hollywood. Elvis himself became more and more disenchanted with the kind of movies they were making, and was disappointed that no-one would give him a chance as a serious actor. But if he protested too loudly, Parker pointed out that Elvis’s extravagant lifestyle demanded a very high income that only these movies could provide.
As he would sing some years later, Elvis was ‘caught in a trap.’ He found himself in the puzzling position of being both free and wealthy, yet also enslaved by a punishing schedule that he could not escape from. Each year, he was required to deliver no fewer than three films, four singles and three albums. From 1962 to 1968, the career of the superstar degenerated into a blur of movies that are best forgotten, accompanied by musical releases that are equally unmemorable.
While his own career drifted sideways, Elvis was interested to watch the rise of the Beatles and other British acts as they stormed America. They were clearly a threat to his own reign, especially as they were releasing a storm of strong songs and innovative singles while he churned out more of the same. Even so, when the Beatles toured America, he was intrigued enough to arrange a meeting with them at his Los Angeles home.
Despite the Beatles ascendancy, it was clear who was at the top of the food chain, with the Beatles pretty much coming to worship the King, the man who had inspired them to play rock ‘n roll in the first place. Nervous about meeting their hero, the boys had helped themselves to some marijuana during the drive over, and so were not quite themselves when they arrived. The meeting was a little awkward at first, until John Lennon and Paul McCartney picked up guitars and started playing the Elvis songs they had belted out during their early days in Liverpool and Hamburg. They left on friendly terms, and another meeting was planned, but somehow this never happened.
Chapter 8 - Wedding Bells at Graceland
While all this was happening, Elvis had a secret that Parker had remarkably managed to keep concealed from the press for many years. Priscilla, the teenager he had met in Germany, had been living at Graceland since 1962 - effectively being groomed to become Elvis’s wife. It is likely that they would have married sooner, but Parker was worried about how the millions of Elvis fans would react to losing the world’s most eligible bachelor.
Instead, Priscilla lived a reclusive life at Graceland, spending a lot of time with Elvis, and sharing his life in a more intimate way than anyone else. Yet even as she grew older, Elvis was adamant that they should not sleep together until they were married. Instead, she said she found ‘other ways to satisfy him.’ Considering how much press attention was focused on Elvis, it is amazing that Parker managed to keep her name out of the newspapers. After all, this was exactly the kind of story that the media was crying out for. But for five years, Priscilla lived at Graceland without so much as a whisper creeping out to the press.
But by 1967, Priscilla’s father was applying a good deal of pressure for the situation to be resolved in a satisfactory way. He wanted to know exactly what Elvis’s intentions were with regard to his daughter, and pressed for Elvis to make a commitment. And so the wedding could not be postponed any longer, and Elvis married Priscilla in May 1967 in Las Vegas. The ceremony was a very low-key affair, with just a few close friends attending, and it was all over in eight minutes.
Elvis marries Priscilla in Las Vegas
‘We decided to get married six months ago,’ Elvis said. ‘Priscilla was one of the few girls who was interested in me for me alone. We never discussed marriage in Germany, we just met at her father’s house, went to the movies and did a lot of driving. I waited for her to grow up.’
Nine months later, to the day, Priscilla gave birth to their one and only child, Lisa Marie. For a few years, the young family managed to be happy together, but Elvis’s commitments meant that he was spending more and more time away from home.
Elvis somehow did manage to release a few classic songs during the mid 60s, including
Can’t Help Falling in Love, Return To Sender, Devil in Disguise and Crying in the Chapel.’ In 1967 and 1968, things looked a little brighter when he released Big Boss Man, US Male, and the energetic classic Guitar Man. Unfortunately, these increasingly-rare events were usually followed by a movie that returned things to the mediocre status quo. Fans were frustrated to see glimpses of their hero, only to lose sight of him again in the next low-budget, low-quality movie.
As the income from his movies and soundtrack albums mounted up, Elvis became more and more adept at spending it. He bought a Beverly Hills mansion the week after his wedding, plus a stable of very expensive horses. His entourage of employees and hangers-on grew and grew, and he bought cars - especially Cadillacs and Lincolns - in the same way that most people buy groceries. Often he would give these away on a whim to friends or acquaintance - and on at least one memorable occasion - to a passer by in the street. It has been estimated that Elvis bought over 100 Cadillacs during his lifetime, most of these being given away as gifts. He also bought many other expensive cars, including a Rolls Royce, and two private aeroplanes.
