“They’d give us a hundred dollars”: Plummer, interview with author.
“It didn’t have to go any further”: Ibid.
Elvis was dismayed: Recounted by Marty Lacker in Nash, Elvis Aaron Presley, 379.
“Each show opened”: Joe Esposito, Good Rockin’ Tonight: Twenty Years on the Road and on the Town with Elvis (Simon & Schuster, 1994), 92–93.
“he saw a lot of singer Phyllis McGuire”: The fling with McGuire is recounted by Marty Lacker in Nash, Elvis Aaron Presley, 324–25.
Elvis got a new hairdresser: For details of Elvis’s relationship with Larry Geller, I relied on Guralnick, Careless Love, as well as Larry Geller, If I Can Dream: Elvis’s Own Story (Simon & Schuster, 1989), and an interview with Geller.
“We were having fun”: Guralnick, Careless Love, 176.
“The face of Stalin”: Ibid., 195.
“Remember, you’re Elvis Presley”: Geller, If I Can Dream, 115.
News of the impending wedding: Details of the wedding plans, ceremony, and aftermath are taken primarily from Guralnick, Careless Love, and Presley, Elvis and Me.
“I was simply amazed”: Guralnick, Careless Love, 263.
“Well, I guess it was about time”: Ibid., 264.
“Elvis and I followed”: Presley, Elvis and Me, 237.
FIVE: CHANGES (ELVIS RISING)
Howard Hughes’s stealth arrival: For the story of Hughes and his Vegas years, I relied on Donald L. Bartlett and James B. Steele, Howard Hughes: His Life and Madness (W. W. Norton, 2004); Peter Harry Brown and Pat E. Broeske, Howard Hughes: The Untold Story (De Capo Press, 2004); and Michael Drosnin, Citizen Hughes: The Power, the Money and the Madness (Holt, 1985); as well as the various Las Vegas histories cited below.
“greeted with messianic enthusiasm”: Denton and Morris, Money and the Power, 272.
“This is the best way”: Variety, August 5, 1967.
“Did you hear that Hughes”: Variety, October 4, 1967.
“a resort so carefully planned”: Geoff Schumacher, Sun, Sin & Suburbia: The History of Modern Las Vegas, rev. ed. (University of Nevada Press, 2015), 116.
“as trustworthy and respectable”: Drosnin, Citizen Hughes, 108.
“The increased governmental scrutiny”: Variety, March 29, 1967.
“Dalitz and other members”: Denton and Morris, Money and the Power, 284.
“When the bean counters”: Hunt-Bono, interview with author.
“It was the new bureaucratic regime”: Anka, My Way, 165.
“Howard Hughes maintained”: Goulet, interview with author.
“Mr. Hughes is very happy”: Newhart, interview with author.
“He had the shows piped up”: Little, interview with author.
“I can summarize my attitude”: Schumacher, Sun, Sin, 120.
“In a community of brigand”: Variety, February 5, 1969.
“When the so-called gangsters”: Florence Henderson interview, Mark Tan Collection.
“Hughes had all these little”: Gormé interview, Mark Tan Collection.
“Yeah, I sure got married”: Kaplan, Sinatra, 693.
“During this period Sinatra”: Anka, My Way, 173.
“I don’t think he actually shot”: Jackie Mason, email with author.
Sinatra’s infamous blowup: The incident is thoroughly covered in Kaplan, Sinatra, 725–30.
“He was already out of the cart”: Farrow, What Falls Away, 110–11.
“He threatened to kill anyone”: Kaplan, Sinatra, 729.
“Singer Tony Bennett left”: McKay, Played Out, 73.
“Frank picked a fight”: Entratter Sidney, interview with author.
Caesars Palace was the brainchild: The most complete account of the hotel’s birth is in Al, Strip, 90–96.
Sinatra got a record $100,000: The escalating salaries for Sinatra, Martin, and other Vegas stars reported in Variety, December 25, 1968.
“A virtuoso display of Sinatra”: Champlin, Los Angeles Times, November 28, 1968.
It was inspired by a conversation: Anka, My Way, 208–10.
She would sing her American Bandstand: Connie Francis, interview with author.
“My manager’s vision”: Brenda Lee, interview with author.
“It’s too early to know”: Variety, December 13, 1961.
“A lot of us had a good run”: Anka, My Way, 98.
“If the rock ’n’ roll craze”: Quoted in Variety, September 9. 1964.
“They’re going to leave”: Quoted in Kaplan, Sinatra, 596.
“At least they’re white”: Jacobs, Mr. S, 216.
“To be honest, I’d describe”: Guralnick, Careless Love, 211.
“If it hadn’t been for him”: Ibid., 212.
“There’s four of them”: Geller, If I Can Dream, 124.
“The hotels didn’t want them”: Marty Beck, interview with author.
“Only a handful of new acts”: Variety, January 31, 1968.
“At that time Vegas”: Trini Lopez, interview with author.
“We were not an R and B act”: Mary Wilson, interview with author.
“Las Vegas, the bastion”: Billboard, August 26, 1967.
“get out or get groovy”: Weatherford, Cult Vegas, 71.
“I wore the bells”: Ibid., 75.
“George Burns has a gold mine”: Variety, December 28, 1960.
“I wanted to bring a Broadway”: David Winters, interview with author.
“It’s not often that a different”: Variety, July 19, 1967.
“possibly the highest decibel”: Variety, August 7, 1968.
“sleeper of the year”: Variety, April 10, 1968.
“The lewd stuff will come”: Variety, July 26, 1967.
“We were such an oddity”: Sonny Charles, interview with author.
“He’d come from San Francisco”: Ibid.
“Self-assured, almost cocky”: Quoted in David Evanier, Roman Candle: The Life of Bobby Darin (Rodale Press, 2004), 64.
“Bobby sat on a stool”: Ibid., 207.
“Go back and put on”: Michael Starr, Bobby Darin: A Life (Taylor Trade Publishing, 2004), 184.
“The young comedian scored”: Variety, August 24, 1966.
“I imagined what I looked like”: Richard Pryor, Pryor Convictions: And Other Life Sentences (Pantheon Books, 1995), 94.
Pryor singing new lyrics: Beck, interview with author.
George Carlin was another: Richard Zoglin, Comedy at the Edge: How Stand-Up in the 1970s Changed America (Bloomsbury, 2008), 29.
Carson Wayne Newton was born: The account of Newton’s life, career, and Vegas act is taken primarily from “Whatever Happened to Baby Wayne?,” Time, June 29, 1970; “The Most Successful Performer in Vegas History? Not Frank, Not Elvis—It’s Wayne Newton,” People, April 30, 1979; Ron Rosenbaum, “Do You Know Vegas?,” Esquire, August 1982; and Newton’s own memoir, Wayne Newton: Once Before I Go (William Morrow, 1989).
“When he sings ‘Dreams’ ”: “Whatever Happened,” Time.
“The Flamingo is charged”: Variety, January 10, 1968.
“Many nights there would come a knock”: Newton, Once Before I Go, 83.
“Everyone leaves The Show”: Rosenbaum, “Do You Know Vegas?”
“Get that fag”: Newton, Once Before I Go, 99.
“The one show I found”: McKay, Played Out, 133.
“It got to the point”: Newton, Once Before I Go, 162.
“Vegas is unto itself”: Irwin interview, Mark Tan Collection.
“I’m trying to get across”: “Ladies’ Man,” Time, July 11, 1969.
“There was a strong sense”: Tom Jones, Over the Top and Back: The Autobiography (Blue Rider Press, 2015), 269.
“Entratter could no more relate”: Beck, interview with author.
“different both in sound and delivery”: Variety, March 27, 1968.
“The tall, ruggedly handsome”: John L. Scott, Los Angeles Times, March 28, 1968.
“That album is steaming”: J
ones, Over the Top, 270.
Tom was flattered: Ibid., 190.
“What Elvis got from Tom”: Ken Sharp, Elvis: Vegas ’69 (JetFighter, 2009), 25.
“The Colonel behind the scenes”: Schilling, interview with author.
The Colonel’s original idea: Guralnick provides a comprehensive account of the NBC comeback special in Careless Love, 293–317.
“There is something magical”: Quoted in Lichter, Elvis in Vegas, 68.
“It was like nothing”: Guralnick, Careless Love, 323.
“He could have done it”: Nash, Elvis Aaron Presley, 448.
“I want to tour again”: Guralnick, Careless Love, 317.
“He knew where every goddamn penny”: Norm Johnson, interview with author.
Miller . . . was a crafty booker: Las Vegas Review-Journal, February 7, 1999.
“The Colonel was in the front seat”: Weatherford, Cult Vegas, 126.
Elvis went into a Memphis studio: Guralnick, as usual, provides the best account in Careless Love, 326–38.
Davis had initially called it: Mac Davis, interview with author.
“Now you go tell everybody”: Ibid.
“Elvis was really trying”: Ibid.
SIX: COMEBACK (ELVIS REBORN)
“You have to remember”: Richard Goldstein, interview with author.
the worst temper: Schilling, interview with author.
“I liked him a lot”: Davis, interview with author.
“God damn it, I didn’t ask”: Presley, Elvis and Me, 83.
Colonel Parker usually bears the brunt: The Colonel’s complicated relationship with Elvis is fully chronicled in Guralnick, Careless Love; Colonel Parker’s passport problems are recounted in Alanna Nash, The Colonel: The Extraordinary Story of Colonel Tom Parker and Elvis Presley (Aurum Press, 2002).
“The Colonel did not make”: Loanne Miller Parker, interview with author.
“The Colonel was forced to speak”: Esposito, Good Rockin’, 144.
“for the time that goes into it”: New York Times, December 4, 1968.
“Teenagers seem to be tiring”: “Return of the Big Beat,” Time, August 15, 1969.
But Elvis had a dream . . . he actually hung up on the Colonel: Ronnie Tutt, interview with author.
“get used to the crowds again”: Peter Guralnick and Ernst Jorgensen, Elvis Day by Day: The Definitive Record of His Life and Music (Ballantine Books, 1999), 257.
“Not many people told”: Schilling, interview with author.
“management wanted new personnel”: Sharp, Elvis: Vegas ’69, 36.
“Elvis wanted me to find”: Ibid., 37.
“I didn’t like Elvis Presley’s music”: Jerry Scheff, Way Down: Playing Bass with Elvis, Dylan, the Doors, and More (Backbeat Books, 2012), 13.
“When Elvis started singing”: Ibid., 14.
They had crossed paths: Tutt, interview with author.
“We had this great eye communication”: Ibid.
“at least one guy onstage”: Schilling, interview with author.
“I wanted voices”: Sharp, Elvis: Vegas ’69, 37.
“I think Elvis was more influenced”: Terry Blackwood, interview with author.
Morris was originally hired: Morris, interview with author.
“Most of us in the band”: Tutt, interview with author.
“For the first time, Elvis”: Schilling, interview with author.
“I asked if Elvis wanted”: Tutt, interview with author.
“Elvis always wanted to know”: James Burton, interview with author.
“When we started working”: Scheff, Way Down, 18.
“fun but pressurized”: Sharp, Elvis: Vegas ’69, 46.
“He was so gorgeous”: Ibid., 42–43.
“Very seldom would he say”: Blackwood, interview with author.
“Elvis was in a great mood”: Scheff, Way Down, 19.
Elvis snapped at her: Presley, Elvis and Me, 271.
“This town has never seen”: Sharp, Elvis: Vegas ’69, 55.
“Colonel did not ask how”: Miller Parker, interview with author.
“schlocky as all hell”: Nash, Colonel, 252.
“If you don’t do any business”: Esposito, Good Rockin’, 142.
“They didn’t know whether Elvis”: Miller Parker, interview with author.
“the cafe box-office surprise”: Variety, July 16, 1969.
“We got calls from all over the world”: Sharp, Elvis: Vegas ’69, 67.
“The Colonel’s philosophy was”: Jim McKusick, interview with author.
“The way Colonel Parker did promotion”: Ron Garrett, interview with author.
Parker visited him backstage: Sammy Shore, interview with author.
The International’s opening the following night: Variety, July 9, 1969.
the press-shy Kerkorian slipped: Miller Parker, interview with author.
“She’s a sweet girl”: Morris, interview with author.
“The jokes she cracked”: James Spada, Streisand: Her Life (Crown, 1995), 239.
“seemed ill at ease”: Variety, July 9, 1969.
“Even allowing for the opening”: Champlin, Los Angeles Times, July 4, 1969.
“I felt hostility”: Spada, Streisand, 239.
“scintillating display of her gifts”: Champlin, Los Angeles Times, August 5, 1969.
“She sucks”: Lamar Fike in Nash, Elvis Aaron Presley, 473.
“It looked like a political convention”: Sharp, Elvis: Vegas ’69, 62.
so big that they had to be put up: Ibid., 61.
“dressed in black pants”: Ibid., 72.
“We went in there in ’69”: Nash, Elvis Aaron Presley, 468.
“I can remember Elvis sitting”: Scheff, Way Down, 24.
“He was pacing back and forth”: Guralnick, Careless Love, 348.
“If you get lost”: Sharp, Elvis: Vegas ’69, 79.
Elvis had someone fetch: Ibid., 78.
“He was scared to death”: Interview with Burton for Elvis Unlimited, http://www.james-burton.net/1999-interview/.
“The audience was very good to us”: Sharp, Elvis: Vegas ’69, 86.
“The microphone was dead”: Shore, interview with author.
“God among the lobsters”: Scheff, Way Down, 24–25.
“I saw in his face”: Sammy Shore, The Warm-Up (William Morrow, 1984), 34.
Larry Geller claimed that Elvis: Geller, interview with author.
Priscilla said it was because: Presley, Elvis and Me, 135.
“Elvis comes onstage”: Margot Hentoff, “Absolutely Free,” Harper’s, November 1969.
“They wouldn’t shut up”: Sharp, Elvis: Vegas ’69, 91.
“I think he did them because”: Tutt, interview with author.
“He was like a wild man”: Guralnick, Careless Love, 351–52.
“Elvis surprised us”: Sharp, Elvis: Vegas ’69, 113.
“one of the rare occasions”: Ibid., 158.
“Good God”: Ibid., 140.
When he emerged, the two embraced: The Colonel’s reaction is described by many, including Jerry Schilling and Priscilla Presley in interviews with the author.
Pat Boone . . . brought along: Sharp, Elvis: Vegas ’69, 142.
“Ain’t you in show business?”: Ibid.
Bobby Vinton . . . came by with his agent: Ibid.
“It was absolutely spectacular”: Blackwood, interview with author.
“Musically and energy level”: Morris, interview with author.
“I got it”: Presley, interview with author.
“I never saw anything like it”: Davis, interview with author.
“I saw the Beatles”: Sharp, Elvis: Vegas ’69, 126.
“I thought he was fantastic”: Steve Binder, interview with author.
“We had to finish up”; “before I loosened up”; “put down the deposit”: Press conference transcript, Sharp, Elvis: Vegas ’69, 149–51.
“the glamorous rock and roll movie hero�
�: Gragg, Bright Light City, 147.
“It was not the Elvis”: Billboard, August 9, 1969.
“very much in command”: Variety, August 6, 1969.
“With his stature”: Mike Jahn, New York Times, August 18, 1969.
“Presley came on”: Ellen Willis, New Yorker, August 30, 1969.
“felt like getting hit in the face”: Richard Goldstein, New York Times, August 10, 1969.
“Elvis was supernatural”: Dalton, “Elvis Lights Up Las Vegas.”
“What did he do?”: Sharp, Elvis: Vegas ’69, 169.
“The first night I thought”: Larry Muhoberac interview, Elvis Australia, May 30, 2015, https://www.elvis.com.au/presley/interview-with-larry-muhoberac.shtml.
“If he felt a certain audience”: Morris, interview with author.
“He might do the first three songs”: Burton, interview with author.
“In Vegas Elvis discovered”: Jones, Elvis Has Left the Building, 170.
“Elvis came in with no music”: Leone, interview with author.
“He was so undisciplined”: Guralnick, Careless Love, 385.
“The pressure is getting”: Guralnick and Jorgensen, Elvis Day by Day, 262.
“I’d go stark raving mad”: Nash, Elvis Aaron Presley, 469.
“Do you realize what kind of hell”: Ibid., 470.
“He was like a newborn”: Schilling, interview with author.
“It gave me a new life”: Guralnick, Careless Love, 368.
“I had never even been to Vegas”: Blackwood, interview with author.
“I wish I could go to church”: Pat Boone, interview with author.
Even Sammy Shore: Shore, interview with author.
breakfast that usually included: The menu according to Sonny West, Elvis: Still Taking Care of Business (Triumph Books, 2007), 238.
“He was very nice”: Little, interview with author.
“The reception Elvis is getting”: Guralnick, Careless Love, 355.
“I never heard a better rhythm”: Ibid., 357.
“I wasn’t a fan”: Kazan, interview with author.
“They have an expression”: Sharp, Elvis: Vegas ’69, 113, 116.
“I went in expecting”: Ibid., 94.
Vic Damone . . . thought Elvis was drinking: Damone, interview with author.
“Elvis at least knew how to do it”: Jones, Over the Top, 273.
During the engagement he met: Joyce Bova recounts the affair in Don’t Ask Forever: My Love Affair with Elvis (Zebra, 1994).
“Oh, man, it was like going”: Tony Brown, interview with author.
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