Elvis Presley and Steve Forrest in Flaming Star (1960)

Dutch postcard by Int. Filmpers, Amsterdam, no. 458. Photo: 20th Century Fox. Elvis Presley and Steve Forrest in Flaming Star (Don Siegel, 1960).

When The Beatles came to America in 1965 there was only one person they wanted to meet: Elvis Presley (1935-1977). Elvis had more multi-platinum album sales than any other performer, with twelve albums selling over 2 million copies.

Elvis Aaron Presley was born in Tupelo, Mississippi, in 1935. He moved with his family to Memphis, Tennessee when he was 13 years old. His musical career began in 1953 when he recorded a song at the later Sun Studio that was released on Sam Phillips' Sun Records. Accompanied by guitarist Scotty Moore and bassist Bill Black, Presley became an early populariser of rockabilly, an uptempo, backbeat-driven fusion of country and rhythm and blues. The record company RCA Victor took over his contract in a deal prepared by Colonel Tom Parker, who would serve as the singer's manager for more than two decades. Presley's first single 'That's All Right' was released in July 1954. This was followed by 'Heartbreak Hotel', an American number one hit, in January 1956. After a series of successful television appearances and records that reached the top of the sales charts, he was regarded as rock 'n' roll's most prominent figure. His energetic interpretations of songs and sexually provocative stage performances, combined with a remarkably appealing fusion of multi-ethnic influences that coincided with the rise of the civil rights movement, made him at once immensely popular and controversial. The America of the immediate post-World War II period saw great economic growth, with young people having more to spend. Individual development gradually became more important and so a youth culture emerged with various subcultures that opposed the older generation. Presley was the embodiment of this and thus became the first pop idol. Elvis made his debut as an actor in the film Love Me Tender (Robert D. Webb, 1956). Although he was not at the top of the bill, the film's initial title, The Reno Brothers, was changed to capitalise on his last number one hit: 'Love Me Tender' had topped the charts earlier that month. To capitalise even more on Presley's popularity, four musical numbers were added to the original strict actor's role. Although critics cracked the film, it did well with filmgoers. Soon followed more films, including Jailhouse Rock (Richard Thorpe, 1957) and King Creole (Michael Curtiz, 1958) with Carolyn Jones and Walter Matthau, In 1958, he was drafted into the army.

On 2 March 1960, Elvis Presley returned to the US and was given an honourable discharge with the rank of sergeant. The train taking him from New Jersey to Tennessee was stormed by a crowd the entire way. In Nashville, he recorded songs for a new album and the single 'Stuck on You', which quickly became a number one hit. Two weeks later, he recorded a pair of ballads that would become among his best-selling singles, 'It's Now or Never' and 'Are You Lonesome Tonight?' In October, 'G.I. Blues' was a number one album. It was the soundtrack to Presley's first film since his return, G.I. Blues (Norman Taurog, 1960) with Juliet Prowse and Leticia Roman. On 25 March, another benefit concert took place in Hawaii, raising money for a memorial to the attack on Pearl Harbor. It was Presley's last public appearance for the next seven years. Colonel Parker had manoeuvred Presley into a busy schedule of making formulaic, modest-budget musical film comedies. Initially, Presley insisted on pursuing serious roles, but when two films of a more dramatic nature - the Western Flaming Star (Don Siegel, 1960) with Steve Forrest and Dolores Del Rio, and Wild in the Country (Philip Dunne, 1961) with Tuesday Weld - met with less commercial success, he resigned himself to the formula. Even among the 27 films, he made in the 1960s, there were still a few exceptions to the formula. In Viva Las Vegas (George Sidney, 1964) he met his perfect match in the stunningly beautiful Ann-Margreta who was a more independent-than-usual female co-star. The film was a big hit. His other films were almost universally criticised, but almost all were profitable. Hal Wallis, the producer of nine of these films, declared: "A Presley film is the only certainty Hollywood knows." After seven years of no live performances, Elvis returned to the stage in 1968 in the television comeback special Elvis, which resulted in a long series of concerts in Las Vegas and a series of highly profitable tours. In 1973, Presley performed in the first satellite concert broadcast worldwide, Aloha from Hawaii. Long-term drug abuse ruined his health and he died in 1977 at the age of 42. He had one daughter Lisa Marie (1968). Presley is one of the best-selling solo artists in the history of the music industry with estimated sales of approximately 600 million records worldwide.

Sources: Wikipedia (Dutch and German), and IMDb.

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Taken on: August 26, 2022

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