Elvis: Aloha From Hawaii. . . And The Grave

Thirty-six years ago today, Elvis Presley got out of bed and retreated to a bathroom in his Graceland home to read a book about Jesus while his live-in girlfriend slept. When she awoke, she found the King slumped on the floor, his face purple and buried in the carpet. His tongue, clenched between his capped teeth, had nearly been severed. Imagine if the paramedics who arrived soon after had managed to revive him. Would the voice that had, by that time, sold 400 million records, been silenced even if Elvis had lived?

It’s mere speculation, because Elvis, the man, could not be revived. The career, however, has thrived ever since.

As part of the hoopla that always accompanies the anniversary of Presley’s death, PBS is repeating Elvis: Aloha from Hawaii this month. Sent out to a worldwide audience via satellite on January 14, 1973, the special spawned a two-disc soundtrack (released by RCA in quadraphonic sound) that would be the last of his albums to reach number one on the Billboard chart during his lifetime.

Other than those flared trousers, Elvis looked splendid back in January 1973, the month of his 38th birthday. The voice is a little thin at first, but gains strength as the show goes on.

The Elvis of Aloha from Hawaii is not the rock ‘n’ roll rebel who defied moral conventions, the role that he played from 1955-1958 before the Army tamed his wild spirit. This later Elvis is the one who had met with Richard Nixon, who admired J. Edgar Hoover, and thought that The Beatles, who had idolized him, were a bad influence on the nation’s youth.

The Elvis of the 1970s was an American icon who had more in common with John Wayne than John Lennon. The musical highlight was not “Hound Dog” or even “Burning Love,” but “An American Trilogy,” a patriotic blending of “Dixie,” “All My Trials,” and “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” that now served as his anthem.

There’s been plenty of hype through the years about the size of the audience when Aloha from Hawaii first aired. Some claim that the special was seen by more people than actually populated the earth at the time, but it was a huge hit by any standard, and represented Presley’s final triumph.

The concert didn’t air in the U.S. until April, pre-empting the NBC Wednesday Mystery Movie and topping the Nielsen ratings for the week. Back then, and, perhaps, even now, Elvis was the only musical icon whose appeal was broad enough for the mass audience of television. Each of his three television specials (the first in December ‘68, and the last, aired posthumously in October ’77) topped the Nielsen ratings the week they aired. Not even Frank Sinatra could boast of such wide appeal. The Chairman of the Board was more active in television than Elvis, but of his many specials the only one to hit number one was in 1960 when his special guest, newly discharged from the Army, was . . . Elvis Presley!

© 2013 Brian W. Fairbanks

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Music for a Desert Island

A cynic is nothing but a bruised romantic. I remember Kris Kristofferson making that observation once, but it sounds like the kind of remark quoted without attribution by those attempting to sound wise.

But I digress.

I am a cynic, as cynical as they come, yet I must be a romantic, bruised beyond healing but a romantic nonetheless. It is why of the ten tracks on the Rolling Stones’ Sticky Fingers album, I listen only to “Wild Horses,” the most gorgeous of the rock and roll band’s many ballads (and there are many lovely Stones ballads, including “As Tears Go By” and “Ruby Tuesday”). “Wild Horses” is not mentioned in Nick Tosches’ essay (cumbersomely titled “The Sea’s Endless, Awful Rhythm, and Me Without Even a Dirty Picture”) in which he considers the album he would take with him to a desert island. Tosches picks Sticky Fingers, but admits he is bothered by the “dullness of my choice.”

Tosches’ musings inspired some musings of my own. Of course, the question was always hypothetical, and in the age of so many high-tech gizmos, it’s downright silly. Why take an album when you can fit a dozen or more on an MP3 player or some other device? How the hell would I end up on a desert island, anyway? The question is still fun to ponder.

I wouldn’t take Sticky Fingers no matter how much I love “Wild Horses,” and I wouldn’t take anything else by the Rolling Stones. I like them, but I don’t love them. Therefore, I’ll leave them.

Ennio Morricone’s soundtrack to Once Upon a Time in the West may very well be the disc that I listen to the most, at least at the time that I’m writing this, and its melancholic mood would be an appropriate companion for my own melancholy. But except for the whistling in the “Cheyenne” theme and that operatic ooohing on the title track, there are no human voices to be heard on Morricone’s masterpiece. Misanthropic though I am, I would probably want to hear a human voice.

Of all the great film composers, Morricone’s only competition for my admiration is the late John Barry whose scores for the early (I prefer to say “classic”) James Bond films have been imitated but never duplicated or improved upon by 007’s composers in the Pierce Brosnan/Daniel Craig era. You Only Live Twice and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service are Barry’s masterpieces. Still, even something as haunting and evocative as the latter’s “Journey to Blofeld’s Hideaway” is still James Bond music, and not really appropriate for the solitary journey on which I am embarking.

The score for Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon was adapted by the late Leonard Rosenman who won an Oscar for his efforts, but except for a few tracks by the Chieftans, the music is the work of Handel, Mozart, and other long embalmed classical composers. It’s as magnificent as the film itself, but, again, it’s purely instrumental. I would want to hear a voice. I would want to hear some words.

Would I want to listen to Christmas music? I doubt it, but the Rotary Connection’s Peace would be the album I’d take even if it doesn’t include a version of “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel,” my favorite Christmas carol.

Gospel music? Something by the Clark Sisters might make the grade. The members of the Rotary Connection were black, and the Clark Sisters are black women, so their inclusion, though not an intentional nod to political correctness, prevents this list from being exclusively white and male.

Getting back to the white guys . . .

I’ve always loved Elvis, and of his many albums my favorite is his second RCA Victor release, the rather unimaginatively titled Elvis. Other than “Love Me” (“Treat me like a fool, treat me mean and cruel”), it doesn’t include any of his famous hits, but this eclectic mix of rock and country is my choice as his best collection. “How Do You Think I Feel” and “How’s the World Treating You?” are exquisitely performed country ballads, and on the other side (you remember album sides, don’t you?), the King rocks at his 1950’s best with a version of “Long Tall Sally” that sounds like it was recorded on a sweltering night in Hell.

There was a time in the mid-1970s when I, like many others, was a fan of Elton John. I remember he once described “pop” music, including his own, as “disposable.” Wading through his album catalog, I’d have to agree. His best album remains his first U.S. release from 1970. The somber cover photograph captures the mood of the music which, for Elton, is uncharacteristically downbeat. There’s a classical atmosphere throughout with the harpsichord-dominated “I Need You to Turn To” and the cinematic “First Episode at Hienten” the highlights. With each progressive album, John’s music became lighter just as his persona changed from serious singer/songwriter to glitter-drenched clown.

Another glitter queen was David Bowie whose albums from 1971-1980 are among my favorites, but the best, 1977’s Low, might wear out its welcome on a desert island. It has a distinctly chilly, even cold atmosphere, perfect for hearing on a bleak winter’s day, but like a bleak winter’s day, its cumulative effect is depressing. Lou Reed’s 1973 album, Berlin, is the best thing that the Godfather of Punk has ever done and I rank it as the greatest concept album ever, but its songs detailing a dysfunctional love affair are even bleaker than Bowie’s album and might make me want to drown myself.

Who doesn’t like the Beatles?

Well, Nick Tosches, the man who inspired these musings, claims to be immune to their charms (“with those silly little suits and silly little haircuts and silly little songs”), but he’s as rare in that respect as he is in many others. Despite recording for only seven years (their first British album, With the Beatles, was released in 1963, and though Let It Be hit the shelves in 1970, it was recorded before 1969’s Abbey Road), the Fab Four’s output is unrivaled for its diversity. It’s hard to believe the group that recorded “Tomorrow Never Knows” in 1966 had been singing “She Loves You” only three years earlier. Choosing a best from their discography is a daunting task.

Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is generally regarded as the Beatles’ masterpiece, but there are plenty of listeners who would reserve that honor for Revolver or Abbey Road, or the two-disc set from 1968 that everyone, even Paul McCartney, calls The White Album (but whose official title is The Beatles). Certainly, no other album in history, by the Beatles or anyone else, was an event the way that Sgt. Pepper was, but as a collection of songs it falls short in my opinion to the American version of 1965’s Rubber Soul (which replaced some of the UK version’s tracks and added some others). But Rubber Soul is altogether too upbeat for a solitary desert island experience. Sgt. Pepper has its share of good vibrations (“With a Little Help from My Friends,” “Lovely Rita”), but you know that it ends in despair. “A Day in the Life,” the album’s brilliant climax, though my single favorite Beatles recording, casts a gloomy pall over the proceedings. I’m a serious guy, but “A Day in the Life” is somewhat sinister, eerie, and, when heard in the dark at a high volume, even a little frightening.

If the Beatles are out, that leaves Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, lone men with guitars which automatically increases their appeal to me, a loner who shuns groups and prefers to go his own way.

I maintain that 1966’s Blonde on Blonde, rock music’s first two-record set, is Dylan’s greatest album, but other than “I Want You,” I don’t really listen to it all that much. I prefer 1976’s Desire with Scarlet Rivera’s somber violin and those duets with Emmylou Harris, especially the long ballad about Joey Gallo that moves me in spite of the fact that I know the song is one of the most dishonest that Dylan ever wrote (in collaboration with Jacques Levy). I probably listen to 1981’s Shot of Love even more, but of its 10 songs, only the hymn-like “Every Grain of Sand” seems to possess desert island durability.

Like Dylan, Leonard Cohen originally reached listeners through other artists. Judy Collins was the first singer of note to record his songs, but no one ever covered Cohen as superbly as Jennifer Warnes whose 1986 album, Famous Blue Raincoat: The Songs of Leonard Cohen, is the only collection of Cohen covers equal to the man’s own discography.

Cohen was once described as “the poet laureate of pessimism” whose songs were “music to slit your wrists by.” His third album, 1971’s Songs of Love and Hate, is as dark and gloomy as it gets, but songs like “Avalanche” and “Joan of Arc,” though ineffably sad, have a comforting quality, as does most of Cohen’s work. I love it, but I think I would take Cohen Live, his 1993 concert album. Cohen’s voice may be the most human of all. This is a man who understands all there is to know about heartbreak and solitude, and communicates his knowledge better than anyone ever has. “Sisters of Mercy,” the live version (not the callow-voiced studio cut from 1967), could help me survive innumerable lonely nights, and “Suzanne,” with its lyrics about “Jesus was a sailor,” would be perfect when surrounded by a vast body of water.

Leonard Cohen’s Cohen Live it would be.

© 2013 Brian W. Fairbanks

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Elvis Is Everywhere

Elvis Presley would have turned 78-years-old this Tuesday, January 8. I can’t forget the King on his birthday even if he isn’t around to celebrate. Here, from 2002, is my tribute to a man who truly changed the world:

“Before Elvis, there was nothing.”

John Lennon's frequently quoted tribute to the King of Rock and Roll is an exaggeration. Before Elvis, there was the girl, name unknown, who won first prize in the talent program at the Mississippi-Alabama Fair and Dairy Show on October 3, 1945. Ten-year-old Elvis Aaron Presley won second place singing 'Old Shep,' a heartbreaker about a boy's love for his doomed dog. Years later, with characteristic modesty, Elvis would remember finishing fifth or even seventh in the contest, but no matter. He won the competition that counts.

Today, you can visit any record store and search the bins in vain for even one recording by the first place winner. But, as a song by Mojo Nixon declares, Elvis is everywhere.

For his performance at the fair, Elvis won five dollars and a free ticket to all the rides. With stardom, the five dollars multiplied into millions, and Elvis still had a ticket to all the rides, including the chemical kind that most reports indicate were in his system on the afternoon of August 16, 1977 when his lifeless body was found at Graceland, his estate in Memphis, Tennessee.

There are those who maintain that drugs were not a factor in his death, that the original autopsy citing an irregular heartbeat was correct. But the conflicting reports about the cause of his death are just another part of the mystique of the man for whom even the word "superstar" always seemed inadequate.

This year marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of his death, and some fans remain convinced he did not die at all, but fabricated his demise to escape the burdens of fame. Silly as these true believers often seem, you can't blame them. In a sense, Elvis is more alive than ever.

Although none of his 33 movies earned Oscar nominations, three of 1994's Best Picture nominees (Forrest Gump, Pulp Fiction, and Quiz Show) refer to him, as have too many movies and TV shows to count. There are songs about him and enough books examining his legend to stock a special Elvis section in a large bookstore or library. Greeting cards bear his likeness, as do collector plates, and virtually any product that has room for his portrait.

He's been officially recognized by the United States Postal Service with a stamp in his honor, and his gaudy estate earned a spot on the National Register of Historic Places several decades earlier than the rules allow, simply because its place in history is a foregone conclusion. Even the announcement made at the end of his concerts – “Elvis has left the building” - has taken on a new life. It's an exclamation point now, a way to describe an exciting moment, such as the winning touchdown in a football game.

The Beatles idolized him, as did former U.S. president Bill Clinton. It could be argued that the wavy-haired Clinton might not have been elected to the Oval Office if not for the social revolution that Elvis started in the Fifties. Before Elvis, the 20th century's presidents were old and often bald. “(Elvis) introduced the beat to everything,” said Leonard Bernstein. That included hairstyles. Presley paved the way for Clinton's presidential pompadour.

His unrivaled popularity, even in death, is proof that talent and charisma are more important to stardom than marketing or management. Elvis had the worst manager of them all in the form of Colonel Tom Parker, a con man to whom many give undue credit for Presley’s success. But Parker latched on to Presley only after the star had conquered the South in ways unseen since the Civil War. Parker rode Presley’s coattails to glory while creating hurdles that his client had to overcome. The long string of mindless movies that wasted the star’s talent for almost a decade were Parker’s idea. And if Parker had his way, the 1968 TV special that rescued Elvis from Hollywood’s manipulative and destructive claws would have been a cozy, mild-mannered hour of Christmas carols rather than the dynamic showcase for Elvis’s talents that it became.

Nor did RCA Victor, the record company that bought his contract from Sun Records, provide him with much support. The label treated its biggest star as little more than a steady source of predictable profits. Knowing his records would always sell a minimum number of copies, the company rarely gave his albums and singles the promotional push that would have increased his existing fan base. Until his death, his RCA contract required him to crank out three albums a year at a time when major artists were considered prolific if they released only one in the same time period. With Presley product flooding the market, it’s little wonder that after 1972’s “Burning Love,” his singles consistently failed to crack the top ten and his albums stalled below the half million mark needed for gold certification.

But if his management and record company let him down, his voice never did. Bob Dylan compared the experience of hearing Elvis for the first time to "busting out of jail." No one led more jailbreaks than the sharecropper's son from Tupelo, Mississippi. "It was like he came along and whispered some dream in everybody's ear, " Bruce Springsteen said, "and somehow we all dreamed it." And down at the end of lonely streets all over the world, late at night in rooms illuminated only by the glow of the radio dial, he's still whispering that dream, inspiring more broken-hearted lovers to bust out of jail. The dream may only last a moment, but its memory can live a lifetime and beyond. Twenty-five years after Elvis left the building for a final time, his voice still echoes, and so does the dream it carried.

Originally published at Paris Woman Journal

© 2002 Brian W. Fairbanks

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Previous posts on Elvis:
Remembering Elvis
Elvis Remembered
August 16, 1977

Remembering Elvis

Today marks the 35th anniversary of the death of Elvis Presley. To commemorate the occasion, here are two blasts from the past. The first, "I Want to Be Free: Elvis in Hollywood," is a look back at his mostly lamentable film career. It was written in 1990 when Elvis had been in the grave only 13 years. The second is a review of Flaming Star, one of the King's better films, written in 1999 and originally published at a site called Movienutz.

I Want to Be Free: Elvis in Hollywood
This week marks the thirteenth anniversary of the death of Elvis Presley. There are those who insist that the King is still alive, having fabricated his death, but they have yet to be heard from. They tend to be more vocal on the more important anniversaries - the fifth, tenth, and no doubt the upcoming fifteenth and twentieth. Elvis’ movies won’t be hard to find, however. Several are being unspooled on TV this week.

Channel 19 kicks off the Presley fest this afternoon with a colorized version of 1957's Jailhouse Rock, while channel 5 is offering 1958's King Creole in untainted black-and-white. It will be followed later this week by G.I. Blues, Roustabout, and Paradise, Hawaiian Style. The best is certainly not being saved for last.

Paradise, Hawaiian Style is a dreadful disaster that only the least discriminating Presley fan could tolerate. Little more than a retread of 1961's Blue Hawaii, it makes that film look like Citizen Kane. While Blue Hawaii was essentially a travelogue with a skimpy plot, it at least had some memorable songs, most notably the classic “Can’t Help Falling in Love.” The 1966 rehash has some memorable song titles - “Queenie Wahine’s Papaya” - but otherwise it’s a barren beach.

G.I. Blues, the first film Presley made after his discharge from the Army, is considerably better but it’s the movie that may have sounded the death knell for Presley’s aspirations to become a serious actor. The rebellious rock and roll persona so vividly captured in Jailhouse Rock and still present, if toned down, in King Creole, was gone now, replaced by a clean-cut Elvis who was now finding favor with the very guardians of good taste who denounced him when he first appeared on the national scene in 1956. Songs like the weepy “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” and the operatic “It’s Now or Never” did much to win them over, and Blue Hawaii sealed the deal, making Elvis a mainstream entertainer that mothers could love as ardently as their daughters.

Presley’s new softer approach on both vinyl and celluloid helped bury rock and roll, and ultimately gave rise to the Beatles who, influenced by Elvis and other American rockers like Buddy Holly and Little Richard, revived the genre in the 1960s. Elvis turned “square,” donning suits and ties and keeping his hair above the collar in movies like It Happened at the World’s Fair (1963) and on records like “Surrender,” while the Beatles, along with Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones, brought the music that Presley popularized and all but abandoned back from the dead. The man who paved the way in the ‘50s and all but single-handedly brought about the revolution in culture and society that made the Beatles possible, was now churning out cinematic rot like Tickle Me and Harum Scarum.

But as the quality of his films declined, Presley’s economic fortunes grew. He remained a huge superstar, becoming not only the highest paid entertainer in the world but also the highest paid actor, commanding a million dollars per picture and 50% of the gross. He was, along with John Wayne and Richard Burton, one of the top 10 box-office draws of the decade. It’s interesting to note that in 1964, probably the Beatles’ most lucrative year, Presley’s film Viva Las Vegas, one of three Elvis movies that year, made more money at the box-office than the Fab Four’s A Hard Day’s Night.

The fact that Presley was so well-paid for his movies undoubtedly influenced the studios in their decision to make them as cheaply as possible. Up to and including Viva Las Vegas, Presley’s films were generally well-mounted productions. Even though most were given mass distribution - playing in more than one theater to make back the financial investment as quickly as possible (standard practice now, but once reserved for exploitation films) - they were competently made and often featured such acting luminaries as Angela Lansbury (Blue Hawaii) and Barbara Stanwyck (Roustabout) in supporting roles.

Later films like 1965's Tickle Me and 1967's Clambake were slapped together like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and fobbed off for quick but profitable engagements at second-run theaters and drive-ins. A few Presley features were high class A films, most notably 1961's Wild in the Country with a screenplay by Clifford Odets. But if Presley’s fans only wanted to see Elvis, why hire first class writers, directors, and co-stars when bigger bucks could be generated without such fuss?

Wild in the Country and 1960's Flaming Star, both of which gave Presley an opportunity to show his dramatic skills, fared poorly in comparison to the scenic Blue Hawaii, and neither succeeded in establishing the star as the serious actor he longed to be. This turn of events enabled his manager, the tacky, uncultured Colonel Tom Parker, to wrest away all control of the Presley film career. Parker’s only interest was money, and if he could make ten cents more by having his client appear in Girls! Girls! Girls! instead of The Fugitive Kind based on Tennessee Williams’ Orpheus Descending (a role offered to Presley that Marlon Brando played instead), then Girls! Girls! Girls! (or something similar) it was going to be.

In his few good movies, Presley clearly demonstrated not only a strong screen presence but definite potential as an actor. He was excellent as the half-breed in Don Siegel’s underrated western Flaming Star, and showed a flair for comedy in 1962's modest Follow That Dream. But instead of more vehicles along those lines, he became trapped in the kind of movies that were more suitable for the likes of Frankie Avalon and Tommy Sands than for a performer whose accomplishments transcended the domain of mere “show business.”

Presley films improved in 1968 when he starred in Stay Away, Joe, a slightly more adult film than the bilge that preceded it. Elvis played a wheeling dealing Navajo in a role that was a sharp turn from the bland, overweight bozo he played in Spinout and Easy Come, Easy Go. Stay Away, Joe came under attack for its stereotyped depiction of Native Americans but otherwise stands out as one of Presley’s better films.

The four films that followed were also a notch above the Spinout type turkey if only because they presented the star in a more flattering light. Live a Little, Love a Little was trash but it wasn’t embarrassing. The few songs were genuine songs, and there were no scenes of rock and roll’s biggest and greatest star being backed up by a band consisting of such non-musicians as Gary Crosby (Bing’s son) and Jack Mullavey.

Presley’s 31 films (not including documentaries) break down into three categories: the good (Jailhouse Rock, King Creole, Flaming Star, Follow That Dream, Viva Las Vegas, and Stay Away, Joe), the acceptable (Love Me Tender, Loving You, G.I. Blues, Blue Hawaii, It Happened at the World’s Fair, Kid Galahad, Wild in the Country, Live a Little, Love a Little, The Trouble with Girls), and the godoffal (Spinout, Clambake, Speedway, Tickle Me, Harum Scarum, and on and on and on).

For my money, Presley’s best movie is Jailhouse Rock. More than any other Presley film, or for that matter, any rock and roll movie of the 1950s, it captures the image, if not quite the essence, of both Elvis and the cultural revolution he started which would blossom in the next decade. It also includes one of his most memorable songs, “I Want to Be Free.” It’s a sentiment he probably understood better a decade later after years of toiling in the wasteland of Hollywood trash.
August 12, 1990

© 2012 Brian W. Fairbanks

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________________________________________________
FLAMING STAR(1960)
Elvis Presley, Steve Forrest, Barbara Eden, Dolores Del Rio, John McIntyre, Richard Jaeckal, L.Q. Jones
Directed by Don Siegel
* * * * out of * * * * *

After his discharge from the Army, Elvis Presley was at a crossroads. Having served his country with honor, he was suddenly seen as a decent American kid by many of the same parents who condemned him earlier as a pied piper leading their children down the path to Hell. To appeal to these newly won fans, his hips now swayed more than they swiveled and the raucous rock and roll that brought him fame gave way to maudlin ballads ("Are You Lonesome Tonight?") and finger snapping pop songs ("Stuck on You").

Nothing reflected the change in his public image more than his movies, though. Whereas his first four films found him playing rebels both sweet (Loving You) and sullen (Jailhouse Rock), 1960's G.I. Blues put him back in the military uniform he was relieved to have been freed from, and had him singing to babies in a role that could have easily been played by Establishment god Bing Crosby two decades earlier. A monster hit, its acceptance by the public did not dampen his enthusiasm for a serious acting career, and his next film, Flaming Star, suggested that this goal was not beyond his reach.

Returning to the western genre in which he made his film debut, Presley is effectively cast as Pacer Burton, a half-breed torn between two peoples.

When the Kiowa Indians launch an attack on the neighboring white settlers, burning homes and savagely murdering the people, the Burton homestead is spared. Though the family is headed by a white man, his wife is a Kiowa. One son is white, but the youngest is a half-breed. Suddenly, the whites, who had accepted the family and welcomed them into their homes, turn against them, threatening to shoot the half-breed should he set foot on their property. Meanwhile, the Kiowas hope to enlist Pacer in their cause. "If a half-breed white leaves his father's people to fight for his mother's people, it will make the strongest magic I have," the chief tells the troubled lad, but he refuses to join their battle. When his mother is shot by a white man and dies after being refused treatment by the white doctor, Pacer's long held but hidden feelings that he never belonged in the white man's world suddenly surface. He abandons his home and joins his mother's people on the warpath. But he remains an outsider, painfully aware that as a half-breed, no matter whose side he takes, he is always fighting himself.

With a literate screenplay by Clair Huffaker and Nunnally Johnson, based on a novel by Huffaker, and the customarily tight direction of Don Siegel, Flaming Star is a meaningful drama potently performed by a strong cast. As Pacer's father and mother, there's the always excellent John McIntire and the lovely Dolores Del Rio. Steve Forrest capably plays Clint, the white son in the Burton clan, and there's a supporting cast that features Barbara Eden, Richard Jaeckal, and L.Q. Jones. Though it's not a shoot ‘em up by any means, there's plenty of exciting action well staged by the masterful Siegel, who later went on to direct Clint Eastwood in such films as Dirty Harry and Escape from Alcatraz.

The role of Pacer Burton was originally intended for Marlon Brando. As an actor, Presley may not be Brando (just as Brando could never be Presley in the recording studio), but by 1960 Brando wasn't Brando much anymore, either, and Presley gives an excellent performance that even Mr. Method Actor could not improve on. Presley's performance may have even been inspired. The situation his character faces is not unlike the one confronting him at the time. Just as Pacer is torn between two divergent cultures, Presley, with the resumption of his career, stood uncomfortably between two different worlds: the rock and roll culture in which he had been the White Negro, the rebel king whose music terrified the guardians of middle class morality, and the whiter than white, white bread world of mainstream showbiz where, with his new more respectable image, he seemed to be headed. The modest reception given Flaming Star and the complete failure of the Clifford Odets scripted Wild in the Country may have sealed his fate more than any Faustian pact he had made with Colonel Tom Parker. Before long, Presley was exiled to another world all together - that strange Twilight Zone nightmare known as the "Elvis Presley movie."

Ah, but Flaming Star is not an "Elvis Presley movie." It's a thoughtful, intelligent western drama, and a good one, that happens to star an actor named Elvis Presley.

© 1999 Brian W. Fairbanks

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Other posts on Elvis:
Elvis Remembered
August 16, 1977
Elvis Is Everywhere

Nick Adams was a rebel

“Johnny Yuma was a rebel. He roamed through the West.”

Those words were sung over the credits of The Rebel, a half-hour western drama from the early 1960s that is probably familiar to most baby boomers. It doesn’t resonate as strongly as a Beatles song, but it resonates. In an episode of Seinfeld, Kramer absent-mindedly sings the theme on the phone after he's put on hold. It might have been scripted, but it could have just been a bit of improv by Michael Richards, an actor old enough to remember when the show starring Nick Adams originally aired. It helps that the theme was sung by Johnny Cash, a bonafide music legend whose death in 2002 was marked with all the hoopla one expects post-Elvis.

The Rebel's star died in February 1968 at age 36, and though his passing was not a media event, it was front page news, certainly in Cleveland, Ohio. The Plain Dealer ran the headline, “Actor Nick Adams Found Dead,” near the bottom of its front page. A few days later, The Cleveland Press’ "Showtime," an entertainment tabloid included in the Friday edition, featured a eulogy by a showbiz columnist titled “Then His Star Began to Fade,” detailing Adams’ struggle to achieve stardom in Hollywood and of how he fell short of realizing his ambition while still coming closer than most to grabbing the brass ring.

As a poor kid growing up in Pennsylvania, Adams escaped at the movies, idolizing John Wayne and James Cagney in whose footsteps he hoped to follow. In Hollywood, he hooked up with another wannabe star, James Dean. If the more sensational accounts of their history are accurate, the two survived by hustling gay men on the streets of Hollywood and Vine. In Hollywood Babylon Revisited, author Darwin Porter claims Adams used his rumored “well hung” status to land auditions and movie roles. However he went about realizing his dream, he succeeded in being cast in Mister Roberts with Cagney and Henry Fonda, though he’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-him presence. He was a little more prominent, though not by much, in Rebel Without a Cause, James Dean’s follow-up to East of Eden which rocketed him to stardom in early 1955. By the time Rebel was released later that same year, Dean was dead and about to be reborn as the object of one of the first celebrity death cults.

A born hustler, Adams exploited his Dean connection to work his way into the shadow of Elvis Presley, who admired Dean and inherited his place as the misunderstood rebel whose sneer was but a cover for a sensitive, wounded heart. It is primarily through his association with these two legends that Adams is known today, but he had a few memorable roles in such films as Picnic, Pillow Talk, and The Last Wagon. His finest moment came in a comedic part, that of Private Ben Whitledge, Andy Griffith’s bespectacled pal in the hilarious No Time for Sergeants. But such a role wasn’t compatible with the image that Adams wanted to project, that of the tight-jawed hero like those he worshiped in his movie-going youth. If casting directors didn’t see the 5'7" actor in the Duke Wayne mold, he’d have to take matters into his own hands, and did, by co-creating The Rebel with Andrew J. Fenady, and successfully selling the idea to ABC.

Popular for a time, The Rebel survived only two seasons (1959-1961) on the then struggling network, but Adams wasn’t through. After landing a minor supporting role in Twilight of Honor, a 1963 courtroom drama dashed off to cash in on Richard Chamberlain’s popularity as TV’s Dr. Kildare, Adams seized the opportunity to position himself for an Oscar nomination as best supporting actor. He hustled - buying $8,000 worth of trade ads to promote himself and successfully bought a nomination. It was a classic example of chutzpah, all the more remarkable since Adams’ role in the film wound up on the cutting room floor. Melvyn Douglas won for Hud. If Douglas hadn’t triumphed, singer Bobby Darin would likely have won for an impressive turn as a traumatized soldier in Captain Newman, M.D.

With Hollywood concerned that so many productions were now being filmed on foreign soil, Adams made some noise by telling reporters he would only accept parts in movies made at home. Trouble is, he wasn’t receiving offers in the States, so he did an about face, and went to England to co-star with Boris Karloff in Die, Monster, Die, an above average adaptation of an H.P. Lovecraft story released by American International in 1965, the same year Allied Artists tossed out Young Dillinger, with Adams in the title role, as one half of a drive-in double bill.

His co-star in the latter film was a young actor for whom Adams was a mentor: Robert Conrad, already popular due to his role on TV’s Hawaiian Eye, and about to win more fans as James T. West, the secret service agent of The Wild, Wild, West. Conrad managed to squeeze Adams in as a guest star on a pair of episodes at a time when his only other options were such made-in-Japan atrocities as Frankenstein Conquers the World and Monster Zero. By then, Adams was more familiar to TV audiences as a celebrity contestant on PDQ, a game show hosted by Dennis James.

The circumstances of Adams’ death in February 1968 remain a subject of debate with some mystery aficionados suggesting he was knocked off, perhaps by someone intent on covering some shady business practices. He was found slumped against the wall of his bedroom, eyes open and staring. An autopsy found a combination of drugs in his system, usually a sign of either an accidental overdose or suicide.

Before his death, he managed two more film roles. Mission Mars, a shoddy space travel flick with Darren McGavin, may not have been released theatrically (it never arrived in my hometown, anyway), but Fever Heat, a racing drama for Paramount, was unloaded at drive-ins four months after his death, supported by a re-issue of The Sons of Katie Elder.

Adams comes to mind because The Rebel is being revived on Me TV (Memorable Television), a network whose programming is a sort of Greatest Hits from TV’s past (look for it on one of the many sub-stations that popped up after the switch from analog to digital broadcasting). Nick Adams may be little more than a blip on the radar screen of pop culture today, but there was a time when, for a half-hour of network prime time each week, he was the brave, somewhat surly, hero he always wanted to be. And now, thanks to reruns, he is sneering heroically again.

POSTSCRIPT: Allyson Adams, daughter of the late Nick Adams, recently found a diary written by her father during the eight days he accompanied Elvis Presley when the latter was being celebrated by his hometown of Tupelo, Mississippi. Titled The Rebel and the King, you can find more information about the book (and pre-order a copy) at the following link: http://therebelandtheking.com/

© 2011 Brian W. Fairbanks

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August 16, 1977

On August 16, 1977, I was a depressed 20-year-old prone to sleeping well past noon. I got out of bed on that warm, muggy day sometime after 5:00 p.m. and found my mother sitting at the organ. She was weeping.

“Guess who died?” she said.

The question itself gave me a jolt.

“Who?” I asked.

“Elvis Presley” was the answer.

Memories.

The first records I remember hearing, probably because I liked them, were “I’ll Remember You,” the Frank Ifield hit whose wailing harmonica inspired John Lennon to play the instrument on the Beatles’ early hits; “It Might As Well Rain Until September,” songwriter Carole King’s first attempt at recording her own compositions; Lenny Welch’s weepy “Since I Fell for You”; and “Stuck on You” by Elvis Presley.

The latter title was prophetic. I had no interest in seeking out other recordings by Ifield, King, or Welch, but Presley’s distinctive style had me hooked. All those “uh-uh-uh,”s “yessiree,”s and “oh yeah”s were unlike anything my ears had heard.

I believe my mother had the record, the wear and tear around the RCA Victor label marking it as a disc purchased from the bargain bin, but I wanted more, and I vividly recall my mother taking me to the cramped Record Rendezvous in downtown Cleveland to buy another Elvis. I remember the walls decorated with the latest albums by everyone from Ricky Nelson to Lawrence Welk. These were 33 1/3 record albums whose covers were impressive even if the artwork wasn’t particularly eye catching simply because they were fairly large, over 10 down and across. And your sense of smell could identify a record store even if there wasn’t any music playing. Those heavy vinyl platters had a pleasing scent that compact discs lack.

I don’t remember the title of the Elvis 45 I picked up, only the picture sleeve that it came in, but I do know it didn’t impress me since the King was more subdued than he was when performing “Stuck on You.” There were none of those “uh-uh-uh”s and “oh yeah”s that made him sound so different. No matter. There were other Elvises to come including the Blue Hawaii soundtrack that I can still see beneath the Christmas tree in either ‘61 or ‘62. Yes, Elvis was also a movie star, and that may have been more significant to me than his success as a recording artist. I was already obsessed with movies, and I would see most of Presley’s films. There was a triple feature of Love Me Tender, Jailhouse Rock, and Kid Galahad at the Garden. Girls, Girls, Girls reissued in support of John Wayne in Circus World at the Lyceum. Follow That Dream and It Happened at the World’s Fair on ABC-TV, a network that acknowledged the King’s status as the world’s biggest star by preceding the telecast of every film with a clip displaying that name - ELVIS - repeatedly. There was Tickle Me at the Garden in 1965, and, earlier, Fun in Acapulco paired with something called Hootenany Hoot at the same theater. I still recall the buttered popcorn I consumed in the dark on that visit to the Garden, although I don’t know why it stands out more than other buttered popcorns I ate at the movies.

It was when Roustabout played at the Garden that Elvis encouraged a friendship with one of my classmates in Sister Cora’s second grade class at St. Procop. John Sorma had approached the manager to ask him when the Elvis Presley movie would begin. The next day at school, I established that it was Roustabout’s star, not its flimsy plot or the presence of Barbara Stanwyck in the cast, that brought Sorma to the West 25th Street movie house (open only on weekends) on a Sunday night. My other friends were callously excised from my life as Sorma and I became inseparable. We endured his older brother’s teasing about the superiority of the Beatles, exchanged records, and, with my mother, saw Viva Las Vegas and Kissin’ Cousins at the Garden together. We were each other’s best friends, but we both acknowledged that a demotion was possible if either of us were to meet Elvis.

Sorma moved away after second grade, so our friendship was not as enduring as the King’s popularity, but the years 1964-1965 are among the most vivid in my memory. We shared the fun of being Elvis fans, and also the ups and downs that come with any relationship. I remember his mother, a quiet chain smoker who collected the coupons packaged with Raleigh cigarettes, and died of cancer in summer ‘65. Nine years later, long after we had drifted apart, his brother Patrick, a reserved, comforting sort, got his picture in the local paper when they reported his death in some sort of scuffle that ended in gunfire. Twenty years after that, John Sorma lost control of his car on Lorain Avenue, and joined his mother, his brother, and Elvis in death.

“Memories, pressed between the pages of my mind,” Elvis once sang. I have many, and Elvis was present in some of the best, sometimes as a peripheral figure, and other times dominating them. Is it any wonder that Elvis was so deeply mourned? For millions of people, Elvis was, as NBC’s David Brinkley said, “a part of our lives.”

Whatever happened to the rest of the Sorma clan? I don’t know, but John’s older sister did not marry Sean Connery’s brother as he breathlessly reported she was going to do when he came by my house in summer ‘65 for no reason but to tell me this fib. Besides, his sister was in love with Elvis, having written “I love you” in lipstick on a black-and-white photo of the King published in one of those movie magazines so popular at the time. I remember seeing it on her bed the time her brother and I snuck into her room.

In the mid ‘60s, my interest in Elvis started to wane. Movies were my passion, and my tastes became more sophisticated, no longer limited to Elvis and American International horror flicks. But in 1968 came NBC’s presentation of Elvis, his first TV special, and that dynamic comeback revived my enthusiasm, as did such classic recordings as “Suspicious Minds” and “Kentucky Rain.” Soon after, he was lost to Vegas.

I pretty much lost interest in contemporary music in the early ‘70s, but Elvis seemed equally apathetic. His last top 10 hit was 1972's “Burning Love,” and though his concerts sold out within hours of being announced, his off-stage antics attracted more attention than his on-stage performances. The National Enquirer, Star, and other lurid tabloids splashed his increasingly bulky frame on its covers as they detailed every move he made, whether it was midnight snowmobiling in Colorado, his interest in numerology, or his habit of giving Cadillacs to complete strangers. When the King of Rock and Roll got fat, the media gloated, but no matter how many times he split his sequined pants, his appeal to women of all ages remained undimmed. By 1975, there were also frequent reports of his hospitalizations and his insistence that the windows of the hotel rooms he stayed in while on tour be covered in tin foil to block out all traces of sunlight.

In the late ‘50s, when his gyrations on stage were compared to that of a stripper, he defended himself by insisting he lived a “straight, clean life,” and that image followed him to Hollywood where it was believed his parties, fabled for the number of females present, were innocuous affairs with no drinks stronger than Pepsi. The reports of drug use that exploded following his death, itself drug-induced, took his fans by surprise. They all breathed a collective sigh of relief when the coroner announced that the King’s crown was toppled by “cardiac arrhythmia - a severe, irregular heartbeat.” In 1979, Geraldo Rivera would demolish that myth with an hour long report detailing Presley’s addiction to prescription drugs, but on August 16, 1977, the ABC news reporter known for his maverick style presided over the network’s late evening reminiscences of the fallen King. NBC competed with an excellent report anchored by veteran newscaster David Brinkley who closed the broadcast by saying Elvis “changed our lives, like it or not.”

CBS, however, bungled the story badly. After my mother informed me of Elvis’ passing, I turned on The CBS Evening News in the misguided belief that they would have the most comprehensive report - after all, it was on their Sunday night Ed Sullivan Show that Presley made his most notable early appearances. Instead, CBS led their news that night with a report on former president Gerald Ford’s endorsement of the Salt II treaty. Roger Mudd, subbing for the vacationing Walter Cronkite, later told TV Guide that he protested the decision, but was overruled by the producer.

An embarrassed CBS, criticized for their failure to recognize one of the most important news stories of the year, compensated for their gaffe with a thoughtful half-hour news special two nights later. Hosted by Charles Kuralt, who had been present at a news conference Elvis held for the media upon his discharge from the U.S. Army in 1960, the special was memorable for emphasizing Presley’s impact on culture and society, the result being a more thoughtful program worthy of the time capsule. “Try to remember, try to remember,” Kuralt intoned from a darkened studio highlighted only by some black-and-white photos of Elvis in his prime. “1956 was the year Elvis Presley had his first national impact. Ike was in his glory, Grace was in her palace, and all was well with the world, except an Alabama preacher named Martin Luther King didn’t think so.”

Elvis may not have invented rock and roll, but he was the genre’s most creative innovator, forging a style that would influence almost every performer who emerged in his wake. And it was Elvis who made rock and roll an international phenomenon that would give rise to the Beatles, the only performers whose popularity and impact rivaled his own.

Rock and rollers, and popular music performers in general, come and go, and only a handful endure or are even remembered by anyone but those present during their brief blaze of glory. On August 16, 1977, the biggest star in music was Peter Frampton whose multimillion selling live album had replaced Carole King’s 1971 Tapestry as the biggest selling disc in history. But Fleetwood Mac’s Rumors would soon displace it, and the band itself would push Frampton off the radar within months. The disco explosion that followed the December release of Saturday Night Fever with its throbbing Bee Gees soundtrack would fade as quickly as it arrived, as New Wave bands like Blondie dominated the charts. Michael Jackson’s brief reign in the ‘80s, spurred by MTV and music videos, would crumble long before the dramatic charges of child molestation that forever tainted his image in the ‘90s. Other sounds and equally fleeting bands and singers would rise in years to come, but none have challenged Elvis whose collection of number one hits would reach the top of the Billboard charts in 2001.

Elvis is many things, including an anagram for “lives.” Indeed, he does, 30 years after leaving the building for a final time.

Brian W. Fairbanks

August 12, 2007

© 2007 Brian W. Fairbanks

VISIT MY KINDLE STORE AT AMAZON


Other posts on Elvis:
Remembering Elvis
Elvis Remembered
Elvis Is Everywhere