Killing the legends, p.3
Killing the Legends, page 3
10 P.M.
A secret meeting is under way.
Three black Cadillac limousines pull up to the tall wrought-iron gates guarding 1174 Hillcrest Drive in the Trousdale Estates section of Beverly Hills. Built into a hillside, the 5,300-square-foot ranch-style mansion has three bedrooms, walls of glass, and a separate guesthouse. Thick white shag carpeting covers the living room floor in ankle-deep pile.
The arriving guests have been expected.
In the great round room at the center of the house, a party is in progress—blue and red mood lighting, color TV, a jukebox, pool tables, drinks. Elvis Presley and the coterie of friends he calls “the Memphis Mafia” entertain a bevy of young women. The gathering is large and loud, with more than twenty in attendance.
Elvis is quiet, unsure of how the evening will proceed. Few in the room know who’s coming over, but ground rules are in place to ensure the visit goes smoothly: no recording, no press, no photos—and above all, the meeting must remain a secret.
Two members of the Memphis Mafia pull open the gates and wave the limousines through. Colonel Tom Parker, who made this get-together possible, rides in the front car. As the vehicles park in the circular driveway, the occupants emerge. Tony Barrow, a twenty-nine-year-old publicist, is among the arrivals. He has worked closely with Parker to arrange tonight’s rendezvous, and he now fidgets nervously, hoping everyone gets along.
Barrow is British and has worked this job for the last three years. He signed on with his clients before they were famous—and it was he who coined the moniker that fueled their rise to stardom, “the Fab Four.”
Members of the hottest pop act on earth proceed through Elvis’s front door: John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and George Harrison. Ten years ago, Presley was their idol, inspiring their dream of making it big in the music world. In Lennon’s own words, “Without Elvis, there would be no Beatles.”
It was the Beatles who requested this meeting. They had tried before, one year ago. But that rendezvous did not come to pass. “We could never get to him,” Paul McCartney will remember. “We used to think we were a bit of a threat to him and Colonel Tom Parker, which ultimately we were. So although we tried many times, Colonel Tom would just show up with a few souvenirs, and that would have to do us for a while. We didn’t feel brushed off; we felt we deserved to be brushed off. After all, he was Elvis, and who were we to dare to want to meet him? But we finally received an invitation to go round and see him when he was making a film in Hollywood.”9
Now, the shoeless feet of John, Paul, George, and Ringo sink into the deep shag carpeting as the four are led to Elvis’s “playpen,” in Tony Barrow’s words.
John Lennon is thrilled. “It was very exciting, we were all nervous as hell, and we met him in his big house in LA—probably as big as the one we were staying in, but it still felt like, ‘Big house, big Elvis,’” Lennon will remember. “He had lots of guys around him, all these guys that used to live near him—like we did from Liverpool; we always had thousands of Liverpool people around us, so I guess he was the same. And he had pool tables! Maybe a lot of American houses are like that, but it seemed amazing to us; it was like a nightclub.”
However, the excitement quickly turns awkward.
“There was a weird silence,” Barrow will remember of the moment Elvis and the Beatles first laid eyes on one another. The King has been plucking at a bass guitar while watching television without the sound on.
Elvis is about six years older than John and Ringo, the two eldest members of the band at twenty-four and twenty-five respectively, but the generation gap seems more like a chasm. The Beatles—along with bands like the Rolling Stones and Herman’s Hermits—are part of the music world’s raucous “British Invasion.” They wear their hair long, with bangs covering their eyebrows and long sideburns. Elvis and his crew, their southern ways transported temporarily to Los Angeles, still prefer a more traditional 1950s pompadour.
Also, the King no longer makes cutting-edge music. His most recent single, “Crying in the Chapel,” sold over a million copies but never reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 sales chart. Also, his recent film Girl Happy did nothing to stretch his acting chops. Its $3 million gross box office is well below the $10 million of Viva Las Vegas just two years ago.
Help!, the second Beatles film, will be released one month from tonight. It will gross over $12 million ($100 million today).
Even more palpable is the “buzz” gap. The Beatles are a sensation. They are at the end of a sixteen-show US tour that began at Shea Stadium in New York City two weeks ago and will conclude here in Los Angeles with two sold-out shows at the Hollywood Bowl. They are spending six nights in a rented Benedict Canyon home nearby, to rest before those final performances. That location was supposed to be top secret, but word has leaked. Fans throng the streets in front of the residence, forcing road closures. Others try to scale the property’s walls.
Elvis Presley once owned that level of fame. But while he still needs those wrought-iron gates to keep fans away, the King is no longer a teen idol.
So on one side of the room stands Elvis Presley with his group of revelers. On the other stand the Fab Four. No one knows what to say.
Except John Lennon. The brash guitarist addresses the issue of their parallel careers with two quick questions.
“Why do you do all these soft-centered ballads for the cinema these days?” he asks Presley. And then: “What happened to good old rock and roll?”
Elvis does not respond. The question had to hurt him. But no one will ever know for sure.
* * *
The truth is that rock ’n’ roll is changing dramatically, along with the rest of the world. Traditional groups like the Four Tops, the Righteous Brothers, and the raucous Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs still dominate the charts in 1965, but a darker political tone is beginning to intrude on pop music.10
The emergence of socially conscious artists like Bob Dylan and Joan Baez has been a radical departure from the Girl Happy fluff Elvis still embraces. For Presley and the Colonel, history is passing them by. The assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the rise of the civil rights movement, and above all the controversial Vietnam War has music fans seeking new messages in their music.
Even as the Beatles and Elvis meet tonight in Beverly Hills, the impact of President Lyndon Johnson’s Gulf of Tonkin Resolution accelerates the cultural change. Thousands of miles away, North Vietnamese torpedo boats allegedly attacked two US naval vessels, leading LBJ to order retaliation by US bomber aircraft. As with the war in Korea that ended twelve years ago, the presence of American troops in Vietnam is framed by the US government as an effort to defeat communism.
But unlike with the Korean War, which came at the peak of post–World War II anticommunist fervor in the United States, the US bombings in North Vietnam have many questioning if this is a just war. Protests have begun at universities around the country. Many students are aligning with antigovernment opposition through acts of rebellion, like growing their hair long and smoking marijuana—a substance that Elvis Presley, despite his fondness for opioids and amphetamines, considers an abomination.
The intensity of this cultural shift demands that the world of entertainment pay attention. So, while the sophomoric “Wooly Bully” is all the rage in 1965, the future belongs to protest: Dylan and Baez; Crosby, Stills, and Nash; Jefferson Airplane. The Beatles will record their statement songs, too, riding the wave of the popular mood in a way that will take their music from the innocent lamentations of “She Loves You” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand” into the very political “Revolution”—which, in traditional ironic Beatles fashion, protests the act of protesting.
Colonel Tom Parker is violently opposed to Elvis making a similar career alteration. He despises “message” songs and refuses to let Presley record such material. It will not be until 1969 and the song “In the Ghetto”—a record made behind the Colonel’s back—that the King will address societal issues. Presley’s continued frivolity in 1965 means his reputation as a “serious” artist is slipping away. “Crying in the Chapel” may have sold a million copies, but it has absolutely nothing to do with life in today’s America.
It is not known whether Elvis Presley understands what is happening in the world of pop music. He does, however, have a choice: to align himself with a new brand of music or to continue with business as usual. After talking with Elvis, Paul McCartney recalled, “I only met him that once, and then I think the success of our career started to push him out a little—which we were very sad about, because we wanted to coexist with him. He was our greatest idol, but the styles were changing in favor of us.”
* * *
As the meeting with the Fab Four unfolds, Elvis is kind to the Beatles, shaking their hands and exchanging with them stories about life on the road. But that conversation does not last long. “They quickly exhausted their initial bout of small talk, and there was this embarrassing silence between the mega-famous five,” publicist Barrow will remember.
The King calls for guitars, which are instantly procured. A short jam session breaks out. “The boys found that they could make much better conversation with their guitars than they could with their spoken word. Music was their natural meeting point, their most intelligent means of communication,” Barrow adds.
As per the ground rules, no one takes a picture of this moment. No one turns on a recording device.
Not having drums, Ringo Starr pounds out the backbeat on wooden furniture. Elvis continues playing the bass, which is usually McCartney’s instrument. “See, Macca. I’m practicing,” the King jokes.
McCartney quickly replies, “Brian Epstein will make a star of you soon,” referring to the Beatles’ manager.
Publicist Barrow watches the scene. “Everybody was singing,” he will remember fondly. “They tried to make light of it and not show too much adoration for their idol, but Elvis Presley was their idol and one of the prime influences of the Beatles’ music.”
Finally, Colonel Tom Parker has had enough. He enters the room with a pile of Elvis albums, hands them out like presents, and ushers the Beatles to the door. The meeting lasts just an hour.
“Long live ze King,” John Lennon shouts in a comedic German accent as he steps into his limousine. There is talk among the Beatles about whether Elvis took drugs before their visit.
“Elvis was stoned,” Lennon insists.
“Aren’t we all?” George Harrison quips.
CHAPTER THREE
MAY 1, 1967
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA
9:41 A.M.
Elvis Presley is tense.
It is a Monday morning, and Elvis and longtime girlfriend Priscilla Beaulieu pose shoulder to shoulder before Nevada Supreme Court judge David Zenoff in a suite at the Aladdin hotel. They stand together against a backdrop of tall white candles and elaborate white lily wreaths, as Elvis’s favorite color is white.
Two wedding photographers work the room—which is difficult; the space is too small for the fourteen assembled wedding guests. Everyone is standing uncomfortably close, including Colonel Tom Parker, who has orchestrated the event.
More people would have been in attendance, but Parker did not want a large crowd—and he specifically banned all but two members of Presley’s Memphis Mafia crew, who, at any given time, depending on the singer’s needs for bodyguards and company, could number anywhere from six to twenty. This decision angered a number of Elvis’s confidants, but the superstar would not go up against the Colonel. His loyalty ran too deep.
Outside the suite, located on the hotel’s third floor, members of the press listen through the closed door, waiting for the ceremony to end so they can be the first to see the new bride and groom. Rumors about the top-secret wedding have been circulating for days.
The fortunate invited guests gathered at Elvis’s Palm Springs home yesterday afternoon. “By that time,” Memphis Mafia member and co-best man Marty Lacker will remember, “the reporters were there by the dozens. When they saw all the people arriving, they knew something was about to happen, and that something was probably a wedding. The reporters were trying to bribe the maids. One was offered five hundred dollars to reveal what was going on, but she didn’t do it.”
By late afternoon, the guests had all gathered in front of the home. Colonel Parker strode down the long driveway to announce that there would be a press conference. Problem was, the meeting would be held more than two hundred miles away, in Las Vegas. Immediately, the press rushed to relocate.
Even as reporters drove through the night, the wedding party and guests flew to Vegas on two chartered aircraft. The group had been carefully chosen. Elvis’s father, the fifty-one-year-old Vernon, and his second wife, Dee; Priscilla’s parents; and Joe Esposito and Marty Lacker, who would serve as best men. Priscilla’s sister, Michelle, would serve as maid of honor.11
The ceremony begins on time. The marital vows are standard, the same words Judge Zenoff has recited hundreds of times. However, there is one exception: Elvis Presley refuses to say “obey” in his vows. Priscilla will.
A trio consisting of a violin, accordion, and stand-up bass plays “Love Me Tender” as Elvis and Priscilla enter the room. As Judge Zenoff states the vows, the musicians stand ready to launch into “Here Comes the Bride” when the ceremony is complete. The couple appears nervous. Elvis usually enjoys teasing Priscilla, pulling her hair or tugging on her earlobe, but there is no evidence of that behavior now.
Presley stands with his hands at his sides, a carnation in his lapel. Priscilla holds a small bouquet of flowers. The King wears a black-on-black tuxedo custom-made for this day by Hollywood designer Lambert Marks, who chose a fabric of paisley silk brocade. Elvis accessorizes with black cowboy boots, diamond-and-sapphire cuff links, and a platinum watch also decorated with these precious gems. His trademark black pompadour is extra tall for this special day, supported by wires that run up the back of his head, hidden under his dyed black hair.
“’Cilla,” as Elvis calls his bride, bought her simple full-length white dress with lace sleeves and matching veil off the rack. Her brown hair is also dyed black, to match her new husband’s, and is layered high in a bouffant style. Later, one of Elvis’s groomsmen will say, “She looked like she had about eight people living in her hair.”
Elvis had proposed just before Christmas last year, instructed to do so by Colonel Parker, who recognized that the attention spawned by a wedding might give Presley’s tanking career a vital boost. As Parker well knows, the King has not had a hit record since “Crying in the Chapel.” His highest-ranking single since then, “I’m Yours,” reached only No. 11. And while his 1966 Christmas album would go on to become the bestselling holiday record in history, it is clear that Presley’s time as the “King of Rock ’n’ Roll” is now a memory. With his own six-figure income on the line, Parker turned his focus to having Elvis make a number of foolish movies, which include soundtrack albums. But that strategy has failed, as both the films and the recordings are mediocre at best. The United States is being pulled deeper into the Vietnam War, and the protest culture around the world is growing stronger. Elvis’s pop music and thinly plotted romantic movies belong to a different era. The King finished filming his most recent movie, Clambake, just four days ago. It is Elvis’s twenty-fifth film and one of the rare times in their relationship that he and Colonel Parker fought about his career path. That rift is still not completely healed as Elvis stands before the judge.
Parker’s hope that Elvis would become a crossover star in both movies and music was based on the career of crooner Frank Sinatra, who has successfully managed both. Like Elvis, the young Sinatra hit a career lull, too, in the early 1950s. So the singer switched from lighthearted movies to serious fare. His role as Angelo Maggio in From Here to Eternity won him the 1954 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Subsequent roles in Guys and Dolls and The Manchurian Candidate have also boosted Sinatra’s celebrity. Indeed, Frank Sinatra is now just as well known as a serious actor as he is a singer. It is not lost on the Colonel that Sinatra’s wedding to Mia Farrow one year ago generated enormous publicity. This is the inspiration for his demanding that Elvis marry Priscilla.12
Frank Sinatra once railed against Elvis Presley and rock-’n’-roll music. But as American culture leaves the King behind, the two stars have become good friends. Ironically, Sinatra’s music is enjoying a resurgence even as Elvis’s work falls into decline. The fifty-one-year-old New Jersey native’s duet with twenty-six-year-old daughter Nancy, a simple pop tune whose official title is “Something Stupid,” is now No. 1 on the Billboard charts.
Colonel Tom Parker arranged for Sinatra to loan Presley his private jet to make the midnight flight from Palm Springs to Las Vegas. He even set up actor and amateur aviator Danny Kaye to pilot the aircraft.13
* * *
Elvis and Priscilla will maintain his Memphis mansion, Graceland, as their primary residence. The new bride and groom plan to live in Tennessee most of the year. They have also just leased a five-thousand-square-foot mansion with palm trees and a pool in Palm Springs. The reason for the acquisition is that Colonel Parker lives just a half mile away.
The Colonel’s choice of Las Vegas for the wedding is primarily a business decision. Elvis Presley is closely associated with the city due to the success of Viva Las Vegas, and the new owner of the Aladdin hotel, Milton Prell, is a good friend of Parker’s. The developer has connections with the local press and can keep things quiet until the time for publicity is ripe. Prell purchased the establishment two years ago for $10 million ($83 million in today’s currency) and spent millions more upgrading it, adding a lounge, a five-hundred-seat showroom, and a golf course.
Prell is the casino resort’s third owner in five years. Twice, the Aladdin has been shut down for lack of customers. In fact, the hotel is so associated with failure that its nickname is “the Vegas jinx.” Maybe Elvis and Priscilla can change its luck. Having the wedding in Prell’s personal suite guarantees excellent publicity for the Aladdin and, Prell hopes, a surge of fans who will want to spend a night in the hotel where Elvis got married.14
