From Happening in Hollywood by Groovy Duke Lewis, December 1971
Standby for another Elvis movie–his 29th quickie FLICKIE since 1956–to be made at ghostlike MGM studios in cool December.
This year’s Christmas album is one of the best he’s ever done, and he recently finished cutting a gospel album in Nashville for spring release. He’d dig doing a TV special for Easter but the nets can’t raise the sponsor bread the colonel demands.
Hard work is Elvis Bridge over Troubled Waters which explains his road tours, Vegas-Tahoe stage shows and the other action he needs as an outlet for his energy and pent-up emotions.
Troubled Waters churns his emotions into a chronic condition of unrest and turbulence. It would be dishonest to deny his heartbreaking domestic problems with the exquisite Priscilla do somewhat–he’s the first to admit-to his own hangups. Loud angry quarrels exploded sometimes in public places. Once or twice in Las Vegas he was so emotionally upset that his performance was less than perfect and his shows were cut short.
The 12 hour radio documentary “The Elvis Presley Story,” now being aired on more than 100 radio stations in Europe and America no doubt will start a new trend in hip culture, blazing trails for documentary radio programs based on the lives of other contemporary idols: a radio documentary on the lives of James, Kate and Livingston Taylor would be far out.
The Elvis book and radiocast are the painstaking work of rock writer Jerry Hopkins, a sincere and honest journalist, who deliberately avoided meeting or interviewing Elvis personally so that he could feel absolutely free of all the influence and censorship. The idea for the story originated in the fertile brain of the late great Doorsman Jim Morrison.
Where’s Elvis head at today? Anyone who is worth millions, owns three spacious homes (Memphis, Palm Springs and Beverly Hills), bunches of Cadillacs and Rolls-Royce’s, and God knows what else, certainly has to be classified as “Establishment” but Elvis is a nonconformist and antiestablishment as Pecos Bill ever was.
Times change. Parents who once forbade their kids to watch Elvis on TV have mellowed. Networks which once forbade cameras to show his swiveling hips would now be happy to have him on prime time air, swivels and all.
Q. How much has Elvis himself changed?
A. Plenty.
He now smokes, drinks, tosses dice for money, and uses unrefined language when he loses his temper, none of which he did in the days when he was regarded as a menace to polite society and a threat to the innocence of teenage boys and girls.
These are unimportant superficial changes. The real Elvis is even more fantastic than before. Take for instance his anonymous contributions to charity, which are generous beyond belief. All the good “causes” know him as an easy touch.
Q. But can you really trust him now?
A. No, not if you believe the teenagers warning, “Never trust anyone over 30.” Elvis is now a36, being born on January 8, 1935, just in time to send him a birthday cake or card to Graceland, Memphis, Tennessee.
Twenty million dollars later he still a top dog on the list of living godlings. Others come and go. Presley is forever. He may be over 30 but he’s not “over the hill,” not by a long shot, and he is still young where it counts most–in the heart.
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