FLAMING STAR
– A Challenging Role for Presley –
(Part 4)
By Mariusz Ogieglo
Summer Kisses…
Before Elvis returned to the Hollywood camera, he spent several weeks with his closest family and friends in his native Memphis. The singer divided his free time mainly between watching movies at the Memphian Theatre, which he rented for himself and his family almost every night, and having wild fun at popular local amusement parks – the Rainbow Rollerdrome (a roller skating arena) and the Fairgrounds Amusement Park. “ Sometimes we would go roller skating, at a arena that he rented for the whole night ,” his then-girlfriend, Anita Wood, told an interviewer. “ He would buy elbow and knee pads for all the guys and some of the girls, and then they would all go out on the dance floor and race as fast as they could. Kids like Billy Smith would get beat up, but it was great fun and everyone enjoyed it. They would skate all night long. Elvis would also sometimes invite people he met at the gate. He always invited his fans to come with us (in the same interview, Anita Wood also admitted that fans accompanied them to the cinema).
Sometimes we would go to an amusement park that he rented out after hours. When he was in town, he would invite everyone who was home and whoever was standing outside. So we would all go and ride anything we could all night long, as many times as we wanted .”
At the end of July, Elvis went to Las Vegas for a few days, where he appeared at a concert celebrating the sixty-fifth birthday of Gracie Allen, the wife of the popular comedian George Burns. The show took place on July 26 at the Sahara Hotel, and the star of the evening was Bobby Darrin (or Walden Robert Cassotto, because that was his real name). An increasingly successful American singer who, during his short career, launched dozens of hits, including “Splish Splash” (1958), “Dream Lover” (1959), “I Want You With Me” (1960), “I’ll Be There” (1960), and “You’re The Reason I’m Livin'” (1962). It is worth adding here that Presley himself also included the last three titles from this list in his repertoire. “ Elvis Presley and Bobby were good friends and valued each other musically ,” Darrin’s official profile states. “ Their paths often crossed, especially when they both performed at the Las Vegas Hilton .”
Presley returned to Hollywood in early August 1960, just four weeks after completing filming on his previous film (production on the comedy G.I.Blues officially wrapped in late June).
Upon arriving in Los Angeles, the singer and a group of his closest friends and associates, including cousins ??Sonny and Red West and Joe Esposito, stayed—as he had done many times before—at the elegant Beverly Wilshire Hotel. But this time, not for long. “ Our on-set entertainment was nothing compared to the all-night rodeo at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, where the management and other guests were growing increasingly weary of our unusual hours ,” the singer’s bodyguard, Sonny West, recalled in his book, “Elvis: Still Taking Care of Business.” “ Our entertainment ranged from karate to music blaring at all hours of the night, to numerous antics, to food fights, to football games in the hotel hallway, to water and shaving cream fights, and to the constant parade of guests entering and leaving our suites .”
n early September, after Presley and his “raucous group of friends” had once again abused the hotel’s hospitality (Jerry Hopkins, in his book “Elvis: The King of Rock’n’Roll,” notes Elvis’s already-growing “addiction to psychostimulants that fueled his evening and weekend partying “), he was asked to leave the building.
Shortly thereafter, on September 9, the singer and his entourage moved to Bel Air, a residential district of Los Angeles, to a stately residence known as the “Healy House”, built in the late 1940s.
The estate located at 525 Perugia Way until recently belonged to a popular politician – Prince Aly Khan (he was, among others, the ambassador of Pakistan and served as the Permanent Representative of Pakistan to the UN), who lived there mainly for the last year of his marriage to the popular Hollywood actress and dancer, Rita Hayworth (the couple divorced in 1953).
According to surviving documents, Presley paid fourteen hundred dollars a month to rent it and used it for the next five years (it was in this house that the historic summit meeting took place – between Elvis and members of The Beatles). “ The house on Perugia Way was on a dead end street with trees and bushes in the middle. It was kind of an island surrounded by a sidewalk ,” Sonny West remembered. “ Unlike Graceland, the double wooden front gates were usually open. There wasn’t much lawn in front of the house, however, because it was located on the side of a hill with a winding road leading to it. In front of the house, in turn, was a massive asphalt driveway and a three-car garage .
The house was circular in shape and in the center was a fifty-foot patio with shrubs and other plants growing along its inner circle. Inside, one of the elements of modern decor was a plush white carpet.
And because Elvis grew up around antiques, he went in a completely different direction in his new home and went for California-style furniture .”
Rumors quickly began to circulate about Presley’s new residence and the life that went on within its walls—and especially the parties that took place there—and they began to gather momentum particularly after the singer’s death. However, most of this information, especially that spread by Albert Goldman in the 1980s, turned out to be not only simply untrue (it was denied by, among others, Sonny West and other Presley associates) but also so repulsive that it is not even worth mentioning in this text. “Of course, we had our share of these parties, although a much better description would be that we were just chilling out ,” West admitted. ” We watched more TV there, talked, and listened to jukebox records .”
But back to the film… On August 1, 1960, at nine in the morning, in accordance with the terms of the contract signed several months earlier, Elvis reported to the 20th Century Fox studio to discuss the details of the new production and meet the other cast members.
One of the important topics that was discussed during the aforementioned pre-production meeting was the songs, or rather the number of them, that Presley was supposed to sing on screen. This topic had stirred strong emotions from the moment the singer’s name appeared in the film’s cast and remained a “bone of contention” between the record company and the film studio management. The former expected Elvis to record at least ten new songs (and thus provide them with material for a new longplay), while the latter stubbornly claimed that there was no room in the plot of the new film for such a number of songs… In fact, during the August meeting, Don Siegel made it clear that Elvis should not sing more than two songs! ” Suppose we have Elvis singing during the opening credits and one simple song during the party, about a minute into the film ,” the director suggested. ” How could Elvis sing rock’n’roll songs or any other songs after all the traumatic experiences that plagued his character .”
Apparently, however, the strength of Siegel’s arguments turned out to be not entirely sufficient because of the ten songs that RCA had originally counted on, they decided to use only four. So that they would fill an extended play type disc (a popular EP or so-called four).
Recording is scheduled for August 8.
However, before Presley entered the Radio Recorders studio again, he had to complete a series of classes to help him better prepare for his new role.
Starting from August 2, for fourteen consecutive days (every afternoon), the singer learned, among other things, horse riding (his film mount was called El Poco) and on August 4, the make-up department suggested that he should wear special contact lenses during filming that would change his blue eyes to brown.
However, these caused the singer to have severe allergic reactions and watery eyes, which basically prevented him from working in front of the camera. As a result, this idea was abandoned and viewers were once again able to see Presley’s natural eye color on screen.
Information provided by EP Promised Land (Poland), Mariusz Ogieglo http://www.elvispromisedland.pl/
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