WILD IN THE COUNTRY
– Elvis Presley’s Last Dramatic Role –
(Part 9)
I Slipped, I Stumbled, I Fell
“Wild In The Country”, like its literary prototype before it, touched on several difficult and sometimes even controversial (for its time) topics. One of them was, without a shadow of a doubt, the relationship between the main character and his therapist, the older Irenne Sperry.
This relationship, or rather the suspicion of an affair, aroused so much controversy first among the characters in JRSalama?ski’s novel – and then also in the film in question – that Sperry, played by Hope Lange, decided to take her own life.
The above dramatic events were filmed near the Ink House estate. In a barn built in the late 19th century (it was erected in 1885), where a distraught psychotherapist drives her car, a now-defunct American brand De Soto, to attempt her own life. In the original ending – successfully.
However, when viewers invited to a preview saw the finished film, they almost unanimously agreed that it should not have ended that way. Some of them stated outright that such an ending did not fit Presley’s films.
Due to the above, taking into account all the critical comments from viewers, the creators of the film decided to end their story in a much more optimistic way and ultimately not kill off the main character.
According to the new ending, Irenne Sperry not only survived the suicide attempt, but also in the last minutes of the film she accompanied Glen to the train station, from where the boy sets off to his dream college, thus starting a new, better life.
Several sources, including deenasdays.com, have pointed out that the new final scene was supposed to (or was considered to) actually end on the train, where Taylor opens a letter from his therapist informing him that his debut novel has just been published.
However, this did not happen.
So in early 1961, Elvis was brought back to Hollywood to shoot the above sequence and put the finishing touches on the film (it was most likely at this time that the “Husky Dusky Day” duet was also recorded).
The singer returned to Los Angeles, accompanied by Sonny West, Alan Fortas, Charlie Hodge and cousin Gene Smith, on Monday, January 2, and two days later went to the film set, this time located at one of the studios belonging to 20th Century Fox.
“Wild In The Country” resumed filming on Wednesday, January 4, 1961, less than a week before Presley’s twenty-sixth birthday. “In January, when we went back to Los Angeles to reshoot the ending, the studio had a party for Elvis’ twenty-sixth birthday ,” Alan Fortas remembered. “They took pictures of the whole crew looking at the cake (it said, ‘Happy Birthday, Karate King,’ author’s note) and then Elvis sat at a little table in the hotel and signed pictures for all the kids who asked him. He must have been signing autographs for four or five hours .”
The party mentioned by Elvis’ close associate took place on Friday, January 6, and both the creators and cast members of the new film were invited to participate, including actress Hope Lange, several of Presley’s closest friends – apart from the aforementioned Alan Fortas, it was also attended by Joe Esposito, Sonny West and Lamar Fike, as well as the singer’s manager, Colonel Parker.
This was not the last surprise that awaited Elvis after his return to the set. The next one was undoubtedly the visit of the extremely popular British music journalist, radio presenter (since 1958 associated with, among others, the cult radio station Radio Luxembourg) and television presenter (starting from January 1964 he hosted the BBC One television chart “Top Of The Pops“), Jimmy Savile (or rather James Wilson Vincent Savile, because that was his real name), who flew to Los Angeles to present Elvis with the Gold Record for the song “It’s Now Or Never“.
“I remember my first meeting with Elvis very well ,” Savile recalled years later. “I gave him my first British Gold record for ‘It’s Now Or Never’. It was in the winter of 1961 when he was in Hollywood filming ‘Wild In The Country’.
In fact, when I flew to Los Angeles with that bound record under my arm, I had no appointment or even an address to report to. All I had was a scrap of paper with the telephone number of Elvis Presley’s office at Paramount Studios scribbled down on it. So I dialed it and someone answered. ‘I’ve just dropped in from England with a Gold Record for Elvis,’ I said. ‘What’s this?’ the voice on the other end asked incredulously. Still, I managed to get a meeting the next day at 3:00 p.m. Not with Elvis, but with the ‘dreaded’ Colonel Parker.
‘You’re late!’ the Colonel boomed when I finally reached the studio at about 3:30 p.m. ‘That’s six thousand miles,’ I protested immediately. ‘And there was a lot of traffic.’ From that moment on, the Colonel and I became friends. Or rather, he was the professor and I was his student.
‘Bring the boy,’ the Colonel finally said to one of his assistants. Five minutes later I was shaking hands with a legend and taking a picture with Elvis. I was the first DJ to receive that honor.”
Elvis, who already had a dozen Gold records to his name, was absolutely thrilled and excited to receive the award. “ ‘Gosh, isn’t that great?’ he said, and then he did something completely unexpected ,” Savile remembered. “ He danced around the set clutching his latest trophy and showing it to everyone – stars, technicians and studio staff. And even as we talked he never put it down or let anyone take it to his dressing room .”
The meeting with the British radio presenter was not the only one that took place during the filming of the last scenes of “Wild In The Country“. While Elvis was filming his seventh film in Hollywood, in the adjacent hall filming was underway for the musical “All Hands On Deck” directed by Norman Taurog, in which one of the main roles was played by Pat Boone (or rather Patrick Charles Eugene Boone, because that was his real name). Another American singer, who celebrated his greatest triumphs in the fifties singing such hits as “April Love” or “Love Letters In The Sand” (although he gained the greatest popularity for the song “Speedy Gonzales” from 1962).
Boone and Presley had known each other since the mid-fifties, dating back to their only performance together in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1955. “(Elvis, author’s note) He wasn’t really a national celebrity yet ,” Pat Boone recalled years later. “That was before ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ and ‘Hound Dog.’ He had two or three rockabilly records, as we called them then. I had seen his name on some of the jukeboxes in Texas, so that’s how I remembered it .”
And it was Boone, whose hit “Ain’t That Shame” was topping the charts at the time (in 1955 it was number one on Billboard’s list of the most popular R&B recordings), who was to be the main star of the event organized by ” the best DJ in the country”, Bill Randall.
But to his surprise, Randal also invited the new “
rising star ” on the Louisiana Hayride that night—Elvis Presley. “I thought he was a little crazy because he wouldn’t be exciting for all those teenagers ,” Boone continued. “My hit at the time was ‘Ain’t That Shame.’”
The first meeting of the two stars was therefore a bit stiff. “And then I met Elvis. It was backstage. He came in with his collar turned up and a lot of hair hanging in his face. We shook hands and I said, ‘Hi Elvis. Bill Randall says you’re going to be a big star.'” “Well, that’s very nice,” he mumbled, leaning against the wall. “This guy is hopelessly shy,” I thought .
Despite these slightly awkward beginnings, and the fact that in later years the two would compete with each other both on screen and in the charts, Boone and Presley became close friends and met up whenever they could. As when, in 1961, they found themselves working at almost the same place. And it may have been during that meeting that Pat reminded Elvis of the circumstances of their first meeting. “
When we first met, you seemed nervous ,” he reportedly told Presley. “
I just didn’t know how to talk to you. You were a star ,” Elvis replied.
The behind-the-scenes meeting was also attended by actress Juliet Prowse, Presley’s co-star in “GIBlues,” and actor Jack Grinnage, who had a cameo role in “King Creole” a few years earlier. “I met Elvis again when I was working at 20th Century Fox ,” Grinnage said. “It was a movie with Pat Boone. Elvis was just standing outside the studio. I walked past and didn’t say anything because I thought, ‘He probably doesn’t remember me.’ But then he called me over and we talked for a while. I think that was the last time I saw him. I was really surprised that he called me back. I got cards from him every Christmas after that. Right up until he died .”
It is worth adding that Pat Boone was not the only American song star to visit Elvis during the filming of “Wild In The Country“. On the set of his seventh film, Presley was also visited by Brenda Lee (actually Brenda Mae Tarpley), whom Elvis had met in the mid-fifties, just like Boone.
Their first meeting took place in Augusta, Georgia, in March 1956, during Elvis’ performance at the Bell Auditorium (Presley performed there with June Carter and her two sisters, among others). Brenda, then twelve years old, was a novice but very promising singer. “Of course I was his fan. We all were ,” the singer said in an interview. “He was part of our lives .”
But when the two met again in the early sixties, the visit of “Little Miss Dynamite,” as the already extremely popular Brenda came to be known, did not escape the attention of the major music magazines. The British weekly Record Mirror wrote in its article “Meeting In Hollywood” published on May 9, 1964: “The King himself met the tiny Brenda Lee while working on a Hollywood film .” The article, mostly devoted to the birth of the singer’s son, was accompanied by a photo of both stars.
Elvis and Brenda Lee stayed in touch until the singer’s untimely death in August 1977 (Brenda even received a TLC necklace from him). “He never lost that Southern, gentlemanly, gentlemanly persona ,” the singer of hits like “I’m Sorry,” “Jambalaya” and “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” recalled. “I loved that about him. He stayed that way until the end .”
On January 20, 1961, three days earlier than scheduled, production on Wild In The Country was completed. A week later, on January 30, Elvis returned to Memphis.
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