As someone who grew up in the early 2000’s, I knew of Elvis in three distinct ways.
I knew that many of his songs had narrated a film, Lilo & Stitch, that was on constant replay in my house. On Full House, I knew that Graceland was the ideal location for Uncle Jesse’s dream wedding and that a convincing look-a-like had helped him learn the importance of family. An honorable mention is the memory of a nine-year-old me singing the lyrics “Elvis, Elvis let me be. Keep your pelvis far from me,” in my best Rizzo impression during recess. I knew of him in the ways that he influenced pop culture, but I never explored the oeuvre of Mr. Presley.
It wasn’t until a few weeks ago that I, like many other Gen Zers, began to feel responsible for his death. Yes, there are at least a handful of twenty-somethings who feel responsible for the death of a man who died years before we took our first breaths. Or, at least that’s what Colonel Tom Parker, played by Tom Hanks, led us to believe in Baz Luhrmann’s film, Elvis.
The feeling of being gaslit by the narrator is just one of many shared reactions to the film. During your nightly scroll on TikTok you’re bound to see videos set to Doja Cat’s “Vegas” sparking some type of conversation about the film or about Elvis himself. Clips of Austin Butler play simultaneously next to a video of Elvis, showing his arguably perfect impersonation. A few scrolls later, you’ll be led down a rabbit of Elvis’ entire filmography in three minutes or less.
“I think with the release of Elvis, we’ve definitely seen a resurgence in Elvis within pop culture recently, though his presence has been felt for much longer,” said Bobbi Miller, a pop culture expert and the host of “The Afternoon Special” on TikTok. There, she has a following of more than 366,700 as “your friend who knows just a little bit too much about pop culture.”
It’s important to note that there are devoted twenty-something Elvis fans whose entry to fandom happened prior to the film’s release.
“I was a fan before the movie and went into hiding upon its release,” Meghan Moody said while also explaining how her father was able to obtain a copy of Elvis’ high school graduation program for her.
While the film may serve as just another element in Elvis lore for longtime fans, it can be argued that the film has also opened the opportunity for a new generation to be exposed to the King of Rock, birthing a new era of Elvis fandom.
It can be hard to pinpoint exactly what “does it” for fans of the film. In a viral clip, Butler can be seen on stage teaching Jimmy Fallon how to “shake, rattle, and roll.” As he dances across the stage, you may wonder how big of a role that Butler’s performance plays into the like-ability of the icon.
“This is a tough one because Austin Butler’s performance really does question where Elvis stops and Austin Butler starts,” said Miller. “He really embodied the character. I do think it’s a mix of both, or more so, one dressed as the other … I think the voice he chose to use for Elvis and the general aura of the character is very alluring. This, coupled with the fact that the movie doesn’t go out of its way to show Butler as Elvis at his absolute lowest, or ugliest, might’ve aided in people falling for Butler as Elvis.”
Miller argues that the love for nostalgia can be a major contributor as well.
“It’s the nostalgia of it all,” she said. “I think before these biopics, Gen Z and Millennials are definitely aware of these stars, but biopics only heighten their awareness.
“More often than not, these biopics, similar to Elvis, don’t go out of their way to show these stars at their most awful. In fact, they often elicit sympathy in the audience. This isn’t always the case, but it definitely happens. However, I think it’s mostly nostalgia.”
Miller said Gen Zers and Millennials love to discover things from the past, and she believes that biopics are the perfect vehicle for this.
“Nostalgia will always be trendy,” Miller notes.
While Reddit threads are flooded with educational material for fans who came straight from the movie theater, and women promise to perfect their bouffant hairstyles for Halloween, it can definitely be argued that a new generation is discovering The King.
OK. I had to have a photograph with Priscilla Presley at the Theatre Memphis tribute to her. (Credit: Jonathan Finder)
Wearing a striking Fouad Sarkis black-and-white gown, Priscilla Presley took the stage to thank her fans at “Honoring Priscilla Presley: The Artist, The Woman,” which was held July 22nd at Theatre Memphis.
“This has been a very overwhelming evening for me,” Presley told the audience. “It’s very difficult to take compliments.”
And, she joked, “I didn’t know I did so much, to be honest with you.”
Presley told the audience she learned about Memphis at age 14 from Elvis when he was in Germany during his Army days. “We had long talks about Graceland, about Memphis, about his childhood, about how much he loved Memphis.”
And, she says, “When I came here I was absolutely amazed at the friendships that I made. But not only that, the Southern hospitality just absolutely blew me away. Everyone was so kind, so wonderful as far as bringing me in, accepting me. It was something I will never ever forget. And won’t forget. I do believe Memphis is my home.”
Dabney Coors was co-chair of the event with Elizabeth Coors, as well as the organizer of the event.
The evening began with a reception in the lobby with food from chef Erling Jensen and live Memphis music, and ended with a party featuring more of the same, in addition to a chance for guests to meet Presley.
In between the parties was a tribute, where the 275 or so audience members learned about the staggering amount Presley has done and been involved in. Kym Clark and Kontji Anthony were the emcees. Special guests included T. G. Sheppard and his wife, Kelly Lang, and, by video, Jerry Schilling.
T.G. Sheppard, Priscilla Presley, and Kelly Lang at Priscilla Presley tribute (Credit: Michael Donahue)
For one, Presley was responsible for Graceland being saved and being opened to the public, instead of being sold.
She portrayed “Jenna Wade” on TV’s Dallas. She was in movies, including the Naked Gun trilogy. She came out with her own perfume and line of bed linens. She came up with the idea of coupling a lightning bolt image with the words “TCB” during an airplane flight with Elvis in a storm.
All of this and much more was referred to during the evening. According to the program, Presley also is an ambassador with the Dream Foundation, which helps fulfill dreams of terminally-ill adults. And, the program states, “She has also worked closely with the Humane Society of the United States and has spent time in DC to lobby Congress to pass the ‘Prevent All Soring Tactics’ (PAST Act) bill that will strengthen enforcement of the 1970 Horse Protection Act.”
“Congressman Steve Cohen announced from the stage that he entered a declaration in to the Congressional Record that Priscilla Presley is now an honorary Memphian,” Dabney says. “The Mayor (Jim Strickland) came with a key to the city and a proclamation, and the Tennessee governor (Bill Lee) had a proclamation for Priscilla. Kevin Kane was the presenter.”
Congressman Steve Cohen at Priscilla Presley tribute (Credit: Michael Donahue)Mayor Jim Strickland, Jack Soden, Kevin Kane, Hayden Kane, Leighanne Hart Soden, and Melyne Strickland at the Priscilla Presley tribute at Theatre Memphis. (Credit: Michael Donahue)
All the presentations were in honor of “this 40th anniversary of her opening Graceland. It could not have been a better celebration for her.”
Debbie Litch, Theatre Memphis executive producer, announced “The Theatre Memphis – Priscilla Presley Scholarship,” which, according to the program, will “make an artistic dream come true.”
Erling Jensen and Debbie Litch at the Theatre Memphis tribute to Priscilla Presley (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Memphis artists who performed during the evening included guitarist-songwriter-producer Mario Monterosso, singer/pianist Brennan Villines, who wore a pink tuxedo and slippers with the “TCB” lightning bolt on the toes, and Kallen Esperian, who sang “God Bless America.”
Kallen Esperian and William R. Eubanks at the Priscilla Presley tribute (Credit: Michael Donahue)Brennan Villines at the Priscilla Presley tribute at Theatre Memphis (Credit: Michael Donahue)
“One of the most popular drinks of the evening was the one created for the party named the ‘Priscilla,'” Dabney says.
“The drink was a French 75 made with vodka instead of gin.” It also included lemon juice, simple syrup, and champagne.
Lansky Brothers was corporate sponsor of the event. And, as a side note, Monterosso’s tuxedo came from Lansky’s.
Dabney says she received more than 100 texts, telephone calls, and emails from people about the tribute. People are “so thrilled for her and for the city of Memphis to acknowledge her continuing great works on behalf of our city,” Dabney says.
It was also good timing that the celebrated movie directed by Baz Luhrmann, Elvis, recently released and premiered at The Guest House at Graceland. “We were able to celebrate her a month after she welcomed the cast and crew and Warner Brothers into Graceland. She had a dinner party inside the mansion for them.”
Lurhmann also gave remarks via video at the event.
Dabney met Presley 25 years ago at a red carpet event in Los Angeles. “We just see each other all the time. And we just have a ball.
“This has been in my heart to honor Priscilla in our city for years and years. And her family knows it, my dear friends know it.”
Priscilla stayed in town several days after the event. Elizabeth Coors and her husband, Giles, held a private dinner party for Priscilla the night after the tribute.
Giles and Elizabeth Coors at the Priscilla Presley tribute at Theatre Memphis (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Dr. Jonathan Finder, who attended the tribute with his wife, Jana, talked with Presley a few days after the event at Sam Phillips Recording Studio. “What struck me about chatting with Priscilla was how she came across as incredibly kind and down to Earth,” Finder says. “And at the same time so very sharp and insightful. A remarkable person who has led a remarkable life.”
Dabney Coors and Dr. Jonathan and Jana Finder at Priscilla Presley tribute at Theatre Memphis (Credit: Michael Donahue)Lucy Woodson and Pat Kerr Tigrett at the Priscilla Presley tribute at Theatre Memphis (Credit: Michael Donahue)Veronica Batterson, former Shelby County Mayor Mark Luttrell, Rev. Keith Norman, and Brett Batterson at the Priscilla Presley Theatre Memphis tribute (Credit: Michael Donahue)Cristy Beasley Cass and Cary Brown at Priscilla Presley tribute at Theatre Memphis (Credit: Michael Donahue)Doug Browne and J. W. Whitten at Priscilla Presley tribute at Theatre Memphis (Credit: Michael Donahue)Jerry Phillips, Scott Bomar, and Laura O’Mell at Priscilla Presley tribute. (Credit: Michael Donahue)Shirley Brown, Don and Elizabeth Scott, Gary Beard, Randall Hartzog, Dr. Mel Litch at Priscilla Presley tribute at Theatre Memphis (Credit: Michael Donahue)Josh and Lindsey Hammond at the Priscilla Presley tribute at Theatre Memphis (Credit: Michael Donahue)Leslie Fowler at the Priscilla Presley tribute at Theatre Memphis (Credit: Michael Donahue)Kerri Mahoney and Scott Bomar at Priscilla Presley tribute at Theatre Memphis (Credit: Michael Donahue) We Saw You
Jerry Schilling at the Memphis premiere of Elvis at The Guest House at Graceland (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Jerry Schilling was Elvis’ buddy for 23 years after he played football with the King one hot Memphis afternoon on July 11, 1954.
Schilling, who was 12 at the time, went on to become part of Elvis’s entourage, a business associate, and a long-time friend.
Now Schilling is watching himself being portrayed on screen in Elvis. The motion picture, which opens June 24th, was directed by Baz Luhrmann and stars Austin Butler as Elvis. “I think the movie, overall, is the best piece of work in a project done on Elvis,” Schilling says. “One, I think it answers a lot of questions by just telling the story of misconceptions of my friend.”
And, he says, Luhrmann, “put his heart and soul into it and put together an unbelievable cast.”
The project took 11 years from the idea to the finished movie, Schilling says. “There were sets burning up in Australia, Covid, you name it.”
But the delays “gave them time to really marinate this story. And everybody went back and rethought it and made it a much better film.”
Schilling now is manager of The Beach Boys, who recently released Sounds of Summer: The Very Best of The Beach Boys box set.
Author of the 2006 book, Me and a Guy Named Elvis, Schilling also has been involved in numerous Elvis-related projects. “Over the years, I have produced more shows on Elvis than I think anybody can count. I’ve cast or been part of casting various actors to play Elvis over the years. And I’ve worked with others cast by other people.”
He thought Michael St. Gerard, who played the King in the 1990 Elvis TV series, was “innately Elvis, because he was playing the younger Elvis and he didn’t have the high collars and jumpsuits and everything. But when I saw Austin Butler, he had the young Elvis down. He had the middle. He had the end. He didn’t overdo it.”
Austin Butler at the Memphis premiere of Elvis (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Butler concentrated on the part, Schilling says. “For years he did nothing but become Elvis. He was not a performer, not a singer, but a terrific actor. It was Denzel Washington who brought Butler to Baz Lurhmann. They had done something on Broadway — The Iceman Cometh. Denzel was so impressed with his work ethic.”
Butler’s role as Elvis was “multi-faceted,” Schilling says. “He did a lot of his own singing, which Michael didn’t do. I will never take anything away from Michael St. Gerard. I was in awe of him.”
But Butler was “so sincere. He fell in love with the character. He said it was like, ‘I can climb Mt. Everest.’ That was the challenge.”
But, Schilling says, “He doesn’t overdo it. He does it subtly. None of that curling the lip, ‘Thank you very much,’ all the bullshit. He’s got charisma. You want to be around him. You like him. And, you know what? When he walks in the room he’s got that little shyness Elvis had as well. It’s like a magnetic attraction goes to him.”
And, he says, Butler “fell in love with Memphis.”
Butler and Lurhmann spent time in Memphis and Tupelo, Schilling says. “They really put their heart and soul into this movie and I think it shows on the screen.”
Schilling met Lurhmann three years ago at dinner with an RCA executive during the promotional tour of the Elvis Presley: The Searcher at HBO documentary that Schilling conceived. “I think he was still looking for his Elvis at this point. He just said, ‘If this ship pulls anchor, I want you on it.’”
Baz Luhrmann at the Memphis premier of Elvis (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Schilling and Priscilla Presley got together with Tom Hanks — who plays Elvis’ manager, Col. Tom Parker — before filming began. “Priscilla ran into Tom Hanks’ wife, Rita Wilson, at the grocery store and Rita said, ‘Why don’t you and Jerry Schilling come over for dinner?’ This is two weeks before Tom went to Australia to start filming. So, we go there and Tom opens the door and the first thing he says is, ‘Jerry, are we going to talk about the Beach Boys or Elvis?’”
Hanks is a huge Beach Boys fan, Schilling says. But they spent the next three or four hours talking about Elvis and Parker. “Priscilla and I really wanted to give a full picture of Colonel Parker to Tom.”
The movie was “pretty much finished” when Schilling met Butler. “Priscilla and I went to New York for the Metropolitan Gala that Baz Luhrmann invited us to.”
They met Butler in a revolving door at The Carlyle hotel on their way out to dinner a few days before the gala. “He comes in and says, ‘Hi,’ to both of us. Seems like a nice guy. Good looking guy. It’s Austin. So, he goes, ‘Oh, my God.’ He’s really nervous. He says, ‘I want you two guys to be happy with this.’”
Schilling and Priscilla wouldn’t commit to going to the Cannes Film Festival for a showing of Elvis until they saw the movie. So, Lurhmann arranged a special screening of the film for the two of them. “I purposely didn’t sit next to her. I sat down, wanting to have my own thoughts. I wanted her to have her own thoughts. Half way through, I’m beside her. By the end, Priscilla looked at me and said, ‘Well, I guess we’re going to Cannes.’”
Priscilla Presley at the Memphis premier of Elvis (Credit: Michael Donahue)
They knew Luhrmann was going to make his type of movie. “Baz is a very private filmmaker. He’s going to do what he wants to do. So, you never know” — like the Russwood Park concert scene, where Elvis/Butler pulls out all the stops with his seductive gyrations, shakes, and wiggles. Schilling was 14 when he went to that show. “In real life, it was much more subtle than they make it in the movie ‘cause you’re making a movie. But he did make the statement and he did his own show. And it was a ‘wow’ show.”
Elvis had recently appeared in a tuxedo singing “Hound Dog” to a dog on TV’s The Steve Allen Show after being introduced by Allen as “the new Elvis Presley.” Elvis, Schilling says, told the Russwood audience, “I’m not going to let those people in New York change me. That was his way of saying, ‘You’re going to get the real Elvis.’”
Was Parker a villain in real life? “The film is really difficult for me because I know the controlling side of the Colonel. I know the bullying side. But I also know the human side of the Colonel. I don’t think he was dishonest at all. The only concern I have was when Elvis wanted to do A Star is Born and travel overseas and have his own production company.”
Tom Hanks at the Memphis premier of Elvis (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Elvis eventually started his own production company with himself and Schilling as heads of the company. But he never got to travel overseas. “The Colonel didn’t want it known he wasn’t an American citizen. But, creatively, the Colonel was really holding Elvis back.”
Elvis did “some good movies,” but most of them were the same type of musical. “I think I lost my friend at an early age because of creative disappointments. He was embarrassed and he tried to fight. And the machinery was too big.”
As for Elvis’s ambitions, including doing more serious roles, Shilling says Parker and other business associates “killed all that.”
With every Elvis musical, there was a soundtrack, “no matter how good or bad the music might be. At one point, Elvis said, ‘I’m not doing any more of this stuff.’ And the Colonel said, ‘You’ll fulfill your contract or you’re not doing anything.’”
As for Schilling talking back to Parker in the early days, he says, “Listen, I wasn’t in a position most of the time to be telling Colonel Parker what to do, or any of that.”
Schilling stopped working for Elvis for a time and went into film editing. “Because I quit working for him, I didn’t have to be under the Colonel’s supervision. For me, idolizing, looking up to Elvis as a 12 year old, and him not having a hit record when I met him, to be able, years later, to discuss a movie of his or a tour of his, that’s full circle.”
But, Schilling says, “There was a human side of Colonel Parker. Did he love Elvis Presley? Yes. Did Elvis love the Colonel? Yes.”
And, he says, “It was the best team. Elvis never forgot what the Colonel did for him in the beginning. It’s hard to get all that in the film.”
Schilling is portrayed in the movie by Luke Bracey. But Schilling hadn’t met Bracey when he, Priscilla, Hanks, and Butler flew to Cannes. “I asked Tom Hanks, ‘So, how was Luke Bracey playing me? I haven’t met him.’ He said, ‘He was the voice of reason through the whole thing.’ And Austin said, ‘Yep. He really was.’”
“I think what it means to me — and I think what the message they were trying to give me — is so many times the guys around Elvis were these hangers-on who laughed when Elvis laughed. And were just ‘yes’ men.”
Schilling wasn’t one of those. He remembered when he “challenged” one of Elvis’s decisions. “And he goes, ‘Okay, you can go back to Memphis if you don’t like it.’ Over the 23 years I knew him, we had three or four arguments. It wouldn’t have been a real friendship if we hadn’t.”
Schilling was “totally pleased” with Bracey’s portrayal of him, which he says was respectful and based on facts. “They read my book, I’m sure, more than once. Austin told me they read everything.”
Schilling says Bracey “doesn’t overdo anything. And yet when it was time to maybe have a difference of opinion whether it was Elvis or it was the Colonel, he played it right. He didn’t come back and do a big argument, which I wouldn’t have done either. He got me down.”
In trying to put Elvis’s life in perspective, Schilling says, “We’re all familiar with the ‘68 Comeback Special’ and what that did to Elvis’s career when it was really, as the movie says, in the toilet.”
Elvis, the movie, is “the ‘’68 Legacy Comeback,’” Schilling says. “I think this is going go do for his legacy what the ‘’68 Comeback Special’ did for his career while he was alive. It gives viewers an understanding of how special this man was.”
Schilling adds, “Ironically, 68 years ago in July was when Elvis’ first record was played, and when I met him.”
When I interviewed him, Schilling was headed to see the Elvis movie with Priscilla for his fourth time, and Priscilla’s fifth. “I’m glad this movie will be a record years from now for the history of Elvis, the ‘50s, ‘60s, ‘70s, and of Tupelo, of Memphis. It really needed to be documented. If this was written and not filmed, I would put it in the National Archives.”
Austin Butler’s performance as Elvis is electrifying.
The most insightful film I’ve ever seen about Elvis Presley is “The Singing Canary,” a five-minute experimental short by Memphis director Adam Remsen. It contains neither images of Elvis nor his music, only footage of astronauts and rocket launches. Remsen’s voice-over casts Elvis not as a singer or entertainer or idol, but as an explorer of new psychic spaces.
Yes, Elvis was supremely talented, superhumanly good looking, and unbelievably charismatic. But it was sheer luck that he came along at exactly the moment in history when a combination of rhythm and blues, amphetamines, and television could transform a penniless truck driver into the most famous person who had ever lived. “No one had ever been in his position before. He did the best he could,” said Remsen. “He was just living his life, making the best choices he could. As it happened, he was unprepared to make those choices, in one way or another.”
Who could have been prepared? The only people who had been as famous as Elvis circa 1957 were pharaohs. A decade later, The Beatles would express relief that, when they were thrown into the maelstrom of modern fame, at least they had one another. Elvis was alone, going through stuff no one in the entire 300,000-year history of Homo sapiens had ever gone through before. “He was the singing canary we sent into the gold mine. And when the singing stopped, we learned it was dangerous in there.”
The latest big screen attempt to tell The King’s story shares this view of Elvis as a martyr for the information age. Baz Luhrmann is one of a handful of directors with an instantly recognizable style. As technically exacting as he is bombastic, Luhrmann’s films are the closest thing we have to the lavish MGM musicals of Old Hollywood. Emotions are heightened, the cutting is frenetic, and realism is an afterthought. Music and montage are Luhrmann’s love language, and everything else is in service of maintaining the momentum. When he’s on his game, Luhrmann can sweep you up and transport you to another place like the tornado in The Wizard of Oz.
This film rises above the simple jukebox musical I feared we would get when I heard Luhrmann was taking on the story of The King. Credit for much of its success must go to Austin Butler, who has the unenviable task of trying to bring to life the most impersonated man in history. On the Louisiana Hayride and at the triumphant July 4, 1956, Russwood Park homecoming show, Butler is electrifying. He’s got the cheekbones, and he knows how to use them.
Austin Butler as Elvis Presley.
The racial politics of the era are never far from the surface. In Luhrmann’s vision, Elvis’ smoking-hot sexuality was what made him dangerous. But what scared The Establishment about this poor white kid singing Black music was not how he danced — it was that Elvis represented a crack in the South’s Jim Crow apartheid. He didn’t just laugh at the minstrel show; he identified with B.B. King, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and Little Richard. Some of the white kids who followed him would go on to discover The Bar-Kays, Sam Cooke, and Aretha Franklin, and begin to think, “Hey, maybe these Black people are humans, just like me.”
But the protean summer of ’56, which has for so long formed the fetish of rock-and-roll, doesn’t interest Luhrmann as much as the Vegas era. It begins with an elaborate staging of the ’68 Comeback Special. Instead of focusing on the in-the-round jam session, which remains one of the greatest live musical performances ever put before a camera, Luhrmann finds meaning in Elvis’ selection of “If I Can Dream” as his closing number. Butler delivers the moment with maximum gravitas.
Col. Tom Parker (Tom Hanks) advises Elvis (Austin Butler).
Luhrmann’s most polarizing decision is to tell the story from Col. Tom Parker’s perspective — and not just because of Tom Hanks’ accent. Having the villain as the narrator is a very Shakespearean choice, intended to make Parker into Iago, a malignant influence confiding to us about the lies he’s whispering in the hero’s ear. Parker was the consummate confidence man and a natural-born carny barker. In the early days, he and Elvis were an unstoppable team. When Elvis was languishing in Vegas, it would have been better if he were alone. Parker gets the blame for Elvis sitting out the Civil Rights fights of the late ’60s and for missing opportunities to tour the world. He gets credit for the groundbreaking Aloha from Hawaii concert, the definitive document of Elvis’ late period. But Luhrmann declines to use the first satellite broadcast to a global audience of one billion as a climax, like Queen at Live Aid in Bohemian Rhapsody. As for Hanks’ performance as the shady Dutch immigrant, let’s just say that the veteran actor knows when to put the ham on the sandwich.
Elvis (Austin Bulter) and Priscilla (Olivia DeJonge).
The standouts in the sprawling supporting cast include Helen Thomson’s sad turn as the alcoholic Gladys and Olivia DeJonge’s uncanny Priscilla. The Power of the Dog’s Kodi Smit-McPhee gets a standout cameo as Jimmie Rodgers Snow, one of the first people to understand the depth of Elvis’ power. During the early film’s frequent digressions into the Beale Street music scene, Yola Quartey and Shonka Dukureh each get show-stopping moments as Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Big Mama Thornton.
Ultimately, your reaction to Elvis is going to depend on whether or not you can vibrate on Luhrmann’s frequency. I was a fan of the director’s early work, like Romeo + Juliet, but found The Great Gatsby off-putting and snoozed through Australia. Elvis is a return to the explosive Luhrmann of Moulin Rouge. He freely twists the songs, sometimes in ways that are insightful, and sometimes in ways that betray a lack of trust in the material, like using anachronistic hip-hop beats whenever we return to Beale. The film is massively overstuffed with striking images, but that kind of sounds like complaining because you have too many scoops of delicious ice cream. It’s understandable if you find the constant barrage of visual information disorienting or the constant dance on the edge of camp cloying. But when Elvis is on stage, and Luhrmann is on fire, you understand why The King will live forever.
Austin Butler, who plays Elvis, and Michael Donahue at the Memphis premiere of “Elvis.” (Credit: Austin Butler)
If Priscilla Presley gives her seal of approval to your portrayal of Elvis in a movie, that’s all you need.
And that’s exactly what Priscilla, who was married to The King and is the mother of their child, Lisa Marie Presley, did during the Memphis premiere of the Baz Luhrmann movie Elvis, which stars Austin Butler as Elvis, on June 11th at The Guest House at Graceland.
“Elvis morphed into you,” Presley told Butler on stage before the movie started. “You had his guidance.”
Stars from the movie, director Luhrmann, and members of the Presley family, including Lisa Marie and her daughter, Riley Keough, and Elvis’ buddy and business associate, Jerry Schilling, were at the premiere. They all gathered on stage at one point. The movie is slated to open nationwide June 24th.
The Memphis premiere of Elvis. (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Earlier, I talked to Priscilla and people involved in the film.
I asked Priscilla what sets Elvis apart from other movies and documentaries about the performer. “It’s very sensitive to me and the family,” she says. “Baz has done an amazing job in this film. This has been two years. I know he’s been wanting to do this forever, do a movie on Elvis. But, with Baz, I get a little nervous because Baz does what he wants. He’s got an eye. He’s got such style. But now dealing with such a sensitive story was a bit worrisome [as to] where he’s going to take it.”
But, she says, “It is a true story between the ups and downs of Elvis and Col. Parker, but with his stylized way, beautiful way. Especially with Austin Butler, who plays Elvis so realistically. He had him down pat to the point of a gesture. He studied him for two years. And the story will prove it. When you see it, you think you’re seeing Elvis Presley. But, again, he is not Elvis Presley. He is an actor playing Elvis Presley. And that’s what I like about it, too. He’s not trying to be Elvis. He is his own person.
“But the story is a wonderful story and I think it’s a different take on what we normally see.”
Priscilla Presley at the Memphis premiere of Elvis. (Credit: Michael Donahue)
I asked Butler, who described Elvis as “such a complex human being,” what was the most difficult part of Elvis for him to play. “One of the most challenging things is the fact that he has been held up as either a god-like iconic figure or as this caricature that is not the real man,” Butler says. “So, for me, it was stripping all that away and getting down to his humanity.
“And the challenging part about that is you want to be incredibly technical. You want to be meticulous about all the details. But it could never be the details sacrificing the humanity.”
Luhrmann told me Elvis movies were shown at the theater in the small town where he grew up. “The matinees were the Elvis movies,” he says. “So, like as a 10-year-old, he was the coolest guy in the world. And then I grew on and all that. He was always present.”
As for making Elvis, Luhrmann says, “I didn’t do this so much out of fandom, although I have a great respect for him. I did this because I really believe he is at the center of America in the ’50s, ’60s, and the ’70s. And he is a way of exploring America. To understand that he was this rebel in the ’50s and it was dangerous to do what he was doing. And his relationship to Beale Street and people like B. B. King and then him being put in a bubble in Hollywood and then finding himself again in the [Elvis] ’68 [Comeback] Special and reconnecting with gospel, his great, great love. And then, to put it bluntly and to quote one of his songs, being caught in a trap in Vegas. That’s the sort of tragedy of that.
“And yet, what he’s left behind, as you see in that last great performance of him is still the voice and still the spirit. To me, whatever you say about Elvis, he was a spiritual person. And that comes from his love of gospel.”
I received direction from Baz Luhrmann, who showed me how to properly take a selfie, at the Memphis premiere of Elvis. (Credit: Baz Luhrmann)
Kelvin Harrison Jr., who plays B.B. King in Elvis, told me what drew him to the role. “For me, it was just how smart he was and how savvy he was with his business,” he says. “This was a very strategic man, in my opinion, but also [he had] so much heart and soul. And a simple man. He literally was working in the fields, and literally put up a wire on a post and started learning how to play and find sounds playing one string. That is so incredible to me. So I was just so inspired by the tenacity that he had, and just the rawness.”
Kelvin Harrison Jr. and Jerry Schilling at the Memphis premiere of Elvis. (Credit: Michael Donahue)
In the movie, Elvis is astonished at the stage presence, complete with the most amazing moves, of Little Richard. Alton Mason plays Richard in the film. What attracted him to the role was “how powerful, how outspoken and loud he was,” Mason told me. “How sexy he was. How fly he was. And his aura.”
Mason, who said the revered gospel singer Mahalia Jackson is his great-great-great-great aunt, also told me, “I had to develop empathy for not only who he was, but the period and the time that he was in. And him being that in that time, it takes a lot of power, a lot of fearlessness, to choose to be so different in a time like this. It was an amazing learning experience for me, too.”
Michael Donahue and Alton Mason at the Elvis premiere. (Credit: Alton Mason)
I loved what Tom Hanks, who plays Col. Tom Parker, said on stage before the movie began: “As an actor I found myself shooting in castles in which kings once lived in. I shot in palaces that have been turned into museums that were the homes of kings. I shot in museums in which kings and queens have lived in.”
But he told the audience to notice that all of those kings and queens “have an ‘s’ on the end of them. Meaning that there were more than one. At Graceland, we are visiting the home of The King.”
Tom Hanks at the Elvis Memphis movie premiere. (Credit: Michael Donahue)President and CEO of Elvis Presley Enterprises Jack Soden and his wife, Leighann, at the Memphis premiere of Elvis. (Credit: Michael Donahue)Joel Weinshanker, majority owner of Elvis Presley Enterprises and managing partner of Graceland Holdings LLC and EPE, and Kim Laughlin at the Memphis premiere of Elvis. (Credit: Michael Donahue)Hal and Geri Lansky and their daughter, Lia Lansky, at the Memphis premiere of Elvis. (Credit: Michael Donahue)We Saw You
Jerry Schilling’s 1960 graduation photo from Catholic High School.
Jerry Schilling, Catholic High School class of 1960, is a new inductee in Memphis Catholic High School’s Hall of Fame.
To borrow from his buddy, Elvis, Schilling is “all shook up” over the honor.
“It has really been a good experience,” he says.
A producer, manager, and author of Me and a Guy Named Elvis: My Lifelong Friendship with Elvis Presley, Schilling was initiated into the Beale Street Brass Note Walk of Fame in 2007. He has a replica of the note at his home in West Hollywood Hills.
As for Memphis Catholic High’s Hall of Fame, Schilling says, “I didn’t even know they had one. My understanding is it started 10 years ago. Actually, Billy Ray, my brother, was at church and he saw a thing on the bulletin board about Catholic High Hall of Fame. He called me and started putting it in motion.”
The ceremony was streamed online on October 24th.
Schilling, who videotaped his remarks, regarded his four years at Catholic High School as a great experience. “I was three years president of the class and my senior year I was vice president.”
Schilling also played football all four years. Last January, some of his fellow classmates presented him with a replica of his Catholic High football jersey at an 85th Elvis birthday celebration he was doing with Priscilla Presley at Graceland. “Now it is in an exhibit at Graceland.”
In his remarks, Schilling talked about the trophy his team won. “In junior high, when we tied for the championship, I played fullback. And that was the trophy I point out. It used to be in the lobby of Catholic High. They sent it to me about thee or four weeks ago.”
Elvis also gave Schilling a football jersey. That was when Schilling played football with the King in the mid 1950s at Sunday afternoon football games at Guthrie Park. “Football kind of runs through my whole life.”
He began playing football when he was in the fourth grade at Holy Names. “I made the team. I don’t know how because that’s a big age group when you’re that age. Everybody else there was four years older.”
Football brought him and Elvis together, Schilling says. “I was basically kind of an orphan. My mother died when I was an infant.”
He was raised by his grandparents and an aunt and uncle. “I lived in North Memphis across the street from George Klein.”
Schilling was a fan of Red, Hot & Blue, the radio show hosted by Dewey Phillips. He was listening the night Phillips played Elvis’s recording of “That’s All Right” for the first time. Phillips told his listeners Elvis went to Humes High School, which was in Schilling’s neighborhood. “Elvis sounded so good. He kind of stuttered. He reminded me of James Dean. So, being a good Catholic boy, I said a little prayer, ‘The neighborhood’s not that big. I’d like to meet this boy from Humes High.’”
Two days later, Schilling went to Dave Wells Community Center, where some guys were playing a pickup football game in Guthrie Park. He saw Red West, “who was a big Memphis football player at the time. All Memphis at Humes. I knew who Red was. And he knew Billy Ray. So, Red is the one who said, ‘Hey, Jerry. You want to play with us?’”
Schilling was thrilled. “A 12-year-old getting to play with 18-year-old Red West.”
He got in the game. “When we got in the huddle, me, Red, and Elvis against three other guys, nobody said anything. And I looked at my quarterback and I went, ‘Oh, that’s the boy from Humes High.’ The most important pass I ever caught was the first one he threw to me.”
Elvis, he says, “was nice, but not overly. He was playing it cool.”
Schilling was “trying to play it cool. I was eight years younger than everyone else. I was trying to be one of the big guys. But Elvis was not a warm-up guy immediately. You had to get his trust. He’s not the guy you see in most of his movies that walked around with a smile on his face singing a song all the time. Elvis was a great guy who could be kind of moody and then give you a little smile showing everything is OK. That’s how the football game was.”
Schilling had plenty of time to get to know Elvis. “We had a 23-year relationship to find out. I lived with him at Graceland for 10 years. But I think he remembered and he knew I thought he was really cool before it was popular.”
They played football every Sunday afternoon through 1956 at Guthrie Park. Within three weeks, everybody had heard Elvis’s record. “Everybody was coming on Sunday afternoon to Guthrie Park because Elvis Presley was playing football.”
The teams got bigger because more and more guys wanted to play. Elvis “started getting little jerseys to differentiate between the teams. And he looked over at me and he threw me a jersey.”
Unfortunately, Schilling didn’t get to keep the jersey as a souvenir because they used them each week. “He gave it to me, but then he took it back. He kept it.”
Elvis couldn’t afford to buy jerseys every week. “Elvis didn’t have a lot of money.”
His father and brother wanted him to go to Christian Brothers High School, where Billy Ray had gone, but Schilling wanted to go to Catholic High because his friends were going there. He ended up getting a scholarship to CBHS. “I reluctantly went there.”
He began football practice in August, but, he says, “I just wasn’t in it. I didn’t have any friends there. And let’s face it. CBHS was more exclusive than Catholic High. It was different and I really related to Catholic High. So, my brother told my father, ‘I think we made a mistake. Let him go where he wants.’”
Catholic High was the perfect fit. “We won the junior high championship. I was All Memphis.”
He also got a football scholarship to Arkansas State University.
Schilling admits he was a “popular guy” at Catholic High, but, he says, “I never really thought about it that much. I thought about it more recently. I was just trying to get through school. I had a rough time in grade school with my grades. But then in high school it all changed. I guess because of the support and encouragement I got at Catholic High.”
And, he says, “I was a long way from failing the first grade at Holy Names.”
In high school, Schilling looked and dressed the part as the other guys. “Hair-wise, it was pretty cool and different back then whether from ‘Blackboard Jungle,’ the movie, or Elvis. I tried to do it pretty much like the older guys and Elvis. The world hinged on Elvis, but he wasn’t the only guy with sideburns and ducktails. There was a whole group of guys at Humes and whatever. Elvis had to get it from somewhere.”
Schilling used hair dressings like Brylcreem on his hair. “A little bit. I didn’t over do it. I think Elvis used a little more than I did.”
When football season began, Schilling switched to a crewcut.
As for his clothing, Schilling dressed in traditional 1950’s garb. “I wore a lot of white T-shirts and Levis. And I wore black loafers and white socks.”
In grade school, he says, “I had nuns who actually sent me home because my Levis were too tight. I was probably in the sixth or seventh grade.”
And, he says, “Through grade school and the beginning of high school I was real shy. Obviously, I’ve made up for it.”
But, he says, “All through high school and even through college and when I went to work with Elvis I was, basically, very quiet. I think Priscilla said in her book the first two years I lived at Graceland I never spoke.”
In high school, Schilling kept his friendship with Elvis to himself. “Nobody at Catholic High knew about it. But I’m hanging out with Elvis at night and on weekends. Elvis liked me. He was the most famous guy in the world.
“I learned in grade school early on to keep my music to myself. There’s a part in my book where ‘Mrs. Doolittle’ — I changed the name because of the situation — who was the head of the PTA at Holy Names, would drive us to baseball practice and football practice. They invited me over to their house — they had two sons my age — for a weekend in North Memphis.”
Schilling, who took his records with him, began playing Sixty Minute Man by Billy Ward and his Dominoes, which attracted “Mrs. Doolittle’s” attention. “She came in when she heard that and was furious. She said, “Get that ’n’ music off.’ And she broke my record and told me to go home. So, I learned very early I didn’t want anybody to take Elvis from me after I met him. So, I didn’t say to anybody what I was doing.”
These days, Schilling and his wife, Cindy, have been staying close to home because of the pandemic. “I’ve had three dinners, three dentist appointments, one doctor’s appointment, and that’s it. I’ve been really locked down.”
Jerry Schilling and his wife, Cindy, when he was initiated into the Beale Street Brass Note Walk of Fame in 2007.
He still is in management with The Beach Boys. “Just last Friday I got a contract for another year as president and CEO of their management company, Brother Records Inc.”
He also has been keeping up with Elvis, the new movie being made by director Baz Luhrmann. “Col. Parker will be played by Tom Hanks. Elvis is played by Austin Butler, who had a huge part in Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.”
And he says, “Luke Bracey will be playing Jerry Schilling.”
Bracey, whose movies include Monte Carlo and his TV work, Westside and Home and Away, is “a very good actor. He’s a nice-looking guy. I think he will be great. I’m not officially involved at this point, but I have spent some quality time wth Baz Luhrmann. I’ve had a long dinner in New York with him. I’ve had a long lunch. Four hours. We talked a lot.”
But, Schilling says, “Going back to the Hall of Fame Award, there are two things which are now the centerpiece of my living room on top of the entertainment center. And that’s the note on Beale Street, which is huge for me. And I have put my Hall of Fame Award next to to that.”
His years at Catholic High School were more formative than any of his other schooling, Schilling says. “Preparing me for what my life — that I didn’t have a clue — would be.”
As I watched The Get Down, I felt the slow realization that I don’t think Baz Luhrmann understands how narrative works.
Over the course of his 26-year film career, from the slick exploitation of Strictly Ballroom to his wildly overblown take on The Great Gatsby, he’s certainly proven he knows how to create spectacle. The Get Down is a vision of the birth of hip-hop as Olympian myth. Empowered by a free-spending Netflix, Luhrmann seems to have been encouraged to go more fully Luhrmann-esque than ever before. In his hands, the Brooklyn of 1977 is a hallucinatory war zone populated by characters of operatic breadth. The cast are all relative newcomers, led by Justice Smith as Zeke, a young poet whom we meet on the edge of becoming a proto-MC. His love interest is a singer named Mylene (Herizen F. Guardiola), and his mentor is a mysterious DJ named Shaolin Fantastic (Shameik Moore), and together they set out to conquer the world through tight flow and sick beats.
Justice Smith (left) dips Herizen F. Guardiola in The Get Down.
Or something like that. It’s really hard to fathom what is going on, plot-wise, at any given moment. Luhrmann seems incapable of concentrating on a storyline for more than three or four shots — and that’s only if there’s some kind of interesting movement taking place that he can track in some outrageous Dutch angle. He treats emotion the same way he treats color, splashing it across the screen for garish effect. Take his use of the great Giancarlo Esposito as Mylene’s father, the puritanical Pastor Ramon. Here’s an actor with superhuman control to spin a tapestry of conflicting emotion on his face, but Luhrmann sets him on one speed — “righteous rage.”
Lurhmann’s not using his actors to their full potential, but the same can’t be said of his production designer and cinematographers. The Get Down is one great frame after another, stuffed with detail, and connected by more whip pans and smash cuts than the 1966 Batman. It’s this manic inventiveness that’s always been the attraction to the director’s fans, and it’s here in spades. It might not be so much that the director doesn’t understand how to construct a narrative as he just doesn’t care. There’s no recognizable human psychology, but often The Get Down reads like one of the best long-form music video projects since Thriller. Letting the beautiful dancing people, the bumping soundtrack, and the hot-shot construction wash over is a pretty pleasant use of an hour or so, even if its lack of clear story renders it emotionally flat.
