The Wonder of an Icon

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The New York Sun

Charles L. Ponce De Leon calls “The Life of Elvis Presley: Fortunate Son” (Hill and Wang, 256 pages, $24) an “interpretive biography,” which I define as a narrative with a thesis. In this case, the idea is that Elvis’s very decline as an artist contributed to his iconic status.

Even though the “fortunate son” (Elvis had a twin who died at birth) abused his talent toward the end of his life, he felt he had been chosen by God to be a healer and uniter. He unabashedly absorbed black music, especially R&B and spirituals, while living in a north Memphis neighborhood where people referred to his early recordings as “nigger music.” By the mid-1960s, as his film career degenerated into a series of by the numbers musicals that Elvis himself realized were junk, he read Khalil Gibran’s “The Prophet,” searching for the overarching meaning of life — as did his fellow icon, Marilyn Monroe.

Elvis and Marilyn have much in common, although Mr. Ponce De Leon does not comment on their consanguinity. Acting in Hollywood films was a crucifying experience for both of them. Marilyn rebelled; Elvis surrendered. Both, however, understood how their movies diminished them. “God, this is so embarrassing. Nobody would ever do this in real life. Why are they making me do this?” Elvis muttered to a co-star. As Mr. Ponce De Leon notes, Elvis never pulled rank, never demanded better scripts — as Marilyn did, staging the equivalent of sit-down strikes until she got at least part of what she wanted. Elvis was accustomed to deferring to authority figures, such as his manager, Colonel Tom Parker.

Elvis’s inability to capitalize on his acting talent is troubling. Mr. Ponce De Leon writes that Philip Dunne, director of “Wild in the Country,” believed he could bring out the best in Elvis. The studio, however, sabotaged Clifford Odets’s script by including silly musical scenes that Dunne did not have the authority to remove.Years after Dunne made that film, he was still haunted and baffled by this missed opportunity, as I realized from an interview I did with him in 1987.

More important than acting, however, was Elvis’s sense of himself that transcended any particular film, no matter how bad. Like Marilyn, who recharged herself by doing fascinating photo shoots over which she had significant control with the best photographers, Elvis found himself again through performing live in Las Vegas, where, Mr. Ponce De Leon suggests, he acquired his iconic aura — the one that granted a stature beyond mere rock star popularity:

He gave careful consideration to his wardrobe and came to rely on elaborate costumes … high collars, capes, and wide jewel-encrusted belts. Adorned with rhinestones, they made Elvis appear almost supernatural. … These garish, outlandish costumes were perfect expressions of Elvis’s peculiar sensibilities, which were distinctly Southern working-class, and evangelical, yet also infused with New Age spiritualism.

A hip St. Elvis, if you will. At the time, though, many of his early fans were dismayed. Elvis seemed a sell-out and a has-been, notwithstanding that until 1973, four years before his death, he was, if anything, a more powerful singer. To them, it seemed, to quote Mr. Ponce De Leon,

Elvis was content to throw his talent away.This might have been true if he had perceived his career in these terms, but the fact is he didn’t. From the beginning, he sought widespread acceptance, eagerly embracing music and production values that would help him reach his goal. The evolution of his Vegas act was perfectly in keeping with his philosophy.

Mr. Ponce De Leon is right. That Elvis adhered to a philosophy from the very beginning is clear in Jerry Schilling’s “Me and a Guy Named Elvis: My Lifelong Friendship with Elvis Presley” (Gotham, 368 pages, $26). This memoir comes packaged with a foreword by Elvis’s best biographer, Peter Guralnick, who vouches for Mr. Schilling, asserting that his is a nuanced account devoid of the selfserving antics that often disgrace the books of those who form part of a star’s entourage.

The portrait that emerges from Mr. Schilling’s memoir is of a man of considerable dignity and humility. Especially appealing are scenes with the young Elvis in 1954, when his own community often thought of him, in Mr. Schilling’s words, as “white trash playing black music.” And it wasn’t just the adults who saw Elvis’s music as subversive. Mr. Schilling was only 12 in 1954, when he first met Elvis playing touch football, and already Elvis’s first records and performances had typecast him as “part of an underground that a lot of our generation still didn’t want anything to do with.”

Mr. Schilling recounts how hostile males often targeted Elvis, ridiculing him and even taking swings at the “pretty boy.” Elvis not only stood his ground, he often won over these toughs without having to fight them or give way to his own anger. “I never saw anybody who spent any time with him walk away not liking him,” Mr. Schilling recalls.

Elvis’s frenetic performances, his bodily gyrations, and his way of caressing a microphone outraged a culture still humming tunes like “How Much Is That Doggy in the Window?” People were not prepared for something as raw as Elvis’s “Hound Dog.” Ed Sullivan, the arbiter of wholesome family entertainment, vowed never to have Elvis on his show, only to reconsider when Elvis’s appearance on the Steve Allen show killed Sullivan in the ratings. After Elvis’s third appearance on Sullivan’s show, the impresario was moved to tell his TV audience: “I just wanted to say to Elvis Presley and the country that this is a real decent, fine boy.” Mr. Schilling’s perception of that moment jibes with mine: “I thought I could see a mix of hurt over the attacks he’d been subjected to in the press, and a deep pride in who he was and what he was doing.”

Elvis never did say, “Screw you,” Mr. Schilling emphasizes. Elvis’s mission was too important for pettiness. But like Marilyn, Elvis was defeated by the business of living. As these complementary books show, life is filled with too many variables he could not negotiate; he was not the kind of saint who could strip himself of his pink Cadillacs and Harley Davidsons. He put in a meditation garden at Graceland, but he was an impatient soul, looking for shortcuts in drugs and finding transcendence only in some of the greatest music created in his century.

crollyson@nysun.com


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