Elvis Legend Swivels On, 25 Years Later

Aug. 12, 2002 -- The King may be dead, but it's still "long live the King" as far as Elvis Presley fans are concerned.

Known worldwide by just his one name, Elvis died 25 years ago this Friday at the age of 42. In his death, he became even larger than life, frozen forever in time.

"There have been a lot of tough guys. There have been pretenders. And there have been contenders. But there is only one king," said rocker Bruce Springsteen.

Reinventing Pop Culture

It is almost impossible to remember a world before Presley, a time when hearing the lyrics "You ain't nothin' but a hound dog, cryin' all the time," wouldn't summon a picture of Presley to mind.

His was a sound that was so big and so new, that it would not just reinvent music — it would reinvent pop culture in a way that was almost painfully thrilling. Presley stood the 1950s on end, and half a century later, he's still "The King."

Women screamed, cried and fainted at Presley shows, while his hair, his wiggling hips and his 18 No. 1 hits seemed to be everywhere. Presley basically defined stardom for a generation.

But he would die too young — and nearly bankrupt. Fans who made pilgrimages to Graceland, his home in Memphis, Tenn., mourned en masse after his death — and still do.

Every August, they light candles again — in memory of the first American icon of rock 'n' roll.

Sharecropper's Son Played Guitar

Presley had a life that still seems remarkable today. The son of a sharecropper, he got his first guitar as a birthday present, because it was cheaper than a bicycle.

Elvis Aron Presley was born at 4 a.m. on Jan. 8, 1935. His twin brother, Jesse Garon, died at birth. His father, Vernon, a Mississippi sharecropper, struggled to feed his family, and even served time in jail for writing bad checks.

His mother, Gladys was Elvis' inspiration and best friend. The young Presley vowed that somehow he would take care of them.

"He always had the idea, the vision that he was going to do something great. He didn't know what it was," said Presley biographer Peter Guralnick.

Presley was a shy, soft-spoken truck driver, just 18 years old, when he first walked into Sam Phillips' now famous Sun Studios in Memphis.

"What you saw on that stage later on was entirely different [from] what I saw when he first came in and made that little record for his mother," Phillips said.

Little White Lie

But Guralnick said Presley wasn't entirely truthful that day at the studio.

"He said that he was recording the acetate tape for his mother's birthday," Guralnick said. "Now, it wasn't his mother's birthday. And I don't think there's any question that he went in with the idea of looking for a tryout."

Yet, the man who became known as the King didn't want it to seem that way.

"He still didn't get up the nerve to come in for a free audition," Phillips said. "He had to come in and pay his $4 … and he insisted on this."

Presley didn't have the self-confidence to ask Phillips directly for an audition, so he made friends with Marian Keisker, Phillips' assistant.

"She loved him," Guralnick said. "An older, very sophisticated woman, very nice woman. And he would ask her, 'Gee, do you think there's a band, somebody who's got a band that's looking for a singer?' Rather than confronting an authority figure, he was dealing with a woman, which was easier for him in the first place."

After nine months of talking with Keisker, Presley finally got his tryout with Phillips.

All-Night Tryout

The session lasted into the morning, and everyone was packing up when Presley started plucking one last number by an obscure blues singer. The song was called "That's Alright, Mama."

"God almighty, it blew me away," Phillips said. "He's off-mike. I'm halfway in the control room hearing a little bit of this, you know, a little bit from Elvis directly. And I swear to God, it just blew me away."

Three days later, Memphis DJ Dewey Phillips played "That's Alright, Mama," on his show seven times in a row. It was July 8, 1954.

At the end of the month, Presley played his first big appearance. Within a year, he was singing, and gyrating, on national television, on a program called Stage Show.

Audiences roared their approval.

Enter Col. Tom Parker, a successful music promoter and marketing genius, who some say was also the man responsible for Presley's ultimate destruction. But early on, record sales spiked, and Presley was unstoppable.

Too Hot For TV?

He was America's first pop phenomenon, and Presley fever was a brush fire that swept the country.

The King was born, but the Ed Sullivan Show declined to shoot the hip-swiveling singer below the waist when he came on the program.

In fact, backlash such as this was as swift as Presley's rise to fame. San Diego ordered Presley not to dance, and New Jersey banned all rock 'n' roll. Segregationists claimed rock 'n' roll was a black conspiracy.

On the Hy Gardner Show, Presley was on the hot seat.

"Your style of gyrating while you sing has been bitterly criticized, even by usually mild and gently TV critics. Now, do you bear any animosity toward these critics?" Gardner asked.

"Well, not really," Presley said. "They — those people have a job to do, and they do it."

"Now, do you think you've learned anything from the criticism leveled at you?" Gardner asked.

"No, I haven't," Presley said.

"You haven't, huh?" Gardner said.

"Because I don't think I've done anything wrong," Presley said.

Southern Charm, Adoring Fans

The young Presley's Southern charm and the unstoppable adoration of his fans would prevail. At the height of Elvis mania, he was drafted and was proud to serve.

Though the singing sensation asked for no special treatment, he allowed a few photo ops, like the cutting of his trademark hair to fit military regulations. Before he went to boot camp, Presley stopped by the Ed Sullivan Show once again, and this time received a warm welcome.

"I wanted to say to Elvis Presley and the country that this is a real decent, fine boy," Sullivan said in 1956. "And wherever you go, on Elvis, we want to say that we've never had a pleasanter experience on our show with a big name than we've had with you. You're thoroughly all right."

On the eve of his departure for service in Germany, came one of the most pivotal moments in Presley's life. His beloved mother, Gladys Presley, died at age 46.

"Up to a point, he had believed that his success was meant to enable him to buy a home for his mother and father, to give his mother all the things she had never had,"Guralnick said. "Well, if she dies right at the height of his success, then what is it for? This was a question that haunted him really from her death in 1958 until his death 19 years later."

Meeting the Memphis Mafia

A heartsick Presley did go overseas, and the friends he made in the Army would later become his full-time entourage, the famous Memphis Mafia. He met 14-year-old beauty Priscilla Beaulieu, whose father was an Air Force colonel stationed in Germany.

Presley convinced her parents to let her finish high school in Memphis, where she would live in his famous Graceland mansion. He charmed them with assurances that she would be supervised by his own father and would attend a Catholic school.

Presley made 33 movies, with each one a showcase for his new hit singles. The movies brought him money, but no critical acclaim. He gave out Cadillacs like calling cards, rented entire movie theaters and amusement parks, and searched earnestly for spiritual meaning in an increasingly surreal world.

Elvis' Circle Shrinks

Elvis and Priscilla married in Las Vegas and later had Lisa Marie, who would be the King's only child. Meanwhile, Presley insulated himself more and more within a circle of friends he put on the payroll.

In the '60s, the Beatles and the British invasion swept the music scene, and Presley became more reclusive, taking long hiatus from live performances.

He then dazzled his fans with the televised '68 Comeback Special, in which he appeared transformed, dressed in black leather, from head to toe. He then focused on Las Vegas performances.

In 1972, came another blow in Presley's personal life, when he and Priscilla broke up. He was isolated, medicated, and suffering from depression. Presley reappeared nationally in 1973 with Aloha From Hawaii, which broke records and was viewed simultaneously around the world by more than a billion people.

In the bejeweled white leather jumpsuit he wore at the concert, Elvis was larger, and more labored in his performance. But still, fans swooned. Elvis, however, felt his performances were lacking.

"I think what makes it most tragic is that at the end he was so clearly disappointed in himself," Guralnick said. "He felt that he couldn't deliver what he was meant to deliver."

On Aug. 16, 1977, Elvis Presley was dead. His then-fiancée, Ginger Alden, found him on the bathroom floor.

Doctors found that he had an enlarged heart, and discovered 14 different prescription drugs in his system. His doctor, George Nichopoulos, would eventually have his license revoked for over prescribing drugs.

His funeral, two days later, would reflect hs remarkable life: A white hearse, 17 white limousines and 50,000 mourning fans.