Face-to-Face: Elvis Presley portrait

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Warren Perry: Welcome everybody, my name is Warren Perry and I'm a researcher for the Catalogue of American Portraits

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and we're very glad to see you here on this, Elvis's 74th birthday.

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The latest news I understand out of Memphis is that Priscilla Beaulieu Presley showed up

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at the Memphis State Marshall game last night and announced

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an additional scholarship to the University of Memphis — or Memphis State, it was Memphis State when I went there — and

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she announced an additional scholarship to the University from the Elvis Presley Foundation.

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Elvis ehh -- It was 1977 when Elvis passed away and

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you might think the Elvis news stops, but it never stops [[faint laughter]] it keeps on going.

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I wanna talk first about the portrait, then talk briefly about Elvis' life, and about his records, his movies, and then

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I wanna talk lastly about charity - Elvis and charity - and then I wanna hit briefly on Elvis and Elvis literature.

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First of all, the gentleman who painted this portrait is Ralph Wolfe Cowan. Ralph is still alive; he's very much with us.

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He used to have a studio across the street from the Portrait Gallery and when I spoke with him a couple years ago,

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he said, he never dreamed he would have a portrait in the National Portrait Gallery and to

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and to him, this is certainly one of his greatest accomplishments, although,

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he has many other great accomplishments as an artist.

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I have a small vitae of him here. One of the most impressive things about the artist is - not many people know this about Ralph -

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but Mr. Cowan is considered to be the number one portrait painter in the world,

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and he's been recognized for painting more reigning monarchs and world leaders than anyone in history.

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And I think I have a shorts list -- actually it's a long list [[faint laughter]] -- of people he's painted.

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This top section alone is the royalty and the dignitaries and we see people on here -

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like Lyndon B. Johnson, John F. Kennedy, Princess Grace and Prince Albert of Monaco,

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Prince Ernst and Princess Caroline, Princess Stephanie of Monaco, the Sultan of Brunei,

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King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, Pope John Paul II, Prince Rainier of Monaco -

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i-it goes on and on; it's truly an amazing list.

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The portraits are big, and they have elements of — i-in literature they call it magical realism.

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There're these -- they have these huge fantasy elements about them.

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You see President Reagan and President Kennedy there, and Nancy Reagan right there in this looong flowing

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Audience Question: Are these commissioned, ones? Or ones he just decided to do?

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Warren Perry: These are all commissioned. He goes in and he sits with these people.
Audience Question: Oh, OK. Mm-hmm.

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Warren Perry: He actually had an audience with the Pope here in Washington, D.C., briefly, years ago.

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He's met every one of these people and because these people have a limited amount of time on their hands,

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typically, he makes a few sketches and then what he does is

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take a few photos, he consults with them a few times. But yes,

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it's a, very much a for-profit enterprise and he is very much recognized in those- in those

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higher, higher levels as, as the painter, the one you go to. There's a, there's a picture in here I believe of

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Warren Perry: Well, there's one of Elvis that hangs at Graceland. And then—

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there really-- there's a Donald Trump right there, a very young Donald Trump.

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My wife indicated this to me last night, this is very interesting.

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I don't know how much time that the Donald had to sit for this portrait but look at that sweater! And Shannon was so keen to observe [[audience laughter]] - his Ralph Wolfe Cowan sweater. So he might have to do a little bit of uh fixing on that. But there's some there's some other images in here of Johnny Mathis.

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This is from the album cover of Heavenly. And Mr. Cowan has painted no less than 6 album covers for Johnny Mathis. Let me tell you a little bit more about him. Here's a letter he wrote.

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Ehh-- I made this inquiry a couple of years ago, and he's kind enough to write me back.

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To tell me a little bit about the origin of this work.

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And he says: dear warren, in the early 1950's I painted a portrait of Johnny Mathis for his first album cover 'Heavenly'. Elvis saw the painting and for years tried to contact me through Johnny Mathis.

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It may have been a competition between stars or just phone-tag. Johnny and I had been close friends and I think Johnny wanted to keep my artistic talent to himself.

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And of course I didn't want to risk my friendship with Johnny. There was always a mutual admiration; I loved Johnny's singing and he loved my paintings.

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Through the years, I've painted six album covers for him. It wasn't until the early nineteen sixties when I asked to open the first portrait painting studio--when I asked to open the first portrait painting studio at Cesar's Palace in Las Vegas. It was then that Elvis walked in, put his hands across the door and said "You can't get away from me this time. And I'll wear whatever you want."

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I started drawing him that night, on a blank forty-eight-inch circular canvas, that was abandoned when he told me he preferred the full-length sized portrait.

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When the full-length painting was finished, Elvis came by and personally carried the four-foot-seven--four foot by seven foot painting across Las Vegas Boulevard to his room at the Aladdin where he always stayed.

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I was told about that portrait and my friendship with--I told all about that portrait and my friendship with Elvis in a film organized by Priscilla called "Graceland"

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After Elvis died there were many ridiculous sightings of Elvis, I humorously painted him on a canvas as though he were at the wheel of a car. I framed it in a car door--that I painted pink; the same shade as his Cadillac at Graceland.

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My assistant manager--at the time had a lot of fun with it. One day they drove the painting down in my Chrysler convertible to the National Enquirer Headquarters.

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[[audience laughter]] They left my car at the corner with the painting of Elvis framed in the window. Sure enough the National Enquirer photographed it, printed it, and claimed it as another Elvis sighting. [[audience laughter]]

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That year the painting won a prize and the Fort Lauderdale art museum. Somehow the National Portrait Gallery got wind of it, your board passed on it because the car door that it was framed in wasn't the same year and model as Elvis's Cadillac but they wanted to know what else I had painted since I was the only painter that Elvis ever sat for.

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Also, the only painter he ever paid for and the only one he ever allowed to hang in Graceland. When Elvis died his full-length painting was hanging in his bedroom.

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The painting is very personal to him; this fit all the requirements for the National Portrait Gallery. Luckily, I had rolled up all the unfinished paintings from Vegas and stored them in my mother's garage at Fort Worth, Virginia.

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I was able to restore and repair the circular Elvis portrait. As you can see I added the red shirt and the blue sky to make it different from the Graceland painting.

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Also, that was the one the board approved. I've heard from clients who've seen the portrait hanging at the National Portrait Gallery that it gets great attention. For that I'm very happy.

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Elvis was funny and had charisma that was bigger than life. I enjoyed our friendship. Any questions, feel free to call. Sincerely, Ralph Wolfe Cowan.

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Um, he's a terribly nice man and Mr. Cowan, when I talked to him one night it, over a couple of hours, he was practically in tears at times talking about how lucky he felt and and this he considers to be, the hugest honor in in that's that's a pretty great honor among honors because he's painted an awfully uh large number of people.

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Let's talk a little bit about Elvis. He was born on this day in nineteen thirty-five so he would be seventy-four years old today, which would make him, what is that, nine years into his social security benefits if I'm right. [[audience laughter]]

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He's been dead for thirty-two years this coming August. One of the more interesting statistics that you read is over those thirty-two years, how many of his albums, how many of his individual records have gone gold again, how is that.

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There's always Elvis fans, but interestingly every time you buy an Elvis record in a new format, RCA keeps a total on it. So--when you got rid of your 8-tracks and you went to cassette and you bought Elvis's um "In the Ghetto" or "Suspicious Minds", all the people who went out just like you and bought it in that new format, made that album or that record gold or platinum again.

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With the conversion to CD, everything in the new format went gold or platinum again. With respect to his movies, they sell in all the new formats as well.

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He died in nineteen seventy-seven on August sixteenth, his first number one record was--I bet Sid can tell us this. What was his first number one record?

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Warren Perry: On the flip side 'Heartbreak Hotel' - that was exactly where he was going in 1956.

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His last, or his latest we should say, number one record, was in 2002 - 'A Little Less Conversation' - it was the dance remix of 'A Little Less Conversation'

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Had a number one record 25 years after his death - I don't know that anybody has done that.

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The following statistics are compiled by Graceland - you can find these on 'elvis.com' -

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in one of Peter Guralnick's books there's also a lot of tables that discuss Elvis.

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And the numbers - the numbers are just amazing:

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He had no less than 149 songs to appear on Billboard's Hot 100 Pop Chart.

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Of these, 114 were in the Top 40 - 40 were in the Top 10 - 18 went on to be Number 1.

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His Number One singles spent 80 weeks on the charts at Number One.

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He also had 90 charted albums with 10 of them reaching Number One.

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If you've ever been to Graceland — everybody kids about Graceland and that's because the house stopped in 1977. And really it stopped a few years earlier than that

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because he never had it redesigned after - I think it was Bill Eubanks who did the final interior touches to it.

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So the house looks like homes did in the mid and late 1970s - so we all look at the earth tones and all that sort of thing, and we kinda laugh and say it's out of date.

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You may laugh at the inside of the house because it's no longer in fashion, but if you walk into the Trophy Room and you look down the Hall of Gold,

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it's about 50 feet long, and from floor to ceiling it's racked up with gold singles and gold albums.

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And you're going down and looking at the names of the records—

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and it says 'Don't Be Cruel' - well, a million here.

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Uh, 'Hound Dog' - a million there.

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'Jailhouse Rock' - a million there.

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'Love Me Tender' - a million there.

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You start thinking in terms of millions - and all these songs, just go all the way down the wall.

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Oh my goodness - he sang that, he sang that too! It's a pretty stunning sight.

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And they don't call it the Hall of Gold for no reason - it's all gold records straight down the hallway.

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It's estimated that Elvis has sold more than one billion record units worldwide.

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In America alone, he had 150 different albums and singles certified gold, platinum, or multi-platinum

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by the Recording Industry Association of America

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with more certifications expected as research into past record sales is completed.

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Research is also underway to document his record sales achievements in other countries—

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it's estimated that 40% of Elvis's total record sales have been outside the United States.

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And again when you go in the Hall of Gold in the Trophy Room you see awards from RCA and RCA divisions— from Scandinavia, from Africa, from Asia, from Europe —the trophies go on and on and on.

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He starred in 31 feature films, his two most critically acclaimed were "Jailhouse Rock" and "King Creole".

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He never received any big awards like an Emmy or an Oscar, but he does have three Grammys,

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interestingly all three of the Grammys- none of them are for rock n roll, they're all for his gospel recordings.

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He's - if I'm not mistaken - the only person in the Rock-n-Roll, and the Country, and I wanna say the R&B Hall of Fame,

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I think he's in all three of those Hall of Fames.

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His three network television specials — and this is how- this is an indication of how Elvis moved with technology —

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'Elvis in 1968' which is also called, 'The Comeback Special' -

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The 'Aloha from Hawaii via Satellite' - and the 'Elvis in Concert' special - stand among the most highly-rated specials of all time.

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His '68 special is one of the most critically acclaimed music specials of all time.

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His 1973 special 'Elvis, Aloha from Hawaii via Satellite' was the first satellite broadcast ever.

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It was seen in 40 countries by an estimated 1-1½ billion people.

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It made television history and it was seen on more TVs in the United States than the moon landing.

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Warren Perry: That's respect. [[laughter]]

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One of the, one of the interesting rooms that you see in Graceland, within the trophy room,

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is the room dedicated to Elvis' charitable contributions.

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We all talk about Elvis and you hear the wild stories— the stories of the late nights,

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staying up with his buddies in Memphis playing football on the lawn, or flying to Denver to get a fried peanut butter and banana sandwich.

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All the wild stories about him shooting out a television set because he didn't like Robert Goulet. [[laughter]] Damn.

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One of the most interesting things about Elvis was—

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Audience Member: He was nocturnal, right?

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Warren Perry: Oh, very much. He slept well into the day and then he performed in the evening or stayed up with his friends playing--

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He had a racket ball court built behind Graceland so they'd go outside- and inside the racket ball court, actually, there's a piano and there's a little snack bar and everything.

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So, he had his own place away from the house if anybody wanted to sleep he had his own- his own play land inside Graceland.

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The uh- sorry, what was I-

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Charity. Charity. [[laughter]]

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Every year at Christmas time, he would sit down, and write out checks to 50 charities in Memphis, Tennessee.

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He'd write out a thousand dollar check to each of them.

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And send them all. So $50,000 every year.

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He never claimed it on his taxes. He said if you get something back from it, then it's really not like charity at all, is it?

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Routinely, when he found out friends had- or family members had money problems, he'd pay their house notes, he'd pay their bills, he'd--

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He was notorious for showing up on car lots in Memphis and buying cars for people he'd see wandering around.

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Notorious? Would you say notorious? He was famous for that.

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One Cadillac salesman in Memphis gave him an award for being the greatest purchaser of Cadillacs of all time.

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And there's stories about how he went in one day and bought 14 Cadillacs and gave the keys to each to a friend of his.

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I don't know if anybody knows this, but this is a pretty interesting thing:

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Elvis is closely tied to the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor. Anybody heard this story?

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Warren Perry: After World War II, funds were being raised to turn the USS Arizona into a monument.

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Well, the fund drive went on for years and years. It was going to cost a little over a half a million dollars to create the Arizona memorial.

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The money just wasn't there and the fun drive kinda, kinda slowed and interest in it slowed down.

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In 1961, when Elvis was in Hawaii filming Blue Hawaii. In March, he gave a concert at the base at Pearl Harbor and the benefits for the concert were given over to the Pearl Harbor Memorial Association.

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The concert raised over fifty thousand dollars. Elvis himself is responsible for ten percent of the funds that it took to build the Pearl Harbor Memorial and to put it into place.

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Interestingly after that concert, there was a renewed effort into establishing the Pearl Harbor Memorial and many people say that it's because of Elvis.

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There are two plaques that I know of that attest to Elvis' contribution there.

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One is at the Block Arena at Pearl Harbor, that talks about the memorial concert, and then the other is at Graceland, and its a plaque from Pearl Harbor memorial association to Elvis in thanks for his efforts to create the- to help perpetuate the fundraising of the USS Arizona memorial.

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So, that's charity.

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The last thing I want to talk about, very briefly, I want to talk a little bit about Elvis literature.

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We all talk about Elvis in terms of big star and how Elvis really was the pacesetter for so many things- not just the music but also the industry that movie stars and rock stars spawn.

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All the satellite stuff: the lunchboxes, the toys, the games, all this-

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Elvis, I think, might be unique in that a whole body of world literature has been spawned by the Elvis phenomenon.

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And I brought a few examples with me.

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Warren Perry: Of course there are biographies, there are lots of biographies:

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the guards at Graceland - Elvis's maids - Elvis's family. There's a lot of people in that family down there.

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And of course more people, more scholarly people— I'm currently reading this one by Charles Ponce de Leon,

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and this is almost, um, this is almost a capitalist take on Elvis.

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It talks about Elvis, it talks about how much he earned, and how much he meant to the world.

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But it puts things very much in a capitalist perspective.

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And Mr. Ponce de Leon is um, I believe he's um, yes he's an historian at Purchase College at SUNY - he's got a really interesting take.

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There are other biographies out there - Peter Guralnick's work is probably the most famous set of biographies on Elvis.

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But then, there's everybody else who wants to put their own lens on Elvis. Here are some examples:

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This is the 'Towel of Elvis' [laughter]

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This is in search of Elvis' Jewish roots, it's called "Schmelvis" [laughter]

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This is one for the- for the new-agers, this was truly an interesting book, I've read through this, "Elvis' After Life - Unusual Psychic Experiences Surrounding the Death of a Superstar".

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There are interesting things in here— stories like a young lady in the South who was at work in a restaurant and all of a sudden,

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she was called by her buddy and said Elvis died. Well, they were big Elvis fans.

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She started crying, she rushed home and when she got home her entire Elvis record collection had melted. Nothing else in her house was on fire.

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{LAUGHTER}
Audience: I believe it !

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Warren Perry: A series- a further series of scholarly studies, Elvis through various other scholarly lenses: 'Elvis Culture: Faith, Fans, and Image', that's a nice compilation.

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And then of course — this is one of my favorites — "Are You Hungry Tonight?" {laughter} Elvis' recipes. And then--

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'Elvis Fashion: From Memphis to Vegas' - this was assembled by Judy Mundy but I bought this at Bernard Lansky's store in Memphis in the Peabody Hotel

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and Mr. Lansky is the one who was responsible for outfitting Elvis during his first few years touring and all that and, um,

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Mr. Lansky is always very very happy to talk with you about Elvis and he also will make sure that,

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if he has it available, he'll sell you some nice pink argyle socks or, a nice pink shirt. And then, finally--

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This is interesting— this is the "Where's Elvis?" and it's got pictures of different places and events:

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"The Million Man March" - and we've got the "Chicago Gay Men's Chorus", "Lenin's Tomb" in Moscow, and there's Elvis sightings in all of these.

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Thank you very much for coming out and Happy Elvis' Birthday to each and every one of you! Thank you! {Applause}

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Questions? Yes, ma'am?

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Warren Perry: I had heard — and this is me remembering from when I was a kid,

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and I don't know how accurate it was — I had heard that he was worth about 5 million dollars at that time.

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But there were always problems with Elvis, either not listening to his father, or not listening to-

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to Colonel Tom Parker. Colonel Tom always wanted there to be more money.

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Vernon said, you can't keep squandering - Vernon Presley, Elvis Presley's father - said you can't keep squandering all this money away.

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The whole coterie of guys who surrounded Elvis - his bodyguards and his buddies -

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they were called the Memphis Mafia and they were always on salary.

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The interesting thing about the Memphis Mafia— Colonel Tom liked them to be around because it kept Elvis from going out and and

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and being assaulted by the public. These guys, I mean they literally, they flanked him on all sides whenever he would go around.

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It cost money to support those guys.

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He spent a lot of money on whimsical things.

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And if you ever go to the the house down at Graceland, you see what obviously cost a lot of money— he had 3 TVs in one room.

00:22:25.000 --> 00:22:31.000
He had- His pool room had, uh, had this amazing cloth arrangement on the ceiling to dampen sound.

00:22:31.000 --> 00:22:39.000
He could go through a lot of money. Of course since his since his death, the estate has, ah, has become a cash cow.

00:22:39.000 --> 00:22:45.000
So, there is an entire Elvis industry that- that's been around for 32 years now.

00:22:45.000 --> 00:22:49.000
And Lisa Marie Presley is the beneficiary of that, although she sold —

00:22:49.000 --> 00:22:57.000
I want to say, 80% of the rights to that — to, ah, to a large firm in New York and now they manage Elvis' enterprises in Memphis.

00:22:57.000 --> 00:23:01.000
Audience-1: I'd say it's worth a whole lot more--
Warren Perry: It's worth a lot now. Yes, ma'am.

00:23:01.000 --> 00:23:03.000
Warren Perry: Any other questions? (Great question!)

00:23:03.000 --> 00:23:10.000
Audience-2: Are you gonna sing any of his-- [[laughter]]
Warren Perry: No! 'Cause we want to people to stay friendly to the National Portrait Gallery. [[laughter]]

00:23:10.000 --> 00:23:14.000
But I'll sing with YOU if you want, Syd. [[laughter]]

00:23:14.000 --> 00:23:21.750
Audience-3: In the '70s, before he died, his career really went downhill though, right? All he could do is perform in Vegas?
Warren Perry: He did a lot of performing--
Audience-3: And--

00:23:26.000 --> 00:23:30.000
Audience-1: --characterization?
Warren Perry: That's an interesting characterization and I have heard it a few times. I think,

00:23:30.000 --> 00:23:35.000
I think it's, it's more optimistic to say he might have been,

00:23:35.000 --> 00:23:41.000
he might have been at a low point with respect to movies, but he was always reinventing himself.

00:23:41.000 --> 00:23:44.000
He didn't tour a lot during the 1960s because he was working in the movies,

00:23:44.000 --> 00:23:50.000
while in the 1970s he wasn't making a lot of movies because he was spending all his time touring or performing in Vegas.

00:23:50.000 --> 00:23:56.000
So, it might have been a visual mo- you know a visual ebb, his audio was everywhere,

00:23:56.000 --> 00:24:04.000
and I remember when I was in - let's see, I think I was in 6th grade I think in 1976, and he had songs on the charts in 1976.

00:24:04.000 --> 00:24:09.000
So I, I don't know, I always think, I wonder what - you know if he were alive - what would he, you know,

00:24:09.000 --> 00:24:17.000
he'd be Broadway, or you know, maybe more Vegas or- You know he never toured outside--Say that again Sid, I'm sorry?

00:24:17.000 --> 00:24:24.000
Sid: I would kind of think a Sinatra-like career, if he had lived. He certainly was capable, tremendously versatility--

00:24:24.000 --> 00:24:25.000
Warren Perry: Yeah.

00:24:25.000 --> 00:24:33.000
Sid: And, you know, you do the Vegas thing, on the con--you know, as Sinatra did in the 70s— on the concert tours, New York,--

00:24:33.000 --> 00:24:34.000
Warren Perry: Yeah.

00:24:34.000 --> 00:24:37.000
Sid: I could have seen Elvis do-- if he had stayed healthy.

00:24:37.000 --> 00:24:42.000
Warren Perry: Yeah, which you know from time to time we see these stars and they, and they go through these bouts,

00:24:42.000 --> 00:24:49.000
and they, you know, it might be-it might be, uh, they might be in need of rehabbing for pharmaceuticals, or

00:24:49.000 --> 00:24:54.000
food, or drinking, or what have you. And by the time he passed away,

00:24:54.000 --> 00:24:59.000
well, you know, he died of cardiac arrhythmia, but it was brought on by all sorts of things.

00:24:59.000 --> 00:25:01.000
Certainly he was overweight when he passed away.

00:25:01.000 --> 00:25:06.000
It would've- it would be real interesting to see what path that career took, after that.

00:25:06.000 --> 00:25:09.000
Warren Perry: He was 42 when he passed away.
Sid: Yes.

00:25:09.000 --> 00:25:13.000
Warren Perry: Oddly, his mother was the same age when she passed away.
Sid: Mmmm-mmm-mm. [agreement]

00:25:13.000 --> 00:25:15.000
Audience-2: He was tremendously overweight at that time.

00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:20.000
Warren Perry: He was he was pretty overweight at that time. So, yeah.

00:25:20.000 --> 00:25:23.000
Warren Perry: OK--
Audience-3: For some reason--
Audience-4: Thank you John--

00:25:23.000 --> 00:25:28.368
Warren Perry: Thank you very much, thank you for coming out.
Audience-5: Good job!
Audience-6: Thank you!
Warren Perry: Thanks!