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In March 1959, a group of regulars gathered for another night | 0:00:05 | 0:00:10 | |
at the Moulin Rouge Strip Club in Munich. | 0:00:10 | 0:00:14 | |
Moving among them was photographer, Rudolf Paulini. | 0:00:14 | 0:00:18 | |
This would turn out to be one of the most memorable nights of his life. | 0:00:20 | 0:00:25 | |
A special guest with two bodyguards had slipped into the club | 0:00:26 | 0:00:32 | |
and was mingling freely with the drunks and strippers. | 0:00:32 | 0:00:35 | |
The man who invented rock'n'roll, | 0:00:35 | 0:00:38 | |
Elvis Presley. | 0:00:38 | 0:00:40 | |
That night, Rudolf Paulini took an extraordinary series of photographs. | 0:00:42 | 0:00:47 | |
They captured the unruly and spontaneous side of Elvis | 0:00:47 | 0:00:51 | |
that would be ruthlessly repressed and hidden for the rest of his life. | 0:00:51 | 0:00:56 | |
These were the last pictures ever to be taken of the real Elvis Presley. | 0:00:56 | 0:01:03 | |
MUSIC: Intro to "A Little Less Conversation" by Elvis Presley | 0:01:24 | 0:01:29 | |
# A little less conversation A little more action... # | 0:01:31 | 0:01:34 | |
Elvis Presley was the undisputed King of rock'n'roll. | 0:01:34 | 0:01:39 | |
He burst on to the 1950s music scene, | 0:01:39 | 0:01:43 | |
the shocking, sexually-charged idol of a new youth culture. | 0:01:43 | 0:01:46 | |
At the peak of his career, his image was more carefully | 0:01:53 | 0:01:56 | |
packaged and protected than any other star before him. | 0:01:56 | 0:01:59 | |
Access for informal photographs was always denied. | 0:01:59 | 0:02:05 | |
-# Come on, come on -Come on, come on | 0:02:05 | 0:02:07 | |
# Don't procrastinate, don't articulate, girl, it's gettin' late, gettin' upset waiting around... # | 0:02:07 | 0:02:13 | |
But in the months before he conquered America, a few photographers managed to capture | 0:02:13 | 0:02:17 | |
the raw energy that would turn a small town boy | 0:02:17 | 0:02:21 | |
from Memphis, Tennessee, into a legend of rock'n'roll. | 0:02:21 | 0:02:26 | |
Elvis Presley released his first single, That's All Right Mama | 0:02:29 | 0:02:33 | |
in July 1954. | 0:02:33 | 0:02:35 | |
It was an overnight success and played on radio stations all over the American South. | 0:02:38 | 0:02:45 | |
# Anyway you do | 0:02:45 | 0:02:49 | |
# Well, mama, she done told me Papa done told me too | 0:02:49 | 0:02:54 | |
# Son, that girl you're fooling with She ain't no good for you | 0:02:54 | 0:02:58 | |
# But that's all right... # | 0:02:58 | 0:02:59 | |
Elvis was known as the "Hillbilly Cat", a raw, un-honed talent who had soaked up the musical influences | 0:02:59 | 0:03:07 | |
of his youth - country, blues and gospel - mixed them all together and created rock'n'roll. | 0:03:07 | 0:03:14 | |
On the 28th July, press photographer, James Reid, | 0:03:19 | 0:03:22 | |
was assigned to take some shots of the up-and-coming Memphis star for the local newspaper. | 0:03:22 | 0:03:28 | |
A reporter said, "Jim, I need you to take a picture of this fella | 0:03:28 | 0:03:35 | |
"and his name is Elvis Presley and he's a singer". | 0:03:35 | 0:03:39 | |
Well, poor fella, I looked at him and | 0:03:39 | 0:03:43 | |
his hair was sort of short on top and long on the sides | 0:03:43 | 0:03:48 | |
and his face was very badly pockmarked. | 0:03:48 | 0:03:53 | |
The boy was poor and he had the best clothes that | 0:03:53 | 0:03:58 | |
he could afford to wear that day but he did not make a good impression. | 0:03:58 | 0:04:03 | |
James Reid's photograph was the first publicity shot of Elvis Presley. | 0:04:04 | 0:04:10 | |
I love that particular picture of Elvis because he's so rough | 0:04:10 | 0:04:14 | |
and untutored and he was just this wild kid from the country. | 0:04:14 | 0:04:18 | |
He looked like an awkward teenager | 0:04:18 | 0:04:20 | |
and yet you see the elements of the Elvis that he would become. | 0:04:20 | 0:04:24 | |
You saw the hair, you saw the emphasis on the eyes, | 0:04:24 | 0:04:27 | |
he's like the pre-Elvis before he became Elvis Presley the superstar. | 0:04:27 | 0:04:31 | |
By the summer of 1955, Elvis was playing to packed houses across the South. | 0:04:38 | 0:04:44 | |
Waiting in the wings, watching his progress with growing curiosity, | 0:04:46 | 0:04:51 | |
was a man who knew a potential goldmine when he saw one, | 0:04:51 | 0:04:56 | |
Colonel Tom Parker. | 0:04:56 | 0:04:58 | |
Parker was an illegal immigrant from Holland. | 0:05:00 | 0:05:04 | |
He'd learned his trade on carnival side-shows and was a shrewd salesman. | 0:05:04 | 0:05:09 | |
He was about to become one of the most powerful managers in rock history. | 0:05:09 | 0:05:14 | |
What Colonel Parker saw was the audience, all those kids. | 0:05:14 | 0:05:19 | |
I think Parker said to Elvis's parents, "We can sell this." | 0:05:19 | 0:05:22 | |
He said "Your son has a million dollars worth of talent | 0:05:22 | 0:05:26 | |
"and when he's done with him he'll have a million dollars". | 0:05:26 | 0:05:30 | |
Within months, Parker had negotiated a deal with record company giant, RCA. | 0:05:31 | 0:05:39 | |
It was time to conquer the big cities across America. | 0:05:41 | 0:05:46 | |
The year was 1956. | 0:05:49 | 0:05:53 | |
Elvis Presley was about to gyrate his way on to national television | 0:05:53 | 0:05:58 | |
and unleash a revolution in popular music. | 0:05:58 | 0:06:01 | |
In March, the Colonel booked a television appearance for Presley | 0:06:09 | 0:06:13 | |
on the Dorsey Brothers' Stage Show in New York. | 0:06:13 | 0:06:17 | |
Elvis was heading straight for the CBS studios on Broadway. | 0:06:17 | 0:06:21 | |
On the other side of town, a young photographer, Alfred Wertheimer, | 0:06:24 | 0:06:29 | |
took a phone call from the publicity director of RCA Records. | 0:06:29 | 0:06:34 | |
She says to me, "Al, what are you doing on Saturday?" | 0:06:34 | 0:06:37 | |
and I said "Nothing, what would you like me to do?" | 0:06:37 | 0:06:41 | |
So she said, | 0:06:41 | 0:06:43 | |
"I'd like you to cover the Tommy, Jimmy Dorsey Stage Show". | 0:06:43 | 0:06:47 | |
And I said to her "Oh, Tommy Dorsey, you'd like me to cover him?" | 0:06:47 | 0:06:52 | |
So she said "No, I want you to cover Elvis Presley". | 0:06:52 | 0:06:56 | |
There was a silence there. | 0:06:56 | 0:06:58 | |
I said, "Elvis who?" | 0:06:58 | 0:07:00 | |
Three days later, Wertheimer was in a CBS dressing room, standing in front of Elvis Presley. | 0:07:02 | 0:07:09 | |
Elvis was sitting with his feet up on the table and his Argyle socks showing. | 0:07:09 | 0:07:16 | |
And there was a salesman and he was selling jewellery. | 0:07:16 | 0:07:21 | |
Ann comes in, says, "Elvis, I'd like you to meet Al Wertheimer, he's our photographer." | 0:07:21 | 0:07:27 | |
and Elvis says, "Yeah, hi". | 0:07:27 | 0:07:30 | |
He's busy worrying about his ring, not about the photographer. | 0:07:30 | 0:07:34 | |
So that was fine with me because my attitude in those days was fly on the wall, I don't exist. | 0:07:34 | 0:07:40 | |
I put the camera up to my face, I disappear. | 0:07:40 | 0:07:45 | |
And I'd never met this guy, I don't know what he does, I don't know | 0:07:45 | 0:07:48 | |
how well he sings but that's irrelevant, I'll just hang around. | 0:07:48 | 0:07:54 | |
Wertheimer hung around all afternoon and started to get curious. | 0:07:54 | 0:08:00 | |
After rehearsals, he tagged along with Elvis to his hotel. | 0:08:00 | 0:08:04 | |
We got up to his suite... | 0:08:07 | 0:08:09 | |
..and there was fan letters on the couch | 0:08:11 | 0:08:15 | |
and I'm talking to myself, "What do I do now? There's no action". | 0:08:15 | 0:08:19 | |
I said, "Well just observe, just be quiet". | 0:08:19 | 0:08:22 | |
Now he's intensely reading some letters and he's spread out | 0:08:22 | 0:08:27 | |
on the couch and I said, "Well it's what he's doing so photograph him." | 0:08:27 | 0:08:32 | |
I'm sort of doing a study as if I had him in a laboratory under a microscope. | 0:08:32 | 0:08:38 | |
And I'm saying, "This is wonderful". | 0:08:38 | 0:08:41 | |
Elvis was a natural. | 0:08:42 | 0:08:45 | |
Completely at ease with the camera. | 0:08:45 | 0:08:47 | |
Elvis would permit closeness. | 0:08:47 | 0:08:51 | |
I mean you could get close. | 0:08:51 | 0:08:52 | |
You could get two and a half feet away from his nose | 0:08:52 | 0:08:56 | |
and he'd go about doing what he was doing. | 0:08:56 | 0:08:59 | |
Wertheimer was still with Elvis as he started getting ready for that night's show. | 0:09:00 | 0:09:06 | |
There's Elvis in the nude except for a towel. | 0:09:06 | 0:09:11 | |
I said, "Elvis, can I come in?" | 0:09:11 | 0:09:13 | |
and he said, "Sure, come on in". | 0:09:13 | 0:09:16 | |
Now when's the last time you had a photographer | 0:09:16 | 0:09:20 | |
ask to come into your bathroom after you'd just took a shower? | 0:09:20 | 0:09:23 | |
When Wertheimer turned up for the performance, | 0:09:26 | 0:09:29 | |
he began to realise just how special this young singer might be. | 0:09:29 | 0:09:34 | |
# You ain't nothing but a hound dog Cryin' all the time... # | 0:09:34 | 0:09:38 | |
There he was being crushed by the body of flesh wanting autographs | 0:09:38 | 0:09:44 | |
and I have some nice images of this wall of hair. | 0:09:44 | 0:09:49 | |
I noticed that the girls, they had tears in their eyes when he spoke to them. | 0:09:52 | 0:09:58 | |
I said, "Anybody who can make the girls cry has got something." | 0:09:58 | 0:10:03 | |
What had started as just another assignment had turned into | 0:10:03 | 0:10:07 | |
the most important shoot of Wertheimer's life. | 0:10:07 | 0:10:10 | |
# You ain't nothing but a hound dog Cryin' all the time... # | 0:10:12 | 0:10:17 | |
Elvis's style was unique. | 0:10:17 | 0:10:20 | |
# ..Cryin' all the time... # | 0:10:20 | 0:10:22 | |
His sexual convulsions sent shockwaves across America. | 0:10:22 | 0:10:27 | |
His weeping fans adored him | 0:10:33 | 0:10:35 | |
but others saw him as a dangerous threat to the morals of the nation. | 0:10:35 | 0:10:40 | |
You shake and you quake when you sing. Do you think | 0:10:40 | 0:10:43 | |
your rocking and rolling has had an evil influence on teenagers or is it just an outlet? | 0:10:43 | 0:10:48 | |
I don't see that any type of music would have any bad influence. | 0:10:48 | 0:10:52 | |
Do you think you've learned anything from the criticism levelled at you? | 0:10:52 | 0:10:56 | |
No, I haven't because I don't feel I'm doing anything wrong. | 0:10:56 | 0:10:59 | |
# ..You ain't nothing but a hound dog... # | 0:11:00 | 0:11:03 | |
They were calling him Elvis the Pelvis, they were accusing him of movement. | 0:11:03 | 0:11:08 | |
I said, "OK he moves, so how do I show movement as a still photographer?" | 0:11:08 | 0:11:14 | |
You have to think with very slow shutter speeds so that you catch just the right amount of movement | 0:11:14 | 0:11:21 | |
where it looks like a still photograph in movement. | 0:11:21 | 0:11:26 | |
Wertheimer was now following Presley as he toured all over America. | 0:11:32 | 0:11:38 | |
Off-stage, he was finding it hard to keep up with the unruly teen idol. | 0:11:38 | 0:11:44 | |
I come down the stairs in the back of the theatre and | 0:11:44 | 0:11:48 | |
I'm saying, "Where's my subject? Where's Elvis?" | 0:11:48 | 0:11:51 | |
I was supposed to be close to him, and I see these two silhouettes back there, the anonymous date and Elvis. | 0:11:51 | 0:11:59 | |
Wertheimer was working without a flash. | 0:12:02 | 0:12:05 | |
He remained unnoticed as he tried to capture this moment of shadowy flirtation. | 0:12:05 | 0:12:11 | |
So I get up on the handrail to a tighter shot. | 0:12:11 | 0:12:16 | |
And then she says, "I'll bet you can't kiss me, Elvis." | 0:12:19 | 0:12:22 | |
And she sticks out her tongue at him "So there, hmmph!" | 0:12:22 | 0:12:26 | |
And then he says, "I'll bet you I can kiss you". | 0:12:26 | 0:12:31 | |
The two tongues touch and that's the infamous French kiss. | 0:12:31 | 0:12:37 | |
By spring 1956, his debut album, "Elvis Presley" | 0:12:42 | 0:12:47 | |
was a nationwide smash. | 0:12:47 | 0:12:51 | |
Colonel Parker's million dollar dreams were starting to come true. | 0:12:51 | 0:12:56 | |
On the 3rd July, Elvis headed home to visit his parents. | 0:13:01 | 0:13:06 | |
Wertheimer and the Colonel joined him on the 28-hour journey from New York to Memphis. | 0:13:06 | 0:13:12 | |
# Well that long black train got my baby and gone... # | 0:13:15 | 0:13:20 | |
I was just clicking away. | 0:13:20 | 0:13:23 | |
Until somebody tells me to stop, I just continued | 0:13:23 | 0:13:27 | |
because I figured that's my job. | 0:13:27 | 0:13:30 | |
Wertheimer was having the time of his life. | 0:13:31 | 0:13:34 | |
But someone was about to tell him to stop. | 0:13:34 | 0:13:38 | |
When they arrived in Memphis, Wertheimer grabbed his chance to get the scoop of scoops. | 0:13:43 | 0:13:50 | |
Elvis Presley relaxing at home with his mom and dad. | 0:13:50 | 0:13:53 | |
These would be some of the most touching pictures of Elvis ever taken. | 0:13:53 | 0:13:57 | |
I call this photograph Up Against The Wall | 0:14:05 | 0:14:09 | |
and it's a picture of Elvis and his father in the swimming pool. | 0:14:09 | 0:14:14 | |
And incidentally, as he jumped in the pool | 0:14:17 | 0:14:22 | |
and was horsing around, he says "Stop, stop," | 0:14:22 | 0:14:26 | |
and he holds up his hand and he's holding his watch up | 0:14:26 | 0:14:31 | |
and he says "Ma, my watch is wet!" | 0:14:31 | 0:14:35 | |
and she says, "Don't worry, it'll be all right" and she dries it off. | 0:14:35 | 0:14:39 | |
She sort of rubs it against her and she shakes it and | 0:14:39 | 0:14:43 | |
she sees it's still ticking and she says, "It's fine son". | 0:14:43 | 0:14:46 | |
We look at those images of a young man, 20 years old, | 0:14:52 | 0:14:56 | |
and he's on the verge of... His life is about to explode. | 0:14:56 | 0:15:00 | |
We see those things of Elvis that we love - the youth, the beauty, the energy, they're just images | 0:15:00 | 0:15:05 | |
before the curtain came down, before the PR machine came in. | 0:15:05 | 0:15:10 | |
# You know I can be found | 0:15:10 | 0:15:13 | |
# Sittin' home all alone... # | 0:15:13 | 0:15:15 | |
The Colonel felt people wanted to see Elvis's face, | 0:15:15 | 0:15:20 | |
that was his form of art and my form of art | 0:15:20 | 0:15:23 | |
was really photographing as close as I can, truth. | 0:15:23 | 0:15:28 | |
But publicity has nothing to do with the truth - it has to do with the image that sells. | 0:15:28 | 0:15:35 | |
Colonel Parker wasn't simply managing a singer, | 0:15:39 | 0:15:42 | |
he was manufacturing a commodity for the mass market. | 0:15:42 | 0:15:46 | |
He ordered a clampdown on all candid photography of Elvis | 0:15:46 | 0:15:51 | |
and demanded that all RCA publicity photos should be handed over to him. | 0:15:51 | 0:15:57 | |
Alfred Wertheimer's days on the road with Elvis had come to an end. | 0:15:58 | 0:16:03 | |
But only a month later, the Colonel's draconian ruling would be breached, | 0:16:10 | 0:16:15 | |
by a 17-year-old schoolboy. | 0:16:15 | 0:16:19 | |
On the 26th of November, Lew Allen, from Cleveland Heights High School, | 0:16:19 | 0:16:23 | |
went along to an Elvis concert to try to take some photographs for the school newspaper. | 0:16:23 | 0:16:30 | |
We got down there and found out there was a newspaper strike | 0:16:32 | 0:16:36 | |
-so that -I was the only photographer there. | 0:16:36 | 0:16:40 | |
and I had a professional camera, I looked like I belonged there. | 0:16:40 | 0:16:43 | |
So all the back stage people accepted me and invited me in into the press conference | 0:16:43 | 0:16:48 | |
and they allowed me to take whatever pictures I wanted. | 0:16:48 | 0:16:52 | |
The Colonel hadn't come along to this small town concert and Elvis allowed | 0:16:52 | 0:16:57 | |
the schoolboy the kind of access that professionals would have killed for. | 0:16:57 | 0:17:01 | |
Lew Allen eagerly took a series of informal shots of Elvis backstage before the show. | 0:17:02 | 0:17:09 | |
There was one of his fans that was in the hospital | 0:17:09 | 0:17:14 | |
and he got on this phone, and he started talking to this kid. | 0:17:14 | 0:17:19 | |
His managers kept coming in and saying, | 0:17:19 | 0:17:21 | |
"You've got to go on stage, you're an hour late as it is", you know? | 0:17:21 | 0:17:25 | |
But he stayed with what he was doing and he finished talking to her. | 0:17:25 | 0:17:30 | |
His gentle side and that warm smile and warm look on his face, | 0:17:30 | 0:17:36 | |
it's a side of Elvis that a lot of people at that time couldn't believe existed. | 0:17:36 | 0:17:41 | |
# Oh well bless my soul What's wrong with me? # | 0:17:41 | 0:17:44 | |
Elvis even allowed the young photographer on stage during the performance. | 0:17:44 | 0:17:51 | |
# I'm in love, I'm all shook up... # | 0:17:51 | 0:17:54 | |
# Uh-huh-huh... # | 0:17:54 | 0:17:55 | |
This was my first big adventure of any kind, | 0:17:55 | 0:17:59 | |
my first time seeing total craziness. | 0:17:59 | 0:18:04 | |
# ..I can't seem to stand on my own two feet | 0:18:04 | 0:18:08 | |
# Who do you thank when you have such luck? | 0:18:08 | 0:18:10 | |
# I'm in love I'm all shook up... # | 0:18:10 | 0:18:14 | |
After the show, Lew Allen printed his exclusive shots and sold them in the school cafeteria. | 0:18:14 | 0:18:22 | |
I didn't get much money for them but a lot of kids wanted them and I earned myself a nice hunk of change. | 0:18:22 | 0:18:28 | |
The pictures went in a box and stayed there till the mid '80s. | 0:18:28 | 0:18:33 | |
These unofficial photographs show just the kind | 0:18:36 | 0:18:39 | |
of raw, unstaged Elvis that Colonel Parker was determined to suppress. | 0:18:39 | 0:18:45 | |
# ..I'm all shook up. # | 0:18:45 | 0:18:47 | |
By the end of 1956, Elvis had signed a seven-year contract with Paramount Pictures. | 0:18:50 | 0:18:57 | |
He was about to be swallowed up by the Hollywood publicity machine. | 0:18:57 | 0:19:02 | |
At the New York premiere of his first movie, Love Me Tender, | 0:19:04 | 0:19:08 | |
the Colonel organized the unveiling of a 40-foot tall figure of Elvis above the Paramount Theatre. | 0:19:08 | 0:19:15 | |
Elvis the movie star was born and the wild, thrusting rebel | 0:19:16 | 0:19:21 | |
was buried beneath a tidal wave of sentimentality. | 0:19:21 | 0:19:24 | |
# ..My dreams fulfil | 0:19:24 | 0:19:28 | |
# For, my darling, | 0:19:28 | 0:19:33 | |
# I love you... # | 0:19:33 | 0:19:36 | |
Once he got to Hollywood, it got sort of homogenised. | 0:19:36 | 0:19:41 | |
They cleaned him up and made him more acceptable for families and Middle America. | 0:19:41 | 0:19:46 | |
The Colonel would use every opportunity | 0:19:50 | 0:19:54 | |
to reaffirm the image of the wholesome new Elvis. | 0:19:54 | 0:19:57 | |
When Elvis received his draft notice, it was time for the creation of Elvis the clean-cut military hero | 0:20:01 | 0:20:07 | |
and a string of publicity stunts in uniform. | 0:20:07 | 0:20:10 | |
'As the transformation takes place and Elvis emerges a serviceman, | 0:20:12 | 0:20:17 | |
'some 55 members of the press are present to record the event as Elvis | 0:20:17 | 0:20:21 | |
'switches to a new beat. Hup two three four!' | 0:20:21 | 0:20:25 | |
But just before he was posted to join the American forces in Germany, Elvis was called back to Memphis. | 0:20:26 | 0:20:33 | |
# Maybe I didn't treat you... # | 0:20:35 | 0:20:38 | |
On August 14th, 1958, Elvis's mother died at their new family home, Graceland. | 0:20:38 | 0:20:45 | |
# ..Maybe I didn't love you | 0:20:45 | 0:20:49 | |
# Quite as often as I could have... # | 0:20:52 | 0:20:56 | |
James Reid heard the news and wanted to pay his respects. | 0:20:59 | 0:21:03 | |
I called and wanted to know if it would be appropriate to come down and they assured us that it would be, | 0:21:05 | 0:21:12 | |
so I stood back and I took that photo. | 0:21:12 | 0:21:17 | |
Reid captured a private moment of grief between father and son. | 0:21:20 | 0:21:25 | |
I don't recall another photographer there, | 0:21:28 | 0:21:31 | |
so I may have been the only one that shot that picture. | 0:21:31 | 0:21:35 | |
It was very sad. | 0:21:35 | 0:21:37 | |
Some things you do for a newspaper but my heart broke for him. | 0:21:37 | 0:21:43 | |
Two months after the funeral, Presley sailed to Germany. | 0:21:52 | 0:21:56 | |
This was the only time that Elvis ever left the United States and Colonel Parker had to stay behind. | 0:21:56 | 0:22:03 | |
He was still an illegal immigrant without a passport. | 0:22:03 | 0:22:07 | |
Elvis was off the leash but the contrived photo shoots of the clean-cut hero went on. | 0:22:08 | 0:22:14 | |
# Can't you see I love you? | 0:22:14 | 0:22:17 | |
# Please don't break my heart in two... # | 0:22:17 | 0:22:21 | |
On a shoot for the magazine, Confidential, Elvis's publicists | 0:22:21 | 0:22:25 | |
paired him with a pretty 18-year-old actress, Vera Tschechowa. | 0:22:25 | 0:22:29 | |
With the Colonel stuck in the States, Elvis was about to put | 0:23:22 | 0:23:26 | |
his safe new image at risk for a night on the town. | 0:23:26 | 0:23:30 | |
This was Colonel Parker's worst nightmare. | 0:24:03 | 0:24:07 | |
His carefully controlled star was going to a strip club with an actress. | 0:24:07 | 0:24:12 | |
And the strip club had its own in-house photographer. | 0:24:12 | 0:24:16 | |
The wild image Parker had so ruthlessly repressed, was back. | 0:24:21 | 0:24:27 | |
Instead of teddy bears or puppies on his knees, | 0:24:30 | 0:24:32 | |
Elvis was photographed with a stripper balanced on each hip. | 0:24:32 | 0:24:38 | |
The slick hair and smooth self-assured smile are gone. | 0:24:43 | 0:24:47 | |
What's left is raw and human. | 0:24:49 | 0:24:52 | |
Rudolph Paulini's photographs had the power to shatter | 0:25:18 | 0:25:23 | |
the Colonel's carefully nurtured image of the all-American hero. | 0:25:23 | 0:25:26 | |
But Paulini promised that they would never go further than the night club notice board. | 0:25:28 | 0:25:33 | |
No photographer would ever again be allowed to capture the real Elvis Presley. | 0:25:34 | 0:25:40 | |
On March 3rd 1960, Elvis was discharged from duty and returned home. | 0:25:44 | 0:25:51 | |
# Return to sender... # | 0:25:51 | 0:25:54 | |
The Colonel hustled Presley into a cycle of cabaret shows and formulaic Hollywood movies. | 0:25:55 | 0:26:02 | |
His raw and authentic image was buried forever beneath an artificial facade. | 0:26:05 | 0:26:11 | |
Dig that high-flying Elvis! | 0:26:11 | 0:26:14 | |
-Man, this guy's feet hardly ever touch the ground. -I just spotted a couple of sweet ones. | 0:26:14 | 0:26:18 | |
# We're caught in a trap | 0:26:21 | 0:26:23 | |
# I can't walk out | 0:26:25 | 0:26:28 | |
For the rest of his career, Elvis would take on a variety | 0:26:28 | 0:26:32 | |
of increasingly exaggerated styles, taking him further and further away from his true self. | 0:26:32 | 0:26:39 | |
# ..Why can't you see what you're doing... # | 0:26:39 | 0:26:43 | |
By the '70s he was a legend, "the King of rock'n'roll," | 0:26:43 | 0:26:48 | |
with a lavish, over-the-top lifestyle to match. | 0:26:48 | 0:26:52 | |
The same costume designer who did wacky jump suits also did his outfits for off stage. | 0:26:52 | 0:26:59 | |
# ..With suspicious minds | 0:26:59 | 0:27:03 | |
# And we can't build our... # | 0:27:03 | 0:27:05 | |
There were the big gold glasses, the big hair. | 0:27:05 | 0:27:08 | |
There was the extraordinary jewellery. | 0:27:08 | 0:27:11 | |
Everything about Elvis became almost too big. | 0:27:11 | 0:27:14 | |
He was a prisoner, | 0:27:14 | 0:27:16 | |
behind the facade. | 0:27:16 | 0:27:18 | |
# ..Because I love you too much... # | 0:27:20 | 0:27:23 | |
Behind the gates of Graceland, Elvis was disappearing into an existence fuelled by junk food and drugs. | 0:27:23 | 0:27:31 | |
Colonel Tom Parker's multi-million dollar creation had turned into | 0:27:33 | 0:27:37 | |
a grotesquely bloated, recluse who had no desire to face the camera at all. | 0:27:37 | 0:27:43 | |
Presley died on August the 16th, 1977. | 0:27:48 | 0:27:53 | |
He was 42 years old, weighed nearly 20 stone and had 14 different drugs in his veins. | 0:27:53 | 0:28:01 | |
# Are you lonesome tonight? | 0:28:01 | 0:28:05 | |
# Do you miss me tonight? | 0:28:05 | 0:28:10 | |
# Are you sorry we drifted apart? # | 0:28:10 | 0:28:18 | |
By the end of his life, Elvis Presley had been reduced to a parody. | 0:28:18 | 0:28:23 | |
He was no longer the raw, sexually-charged young man, | 0:28:23 | 0:28:28 | |
captured by photographers before he became the King of rock'n'roll. | 0:28:28 | 0:28:33 | |
# ..Sweetheart | 0:28:33 | 0:28:38 | |
# Is your heart filled with pain? | 0:28:38 | 0:28:43 | |
# Shall I come back again? | 0:28:43 | 0:28:47 | |
# Tell me dear | 0:28:48 | 0:28:50 | |
# Are you lonesome tonight? # | 0:28:50 | 0:28:58 | |
Subtitles by BBC Broadcast - 2005 | 0:28:58 | 0:29:01 |