Orion: The Man Who Would Be King Storyville

This programme contains some strong language.

'A life that was the stuff of fables. The world didn't notice his birth

'in a two-roomed shack. But it noticed his death.

'Elvis Presley, country boy,

'died in a mansion on a street that was named for him.'

'Police estimated that as many as 80,000 mourners gathered

'to pay their last respects to the dead singer.'

POLICE TALK THROUGH MEGAPHONE

'Dozens of people fainted while waiting in the long line,

'and some uncontrollably saddened.'

SHE WAILS

-How do you feel about seeing him for the last time?

-I hate it.

I can't believe it.

It's just unreal right now.

I'm just numb.

I've been very upset since I heard the news.

I just wish he would come back.

CROWD CHEERING

Thank you very much.

# Now, you can't judge an apple by looking at the tree

# You can't judge honey by looking at the bee

# Can't judge a daughter by looking at her mother

# Can't judge a book by looking at the cover... #

'There are plenty of people who think the King is still alive,

'and every once in a while someone claims they've actually seen him.

'In fact, if Elvis is alive, he wears a mask and goes by the name Orion.'

# You can't judge a book by looking at the cover... #

Orion Eckley Darnell, that's your full name?

-Right.

-Where you come from?

I was born at Sun Records, in the studio.

-Do you ever take off your mask?

-Only when I go through customs.

The multimillion dollar question - are you Elvis or are you not Elvis?

I am Orion. Period.

He just had that magic about him. Look at this guy. Who is he?

'Here is Orion on the Sun label with Ebony Eyes.

'Listen to a wonderful voice, and a superstar to be.'

# Oh, the weekend passed

# I wouldn't have time

# To get home and marry... #

They always tell you, especially down here in Nashville,

sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction.

Well, in Jimmy's case, that's exactly what it was.

# ..My beautiful ebony eyes. #

# See the tree, how big it's grown

# But, friends it hasn't been too long

# It wasn't big

# You know, I laughed at her and she got mad

# The first day that she planted it

# Was just a twig

# Then the first snow came

# And she ran out to brush the snow away

# So it wouldn't die

# Came running in all excited

# Slipped and almost hurt herself

# I laughed till I cried

# And, honey, I miss you

# And I'm being good

# And, honey, I miss you

# And I'm being good

# And I'd love to be with you

# If only I could... #

-Your real name is Jimmy Ellis, isn't it?

-That's correct.

-Where are you from?

-Little town called Orrville, Alabama.

CHEERING

Orrville, Alabama. It's about 15 miles south of Selma, Alabama.

I know you've heard of Selma, Alabama.

Jimmy was sort of famous around our community for being the guy

that could really sing. He could never have any peace and quiet.

Folks would always want to get him to, "Sing us a song, Jimmy."

If he was in a good mood, he'd sing one.

If one of his girls had made him mad, he wouldn't sing at all.

# A love is but a love

# A kiss is but a kiss... #

We met when we were 18 years old. One of Elvis's songs was playing.

One of the ballplayers said, "Do you know who that is singing?"

"Well, sure. It's Elvis Presley." All the guys kind of laughed.

I said, "No, it's not. It's that guy."

That was just a shock to hear a guy that sounded like he did.

Back then, Elvis was a big deal. You know, he was the thing.

THEY SCREAM

-What did Jimmy think of Elvis?

-He loved the way he sang.

He said, "There was nothing Elvis could sing that I can't sing."

I think he knew he had a real talent.

It was just unreal that he sounded so much like Elvis.

When we graduated, at the ceremony,

he sang some of the most beautiful songs. I knew the music was in him.

You know, it was in his soul.

He'd either entertain you with his singing,

or he'd entertain you with his joking around.

If you were down, you'd be around Jimmy five minutes

and you'd be laughing and cheerful, and forget all your problems.

# You said we had to part

# I thought my heart would break

# You were my only love

# It's more than I can t-a-a-a-a-ke... #

Then Jimmy had a meeting with Phil Walden with Capricorn Records.

He actually offered Jimmy a contract. A recording contract.

This part of the country, people worked hard on land.

You know, this is cattleman country

and farming country and cotton country.

And when you talk about being a singer, they just frown on it.

No question about Jimmy. He lived, breathed and ate walking horses.

And actually trained three world champions.

Jimmy was a star, just like he was a star of the stage.

Jimmy's heart wasn't in it.

Mr Ellis just constantly pushed Jamie more and more into the horses,

and you could see him sitting on a horse sometimes,

he just looked like, "Oh, great."

Mr Ellis groomed him to take over their business,

so that, one day, when they weren't there, it would be his.

Daddy was so talented,

but his interest was music.

He would sing driving down the road. I mean, it was...

Wherever you went, you'd be sitting in a pond somewhere fishing

and he'd just be singing.

Just where you was.

I don't know, I can't explain it.

It's not like a lightning bolt struck him in the head

and, bam, "You can sing now." He was always that way.

# If my lonely tears could talk

# I know just what they'd say... #

He took me to a little nightclub there in Selma,

and I didn't know he could sing.

I knew nothing about it.

And the guy that ran the nightclub knew him

and encouraged him to get up and sing.

And when he opened his mouth, I nearly hit the floor!

# Please come kiss the hurt away

# Oh-oh, make it well

# And take me away

# From this earth

# Wave a spell

# In my lonely, lonely... #

Growing up, Elvis was my idol.

I don't guess there's ever been anyone else

that could even touch the way I felt about Elvis.

But when Jimmy started singing, I was astonished.

And I think that was it right then. I said, "This is meant to be."

This has to be the man I'm meant to be with the rest of my life.

# And kiss the hurt away! #

His dad always thought the music business was a bunch of foolishness.

And I'd heard him say many times,

"I do not know why Jimmy Ellis wants to run off

"around the world singing when he has the finest horse farm

"and the most talents of anyone in the country."

And that was so. When you raise three world champions,

you're obviously pretty sharp at what you do.

-JIMMY:

-It just got to the point where I had to either go do it full time,

cos that's where my heart was...

..or either I had to just forget about it.

Well, I couldn't forget about it.

The saddest thing to me -

it didn't seem to bother him, though -

he laid out all of his saddles and bridles

and everything that belonged to his horses on the ground,

and it was all for sale in his barn.

And to walk through there and see

what I felt like was his entire life laying before me, it was...

it was heartbreaking to me,

but he was so excited to sell everything he had

and go to Los Angeles and try his best to make a career.

# Tell him his time is over Say goodbye

# And if he asks the reason Then you can tell him why... #

His aim was to put together a show that he could take on the road.

I thought, once Hollywood saw him, that would be it.

The drawback was they had one Elvis.

How were they going to make him different?

They worked with him to try to make it about him.

The first thing for him to do was to learn to dance,

and have a stage presence.

But it was so hard because, one day, at the end of practice,

when they opened the doors, there was a line.

One of the girls had called a girlfriend and told her,

"You won't believe who's here.

"Elvis is in the building, he's practising."

And the girls had lined up outside the door

to wait for him to come out.

# Never been loved before

# I can love you better

# Than you've ever been loved before... #

They had him go around and meet with different stars,

and put it in the newspaper to build up interest.

They would just have him go to different parties

to introduce him to Hollywood.

# Than you've ever been loved before

# La-la-la-la

# Oh-oh-oh-oh

# I can love you better... #

The people in Hollywood, they're there for the money.

They're there for the bottom line. They knew exactly how much he had.

They were going to give him something for his money.

But they, in the end, they were going to get all the money he had.

And it didn't take them but about a year to do that.

He had to go back home.

He had a child. Little Jim, and his mum and dad, and the farm.

It felt like he had really maybe missed the mark

because he didn't start at 18.

He knew that it was a fight for a 30-something

to actually make his mark and to have a big career.

It was a very, very defeating time in his life.

A very depressing time in his life.

All of us have had opportunities in life

where we're this close to success,

or something big happening in our lives, you know?

For that to fall apart was, obviously, a very depressive time.

We ended up engaged, and trying to have a normal life.

But he couldn't let it go. He had too much talent.

It was a dream that he could not let go.

That's when we went and stayed with friends of his in Georgia.

He and his girlfriend stayed with us for three months.

And I got an appointment to see Bobby Smith.

Bobby had a little recording studio

and he had recorded Otis Redding at one time.

A person called me. He brought a tape down -

would I listen to this thing?

I listened to it and I said, "I've got an idea."

I was in the studio with my band, Avalanche,

and Bobby Smith was our producer. And he said to me,

"You need to come in here and listen to this guy."

So we walked into Bobby's office,

and I seen this tall drink of water, and he had that look,

even then when I first walked in there, I said,

"This guy is somebody. He has to be."

You just don't look like that, you know, and not be somebody.

So, Bobby, he's got a big smile on his face.

He said, "Listen to this. Who do you think that is?"

And he played this tape. I said, "That sounds like Elvis.

"You're going to tell me that's this guy right there."

Well, Jimmy started to sing right along with the tape.

And I just shook my head and said,

"I just cannot believe what I just heard!"

What a combination this would be.

Here we are, a disco band,

and here comes this pop, country, rockabilly, Elvis sound-alike.

Bobby said, "What do you think?"

And I said, "It would be kind of interesting, wouldn't it?

"Because people wouldn't know what to think. Let's try it!"

# Well, I tossed and turned all night since you've been gone

# I cried a pool of tears wanting you to come back home... #

Well, before you know it, we had every screaming woman in the town

coming to see this big, tall drink of water that sounds like Elvis.

And those girls screamed and hollered,

and I'm seeing them myself.

This guy is unreal on stage.

So I said, "I'll put two records out on you,

"let's just see what'll happen."

# Oh, the games you've been playing

# Oh, the games you've been playing... #

I was pretty sure that he was "playing around", I'll call it.

Nothing serious with anybody else.

As he put it to me,

"You're in the driver's seat, what more do you want?

"You're at the head of the line."

Now, to him, that was the best place to be.

To me, I didn't want a line.

And I said, "If you think that I'm going to stay at home

"and you're going to travel out on the road,

"and you're not going to let me go with you,

"that's not going to happen."

And I took the ring off and handed it back to him.

And he started laughing, and he said,

"I wonder how many times this is going to go back and forth."

And I thought, "Once."

And I got a ticket to Los Angeles, and I moved the next day.

And I never went back.

So, I put the first record out on him.

We had disc jockeys that, "I'm not going to play you,

"you sound too much like Elvis."

In the United States, if you sound like Elvis, it's the kiss of death.

Because Elvis was more than just a voice.

He gave all of the people of my generation

a freedom that we hadn't had before.

It was a blessing and a curse.

Everybody always said he's an Elvis impersonator,

and that was the furthest thing.

He wanted to get so far away from that, it was crazy.

But...God gave him that voice.

# Well, I'm not trying to be just like Elvis

# I'm doing my best to make it on my own... #

Jimmy tried all kinds of things.

Great recordings, but didn't really do a lot.

Bobby Smith, who was producing him, he brought him to Nashville.

I always used to tell people,

"If you want to be a model, you go to New York.

"If you want to make cars, go to Detroit.

"If you want to be a star, go to Hollywood.

"If you want to make records, go to Nashville."

I would say probably 1,000 a week come through Nashville

looking for recording contracts.

What percentage of them make it?

Er, probably 1/100 of 1 percent.

Of course, the original Sun Studios are in Memphis.

We are standing in the birthplace of rock and roll.

Sun Studio, Memphis Tennessee. It's where it all began.

Elvis Presley stood on that X and changed history.

Shelby bought Sun Records, the label, from Sam Phillips

and moved Sun Records to Nashville.

Jimmy Ellis says, "You know Shelby Singleton, don't you?"

He came to see me and I didn't have any idea of how to promote him

because of the way his voice sounded.

You know, if there wasn't an Elvis at that time,

he could have probably been a star.

Jimmy wanted to be a superstar. And he should have been.

There was no way that he could have failed if Elvis had never lived.

'Tonight, August 16, reported from the NBC News Centre in New York.'

Good evening.

Elvis Presley died today. He was 42.

Apparently, it was a heart attack.

When word of Presley's death came, there was a rush on his records.

You can't even buy one here now. They're all sold out.

We had people lined up outside the store this morning

waiting to come in to buy Elvis records.

RCA Records is reportedly working day and night to turn out

as many new albums as it needs to meet the demand.

Charles Osgood, CBS News, New York.

Shelby had an idea.

He owned the masters on Jerry Lee Lewis, Charlie Rich, Carl Perkins,

all the old entertainers at Sun Records.

I decided I could bring him in and over-dub him on the tracks

and, of course, everybody thought that I'd found an Elvis master

in the catalogue after I'd bought Sun.

-How was the label put out on that record?

-Did not have my name on it.

Right, it didn't have your name on it? It caused a bit of a stir.

Yeah, it was a controversial record.

Bobby was a promotional man and he knew that outrageous schemes

could sometimes draw a lot of attention.

Is this Elvis, or is it not? Sort of what he was trying to sell.

And then he started pairing him with other Sun classics -

Carl Perkins and Charlie Rich and Johnny Cash,

as if they were old recordings.

The timing was right because all this happened

within six months after Elvis had died.

Elvis was getting the credit. That was the only problem, you know?

If someone else is getting the credit,

then you don't make the money.

So...I would rather be known for my own ability.

And then we come along with this great idea.

And it gives him something to do. Something that's different.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, if you will, please,

big round of applause. Mr Jimmy Ellis!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

How's everybody tonight at Nashville South?

CHEERING

Everybody holler one time real loud.

-CHEERING

-Play it.

MUSIC: There You Go by Jimmy Ellis

# There you go... #

We were in a little club called Nashville South.

And I really didn't know who was performing that night.

But when music is being played, the music comes right to me.

And I said, "My goodness, who is that?"

He was so magnetic.

The audience was just in his hand.

I met him when he came off the stage and I said,

"You know, I might have something that's going to change your life."

I began Orion in 1977.

The concept of Orion came from what it would be like

to be a prisoner of your own fame, such as Elvis Presley.

-So, did you start writing Orion before Elvis died?

-Oh, yes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got real serious about it the day he died.

Because I felt I needed to hurry and finish this.

Because people needed to understand what this poor man went through.

That's what this book is.

It's exploring the tragedy of a superstar.

And how he had to escape that tragedy

just to be able to walk down the street.

So, Orion, in order to escape, he fakes his own death.

Gail is a great writer.

And I was writing the songs to go with the book.

We were intending to have a movie, and we had Hollywood interest.

And so, when I met him, I knew there was more to this.

I mean, it was just incredible that he sang like this.

And that he looked like he did.

I told Gail, "I want you to go with me.

"I'm going to show you something you won't believe."

Jimmy had a beautiful voice.

We talked about him doing the songs for the movie,

should there be a movie.

It just seemed meant to be...

that I would be in that club on that night.

Because he did one-nighters at that time.

And he was in his early 30s.

He had been trying to make it for years.

And he needed a vehicle.

He felt like it was the answer to his prayers.

And we actually thought that Jimmy would kind of walk out of that book.

The creation of Orion off of the book was really my idea.

It was part accident and part madman genius.

I thought that I could create this mystique

of everybody thinking that he really was Elvis,

and that he had faked his own death, like the book.

My character hoaxed his death.

Then, all the rumours began. I didn't start them.

Um, about, "Is Elvis dead?"

Timing is everything.

People were very, very emotional and receptive to anything Elvis.

Shelby Singleton came along at the right time and the right place

with nothing more than a gimmick.

A gimmick.

Despicable gimmick.

Shelby says, "Bobby I've got an idea.

"It's going to be up to you to talk him into it.

"It's going to be something he's not going to want to do,

"cos he was a nice-looking person."

He says, "Wear a mask."

I said, "Wear a mask?"

And I said, "He's not going to like that,

"I can tell you that right now."

He was very reluctant.

As a matter of fact, he didn't even like the idea.

But Shelby pretty much persuaded him

that either you put on the mask and you do this,

or you go back to Alabama

and see if you can get another deal somewhere else.

He didn't want to do it, but we finally talked him into doing it.

Otherwise, he was just Jimmy Ellis, you know?.

And Jimmy Ellis didn't really mean nothing.

In order to be a successful entertainer,

you have to want it more than you want to breathe.

You have to want it more than air.

And Jimmy desperately, desperately wanted it.

We had a guy who sounded like Elvis.

Maybe if he's photographed a certain way

he could sort of look like Elvis.

Left the fans kind of hoping it was Elvis behind that mask.

You have this real guy. They put a mask on him.

And they brought this fictional character alive.

That's all he was - fiction.

Some people give birth to babies.

I gave birth to a 6'4" man with a mask!

It was a hard delivery!

SHE LAUGHS

I didn't even know he was going to go on stage, quite frankly.

I thought they were just up there, going to cut the song

so I could take him to the producer.

I don't know how this got to this.

CHEERING

He's a cross between Elvis and the Lone Ranger.

He's called Orion, but his true identity is a well-kept secret.

His character was born in the pages of the book Orion.

The book's here.

I'm here. Which I'm glad of.

I wouldn't know of any other place

I'd rather be right now than to be here.

I think that's the most important thing.

And that we make a few people happy.

# Is my love going a-walking?

# It's a mighty dreary life

# Loneliness can wound a man

# Like the cutting of a knife

# How long must I suffer?

# Tell me, when will I be free?

# Anybody out there wanna be close to me?

# Well, a man can die of hunger

# He can die of thirst, I know

# Loneliness can kill me

# Why, this ain't got far to go

# How long must I suffer?

# Tell me, when will I be free?

# Anybody out there wanna make love to me?

# Anybody out there wanna come and take my blues away?

# Hold me close and say the words I want to hear you say

# I'm in pain and misery as lonely as can be

# Anybody out there wanna make love to me? Oh, yeah!

# Anybody out there wanna make love to me? #

Whoo!

How about it, ladies and gentlemen? Put your hands together

for the fantastic Orion, how about it?

That was when it all started right there, that's 1979.

It was a phenomenon. I mean, I'd never seen anything like it.

We had sell-out crowds.

I mean, you get a place that seats 1,500 to 2,500 people

and you're selling those out,

that's a lot of people coming out to see you.

You want to hear one more, let him hear you, Orion!

One more song, Orion!

Everyone loves a fairytale

and everyone would like to think you can come back from the dead,

so, let's face it, that's what they were after.

Sun Records would say, "If you could get a tenth of the Elvis fans,

"you'd have millions of fans." They were trying to live through Jimmy

what they would have liked to have lived through through Elvis.

They'd have loved to meet Elvis when he got on his bus,

but they could do that with Jimmy.

So you drew that same type fan and many of the same fans.

Elvis that you couldn't talk to,

all of a sudden here's this sort of stand-in Elvis,

taking pictures with you with his arms around you.

Elvis hadn't been able to do that for a long time

and all of a sudden the fans wanted that sort of magical touch

would go up and touch him.

He'd hang out afterwards and sign autographs and the fans loved him.

It was an experience, I'm telling you

and I have actually seen girls standing there crying, just shaking.

He really affected people, he really did.

The lady sitting beside us said, "Do you know that's Elvis?"

She said, "You know why he wears the mask?

"To cover up all the scars that he's got.

"He had plastic surgery to change his looks."

I remember some girl coming up to the stage

with a bouquet of flowers, and comes up reverently

and bows and genuflects and puts it at his feet

and I thought, "This is strange. This is just kind of weird."

She obviously thought he was Elvis.

To me, it always has been very obvious if you looked at the man,

even with the mask on, you could tell this was not Elvis Presley.

His eyes were brown, his nose was different.

He's built different, he was much taller, he was much younger,

but there were so many people back in the early '80s

who so desperately wanted Elvis to still be alive,

and they took it hook, line and sinker.

It's almost like the fans become part of the fantasy.

They're performing - the singer's performing and they're performing.

They're acting the way they think they're conditioned to act.

It's all just a myth.

We preyed on, not only the fans, but on the press itself.

You know, you couldn't buy the publicity that we did.

The more lies we told, the more people believed them.

One of the things playing up the mystery that this could be

the dead Elvis who was still alive is that his first album had

this shiny coffin,

much like the one that Elvis was buried in, on the cover,

so it was as if he's risen from the dead or he's been born again

or the coffin is empty -

you could look at it in a lot of different ways.

They wanted to put the album on the racks in Walmart and Kmart

but they got objections from the buyers

because of the casket that was on there,

so I had to change the cover on it.

This one originally...

turned into that one.

I was, I guess, shocked when the album came out.

Everything from my book was on the back of the album.

This is the prologue of my book

and he even had Orion Eckley Darnell as a songwriter.

That's a character in my book.

It had him under the guidance of Mac Weiman,

a character in my book.

Write to Orion, care of Dixie-Land, that's my book.

Everything was my book.

Instead of Graceland, like, down in Memphis, you know,

where Elvis lived, in the book Orion, it was called Dixie-Land

and then it said Ribbonsville, Tennessee.

I always knew there was no such place as Ribbonsville, Tennessee.

-Where do you call home?

-Ribbonsville, Tennessee.

Well, home is Nashville.

-I live in Nashville, but I was born in...

-Ribbonsville?

..a little town called Ribbonsville, Tennessee. It's hard to find.

How many people? What's the population?

-Well, it was three and now it's two.

-Where is it?

-It's, er...

-Really, I've never heard of it.

You're getting into the mysterious part of my life, Mother.

I mean, he'd just played, like, two weeks before as Jimmy Ellis

and all of a sudden he's in the mask, he's Orion,

and you're not supposed to know who he is.

It's like we're charging everybody 25 if they call him Jimmy,

cos you couldn't call him Jimmy, or the secret would get out.

Taking her character

and creating the character in reality is what we did.

I didn't know they were going to do this

and they never licensed any right to do this.

How much were you paid for this?

Nothing.

Zilch, zero. Nothing.

Nothing!

So Shelby said, er, "So sue me."

Well, I will say that we were naive a lot.

We didn't do a lot of things we should have done in contracts.

Back in the early '80s,

Shelby Singleton was the most sued man in Tennessee

for failing to pay

and for doing things...

..maybe not quite the way they should have been done.

Why didn't I sue?

We thought about it, we thought about even getting an injunction.

I didn't want to hurt Jimmy, this was just starting up for him.

I didn't want to hurt Carol Halupke, her songs were getting cut,

so that's basically what happened - they just ran with it

and I kind of was the victim.

# Yeah, the one I love forever is untrue

# And if I could

# You know that I would fly away with you... #

Orion is being billed as the superstar of the '80s

by Shelby Singleton's Sun Record group, here in Nashville.

And the response to his singing is almost unbelievable.

A few weeks ago, he put on a show at Nashville's Tennessee Theatre

and was scheduled to go on stage at ten o'clock in the evening.

At four that afternoon, fans started lining up for seats.

What do I like about him? Everything.

This is our 15th time to see him.

-How many times have you seen him?

-Oh, too many times to count.

I thought he was Elvis, I went all the way to Alabama to see who he was,

followed him ever since.

One of the things I admire about you

is you've managed to keep your head about it all.

You're getting to be, as they say in the business, a mighty big star.

How do you handle it?

It's not hard for me to handle.

I enjoy the fans, I enjoy the publicity,

I enjoy the business, I enjoy my work,

so, you know, it's really not hard for me to handle.

He was developing such a fanfare.

A promoter could take him at any club or any venue,

almost guarantee that they'd sell the place out.

Our fan club now, in one year's time, is up to 20,000 members.

It's almost to the point now

where your fan club is nearing a cult following.

Well, we used to have about 500 fans that would follow him

every place that he went.

In fact, we had two ladies that lived in their car out in our parking lot

and just waited until he would leave town,

so they could follow him wherever he was going.

When Jimmy would go out on tour, his fans followed right along

behind the bus and they'd travel hundreds, thousands of miles.

It was just so stupid,

but you're following the damn bus,

so you'd look through the back of the bus,

see if they'll stop at the red light and hop out, it's crazy.

How do you like the life on the road?

I think I'm just geared for entertainment life.

I like to be on the road.

If I'm on the road nine days a week, I like it.

My agent can tell you that.

But if I'm home for three days,

I'm ready to get back on the road the fourth day.

I remember Daddy flying in from Las Vegas,

just to watch me play ball,

and get home and he'd be gone, had to fly back out.

So he always set aside time for me,

a couple of weeks that there was nobody but me and him.

You know, we fished and so on.

The music business has never been my thing, you know,

born and raised on a farm

and, of course, he was too, raised on a farm,

but, you know, he chased his dream.

When Jimmy would come into...

round Orrville after he became Orion,

people were critical.

They felt like Jimmy's trying to reach out for the stars

or something, but they would snub him.

I think it bothered Jimmy worse that we all thought it was silly

and many of his close friends would tell him it was silly.

His hometown folks never really accepted him

as being any possibility but Jimmy Ellis who wanted to be like Elvis.

Well, I didn't think I was anything

except a guy trying to make a living, you know.

I was not for making people believe that I was somebody else.

I was not for that.

Orion insists that he wants to be known for his own singing

and not because he sounds like Elvis. But that has not been easy.

Quite honestly, when Shelby put the mask on him,

as far as Nashville went, he lost all credibility whatsoever.

Yeah, he's really good, he's got a lovely voice,

but he's got a mask on.

Country and western singer Orion is our guest today,

and, Orion, before you sing,

I want you to tell the audience a little bit about the mask.

I'm not hiding anything.

It's a trademark, it's an idea that the promotional people

in Nashville, Tennessee, came up with.

Shelby Singleton, who is the president of Sun Records,

is probably known in the music business

as one of the most flamboyant promoters in the business.

He'll do most anything to promote a product and...

..he'll try to do it differently than anyone else does it

and so he wanted to make the thing a little different,

and I'll grant you it's a little different,

when you walk into a crowd of people and you're wearing this mask.

Under his contract with Sun,

he wasn't allowed to take his mask off when he was in the public eye.

Every time we'd come out of a hotel, we'd look in the bushes

and there would be a camera crew set up trying to catch Jimmy

without the mask, so when I'd come back in the room and say,

"Jimmy, the National Enquirer's in the bushes,"

I mean, he had come out and he had to wear the mask

and he hated the mask the entire time he wore it, you know.

Well, Shelby had had a contract with Walmart that if ever an album

came out on Orion, we'd have to go into Walmart at a certain time

and autograph records, you know.

You can imagine people in the shop buying groceries

and looked around and seeing a masked man -

oh, he hated that more than anything and I hated it too.

I think even from the start, Jimmy Ellis wasn't completely sure

this was a great idea, but it worked.

It worked so well and it was so successful

and this is after years of not being successful, all of a sudden he has,

you know, records are selling,

he has people showing up wanting to hear him

and not just wanting to hear him but going crazy, you know,

and rushing the stage and grabbing in on him.

It had to be heady but, at the same time, you know,

he knew he was selling something that wasn't quite him.

As much as he hated being under the mask,

he did have a weakness...for women.

He was a complicated person, he wasn't Mr Happy-Go-Lucky.

I mean, he had some issues about women.

He had a lot of women in his life, a lot.

Elaine Thompson was in the audience and ended up being his girlfriend

and he married her.

She was more like a groupie that was following him around,

but he had a lot of other girls following him around the same time

and he seemed to stick with her more than the rest of them,

although there were many women.

Jimmy was married to Elaine twice in the early '80s.

They divorced twice.

They had a very rocky on-again, off-again relationship,

probably somewhat like Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton,

quite stormy.

Elaine was a spitfire, she never trusted him

and I guess she shouldn't have, but he never trusted her either.

They were both, like, tit-for-tat.

What one did, the other one did just as much.

Jimmy was never, ever true to one woman.

It was just like he was a chauvinist pig at that point in time

cos he could have it all.

It would never be a secret where he was staying at,

every room would be booked by fans.

You know, it was just a big party the whole time he was there.

He would call from room to room to room.

He didn't like to sleep alone, he didn't want to be alone

when he went to sleep.

I don't know why, but he didn't, and you'd think,

"No, I'm not coming to your room, I saw what just left your room."

I never did some of the things the others did.

I was asked to do some,

but I never did that

cos I know he did have a briefcase full of pictures -

he would be happy to show you that - and I'd be like,

"I don't want to see that, I work at those all day long.

"I see those where I work, I don't need to see that here."

-But he was into...

-What do you mean?

I worked for a gynaecologist and he's got pictures of every...

Lucy is what I call mine. ..every Lucy in town.

He'd be like... He did!

Oh, he was silly. I don't know why.

It's like a trophy collector, he had hundreds of Polaroids

and how did he know whose was whose is what I want to know.

He said, "Those women,

"they don't mean any more to me than smoking a cigarette."

And they didn't.

I almost felt he was sort of afraid to trust people wholeheartedly.

Afraid of being hurt.

To me, he acted like somebody that had been hurt badly.

By who, I don't know.

Daddy had a rough childhood from birth to five years old,

until my grandparents, his adopted parents, found him

and, I mean, there are some stories that he told me that...

that would make you...

I don't really want to talk about it, but when he found them,

it was just a whole different world.

And it took him a while to get used to that

because he didn't know who to trust.

Trust is a bitch at five years old.

He all didn't trust everybody.

Keep that in mind.

He was pulled from foster home to foster home

and he had a thing even into his 30s and 40s

where he didn't put his things up

when he was going to be in a hotel for a few days

because he was pulled from so many different foster homes

that if you put your things up,

one of the other kids would get them or you'd be moved.

So, you know, he always kept everything packed up.

I thought a lot about it.

How would you really feel

if you really didn't even know who your birth mother and father was.

It would be a lonely... an emptiness.

I never saw Jimmy really happy. I mean, he was having a good time.

Most of his days were involved in doing something,

trying to be successful.

-ARCHIVE INTERVIEW:

-How many albums have you put down?

-Seven.

Seven already, in two years?

-Seven albums in two years.

-You've been a busy man!

Orion, I believe one album will be the rockabilly-type album?

Yeah, and the other one Orion has planned to be released real soon

is a gospel-type album.

Texas Tea is a little bit more on the country side

and comes from your album Orion Country.

We've done a lot of experimenting with

the middle-of-the-road album, which was the second release

and, you know, we did the Jerry Lee Lewis album and the Trio Plus album,

which was a duet with Jerry Lee Lewis, Charlie Rich

and Carl Perkins and myself

and we've just done a lot of experimenting and we are...

I think, sooner or later, we're going to come into our own

and really do some really nice things later.

Even if the disc jockeys in the early '80s

were willing to accept a man with a mask on,

you can't market all that to the same station.

At least, you couldn't back in the 1980s.

Now, you could probably market

everything he did now as just country,

but at the time, you couldn't. So...

You know, he threw himself in so many different directions,

I guess, hoping something would stick.

It seemed like he was pretty fast in the studio,

so they could probably get...

..oh, four songs in three hours.

It wasn't months and months on one track like some artists do.

This was originally the Sun studio

where Jimmy Ellis, Orion, recorded in the '70s and '80s.

We, a couple of years ago, turned it into our merchandise warehouse.

Not only was it a working studio, it was also a "tour studio",

and Shelby had a deal with one of the tour-bus companies.

They would bring in a busload, you know,

a big Greyhound bus full of tourists.

HE LAUGHS

That's funny. I had never been in that situation before.

We'd be in the middle of a session.

All of a sudden, Paul would run in and say, "Bus, bus!"

and we'd have to stop. I'd be in the middle of a guitar solo.

It would get aggravating

because a great solo only comes along once in a lifetime

and all of a sudden somebody comes in and says, "Cut!"

You've lost it, you can't never get that back again.

We'd have to sit there for another hour or two to get the groove back

and finally get into it again

and here comes another tour.

Shelby would release an album first through mail order music,

which meant he'd send these flyers out to all the fans

and they'd all buy it,

THEN he would send it to the record store and it wouldn't sell.

Why? Because he's already sold thousands through the mail at retail.

He wanted that retail money first.

We should have stopped that

and had 'em go into the record store to get it,

but they'd look like bad record sales when they didn't sell

and one of the worst things, I think, that happened to Jimmy,

I don't think there's any doubt in the world

that Save The Last Dance with Jerry Lee sold a million copies,

but Jimmy didn't get a gold record for that.

I think it's a shame that he's never going to go down

as a gold-selling artist

because the money was done in a way that it didn't show up or something.

But we know he sold at least a million copies of that

and Reborn might have come close to that.

To my knowledge,

he never got a royalty cheque from Shelby Singleton,

despite the fact that

there are millions of those albums floating around

and he should have made some money on that.

It might have only been 25,000 or 30,000,

but he should have gotten something.

# If you've got a lot of loving and you don't know where to put it

# You been racking your brain and you don't know who might want it

# If you need someone to hold on to and you don't know who it will be

# Just look me up

# And lay it on me

# Well, look me up and lay it on me

# I swear I won't regret it

# I'll love you so many ways

# Baby, you won't ever forget it

# If you've got that feeling and you don't know what to do

# And you need somebody that you can cuddle up to

# You can't ever tell

# I just might be the very thing you need

# Honey, look me up

# And lay it on me... #

Shelby had scheduled a tour for Orion in Germany

because he was a very popular artist in Germany

and they just had crowds and crowds there.

But somewhere, while they were there, something happened.

Orion was standing on a table in a pub in Germany,

doing tracks to Elvis songs,

which he hated to do, but he was doing it.

They were walking down the street and Shelby basically told him,

"You're always going to be an Elvis impersonator."

He was basically performing by lip-syncing

and he didn't think that was fair to the fans.

We had a big argument and he and I almost got into,

but we never got to fisticuffs.

Now, Orion, six foot three.

Shelby, five eight.

Orion took his arm...

Whap! He hit Shelby in the face.

Shelby fell back in his jumpsuit, his little bitty jumpsuit,

like a turtle that had been turned over on its back.

At that point in time, Shelby tried to distance himself from Orion.

He really didn't want to be Orion.

He wanted to be Jimmy Ellis.

The frustration built, it... it started off very small.

"All right, I have to wear the mask, let me wear the mask,

"I'll get used to it." That attitude.

As time went along, it would burn him, it would irk him.

Why do you wear the mask, Orion?

Good question.

He wore it because he was under contract.

Point blank, simple.

For a while, he had been arguing with Shelby

about whether they should take off the mask to stop the charade

and Shelby kept telling him, "No, the only way this works

"is if you keep up the mystery."

It was a gimmick and he hated it because it took his identity.

I mean, you can imagine

walking around with a paper bag on your head all your life.

You know, that's basically the way he summed it up.

You know, I guess everybody wants a mask to hide behind when you fail,

but if you succeed...

"If I do reach the pinnacle... who am I?"

Reality doesn't mean anything in show business.

It's all perception and that perception was set.

There was no way he could have changed it.

He said, "I'd be up there on that stage doing the show

"and I'd see these people clapping and applauding

"and reaching up to grab me."

And he says, "It dawned on me. They weren't clapping for me.

"They were clapping for a ghost."

So, after years of that, he just got tired of it

and this one day, he decided he'd had enough,

in the middle of a show.

I can still see Bobby Smith's face to this day,

when Jimmy took that mask off and threw it out into the audience.

Bobby come up off his chair - "Noooo! Noooo!"

It was like you see in the movies.

"No! We're done! We're through!" You know? HE LAUGHS

And basically it was.

Pretty much after that, it was... Shelby finally said,

"No, that's it," tore up the contract.

"You're either going to do it my way or it's the highway."

And Jimmy took the highway.

Fans were disappointed before I'd got back to Nashville.

Fans had already called in to Sun Record Company complaining.

He was finished at that point.

What made him had been destroyed.

If he'd have kept the mask on, he could've been a superstar.

Do you think it was a mistake, him taking the mask off?

HE SIGHS

Well...

Yes, if he wanted to continue as Orion.

No, for his own sanity.

But the fans liked the mask.

It's like the guy wearing a Santa Claus suit taking off his beard.

"Oh, no!" Same thing with the mask.

"Don't take the mask off.

"Let me be in this paradise fantasy that I love,

"let me close my eyes

"and just imagine what you might be without the mask.

"Don't take it off."

I think, when he took the mask off, it brought it all to reality.

It was a gamble. He couldn't be happy with just the success.

He had to be known.

There was no way that you could sell him

to a major label like RCA, CBS, Capitol.

I think he went through all of them,

trying to get, you know, deals with them.

They wanted nothing to do with it.

If he'd have gone out to Las Vegas

and gotten recognised as the man with Elvis's voice,

they would have kept calling him to do soundalikes of Elvis.

Somebody wants a movie, there's your guy,

that's who you needed to call and he turned down those

because, "I'm my own man and I'm not an Elvis impersonator."

Tony put this out, the Who's The Next Superstar Of The '80s?

This was all rock and roll, a la Rick Springfield.

And he was a teenybopper idol.

His target audience was probably 12-18.

But, you know, here you had a man who was in his 30s,

and you were marketing him to the same audience.

I didn't ever quite understand that,

but Tony at least seemed to have the connections

to be able to make it work, if anything was going to work.

# That's what she told me, she was

# Still in love with Billy

# Still in love with Billy... #

Most of these people that put the money in

didn't have a background in music.

They didn't know anything about the industry.

Except what they saw on TV, movies, that type of thing.

And that was the other thing, he went by so many different names.

You had Jimmy Ellis.

Then you had Mr E.

I think we also had Mr Excitement.

There was another one they called Ellis James,

which was just his name backwards.

Followed by the Cadillac Man.

And then later Steven Silver.

You know, Madonna constantly reinvented herself

through the '80s and '90s, but in a good way.

With Jimmy Ellis, he probably just needed to pick one and stick with it.

Who are you? You know, make up your mind.

And the only reason why he changed his name so many times

was he wanted to get away from...

So nobody would know who he was.

But his voice was distinctive, it didn't matter what name he used.

He could use Harvey Schwartz and it was just, you know,

it was still that voice.

Didn't matter.

His vocal ability was God-given. He had a God-given talent.

He has no idea where he came from, he was adopted.

A lot of people have tried to say maybe he was related to Elvis.

He could have been, he didn't know.

There's no resemblance to Elvis whatsoever.

But there is to Vernon.

Vernon Presley and Jimmy Ellis look like the same person.

He looked just like Vernon Presley.

I could see the same look, the same hairline, the same ears.

The same... It was just...

Can that be a coincidence, have this vocal? I don't know.

I saw his birth certificate.

And I remember it was from the state of Mississippi,

and it said mother, Gladys Bell.

Father, Vernon, with no last name.

And it was just blank. And that was all he had ever known.

Vernon Presley, in his carousing days, could be Jim Ellis's Father.

I just have a hard time believing

that two people could look so much alike,

and then, where does that voice come from?

Pretty amazing, isn't it? Pretty amazing.

Jimmy never really told us.

He never would divulge that part of his life.

It's almost like he had these secrets,

and you knew he had a secret, but he would never really...

He would give you hints.

Clues. You know, it was like a riddle to Jimmy.

And then, in the late '80s, he went back to being Orion,

and even put the mask back on.

So someone talked him into that, which really surprised me,

because he hated it so much.

Hi, everybody, I'm Jim and I've got a real treat for you.

As a matter of fact, here's the tape we've been waiting for.

Here's Orion, in concert at Celina, Ohio.

Now, we...

We appreciate anything that you folks can do as far as applause.

We don't care if you get up and dance a little bit, do we?

No, we don't.

This is one strange phenomenon about show business.

One day, that man appears, and all of a sudden,

you've experienced a superstar.

And I truly believe tonight you will see a superstar.

-And if y'all ready to just clap your hands...

-CLAPPING

get your feet together...

your minds and your bodies, because you're going to see...

-CHEERING

-..Orion!

I can't find my way out of here!

# Uh-huh-huh-huh

CHEERING

# I'm making all right

# From Monday morning to Friday night

# And oh, that lonely weekend

# Since you left me

# I'm as lonely as I can be

# Oh, it's a lonely weekend

# Said you'd be

# Good to me... #

Orion, an entertainer you'll be hearing and seeing

as his career continues to grow.

And he becomes more and more the superstar he deserves to be.

NO SOUND

I was going to ask, after a few years of being out there

without the mask, what made you decide

to put the mask back on again?

He hated it.

But, you know, it's like everybody else,

you're looking for a payday.

I got to do this, I got to do that, I got to make ends meet.

Well, what do you do?

Do I turn this down because of pride?

I think the first eight to ten years were semi big time.

He travelled in a bus like this, there was more money backing him,

and he was making records on a regular basis.

And my time with him there, from '88 to '98,

we tended to travel in a van pulling a trailer.

They were always fun gigs, they paid OK,

but it didn't seem real big time.

It looks bad.

It looks real bad.

Unfortunately, Jimmy never made any money except off the concerts.

Even some of those didn't...

He got paid X amount to go, but there were so many problems

with the bus falling apart on the road, getting stranded...

I mean, things happened.

So you weren't always turning a profit on every single concert.

There were other things he could have done to make a living.

And sometimes that's what he did for a while,

but he always went back to singing.

Always.

If that's something you love to do, you've got to find a way to do it.

You've got to feed the monkey.

At 48, most musical careers are over at that time.

Jimmy didn't understand that.

He thought he was going to be 32 till the day he was going to die.

If it had all worked out, it would have been extremely lucrative.

And towards the end of his career,

he was like, "To hell with the fame, give me the fortune."

Because he never really...

Never saw any of it.

I think talent is rampant in this town.

And you can find talent on any street corner, literally.

So talent really wasn't the issue, it was talent with a hook.

Talent with...

what else? Because everybody's talented.

Oh, I found this great guy and he can sing.

So what? So can my brother.

So can his brother. So can his dad.

Everybody sings, everybody writes.

It's Nashville.

Is it a tough place?

Yeah.

It's, er... I think it's one of the toughest industries around,

because it's built on emotions.

You don't get really interviewed for a job.

You have to be...

what somebody wants

BEFORE you get that interview.

Probably the toughest industry there is,

because it plays with your emotions and your mind.

You have sleepless nights wondering

if somebody's going to accept this, somebody's going to accept that.

And that's just the business end of it,

you've got to get through that before the fans hear you.

I would not advise anybody to waste their life...

..doing it.

It's a one in a million deal.

You hope to God you run across people you can trust.

I mean, they're like sharks.

It's all for me and not you.

And that's the problem, he trusted everybody.

MUSIC: I Remember by Saint Saviour

# Someone should have told you that you'd always have a place to go

# Oh-oh

# We thought you would have known

# Someone should have told you that you'd never find yourself alone

# Oh-oh

# We lost you to the snow

# Or maybe you climbed out after all? #

It was all going so downhill that even he lost interest.

"OK, I'm going back to the farm, I'll do a show here and there."

He still wanted it, but didn't know what he had to do to go and get it.

MUSIC ON CAR RADIO: Because He Lives by Bill Gaither

JIMMY SINGS ALONG

# I'll cross that river

# I'll fight life's final

# War with pain

# And then as death

# Gives way to victory

# I'll see the lights of glory

# And I'll know He lives

# Because He lives

# I can face tomorrow

# Because He lives

# All fear is gone... #

Jimmy decided he would get in a business to make a living.

The horse industry was out of the question,

he'd been out of it so many years,

so he decided to open up two businesses.

One was a pawn shop.

I was out of money, so I stopped by there,

because I lived right around the corner.

Jimmy offered me to work for him.

And I said, sure.

That's where we hit it off. We became friends then.

He was just a fun person to be around with.

Did anybody else work in the stores?

Elaine, his ex-wife.

-What was Elaine like?

-Oh, Elaine...

She is...crazy.

A sweet kind of crazy.

To be honest, they still loved each other.

I know Elaine did, she was crazy about him

and he was still crazy about her.

They can't live together.

They fuss and fight all the time.

But they can't be without each other.

In December of 1998, we had a very sensational robbery in our store.

And Jimmy came straight down and said,

"Man, I heard about the robbery."

And we talked about the dangers of being in business,

dealing with a large number of people every day,

in an area where the crime rate is high.

We both talked about dying or getting killed in a robbery,

on December the 2nd.

And Jimmy was killed December the 12th.

In an armed robbery.

The morning of December 12, 1998, we sat down

and started joking about who was going to go buy lunch today.

Elaine kept saying, "It's your turn, Helen." I said, "No, it ain't.

"I went yesterday!"

All of a sudden, the door flew open.

This guy came in and started firing.

He hit Elaine first, he blew Elaine's face open.

Then he turned around and shot Jimmy, then he shot me.

This is where he shot me.

And I also still got a pellet in my arm.

As soon as I hit the floor, I came to,

but I held my breath, pretended I was dead.

Because if he had seen me move, he would have shot me again.

So I just stayed still, holding my breath, I said,

"Lord, if he's going to kill me, let him kill me quick."

I was saying that in my mind.

He was trying to pull the register.

When he couldn't get the register off the counter, he ran out.

I heard Jimmy moaning, and I saw Jimmy on the floor,

he was sitting down holding his side.

And he was practically barely breathing.

I didn't see no blood at first.

And so I looked down, and then I saw it.

One of the sheriffs came, I guess he was the first one

that heard it on the radio, he kept trying to revive him.

You know, trying to wake him up.

It was already too late.

I don't know why would somebody do that to somebody so nice as Jimmy.

He made you feel like you're a family.

You know, and I loved him for that.

He's a good person.

And that's all that happened.

Everybody started showing up, I don't know how they heard it,

but all of a sudden the whole place was packed.

I got here, there was...

You couldn't even...

There were cars everywhere. It was like a damn rock concert going on.

Your heart sank, you know?

It was a day just like today, except it was cold.

And there was nothing but blue lights.

It just...

It'd tear you up.

It'd tear you up.

All for nothing.

Walked out of here with nothing. Right out that door, right there.

It is what it is, I can't change it.

I wish to hell I could.

Wish I could.

Sometimes I wonder, if we had stayed together,

and if we had been able to have the life on the farm and be normal...

..you know, if he'd still be here?

I wished he hadn't been there.

He shouldn't have been.

He should've been singing. He should've been performing,

he shouldn't have been in that town.

# Swing low

# Sweet chariot

# Coming for to carry me home... #

There were wreaths from most of the Nashville entertainers.

Some of the big names, the big labels.

You don't realise how big of a star you are

until something like that happens.

I couldn't cry, I just said,

"Man, you need to get your ass up out of that box.

"Come on, let's go play some music."

And right about then, some people put their arm around me and...

You know.

I couldn't face up to it.

That he was gone.

# Just tell all my friends

# That I'm coming too

# Coming for to carry me home

-# Yes, Lord, I feel like going home

-Feel like going home

# Guess I tried and failed

# And I'm tired and weary

-# Everything I thought was wrong

-Thought was wrong

-# And I feel like going home

-Sweet Lord

-# Sweet chariot

-Sweet Lord

# Swing low, sweet chariot

-# I'm going home

-Going home

# I am going

-# Home

-I'm going home. #

# Trees grow tall

# Where I come from

# The leaves are green and fine

# I was born in a world... #