Elvis Presley in
the 60’s: His Movies & Starlets
Part I:
1960-1964
Rock ‘n’ Roller Elvis Presley
was a national singing sensation
with a number of hit records
under his belt including “Hound
Dog,” “Don’t Be Cruel,” and
“Heartbreak Hotel” before making
his film debut in the Civil War
western Love Me Tender in
1956 co-starring Richard Egan
and Debra Paget. The film was
originally titled The Reno
Brothers but when it was
announced that there were
advanced sales of almost a
million copies for the song
“Love Me Tender” to be warbled
by Presley in the film, the
title was changed to capitalize
on it. Elvis was then upped to
equal star billing with is more
experienced co-stars. When
Love Me Tender was released
the movie and the title song
were phenomenal hits.
Elvis next appeared as a truck
driver who becomes a singer in
the autobiographical Loving
You (1957)
co-starring Lizabeth Scott and
Dolores Hart. But it was
starlet Jana Lund who delivered
Elvis’ first on screen kiss.
Jailhouse Rock
(1957), co-starring Judy Tyler,
cast Elvis as an angry young man
sent to prison for manslaughter
only to become an overnight
singing sensation and in King
Creole (1958) Elvis played a
jive-talking juvenile who gets
involved with a street gang,
mobsters, gun moll Carolyn
Jones, and saintly Dolores Hart
down New Orleans way. Critics
gushed that Elvis was the new
James Dean and proved that he
really was the King of Rock and
Roll.
In 1958, Elvis was drafted and
he didn’t return to the big
screen until late 1960 in his
first musical comedy Paramount’s
G.I. Blues playing (what
else?) an army sergeant who bets
his friends he could score with
icy chanteuse Juliet Prowse with
whom Elvis has a much-publicized
off-screen affair with. Not
much of an acting stretch for
Elvis as Hollywood toned down
his rebel persona for a more
clean-cut, All-American image
befitting a returning G.I. The
movie is nicely filmed on
location and decorated with
pretty European starlets Leticia
Roman and Sigrid Maier. Prowse
was one of Elvis’ more
formidable leading ladies and is
quite good.
Though Elvis was contracted to
Hal B. Wallis and Paramount it
wasn’t exclusive so his manager
Col. Tom Parker was able to get
him picture deals with other
studios. Seeing how well the
King performed in its western,
Love Me Tender, 20th
Century Fox cast Presley as a
half-breed protecting his family
from land grabbers in Flaming
Star (1960)
co-starring Barbara Eden as a
shapely cow girl. Though
critics raved that Elvis gave
one of his finest performances
in this Don Siegel-directed
western the crowds stayed away.
They also ignored Wild in
the Country (1961) a turgid
soaper ala Peyton Place
featuring Elvis as a juvenile
delinquent with writing
aspirations who gets involved
with mentor Hope Lange, unwed
mother Tuesday Weld, and
virginal Millie Perkins. Though
Presley’s character has a blast
with drunken, trashy Weld, at
fade out he opts for the boring
Perkins.
Seeing the
slumping returns at the box
office, all hopes were pinned on
Elvis’ next movie, Blue
Hawaii (1961) produced by
Hal B. Wallis for Paramount.
Elvis portrayed a returning G.I.
who rebels against his wealthy
parents (Angela Lansbury and
Roland Winters) who want him to
work in the family pineapple
plantation. Instead he surfs
with his Hawaiian buddies and
takes a job as a tour guide
chaperoning a sexy schoolmarm
and her jailbait charges around
the islands to the chagrin of
his jealous half-Hawaiian
girlfriend, Maile.
Hal Wallis was so
enthralled with the on-screen
chemistry between Elvis and
Juliet Prowse in G. I. Blues
that he contacted her studio, 20th-Century-Fox,
for another loan out. Fox
agreed but Prowse, unhappy with
the role of Maile, turned diva
and made some outrageous demands
for a contract player with only
two movies under her belt. She
wanted Paramount to pay for her
secretary to accompany her to
Hawaii and wanted approval of
the makeup artist assigned to
her. Wallis balked and Prowse
was booted off the film. Pamela
Tiffin was offered the part and
turned it down before Wallis
settled on Paramount contract
player, Joan Blackman who had
just given a riveting
performance as Tony Franciosa’s
demanding wife in Career
(1959).
With Blackman set
as Maile, Nancy Walters was cast
as the school teacher and her
teenage students were played by
Jenny Maxwell, Pamela Kirk
(a.k.a. Austin), Darlene
Tompkins, and Christian Kay.
Remembering her first reaction
to meeting the King, Darlene
Tompkins says, “I thought he was
just so handsome. Elvis was
also extraordinarily polite with
me because I think I was the
only girl there that he
didn’t date. I felt so sad
about that actually. But we
just hit it off as friends. We
just liked to sit and talk—to
my forever regrets!”
To everyone’s surprise and
delight Blue Hawaii was a
box office smash. It featured
excellent location photography,
pretty girls vying for the
King’s attention and lots of
songs—things that were to become
synonymous with the Elvis
Presley film. The soundtrack
too was a hit selling over six
million dollars worth of LPs.
Sticking to the Blue Hawaii
formula each of Elvis’
subsequent films featured plenty
of beautiful women (including
Ursula Andress, Ann-Margret,
Yvonne Craig, Shelley Fabares,
Mary Ann Mobley, Jocelyn Lane,
Deborah Walley, Diane McBain,
Nancy Sinatra, and Suzanna
Leigh, among many others) and
lots of songs sung by the King
amid luscious scenery. In most
of his films (a majority
produced by Hal Wallis), Elvis
gets the girl, loses her to his
rival, and then wins the girl
again for the fade-out. Though
the plots were threadbare, the
films were fun.
Presley however had a respite
before he was saddled with what
was to become the formulaic
Elvis movie due to the fact that
his next two films (produced by
David Weisbart for United
Artists) were already in
production before Blue Hawaii
was released. Follow That
Dream (1962) was a
straightforward comedy (with a
few obligatory songs) featuring
Elvis as Toby Kwimper, a Li’
Abner-type character who helps
save his hillbilly family from
being run off the land they have
legally squatted on in the
Florida Panhandle. Elvis gets
to romance Anne Helm as a shy
orphan living with his family
and Joanna Moore as a scheming
city slicker. Kid Galahad
(1962) was a remake of the 1937
film starring Edward G. Robinson
and Humphrey Bogart now
re-worked to accommodate Elvis
Presley’s singing talent. Elvis
played Walter Gulick a mediocre
boxer with a powerful right work
taken under the tutelage of a
down-and-out gambler and boxing
camp owner (Gig Young). Their
partnership goes sour when Elvis
begins romancing his trainer’s
sister played by Joan Blackman
who co-starred with the King in
Blue Hawaii.
For years rumors have persisted
that Joan Blackman was one of
Elvis’ least favorite co-stars
despite working with him twice.
Blackman refutes this and has
stated they had a love affair.
Regarding what she observed
while filming Blue Hawaii,
Darlene Tompkins recalls, “When
Elvis had some down time he’d
like to sit with me or one of
the other girls but I never saw
him walk over to Joan. Elvis
invited some of us to have
dinner with him and I never saw
Joan there. Of course that was
dinner—I don’t know about later
in the evening.”
Trying to capitalize on the
success of Blue Hawaii,
Hal B. Wallis sent Elvis back to
Hawaii for the musical,
Girls! Girls! Girls! (1962).
Ensuring that Elvis would sing
at a drop of a hat, he played a
tuna fisherman who moonlights as
a nightclub singer to earn extra
money to buy his own boat. Of
course complications ensue
business-wise as his greedy
rival Gary Lockwood covets the
same boat Elvis wishes to buy
and romantic-wise as buxom torch
singer Stella Stevens covets
Elvis while he only as eyes for
Laurel Goodwin as a wealthy
young woman who pretends to be
poor.
Before production started, Hal
Wallis once again had casting
issues. Stella Stevens, under
contract to Paramount, refused
to do the film when she learned
she was not cast in the lead
role but that of the singer.
She acquiesced after pressure
from the studio but demanded
that she be allowed to do her
own singing. Fed up with her
antics, the Paramount bigwigs
came down hard on her and told
her that she would be doing the
film and her singing voice would
be dubbed. As for the lead role
of the rich girl, Wallis wanted
Dolores Hart for the role but
she passed on it as did Pamela
Tiffin. A search went out for a
newcomer and model Laurel
Goodwin landed the part.
By all accounts, Elvis enjoyed
being back in Hawaii but his
love for the islands were marred
by Stella Stevens who has stated
in a number of interviews of her
disappointment in working with
the King. Laurel Goodwin weighs
in with her own first-hand
observation. “I really wanted
to like her and have admiration
for her but Stella was over
there under duress by Hal Wallis
so she decided that she didn’t
like anything about it,” reveals
Goodwin. “Stella was very aloof
to everybody even to Elvis.
They didn’t have very much to
say to each other. It wasn’t
even what I would call a
professional relationship.”
As for her own connection with
Presley, Laurel reveals that
there was nothing romantic
between them and sighs, “Elvis
was a sweetheart and a Southern
gentleman with glorious
manners. I became his sort of
confidante. Here was the
world’s most popular singer who
most women would kill to just
touch his shoes and I felt like
his sister!”
Girls! Girls! Girls!
proved to be quite
entertaining. It spawned
another hit single for the King,
“Return to Sender,” and was
another box office smash
basically cementing the pattern
for the typical Elvis musical
comedies to come.
Keeping Elvis in colorful
locales, his next movie It
Happened at the World’s Fair
(1963) was shot on location at
the Seattle World’s Fair.
Pilots Elvis Presley and Gary
Lockwood head to the Fair (after
Elvis jilts luscious Yvonne
Craig) to get work so they can
earn enough money to re-claim
their airplane that has been
repossessed. Of course, they
only find trouble in the form of
a precocious seven-year-old
Chinese girl (Vicky Tiu) left in
the boys’ care by her farmer
father. Despite being saddle
with the child, Elvis still
finds time to romance Joan
O’Brien as a nurse who plays
hard-to-get.
Elvis Presley filming on
location was bound to attract
attention and according to Joan
O’Brien his fans flocked to see
the King in person. “It was a
mad house,” exclaims Joan.
“When I arrived at the World’s
Fair, I saw Elvis whom I had
never met before over the heads
of all these people. You talk
about crowds! It was
unbelievable. People
everywhere! After we finished
the first morning’s sequences
they had an electric car for
Elvis and me to use. They had
to set up barricades and use
hundreds of policemen to hold
back the crowds just to get us
out of there. We then went for
lunch to some building that had
this huge empty exhibition
hall. They dropped us off,
locked the door, and posted more
policemen outside.” Joan got to
know Elvis very well during the
film’s shoot. He told her all
about his stint in the service
and his experiences in Europe.
And he was still at the point
where he hadn’t become
disenchanted making movies just
yet.
Working for Hal Wallis again,
Elvis was cast as a troubled
trapeze artist working as a
lifeguard in the disappointing
Fun in Acapulco (1963).
A fatal accident on the high
wire has rendered our hero a
fear of heights which he must
face when he is tricked into
entering a cliff diving
competition. The film featured
stock characters which were
quickly becoming standard
fixtures in an Elvis movie—a
smarmy rival, two beautiful gals
(one virginal and one sluttish)
vying for the King, and a girl
jilted early on in the movie.
Here the roles were filled
respectively by Alejandro Rey,
Bond Girl Ursula Andress
ridiculously cast as the good
girl complete with a bow in her
hair, Elsa Cardenas as a fiery
bullfighter, and former Playboy
Playmate Teri Hope.
Andress filled in
for the sultry Pamela Tiffin who
once again passed on co-starring
opposite Elvis. Contracted to
Hal Wallis, the producer offered
her Fun in Acapulco as
well as Blue Hawaii and
Girls! Girls! Girls! but
she turned them down due to
outside influences. “Everybody
told me not to do Elvis Presley
movies,” reveals Pamela Tiffin.
“[Director] Peter Glenville and
Dolores Hart in particular
poisoned my mind against it. I
felt obligated to do these films
but Mr. Wallis said it was up to
me. I even met Elvis. I
thought he was adorable and an
amazing gentleman. But I still
didn’t do the films.” As they
say, three strikes and you’re
out. Wallis never offered
Pamela a chance to work with
Elvis again.
Elvis next film
Kissin’ Cousins (1964)
was produced by Sam Katzman,
nicknamed “King of the B’s,” for
MGM. The film had a lower
budget and shorter shooting
schedule compared to Presley’s
previous movies but fans still
came and it turned a nice
profit. Unfortunately, Col. Tom
Parker decided this was to be
the norm on Elvis’s subsequent
movies. In Kissin’ Cousins
Presley played a dual role that
of dark-haired Josh Tatum a G.I.
who is recruited to travel to
the mountains of Tennessee to
persuade his blonde look-a-like
cousin Jodie Tatum and his
hillbilly kin to vacate their
home so a missile silo can be
built on it. Purportedly, Elvis
natural hair color was closer to
the blonde wig he wore in the
movie. Hollywood was forever
darkening his hair.
Despite the low
budget Kissin’ Cousins is
very enjoyable due in part to
starlets Pamela Austin and
Yvonne Craig as scantily-clad,
bare-footin’ Daisy Mae-types who
go gaga over their distant
cousin and Cynthia Pepper as a
fiery WAC who has eyes for
blonde Jodie. Pepper recalls
laughing, “I remember getting a
rose and card from Elvis in my
dressing room. It said, ‘To
Cynthia, Love, E. P.’ I thought,
“Oh my Gosh! He’s in love
with me!’ But he did that
with all his co-stars. He
couldn’t have been sweeter. Our
first scene together was when I
had to flip him. Elvis took the
time out to teach me the
different Karate moves. He
treated me like a little
sister. Later I got to dance
with Elvis but not sing with
him. I would have loved to have
a duet with Elvis. But singing
was not why I was hired.”
In Viva Las
Vegas (1964), Elvis played a
racecar driver moonlighting as a
hotel lifeguard where Ann-Margret
works and romanced the fiery
redhead both on and off the
screen. This slick MGM
production was one of Presley’s
biggest hits due to the fact
that sex kitten Ann-Margret more
than held her own singing and
dancing opposite him. Their
chemistry lit up the screen.
The movie also features some
outstanding choreography by
David Winters. Busty blonde
Lori Williams was part of his
troupe that shimmied throughout
the movie. She recalls that
Elvis “was the sweetest, nicest,
most insecure guy I ever met.
He liked the same people around
him all the time. That’s why he
had those guys—the Memphis
Mafia—always with him. They
were all cousins and close
friends of Elvis. I also dated
Elvis for awhile [during the
making of Kissin’ Cousins]
but it was a very sweet thing
and he was the perfect
gentleman. Then he met Ann-Margret
who really was the love of his
life.”
Roustabout
was Elvis’ last film to be
released in 1964. It was manna
from heaven for girl watchers as
it was chock full of curvaceous
starlets from leading ladies
Joan Freeman, Sue Ane Langdon,
and Joan Staley to bit players
Raquel Welch, Marianna Hill,
Beverly Adams, and Lori
Williams. It also featured
tough-talking Barbara Stanwyck
as the owner of the carnival,
who out butched even the King
playing a drifter who lands a
job at her carnival as a
roustabout. His stock goes up
when it is discovered that he is
a better singer than carnie and
the kids flock to watch him
perform.
Continuing the
pattern from previous films,
Elvis jilts Joan Staley early on
even after she bails him out of
jail! At the carnival uppity
Joan Freeman plays hard to get
while sassy fortune teller Sue
Ane Langdon drools over her
tarot cards hoping to get our
roustabout into the boudoir. Of
course, this being an Elvis
movie he opts for the virginal
Freeman.
Joan Staley
recalls how frustrated she felt
seeing Joan Blackman and Joan
O’Brien co-star with Elvis whom
she was friendly with and then
reading that Joan Freeman was
signed to play opposite him in
Roustabout. She quipped
to her agent, “Elvis has worked
with every other Joan in the
business but I knew him
back in Memphis. When is it
going to be my turn?” Her agent
came through and got her a
part. But instead of kissing
the King she got to slap him.
“I asked him if he wanted me to
pull up,” remembers Joan. “He
said, ‘no.’ I said, ‘Are you
sure? I could leave a welt.’
He replied, ‘That’s okay.’ So I
belted him. The slap you hear
in the film was not put in
afterwards—that was the slap.
Elvis was fun to work with. He
was just a nice, nice man.”
Sue Ane Langdon
echoes Staley’s sentiments and
remarks, “I thought Elvis
Presley was very nice and very,
very polite. It was ‘Yes, Sir,
Yes, Mam.’ To me it was ‘Yes,
Madame’ because I played Madame
Mijanou. He’d say it with that
little giggle of his. I
enjoyed working with him and
can’t say one bad thing about
him. Ladies thinks it was so
amazing that I was lucky enough
to have kissed him. All I can
say is that his lips were very
soft.”
As with Pamela
Tiffin, Langdon too was advised
not to make an Elvis movie. “I
almost didn’t do Roustabout because doing an Elvis
Presley movie at the time was
not really much of a
steppingstone,” admits Langdon.
“Now I’m glad I did the two
films [Frankie and Johnny
is the other] with Elvis because
they’re the main things I’m
remembered for today.”
To be continued…
