ELVISBLOG

Elvis in the Army -- By the Numbers

Phil Arnold — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 05:49:00 -0500

It’s a natural for Elvis websites and fan magazines to do something to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Elvis’ discharge from the Army on March 5, 1960. But, what could you do that would be different. How about a list of significant (or at least, interesting) numbers relating to his two years in the Army?

The number of Elvis hits on the Billboard Hot 100 Charts during the period from October 5, 1959 to March 27, 1960. Elvis had recorded a number of songs before entering the Army, and these were released about one every three months during his tour of duty. When “A Big Hunk O’ Love” went off the charts, there was nothing left in the vaults. Finally, after Elvis returned from Germany and recorded new material, “Stuck on You” broke the long draught and shot up to Number 1. The King was back.

The number of times Elvis had to carry his duffel bag up the gangplank to the USS Randall before departing for Germany. There were so many news film crews and photographers there to record the event, that seven extra takes were necessary to accommodate them all.

13:

The number of cents royalty Elvis received for each copy of the album Elvis Sails, which contained no music, just his press conference with newsmen at New York harbor before entering the USS Randall.

14:

Priscilla Beaulieu’s age when she met Elvis in Germany in 1959. Her birthday is May 25, 1945.

25:

The last birthday Elvis celebrated while in the Army (January 8, 1960). Two months later he was out of the service.

55:

The number of reporters witnessing Elvis getting his Army haircut at Ft. Chaffee, Arkansas on March 25, 1958.

170:

Elvis’ weight when he was discharged from the Army. Two years earlier, when he started his service, he weighed 185 pounds.

1,289:

The dollar total of out-of-pocket cash spent for a trip Elvis took to Paris in January, 1960 while on leave. The hotel and transportation costs were paid separately. Accompanying Elvis on this six-day vacation were Joe Esposito, Cliff Gleaves, Lamar Fike, and karate instructor Jurgen Seydel. Elvis picked up the whole tab, which would equal $9,336 in 2010 dollars. Over 2/3 of the money was spent in night clubs. It sounds like Elvis and the guys had a lot of fun.

1,500:

The approximate number of screaming fans who greeted Elvis leaving the USS Randall after it docked in Bremerhaven, Germany on October 1, 1958

3,000:

Pieces of mail sent to Private Elvis Presley at Fort Chaffee, Arkansas during the few days he was stationed there. It has not been reported how many letters Elvis received at Fort Hood, Texas, where he did his basic training.

5,000:

Miles that Elvis was away from Anita Wood. In an October 28, 1958 letter, less than a month after he arrived in Germany, he referred to himself as a “lonely little boy 5,000 miles away.” He also wrote he would never love anyone in his life as much as he loved her and he looked forward to their marriage and “a little Elvis.”

Anita Wood visiting Elvis at Ft. Hood

25,000:

The dollars Col. Parker demanded from Life magazine for a cover feature story it wanted to do on Elvis’ return from the Army. This backfired, as Life dropped the idea.

60,000:

Total copies of Elvis Sails that were sold. The mini-album contained just 5-1/2 edited minutes of Elvis’ embarkation press conference.

100,000:

Sympathy cards and letters Elvis received after his mother’s death on August 14, 1958. Gladys Love Presley was 46 years old. Elvis had arrived to Memphis from Fort Hood two days earlier to be by her side.

1,001,728:

Elvis’ income in dollars for the year of 1958, nine months of which he served in the Army. He paid $360,000 income tax that year.

Elvis’ Army pay was a bit less than $1 million a year

18,000,000:

The total number of records Elvis had sold in his career to date, as reported in Billboard magazine just two days before he flew out of Germany to end his Army career. He would sell a lot more.

Elvis, Elvis Presley, and Graceland are registered trademarks of Elvis Presley Enterprises, Inc

Caption Contest # 20

Phil Arnold — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 05:56:00 -0500

Here is a publicity still from the movie The Trouble with Girls. Let's see who can come up with the best humorous caption. Send your submission to philarnold@charter.net.

Viva Elvis -- Sorting Out the On-Line Reviews

Phil Arnold — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 05:14:00 -0500

At 8 AM on the morning after Viva Elvis had its official opening performance in Las Vegas, I Googled Viva Elvis to see what the entertainment critics had to say about the reworked Cirque du Soleil show. For two months, there had been many reviews panning the initial trial presentations of Viva Elvis. I was hoping the bugs had been worked out and the critical review would be positive.

Believe it or not, Google found over 2 million results for my search. On the first page of these, there was a selection called “News results for Viva Elvis,” and you could click on links to fifty different articles. As a service to ElvisBlog fans, I checked out every one of them. Here are my choices for the five most interesting, and they come at the subject from substantially different directions.

Best Look at Costumes and Backstage:

I liked the Lights, Vegas, Action blog of Vegas.com for several reasons. The text by Kristine McKenzie was organized into four categories: The Cast, The Music, The Costumes, and The Acrobatics. There is also a video showing snippets of several dance numbers as well looks at some costumes and other backstage stuff. And finally, there is a gallery of nine still shots plus three more in the body of the article. Click on the picture below to go to this informative site.

Most Glowing Review (and most intellectual):

I was a bit surprised to read the review on the Time magazine website and find it so complimentary. Time columnist Richard Corliss used his considerable writing talents to praise Viva Elvis using adjectives like spectacular, fantastic and ecstatic. I love the way he says that Cirque du Soleil shows are to the typical Broadway shows what Avatar is to the 1933 King Kong. Corliss tends to write in a scholarly manner, and he incorporates a lot of words we regular folks don’t use in everyday conversation. I’ll share the ones I had to look up, so you won’t have to do it, too. Éclat (striking effect). Hagiography (worshipful biography), Oeuvre (body of work), Oneiric (relating to dreams), Terpsichore (choreography), Caconical (recognized/accepted), and Chorines (chorus girls). You will enjoy this review, so click this picture to go to it.

Best Videos about Viva Elvis:

CNN.com has a good article by KJ Matthews on its website. I liked the analysis of how Viva Elvis differs from the Cirque show Love about the Beatles. There are actually three videos you can check out, and two are good. “A Look at Viva Elvis” covers the theater, the specially-built stage, set pieces, and backstage activity. You may have already seen this video on the Elvis Insiders website. I also liked “Sneak Peak at Viva Elvis,” which has excerpts of Priscilla’s interview on the Larry King Live TV show. The last video is titled “Elvis, Obama, and Vegas,” but you can skip it unless you want to hear President Obama doing damage control over his recent slam at Las Vegas. Click on the pink Caddy below to link to this site.

Best Description of the Elvis Songs Used in the Show:

There almost 40 Elvis songs used in the show, either in their entirety or in medleys. The deepest discussion of the music in Viva Elvis is found in the show preview on the Las Vegas Review-Journal website. Columnist Mike Weatherford has been writing regularly about Viva Elvis for two months, and this time he interviews Musical Director Erich van Tourneau. It is revealing when van Tourneau discusses trying to keep Elvis moving artistically – trying to imagine how Elvis would do his hits today. There is no video and only two photos. Click on the one of van Tourneau below to read the interview.

Most Detail About What is in Viva Elvis:

As you may know, Cirque du Soleil is Montreal based enterprise, so it is no surprise that the Montreal Gazette would cover Viva Elvis on their website. Columnist Pat Donnelly has written a lengthy article covering (in sequence) just about every element of the show. I don’t know how anyone could read his piece without yearning for a trip to Vegas to see Viva Elvis. Because there are no photos accompanying the article, here’s one I picked for you to click on to go to it.

Elvis, Elvis Presley, and Graceland are registered trademarks of Elvis Presley Enterprises, Inc.

Sergeant Elvis A. Presley

Phil Arnold — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 04:36:00 -0500

Back in March 2008, Graceland opened a new exhibit called Private Presley. At that time, I wondered why it wasn’t called Sergeant Presley, which would have given Elvis credit for the highest rank he achieved in the Army. Likewise, the summer 2008 Elvis Catalog offered a companion selection of Private Presley merchandise. Why not Sergeant Presley? Okay, it’s really no big deal, but it did seem curious.

We can assume Elvis was very proud of his promotions during his two years in the Army. He was promoted to Sergeant in February 1960, so let’s commemorate the 50th anniversary of this event with a look at his rise through the Army ranks.

Like everybody else, Elvis started his Army service as a Private in March 1958. There is no insignia on the sleeves for this rank, as seen on the photos below:

On November 27, 1958, Elvis was promoted to Private First Class. This rank gets one stripe on the uniform sleeve.

Six months later, on June 1, 1959, Elvis was promoted to Specialist Fourth Class. This is sort of the same as Corporal, except that the latter is primarily for those soldiers who have passed a leadership development course and are assigned to low-level supervisory duties. A Corporal would have two stripes on his sleeve, but the insignia for a SpecFour is this:

Here are some pictures of Elvis wearing his Specialist Fourth Class insignia:

Look closely at the next photo. It was taken while Elvis was a Private, but check out the woman’s rank. She was a SpecFive, three ranks higher than Elvis, so he had his arm around a superior officer. You can get in trouble for that, right? Well, maybe not, if you’re Elvis. She sure doesn’t look like she minded.

Elvis got his last promotion to Sergeant on February 11, 1960, just three weeks before he received his discharge from the Army. Some vet friends of mine have noted that Elvis’ rise to Sergeant was extremely fast. They kidded that he should have stayed in the Army for a couple more years and probably could have come out as a General. A Sergeant has three stripes on his sleeve, as we see in these photographs:

This should be the end of the story about Elvis’ Army ranks and insignia, but wait, there’s more. On Elvis’ trip home after his discharge, he travelled from Washington, DC to Memphis by train. Col. Parker arranged for him to ride in a private railcar that was at the end of the train and had an observation platform. So, like a Presidential candidate, Elvis appeared on the platform at every stop and waved to the assembled adoring fans. He wore a specially tailored blue parade dress uniform, complete with white gloves.

Notice anything odd about Elvis’ rank insignia? Now he’s got four stripes, which would be the rank of Staff Sergeant, a rank he did not achieve. Do you think the tailor goofed, or do you think Colonel Parker might have had something to do with this phantom promotion? He had already pulled off a phony rank for himself, so why not Elvis, too? Anyway, it’s another one of the interesting things that makes it so much fun to write about Elvis.

Elvis, Elvis Presley, and Graceland are registered trademarks of Elvis Presley Enterprises, Inc.

Happy Valentine's Day, Elvis

Phil Arnold — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 09:54:00 -0500

Valentine’s Day is the holiday of love, so my original plan for this blog was to present a photo montage of Elvis kissing girlfriends, fans and movie co-stars. However, accumulating enough pictures to do this right has been a slow process, so look forward to seeing it in 2011. For this year, here is a photo essay of different images that connect Elvis and Valentine’s Day.

Did you know that RCA released a posthumous Elvis album in 1985 titled A Valentine Gift to You? It was the kick-off to a year-long celebration of the 50th anniversary of Elvis’ birth. The song selection was a hodge-podge of lesser known album cuts and B-sides from the 50s and 60s, plus two hits, “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” (#1/1960) and “Can’t Help Falling in Love With You” (#2/1961).

A Valentine Gift For You Back Cover

Here’s another album with a Valentine’s Day theme. It appears to be a bootleg live recording of Elvis’ concert on February 14, 1977 in St Petersburg, Florida.

Because candy is a popular Valentine’s Day gift, Russell Stover and other companies have put out chocolates in heart-shaped tins adorned with pictures of Elvis.

Less popular but still prevalent Valentine’s Day gifts are colorful heart-shaped balloons. Here are two with Elvis on them: I really like the one that says “You’re My HONKA HONKA Burning Love.”

Other countries have gotten in on the Elvis/Valentine’s Day connection. I’m not sure why the images from the Netherlands and Russia below are in English,

Dutch Radio Elvis Valentine Special Logo of French Bar

From A Russian Elvis Fan Club Website

With a million Elvis T-shirt designs out there, it is no surprise that one of them has a Valentine’s Day theme.

Now that we have Photoshop, many folks have created their own Valentine messages about Elvis and posted them on the internet. Here’s a look at a few of them:

Here’s hoping all you Elvis fans and your sweethearts have a wonderful Valentine’s Day.

Elvis, Elvis Presley, and Graceland are registered trademarks of Elvis Presley Enterprises, Inc.

ElvisBlog's 5th Birthday -- A Look Back at the First Elvis Blogs

Phil Arnold — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 06:24:00 -0500

On January 30, 2005, the first blog devoted to Elvis made its debut. Five years and 800,000 hits later, ElvisBlog rolls on. There have been many changes, so it’s fun to go back and look at the first three articles that started things off.

Postscripts to Earlier ElvisBlog Columns -- 4

Phil Arnold — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 08:36:00 -0500

It’s been four months since the last Postscripts, and lots of interesting photos have cropped up that relate to earlier blogs. Here’s a look at several of them.

75 Reasons We (Still) Love Elvis

Phil Arnold — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 13:32:00 -0500

Like all of you, I am a big Elvis fan who recently celebrated his 75th birthday on January 8. Perhaps you had an experience like I did on that day. A number of friends sent me e-mails telling me to check out Elvis links on the web they thought would interest me. You got some, too, didn’t you?

What Elvis Would Look Like at 75

Phil Arnold — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 06:24:00 -0500

In a picture of old Elvis from a 2008 ElvisBlog article titled “Fun With Elvis on Photoshop – 2,” Elvis looked really good. Unfortunately, that is not the case with most of the other depictions of 70 or 75 year-old Elvis that have appeared on the web.

Happy Martin Luther King Day, Elvis

Phil Arnold — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 15:18:00 -0500

Monday, January 18, is the day we celebrate Martin Luther King’s birthday. I think Dr. King deserves his recognition, but I think Elvis does, too.