For the first three years, ElvisBlog was all text. Then in 2008, one of the first posts with photos was Fun with Gold Lamé. I had lots of images in my files to use. In fact, there were so many, I did a Part 2 less than a year later. Here’s my favorite picture from it.
This came from Star Wars — Return of The Jedi. Someone has replaced Luke Skywalker with Elvis. Of course, Star Wars superfans know that these space creatures are henchmen of Jabba The Hut, who has sentenced Luke to die. The gang plank is on a desert skiff, not an ocean ship, and they are pushing Luke into the Sarlaac Pit, where he will be breakfast for a sand-dwelling monster. Why someone thought to put Elvis wearing his gold suit in this shot is a mystery to me.
I’ve accumulated more Elvis gold lamé suit photos over the past ten years, so let’s take a look at some.
This is Elvis with the RCA Records mascot Nipper during a bizarre moment on stage. You can just imagine how worried Col. Parker must have been that Elvis would wear the gold of his coat’s elbows. He had already worn it off the knees of the pants.
Betty Harper has done dozens of terrific paintings of Elvis. I was thrilled when Elvis International magazine used one of them to illustrate an article I had written. When Betty painted Elvis in the gold suit, she could have made the pants less baggy than they really were. But Betty stayed true to real life. Note the gold shoes. They don’t show up too much in photos.
I love Elvis in this shot. I’m surprised he doesn’t have more rings on his fingers.
I know I’ll get comments for showing this one. I’ll say sorry in advance.
This reverse-angle shot shows Elvis performing in the gold coat and black pants. I don’t know where this arena is, but these girls aren’t showing the kind of crazy enthusiasm we expect when looking at crowd shots from Elvis concerts.
Did you know that Pat Boone did an album of Elvis songs? What genius thought that it would sell? At least they had the good sense to make the gold pants slim and trim.
Doesn’t Elvis look great in this shot? I have six photos on him performing on his knees wearing the black pants. If I can get some more, I’ll put them together in a new post.
This is pretty cute. Blue Elvis Teddy Bear in Gold Lamé. It was for sale years ago at an auction, and I’ve never run across it since.
Is this spectacular, or what?
This is one of the worst Elvis products ever. The website calls the Elvis Gold Lame model the last in a series of Elvis rubber ducks. You mean there’s more? Yukkkk. They also say that it’s weighted for great upright floating. It ought to be weighted for great sinking.
Even though Elvis preferred to perform wearing black pants with the gold coat, he can be seen in several photos wearing the gold pants during casual activities backstage. Maybe he was trying to wear them out quicker.
This photo was taken on December 5, 2005 when the Rolling Stones invited Scotty Moore backstage before their concert in Memphis. Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood joined Scotty around a cardboard stand-up of Elvis in the gold suit. I printed out this picture and got Scotty to sign it at Elvis Week 2007. I don’t guess I’ll ever get Keith and Ronnie to sign it.
We’ll close by adding another wonderful Joe Petruccio painting of Elvis to those that have appeared in this blog. I love his work.
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