On December 20, 1957, Presley received his draft notice. Hal Wallis and Paramount Pictures had already spent $350,000 on the film King Creole , and did not want to suspend or cancel the project. The Memphis Draft Board granted Presley a deferment to finish it. On March 24, 1958, he was inducted as US Army private #53310761 and completed basic training at Fort Hood, Texas on September 17, 1958, before being posted to Friedberg, Germany with the 3rd Armored Division, where his service took place from October 1, 1958 until March 2, 1960.

Fellow soldiers have attested to Presley's down-to-earth nature, and his generosity while in service. To supplement meager under-clothing supplies, Presley bought an extra set of fatigues for everyone in his outfit. He also donated his Army pay to charity, and purchased all the TV sets for personnel on the base at that time.

Presley had chosen not to join 'Special Services', which would have allowed him to avoid certain duties and maintain his public profile. He continued to receive massive media coverage, with much speculation echoing Presley's own concerns about his enforced absence damaging his career. However, early in 1958, RCA Victor producer Steve Sholes and Freddy Bienstock of Hill and Range (Presley's main music publishers) had both pushed for recording sessions and strong song material, the aim being to release regular hit recordings during Presley's two-year hiatus. Hit singles—and six albums—duly followed during that period.

As Presley's fame grew, his mother continued to drink excessively and began to gain weight. She had wanted her son to succeed, "but... hysteria of the crowd frightened her." In early August 1958, doctors had diagnosed hepatitis and her condition worsened. Presley was granted emergency leave to visit her, arriving in Memphis on August 12. Two days later, Gladys Presley died of heart failure, aged forty-six. Presley was distraught, "grieving almost constantly" for days.

Some months later, in Germany, " sergeant had introduced to amphetamines when they were on maneuvers at Grafenwöhr... it seemed like half the guys in the company were taking them." Friends around Presley, like Joe Esposito, also began taking them, "if only to keep up with Elvis, who was practically evangelical about their benefits." The Army also introduced Presley to karate—something which he studied seriously, even including it in his later live performances.

In 2008, it was claimed that Presley had flown to London (1958) for a one-day secret trip: his only visit to the UK was thought to have been a stop-over at Prestwick Airport, Scotland in 1960. Tommy Steele, (Presley's alleged London chaperone) said that he'd sworn not to divulge details of the visit. Friends of Presley, including Army buddy Lamar Fike, insist that the trip never took place.

Presley returned to the U.S. on March 2, 1960, and was honorably discharged with the rank of sergeant on March 5. "The train which carried him from New Jersey to Memphis was mobbed all the way, with Presley being called upon to appear ... at whistle-stops" to placate his fans. Recording sessions in March and April yielded some of his best-selling songs—including "It's Now or Never". Although some tracks were uptempo, none could be described as "rock and roll". Most found their way on to an album— Elvis is Back! —described by one critic as "a triumph on every level... It was as if Elvis had... broken down the barriers of genre and prejudice to express everything he heard in all the kinds of music he loved". The album was also notable because of Homer Boots Randolph's acclaimed saxophone playing on the blues standard "Reconsider Baby" and "Like A Baby".

Acting career

In 1956, Presley launched his career as a film actor. He screen-tested for Paramount Pictures by lip-synching "Blue Suede Shoes" and performing a scene as 'Bill Starbuck' in The Rainmaker . Despite being quietly confident that The Rainmaker would be his first film—even going as far as saying so in an interview—the role eventually went to Burt Lancaster.

After signing a seven-year contract with Paramount, Presley made his big-screen début with the musical western, Love Me Tender . It was panned by the critics but did well at the box office. The original title— The Reno Brothers —was changed to capitalize on the advanced sales of the song "Love Me Tender". The majority of Presley's films were musical comedies made to "sell records and produce high revenues." He also appeared in more dramatic films, like Jailhouse Rock and King Creole . The erotic, if not homoerotic, dance sequence to the song "Jailhouse Rock", which Presley choreographed himself, "is considered by many as his greatest performance ever captured on film." To maintain box office success, he would later even shift "into beefcake formula comedy mode for a few years." He also made one non-musical western, Charro! .

Presley stopped live performing after his Army service with the exception, ironically—given Sinatra's previously scathing criticism—of a guest appearance on The Frank Sinatra Timex Show: Welcome Home Elvis (1960). He also performed three charity concerts—two in Memphis and one in Pearl Harbor (1961).

In the Army, Presley had said on many occasions that "more than anything, he wanted to be taken seriously as a dramatic actor." His manager, with an eye on long-term earnings, negotiated a multi-picture seven-year contract with Hal Wallis. The singer would later star alongside several established or up-coming actors, including Walter Matthau, Carolyn Jones, Angela Lansbury, Charles Bronson, Barbara Stanwyck, Mary Tyler Moore—and even a very young Kurt Russell in his screen debut. Although Presley was praised by directors, like Michael Curtiz, as polite and hardworking (and as having an exceptional memory), "he was definitely not the most talented actor around." Others were more charitable; critic Bosley Crowther of the New York Times said: "This boy can act," about his portrayal in King Creole . Director Joe Pasternak believed "Elvis should be given more meaty parts. ... He would be a good actor. He should do more important pictures."

The movies he did make, and the AIP beach movies (which were mainly made for an early sixties teenage audience), were generally criticized as a "pantheon of bad taste." The scripts of his movies "were all the same, the songs progressively worse." For Blue Hawaii , "fourteen songs were cut in just three days." Julie Parrish, who appeared in Paradise, Hawaiian Style , says that Presley hated many of the songs chosen for his films; he "couldn't stop laughing while he was recording" one of them. Others noted that the songs seemed to be "written on order by men who never really understood Elvis or rock and roll." However, several reputable songwriters/partnerships contributed soundtrack songs, including Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, Don Robertson, Sid Tepper and Roy C. Bennett, and Otis Blackwell and Winfield Scott. Whatever the quality of the material, some observers have argued that Presley generally sang well in the studio, with commitment, and always played with distinguished musicians and backing singers. Sight and Sound wrote that in his movies "Elvis Presley, aggressively bisexual in appeal, knowingly erotic, acting like a crucified houri and singing with a kind of machine-made surrealism." Critics would later claim that "No major star suffered through more bad movies than Elvis Presley."

Presley movies were nevertheless very popular, and he "became a film genre of his own." Hal Wallis would later remark: "An Elvis Presley picture is the only sure thing in Hollywood." Elvis on celluloid was the only chance for his world-wide fans to see him, in the absence of live appearances (the only time he toured outside of the U.S. was in Canada in 1957). His Blue Hawaii even "boosted the new state's tourism. Some of his most enduring and popular songs came from those movies," like "Can't Help Falling in Love," "Return to Sender" and "Viva Las Vegas." His 1960s films and soundtracks grossed some $280 million. On December 1, 1968, the New York Times wrote: "Three times a year Elvis Presley ... multimillion-dollar feature-length films, with holiday titles like "Blue Hawaii", "Fun in Acapulco", "Viva Las Vegas", "Tickle Me", "Easy Come, Easy Go", "Live a Little, Love a Little" and the latest in the series, "Chataqua" . For each film Elvis receives a million dollars in wages and 50 per cent of the profits. ... very film yields an LP sound-track record which may sell as many as two-million copies."

In 1964, Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole had starred in Hal Wallis' acclaimed Becket . Wallis admitted to the press that the financing of such quality productions was only possible by making a series of profitable B-movies starring Presley. He branded Wallis "a double-dealing sonofabitch" (and he thought little better of Tom Parker), realizing there had never been any intention to let him develop into a serious actor.

Presley was similarly exploited the following year with the film Tickle Me . Allied Artists had serious financial problems and hope

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Elvis Presley

Welcome to the Official Elvis Presley Web Site, home of the undisputed King of Rock 'n' Roll and his beloved Graceland Mansion in Memphis, Tennessee

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Elvis Presley - Official web site for Elvis Presley

Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977), sometimes written Aron, a was an American singer, musician and actor. He is a cultural icon, often known as "The King of ...

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