(65) G.I. BLUES - LOS ANGELES HERE WE COME! and JULIET PROWSE

In the fall of 1960 I had my Roulette contract and a hit. I was still touring with Buddy Knox, and I was also doing some independent bookings. My road travels brought me to Los Angeles. I was doing radio, television, and live performances.

Colonel Parker's next coup was to have Elvis Presley star in a movie in which he played a G.I. while the American public still had fresh memory of Elvis' patriotic service in the U.S. army. The movie was called "G.I. Blues."

Elvis was staying at a hotel in a suite. This is where the promise we made three years earlier when I first met him in Memphis - "See you on the coast!" came real. I had met some of the men who were in Elvis' early entourage when I went to Memphis to see him come home from the army. In the weeks before his arrival I spent some time with some of the men who surrounded Elvis as friends and as employees. Now, as I made my way through Los Angeles, I stayed on Elvis' sofa in his suite for a short time. This was my entry into Elvis' personal world as it was becoming, a world in which a bunch of high spirited guys - mostly with Southern roots like we had - surrounded Elvis, making his life easier, half working, half playing, providing him trustworthy company.

At the time, Elvis was dating his co-star, Juliet Prowse. She was a South African born dancer, known for her beautiful skin and long, long shapely legs. The two of them were in lock up in his bedroom.

Here's a You Tube Presentation of GI Blues. Elvis wore a uniform through most of it.

GI Blues on the IMBd movie database

Click on the title NEW LINK added January 12, 2011

A You Tube presentation on a party for Juliet Prowse.

Juliet had class and real movie star charisma. She was a dancer first and foremost and had a kind of bodily confidence that was dynamic.