Now, friends, Elvis is criticized for his movie roles these days and I have to admit that he came to be disappointed with his acting career and where movies took his music, but in the early 1960's Elvis was generally open and enthusiastic with making movies. Hollywood was still a movie-making town and it was important to Elvis to be in the Los Angeles area to make them.
Elvis was being offered roles that had been written for actors with great prestige like Marlon Brando and James Dean.
"King Creole" was written by Harold Robbins with the original title, "A Stone For Danny Fisher." James Dean was supposed to star in it. (The movie James Dean is most often known for, "Rebel Without a Cause," was also offered to Marlon Brando, who did a screen test for it.) Marlon Brando was supposed to star in "Flaming Star," which had been written with him in mind but Elvis stared instead.
Elvis would think "If this role is good enough for Marlon or James Dean it's good enough for me."
The studios would add some songs, turn a script into a musical, give the job to Elvis...Elvis could read a script one time through and know his lines and he was the consummate professional on the set, treating people from all walks of life with courtesy.
1 comment:
Mr. Wes
Thank you for your music and your memoy stories.
Inoue Sumioku
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