I know I’ve been lucky in an awful lot of ways. But I think the luckiest thing that ever happened to me is that I’m beginning to realize my biggest ambition.All of my life, I’ve wanted to be an actor, though I never was in any school plays or recited a line other than the Gettysburg Address for my sixth-grade homeroom class. But always sticking in the back of my head was the idea that somehow, someday, I’d like to get the chance to act. I came out to Hollywood almost three months ago, and Mr. Hal Wallis of Paramount Pictures asked me to take a screen test. I jumped at the chance. I went in to take the test and Mr. Wallis told me not to worry about trying to act like John Barrymore or anybody. He told me to just act like myself. I studied up on what they wanted me to do, and then before I knew it I was in front of the camera. I wonder if you can ever know what it’s like to be standing in a movie sound stage and hear a bell ring and people shout “Quiet”, and then all of a sudden realize that everyone’s watching you, and you’re supposed to be acting out a part. I’ll tell you, it’s enough to make your legs slide out from under you.
Interwiew with Elvis on August 28, 1956 at the 20th Century-Fox studios, Hollywood, California.
Photo: Elvis on the set of ‘Love Me Tender’.
Elvis being interviewed as he arrives in California to film G.I. Blues, c. April 20, 1960.
Elvis Presley on set of ‘Jailhouse Rock’, 1957.
Elvis getting a haircut at Jim’s Barber Shop in Memphis, July 1956. Photo by Lloyd Shearer.
Well, it’s one for the money, two for the show, three to get ready, now go, cat, go!
Elvis Presley performing Blue Suede Shoes, 1956
Elvis in publicity photo for “Jailhouse Rock”, 1957.
Elvis at Sam Phillips’s house on the Easter of 1957.
Elvis on the set of “Love Me Tender”, 1956.
Elvis getting his famous G.I. haircut at Fort Chaffee, Arkansas, March 25, 1958.
Elvis in his hotelroom in Miami, March 22, 1960.
Color candid of Elvis at his home in Audubon Drive, 1957.
