That Tupelo Girl Who Got Up Onstage, September 26, 1956

On September 26, 1956, Elvis Presley – who had been out in Hollywood preparing for Love Me Tender – returned to his birthplace, Tupelo, Mississippi, to perform at The Mississippi-Alabama Fair and Dairy Show. It was a mad scene. There is live footage of that show, which I wrote about. And, at one point, a girl manages to get herself onstage and then stands looking at Elvis, dazed and frozen. She doesn’t mob him. She stops herself. He says, “Hi.” And then she is led away by a crowd of policemen. It’s all in the footage.

In my post about the screaming girl phenomenon, my new and valued commenter Nondisposable Johnny wrote:

I always thought the best interview nobody ever bothered to get was with whoever the first girl to scream at Elvis was….I mean, I know it would have probably been impossible to identify her…but wasn’t she the one who started the revolution?…Or was it a spontaneous reaction throughout the crowd? There is a fascinating interview with a young female fan on the Golden Celebration box, but other than that I don’t recall ever running across anything else in depth with ANY of Elvis’ hardcore fans from the time period. The serious-minded “thinkers” couldn’t write them off fast enough. Still can’t.

Very insightful, I thought. I thought of that girl who stormed the stage in Tupelo.

Turns out, that Tupelo’s local radio station had covered the entire event on that day in September 26, 1959, and there is a compilation of interviews in the above clip. First, there is an interview with Vernon and Gladys Presley, Elvis’ parents. Then there is an interview with Elvis himself. Then there is an interview with Nick Adams (a friend of Elvis’ from Hollywood, more on him in a minute). And finally: there is actually an interview with that girl who got up on the stage that day! They found her after the show and interviewed her.

There’s some footage included along with the clip of Elvis with his parents, and the closeness with his mother is apparent. He’s holding onto her, kissing her, patting her shoulder, in his velvet puffy shirt (those who were baffled by his flashy outfits in Vegas a decade and a half later obviously weren’t paying attention. He was wearing multiple diamond rings by the time he was 21. He was wearing pink pants with black stripes in high school. The jumpsuits and capes are all of a piece with his flashy tastes from the beginning. Boy dressed to be noticed from the get-go.)

Before we get to the clip, some words of context:

I also wrote about the interview Elvis gave with TV Guide in August of 1956, and the hostility of the questions Presley was often receiving at that time (not to mention male members of the audience punching him in the face after shows – which happened all the time). When girls start screaming like that, everyone gets worried.

But there were certainly exceptions, and there are interviews with Presley on radio shows during 1956 where the disc jockey is clearly excited, congratulatory, and polite to the young man in his studio. Presley was very accessible to the press during 1956. That would soon change. But it wasn’t all fire-and-brimstone judgment. Elvis Presley had been born in Tupelo, Mississippi in 1935, and had moved with his parents to Memphis when he was 13 years old. But Tupelo obviously claimed him. The fact that he was coming back to town was a huge deal, and parades were held in his honor, with cheerleaders, and bands, and floats. Total mayhem. A joyful day. If there were disapproving clucks at how he moved they were drowned out by the celebration.

Presley had been out in Hollywood and had met an actor (kind of an actor slash hustler) named Nick Adams, and through Nick Presley had met Dennis Hopper, Natalie Wood, and many of the other hip young actors of the day. Nick Adams is an important figure in Presley’s life and would die very young of a drug overdose. He was ambitious, but he was a clinger, a user, his motives not so pure. (June Juanico, Presley’s main flame that summer, is convinced he was under the payroll of Colonel Parker.) He wanted to be close to powerful people. He latched on to Presley. There are rumors about a relationship between Elvis and Nick. But it’s more likely that Nick was hired, corraled, coerced, into keeping Presley close, not let him get swayed by downhome concerns. Nick Adams came back to Tupelo with Presley (and he was also instrumental in encouraging Natalie Wood to come visit a bit later – which then threw Presley’s private time with his girlfriend June Juanico into a tailspin). Of course to Nick Adams, Presley should be dating Natalie, not some little anonymous girl from Biloxi. Elvis was never one for confrontation, ever, and so he kind of suffered in the middle of this … not even triangle, since there were four people involved. He tried to explain to June that Nick was a good friend, June was having none of it, he tried to explain that Natalie was just a friend, etc. But he wasn’t very effective. June was pissed and hurt. Who is this Nick Adams person who ignores her completely and talks about Natalie as though NATALIE is the girlfriend when it is clear that JUNE is the girlfriend?

Nick Adams, Natalie Wood, Elvis Presley

Elvis Presley, June Juanico, summer 1956

Not for nothing, but the difference in Elvis’ body language in those two pictures says it all.

So in the midst of this romantic situation, Presley and Nick Adams come to Tupelo. They have been staying with Elvis’ parents. Vernon and Gladys Presley, of course, traveled to Tupelo as well for the big show.

The clip is clearly taken “backstage”, which maybe means a nearby tent, because the noise outside is deafening. It’s touching to hear Vernon and Gladys answer questions about their son. When asked what is his favorite song from his son, Vernon goes blank. “There are so many songs …” Gladys smoothly sails into the spotlight then, saying how proud she is, this is her favorite song, they drove in from Memphis today, yes, we missed the parade but we heard it was “nice”, we’re very proud. Because of reality television nowadays, everyone seems camera-ready now. Anonymous people are interviewed at American Idol auditions and they know how to act, they’ve seen so much of it on TV already. We have been primed. So it is so touching to hear people who have been thrust into a spotlight so bright it had never existed before at such wattage on the planet, and gamely answering questions. They sound simple, kind, and a bit overwhelmed. The interviewer says, “Well, I hope you know that the whole town is wide open to the Presley family …”, a really kind moment, when you consider the kind of press Presley was getting at that time.

Then comes the interview with Elvis. The interviewer begins, “We’d like to welcome you to Tupelo …” and Elvis’ voice bounds in, energetic, hepped up, “Thank you, sir!” Presley is polite (no surprise), says the right things. He’s met a lot of his old school friends, his “kinfolk”, it’s been great for him to be back.

Now we’re getting though to the girl who leapt up onstage. The interviewer asks him, “How do you feel about the reaction of the teenagers, like the young lady who jumped on the stage this afternoon, and the way they act in the audience … How do you feel about it?”

It’s a key question. As I’ve said before, artists who dis the reaction of their most passionate fans are doomed to obscurity. At least at first. When Bob Dylan went electric and played a show through boos, he knew that that was what he needed to do to assert that HE was in charge of his career, not THEM. Presley continued on in his career to do a lot of what he wanted to do, record gospel albums and ballads (like his idol Dean Martin), and went a long way away from that twitchy kid who hooked in the young girls in 1955, 1956. But he never dissed those original fans. He never tried to say, “Well, thanks gals for giving me a leg up, but now I’m going for the REAL audience.” He knew their love for him was not only sincere, but essential to who he was. He rode that wave for 20 years. (Who does that??) So here he is, asked directly about it, yet again. He had just been confronted by that Tupelo girl coming up to him on the stage (“Hi,” Elvis said), and so he’s asked the question what he thinks about it.

Elvis says, stuttering at first, “I really enjoy it.” He starts laughing, and says, “I think it’s real great that they feel so much about me, you know, and I’ve had people ask me did I think it’s silly. I do not. I think it’s wonderful. I’m so glad that they think enough of me.”

Class. In his bones.

Then comes the interview with Nick Adams, which is fascinating to me. Why are you interviewing Nick Adams? Oh, that’s right, cause he’s with Elvis. “I understand you’re a motion picture star,” says the interviewer (which is hilarious in a vaguely hostile way – it’s what I UNDERSTAND, but I’VE never heard of you, son). I have an opinion about Nick Adams, although the interview here is kind of sweet. He is asked about his own career and he refuses to answer, saying he only wants to talk about Elvis because this is Elvis’ big day. He is asked about eating Mrs. Presley’s cooking, and he says that he ate “ocher”, then calls out, “ELVIS!” You can hear Elvis in the background call back, “Yeah?” “What was that stuff your mom made? Ocher?” “OKRA.” “Yeah. Okra.” But still. I want to tell Nick Adams to get out of Elvis’ damn spotlight, you leech.

BUT. Then they interview the girl who stormed the stage. Her interview comes last. The interviewer treats her with kindness and humor, not scorn. He says, “What was it you wanted onstage?” and she bursts out, giggling, “I wanted Elvis!” She is still IN her experience. You can hear it in her voice. She bursts out laughing at inappropriate moments. She squeals and sighs. She cannot contain herself. It doesn’t matter that she is talking to an adult male, that she is on the radio, that her parents and friends might hear the interview. She is LOST in what just happened to her.

It’s unbridled, it’s free, it’s ridiculous, it’s embarrassing, and I relate to it entirely. You go, girl.