Hal Wallis and Elvis Presley

Elvis Presley and Hal Wallis

I’ve written before about Hal Wallis, and my admiration for not only his producing smarts, but how he exemplifies the artistic and intuitive producer (so so rare nowadays). His memos in re: Casablanca are not only about cutting costs or corners, or keeping on schedule, although he is concerned about those things as well. His memos are about script analysis, tempo, musical accompaniment, and character and plot. It is hard to picture a producer who actually knows what he is talking about putting his finger in so many pies today. But Hal Wallis was from a different era. The studio system bred a certain hierarchy which is no longer in existence now that everyone is a free agent. Hal Wallis exemplifies the best of the studio system.

While it is common to the point of boredom to bemoan Elvis Presley’s time in Hollywood as a waste and a humiliation, when looked at in the context of the time the decisions that were made were smart business. The studio system had become an unwieldy behemoth, and out-of-control productions like Cleopatra in 1963 helped collapse it in upon itself. It could no longer withstand the modern market and its demands. But the studio system was so entrenched, such a way of life for thousands and thousands of people, that it took a decade for it to really die. By the end of the 60s, independent producers and directors were on the rise, the conservatism of the studio system was thrown out the window, and new artists blazed new trails. Easy Rider was a watershed moment, but there were others. But for that decade of the 60s, the studios limped. It was a painful death for many.

While the American cinema of the 1970s is revered by serious movie fans, myself included (it is when we started to grow up, compete with Europe, develop auteurs, all of that), it is no secret that my favorite movies ever made were made under the studio system. The studio’s protection of its properties (ie: artists) was ferocious and patriarchal. Of course actors buckled under such control. It could be very very unfair. Humphrey Bogart’s contract was an outrage. He knew how undervalued he was. He knew how much he should be getting paid. Marilyn Monroe was treated like a whore who got lucky. She made money for the studios so they had to succumb to market concerns, but she shouldn’t be allowed to think MORE of herself. The projects she was put in reminded her, repeatedly, exactly what those in charge thought about her. She was a rebellious spirit, and moved to New York, set up her own production company, started studying acting with Lee Strasberg, and held a press conference saying she wanted to develop her own material. This was in 1955. Unheard of.

There were those who floated above unattached to any one studio (Cary Grant being one of the best examples, he managed his own career, which makes him even more of an odd duck than he already was), but for the most part, you were signed to a studio, you did what you were told, and you didn’t make trouble. Independence could be punished. You could be blacklisted. You could be frozen out of the studio system. All of this is true. No system is perfect. But when the studio system worked, it worked like no other organization on earth. If you were a star – if you happened to have that special something that audiences would pay to see specifically – then there was nothing – NOTHING – like the studio system to create and manage that image for you. Stars were pampered, in that their images were cultivated carefully, they were protected, shielded, and pushed forward into the projects that would continue to get asses in the seats.

This is why the great stars of the studio era – John Wayne, Barbara Stanwyck, Clark Gable, Katharine Hepburn – had (and still have) such indelible personae that any random person on the street could DESCRIBE that persona to you to this day. This type of “persona acting” (which I’ve gotten into a little bit before) is out of style now completely (more’s the pity) – but I think it was part and parcel of the highly organized studio system, which needed to have elements it could count on, not wild-card talents who wanted to experiment and MESS with their persona. There are always two sides to any conversation (maybe more), and the insistence on set personae was something that many actors found dreary. Marilyn Monroe knew she had more in her than sex-bomb characters. She wanted a chance to show it. (Watch Don’t Bother to Knock, in particular, and you can see her dramatic acting chops.) But she was put in picture after picture that demeaned her. It didn’t matter to the fans: they loved her anyway. Today, the trend in acting is more towards versatility. If you have facility with accents, prosthetic noses, and if you seem to be DIFFERENT in each movie – then you win Oscars left and right. (I am oversimplifying to make my point.) My great acting mentor calls this the “colors school of acting”. Meaning: “I need to show a different color in my next role.” “I need to pick two audition monologues that show different colors.” My acting mentor was a more practical man. He thought it was important, most of all, to get work. He had grown up in the era of the studio system. He thought: If you have something you’re good at, if you have something that people want to see, then DO THAT, and hone it, and protect it, and be fierce about it. Don’t worry about showing all the colors of the rainbow. Or: if you don’t HAVE a personality that strong, then know that about yourself, and develop your other talents. There’s room for all kinds in this business we call show.

There are very few stars today who do what I call “persona acting”. Meaning: their innate inherent natural personality becomes THE thing that makes them a star. Julia Roberts is one. Mickey Rourke is one. Angelina Jolie is one. I think Brad Pitt is one. I am not making a value judgment. I am not saying these people are better than others who “disappear” more into their roles, or who are different in every part they do. But I do happen to believe that in terms of legacies, these Persona People will be the last ones standing. Being a star is a mysterious thing and entire industries are focused on trying to discover stars, predict who will be the next star, trying to get one step ahead of the game. But you can’t get ahead of this game. A star like Julia Roberts is born, not made. Her success in Pretty Woman took even her agent by surprise. She wasn’t even doing publicity for it, she was busy working on another movie. The FANS chose her. And this, my friends, is the most powerful endorsement on the planet. This is why talent agents and producers and directors AGONIZE about picking new people for big roles. Everyone wants to be the one who “spotted” Julia Roberts first. But you can tell the fans: “She is the next hottest thing” and if the fans don’t buy it, you’re dead in the water. The fans, in the end, always decide. (There is the infamous example of poor Gretchen Mol, a talented young actress, being put on the cover of Vanity Fair being hailed as the next best thing, before anyone in the country outside of a small select group had even seen any of her movies, and that really backfired on her. It was too much. The general reaction from fans were: “Don’t tell me I have to love this woman. I don’t even know who she is yet.”)

When fans choose you, when fans anoint you (as happened with Julia Roberts, with Marilyn Monroe, with Brad Pitt even – after his one scene in Thelma and Louise), that kind of good will can (and often does) last decades. Lasts forever. Of course careers need to be managed. Career management is the most important element when someone has become a star (either suddenly, or with forethought). The studio system was second to none in knowing how to manage such things. You can see in today’s freelance world actors making all kinds of mistakes in choosing properties, in their comments in interviews, in their behavior out in public. None of this was a factor in the studio days. Patriarchal though it may have been, there is a lot to be said for being protected when you are that famous. Being that famous is not for amateurs. You gotta have people who know how the hell to DEAL with it. (Julia Roberts’ entire career trajectory still deserves a thoughtful study. I’ll do it someday. She was headstrong and thoughtful, she wanted to be “making pictures when she was 80” – a comment she made when Steel Magnolias first came out, and she did what she wanted to do, taking 2 years off after Pretty Woman, going on her own strike because she hated every script that came to her. That takes BALLS and faith and self-belief. She, and her team, were actually crafting a career, a career that had unexpectedly exploded with Pretty Woman. I mean, it wasn’t out of nowhere – she had already been nominated for an Oscar and was starring in movies, but the explosion of fan adoration from Pretty Woman was not anticipated in the slightest. She was the biggest star in the world at 24. Okay. So now what? Many many new stars do not keep their heads at that crucial moment in their lives. She did. Hats off. To bring it back to Hal Wallis and the studio system: at that crucial moment, she didn’t act like an actor grateful that she had gotten the love of the fans, although she was grateful. In that crucial moment, she started thinking like a studio mogul. Smart move. If more actors tried to think like Hal Wallis, while at the same time being actors, their careers would make more sense, have more longevity, and their work would be better.)

Elvis Presley, a messenger from the future from the first moment he appeared on national television in 1956 (although you can hear it in his first single, cut in 1954, too – but I’m talking about national awareness of what was coming) was a persona actor of the old school. The properties weren’t as good, but that is only because the studio was falling in upon itself, with the giant awe-inspiring collection of great writers and directors formerly under contract fleeing to the four corners of the earth trying to save themselves. Everything had become seriously unreliable. People were terrified. No one can see the future. No one knew that the 70s were coming. Well, Roger Corman probably knew. But in general, the studios were operating out of panic. This process had already started when Elvis Presley was signed to Hal Wallis in that watershed year of 1956, although the real collapse wouldn’t happen until the early to mid 60s. As that decade progressed, Presley’s outrageously lucrative contract made him the highest paid actor in Hollywood, and no wonder. The fans came and saw everything he did. When you are anointed by the fans, everyone else in power (directors, producers, writers) are just playing furious catch-up with your naturally exploding popularity, something they have nothing to do with. So the general attitude is a frenzied, “Get behind this, get behind this, we gotta keep this going, get behind this …”

Elvis Presley was the last star of the studio system. He was its only prop for a good 5 years. A heavy burden on a young man who had dreamed of doing something like Rebel Without a Cause. I have made my feelings clear on this already. I think he was an actor with a strong even indelible persona, and the fact that he was able to continue to show up as that persona, in film after film, is not demeaning to his talent at all. It is heroic. It puts him in very rare company. It puts him in company with the Waynes, the Cagneys, the Stanwycks. If you can get your own personal feelings about his time in the 60s out of the way, if you can resist resentment and regret, his movie career starts to look very very different. And not only the career, because I am not as interested in the career itself and how it was managed.

I am talking about the work. I am talking about who Elvis Presley was as an actor.

I took an unforgettable acting workshop with Ellen Burstyn once. She said to us that there were only four rules that actors HAD to follow when working:

1. Show up
2. Pay attention
3. Tell the truth
4. Don’t be attached to the outcome

Elvis Presley did all of this naturally, and that is all I see when I watch him work. “Showing up” is the most important thing. This doesn’t mean being on time, and getting to the studio when you are called. It means “showing UP”, with all of your talent, belief, work ethic, and inherent magic at your disposal. Don’t hold back. Don’t be afraid. SHOW UP. If you can’t do rule #1, then you automatically can’t do rules 2 through 4. “Showing up” is the greatest obstacle for any actor, amateur or professional. Acting classes, with their focus on concentration and relaxation, are often just tools to help people SHOW UP when it is required. You can be the most brilliant actor in class but if you are unable, due to nerves or insecurity, to SHOW UP at an audition, then you will not have a career. It’s like a Big Papi, or anyone who is relied upon to show up in “clutch” moments. Pressure is undeniable, it’s part of the gig. But you cannot let that pressure impede you from showing up.

Elvis Presley SHOWS UP in these movies. I don’t resent them or regret them at all. I love them. You try to show up in Kissin’ Cousins. You’ll see how difficult it is. Near impossible, actually. But he does. You’ll see how ridiculous it is to dismiss Presley as an actor if you try to do one scene from Double Trouble and “show up”.

The 1956 television appearances of Elvis Presley were so explosive that he was almost immediately encircled by those who wanted in on it. Hal Wallis got to him first.

Hal Wallis, a practical and artistic man, a moneymaker and a visionary, saw Elvis Presley appear on The Dorsey Brothers and immediately signed him (after some dogged negotiation with Presley’s new manager, Colonel Parker). Wallis was no dummy, no rapacious user. He wanted to help craft this young talent’s career and he thought very carefully about the projects he put him in. Wallis and Presley had a very good relationship and were friends until Presley passed away. His reflections on Presley, as a person and as an actor (not to mention the unprecedented fame that had completely overtaken his life) are fascinating, and his autobiography (a must-read) devotes an entire chapter to Elvis.

Some excerpts:

I was sitting at home spinning the dial of my television set one night when I first saw this remarkable performer. Elvis was an original. He wore a sport coat that was slightly too large for him and tight black pants. At first, he looked like any other teen-aged bopper, but when he started to sing, twisting his legs, bumping and grinding, shaking his shoulders, he was electrifying. I had never seen anything like him. Those were the days of censorship, when sexuality on the screen was completely taboo. Yet here was an entertainer whose every movement excited female audiences of all ages. I turned to Louise and predicted that Elvis would soon be the most talked about newcomer in the business.

On trying to meet with Presley:

Our meeting was set for the following week after he returned from a concert tour. Reluctant to fly, Elvis drove with his boys to Denver for the first concert. He was so exhausted from the trip that he collapsed in his dressing room after the performance with a fever so severe he wasn’t expected to live. But he rallied unexpectedly and, having no choice, flew to Florida for another concert. His temperature was 102 degrees.

He collapsed again but forced himself to go on to New York to record his first hit album, which included “Blue Suede Shoes” and “I’m Counting on You”. He wasn’t well when he made the recordings but they were wonderful. I managed to get an advance copy of the album and realized I was listening to a new sound – a new style that was revolutionary. It was destined to change the world of popular music and make recording history. I vowed nothing would stop me from signing this boy for films.

On the screentest:

I telephoned, telegraphed, and harassed Colonel Parker until he finally brought Elvis to Hollywood for a meeting and a screen test. Elvis showed up at my office in jeans and a work shirt. I expected him to be as aggressive and dynamic in person as he was on stage. But he was slender, pale, extremely reserved, and rather nervous. It was quite clear that this genius (and genius he was) very much needed the balance and strength of his practical, straight-thinking mentor. Elvis was a delicately tuned engine.

A test was necessary to determine if Elvis could act. I selected a scene for him to do with that very fine actor Frank Faylen. Elvis would play a young man just starting out in life and Faylen would play his father, holding him back. It was a difficult dramatic scene for an amateur. But I had to be sure.

When I ran the test I felt the same thrill I experienced when I first saw Errol Flynn on the screen. Elvis, in a very different, modern way, had exactly the same power, virility, and sex drive. The camera caressed him.

As Presley’s acting career quickly exploded, with Loving You and the loan-out Jailhouse Rock, it became apparent that Presley was finally going to be drafted. Hal Wallis was aware of this and started to scramble.

I decided to gamble that Elvis would not be drafted for another year and in late 1957 cast him as King Creole. I decided to give him the best director in the business, my dear and good friend Michael Curtiz. I warned Mike not to use his well-known shock tactics on Elvis, and on no account must he badger and bully him as he had certain stars at Warners. But Mike had mellowed. In fact, he wasn’t a very well man when he did the picture.

We based the film on Harold Robbins’s A Stone for Danny Fisher, and changed the leading character from a prizefighter to a singer. My wonderful bank robbers and hoodlums in the picture were Walter Matthau, Brian Hutton, and Vic Morrow, and Carolyn Jones gave a vivid portrait of a prostitute with a heart of gold. Elvis was excellent in a very demanding role. In many ways, King Creole was his best picture.

When we shot on location in New Orleans, the crowds were so huge that we had to arrange for top security. We booked the top floor of the Roosevelt Hotel and had the elevators stop operating just before reaching our level. When we shot on the streets, police and ropes were necessary to hold back the crowds. At the end of the day, it was a major ordeal for Elvis to get to his hotel room, the crowds in the lobby and in front of the hotel so tremendous that he avoided them by going up to a room in an adjoining building, crossing the roof, and entering his hotel by the fire escape. Pinkerton guards patrolled the elevators, the exits, every inch of the floor he was on, even his suite. One night he wanted to go to dinner at Antoine’s. Colonel Parker bitterly disappointed him by telling him he couldn’t. When I saw the expression on his face, I realized the price he paid for being a superstar.

On his relationship with Elvis:

I grew to be very fond of Elvis. He was utterly without guile, malice, even ego. He never addressed me as anything but “sir”, spoke in a soft voice, and never lost his temper. We didn’t mix socially: I was not invited to his home, nor would he come to mine. I sometimes visited him in his hotel suite. He and his boys played touch football on the carpet, listened to his favorite records, watched TV, and ate junk food. After a day’s work the entire group holed up in the suite and had waiters bring in malted milks, Cokes, pizzas, hamburgers, hot dogs, and potato chips.

On Elvis recording:

I was fascinated by the way Elvis recorded songs for our pictures. He didn’t feel comfortable in the recording room at Paramount; he found it too large. Because he preferred working with his own group in a more intimate area, we rented a small studio on Santa Monica Boulevard and recorded at night. Elvis hated to work in the morning or even the afternoon. Never bothering with arrangements, he and the boys noodled around, improvised, ad-libbed, and worked out numbers for hours. Finally, he would rehearse a number straight through. Night after long night I watched and listened, fascinated. Elvis was a born musician. He knew instinctively what he wanted in a song: when an instrument was wrong for a number, when a lyric wasn’t right. He talked to the boys from the control room and made them repeat a number ten, fifteen, twenty times if necessary to achieve perfection. I never said a word, just observed.

Presley got a deferment on showing up for his military induction so he could complete King Creole. Then it was off to basic training. Then off to Germany for 14 months. Hal Wallis continued to work behind the scenes, trying to keep the momentum going for this talented young man. G.I. Blues was born out of a desire to reflect Presley’s real-life experiences in the service.

Elvis Presley came back from the Army a man, no longer a boy. His career would need to shift. Looking BACK on who he had been would have been a disaster for Elvis Presley’s career. Then he really would have been a flash in the pan, a trend. If he couldn’t move past that jiggling ducktailed boy on the Dorsey Brothers show, nobody would be talking about Elvis Presley today.

The entrapment of a movie contract is something many actors, no matter how grateful they are for the steady work, bucked against. Presley’s contract was more daunting than most. It ran him ragged. It kept him from touring and recording. He was so reliable, though, he could so be counted on (and his nature, at least in person, was automatically deferential – he was the perennial “good sport”, something I think deserves more examination, as I’ve said before. I think people who resent Presley’s movie contract wish he had thrown his weight around a little more, NOT been such a good sport, started refusing to do things, putting his foot down. Ah, but wishing this means you wish that he wasn’t, actually, who he was. Why waste your time like that? There is also the revealing comment Presley gave to an interviewer in the 60s who asked him why he didn’t walk away from his film contract. Presley looked at her, took her in, and all he said in reply was, “‘Spect you’ve never been poor.”) In the 60s, his fan base was still so enormous, that all Presley needed to do, when all was said and done, was “show up”. This can be disheartening if you want a challenge, if you want to show what you can really do, if you want to stretch and grow, as Elvis Presley did. I sympathize entirely with his frustration. If something comes so easily to you, then boredom is a natural outgrowth of having to do it constantly.

The trick, though, the secret, is that very few people can show up at all.

You can look at the decade of the 60s as some tragic emasculation of this virile star. You can look at it as the breeding ground of boredom that made the 1968 comeback special so electrifying. Sure, you can try to fit it into a neat narrative if that’s your poison.

I, however, celebrate his willingness to show up. Or, willingness is not the right word. Because he did it automatically. It was in his nature from the beginning to show up. In whatever venue, whatever time, whatever place. He did it on July 5, 1954, and he did it throughout his life. He couldn’t do it any other way.

This is the very definition of talent.

I’ll let Hal Wallis have the last word:

I didn’t know about drugs. I knew him only as a happy, modest, clean-cut American boy. No matter what is said about him, that is what he will always be – in my memory.