Biography

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1958 - 1965

March 25, 1961
Elvis arrives in Hawaii for a press conference, then an evening concert at Bloch Arena at Pearl Harbor. He is there to perform a benefit to help fund the building of the USS Arizona Memorial. Hundreds of fans mob the airport as he arrives. His show raises around $62,000 for the memorial. The event also helps bring publicity and public awareness and support to the project. The fund-raising efforts, for the most part, had been difficult up to this point. The rest of the needed funds are soon raised, and the memorial is completed a year later. Elvis receives numerous official honors in appreciation for this benefit. This turns out to be Elvis’ last live, non-movie performance until his 1968 television special.

Late March/Mid- April, 1961
Elvis remains in Hawaii to do location filming for his eighth motion picture, Blue Hawaii, having already done soundtrack recording. Later, there is additional filming to be done back in Hollywood for this film. With this second and longer visit, Hawaii would become one of Elvis’ lifelong favorite places to vacation.

June 22, 1961
Wild in the Country, co-starring Hope Lange, Millie Perkins and Tuesday Weld, opens nationally to mixed reviews. Like Flaming Star it is a melodrama with limited singing by Elvis. It, too, does not set the box office on fire. Also in June the album “Something For Everybody” was shipped. It would hit the charts in July staying for 25 weeks and spending 3 of those weeks at #1.

July - August, 1961
Elvis records and films for his ninth motion picture, Follow That Dream. Filming includes some location shooting in Florida.

September 1961
Elvis spends the month vacationing in Las Vegas.

October, 1961
The soundtrack album for Blue Hawaii enters the Billboard chart for a year-and-a-half run, staying at number one for twenty weeks, second only to "GI Blues" as the biggest album of Elvis’ career on the Billboard charts. It also yields a number two single destined to become an Elvis classic, Can’t Help Falling in Love.

Scatter has joined the entourage at this point.

Non-movie-related recordings and hit records have continued through this period, with Good Luck Charm hitting number one in 1962, his last number one pop hit until Suspicious Minds in 1969.

October/November, 1961
Elvis records and films for his tenth motion picture, Kid Galahad, completing it on December 20, 1961.

November 22, 1961
Blue Hawaii opens nationally to warm reviews and in the short time left in 1961 hit #18 on the box office charts for the year 1961 and #14 for the year 1962. It becomes the top-grossing film of Elvis’ career thus far. Its characteristics of a non-cerebral plot, lavish scenery, lots of songs by Elvis, and lots of pretty girls become the basis for the “Presley formula” movies of the sixties, though most of them will not be nearly so well done.

December 1961
Other than his time spent in the army, this is the only Christmas Elvis will spend away from Graceland. He will spend 12/22/61 – 1/29/62 in Las Vegas.

January 1962
Elvis has a new RCA contract that runs until 1966. He also celebrates his 27th. birthday.

March 12, 1962
Elvis Purchases a 1962 Dodge House Car complete with air conditioning, a double bed, two bunks and a kitchen. He plans to have George Barris customize it and to use it to drive back and forth to California.

May 23,1962
Follow That Dream opens nationally and gets to number five on the box office charts. It is warmly reviewed and does fairly well in sales.

March 26 - June 11, 1962
Elvis records and films in Hollywood, and does location filming in Hawaii for his eleventh motion picture, Girls! Girls! Girls!.

June 17 - July 1, 1962
The now 17 years old, Priscilla visits Elvis from Germany. It will be the first time they see each other since Elvis left Germany over two years before. They spend the time in Las Vegas.

August 28, 1962
Elvis records and films for his twelfth motion picture, It Happened at the World’s Fair. Shooting is both in Hollywood and on location at the World’s Fair in Seattle.

August 29, 1962
Kid Galahad opens nationally and does relatively well with a brief stay in the top ten on the box office chart.

October 1962
In Mexico, riot behavior in a theater showing GI Blues prompts the Mexican government to ban Elvis movies. Torn seats, broken windows, and other damage is reported.

November 11, 1962
Elvis is released when he finishes recording It Happened at the World’s Fair.

November 21, 1962
Girls! Girls! Girls! opens and lands at on the #6 Variety chart and #31 for the year. Soundtrack album goes to #3 and the single "Return to Sender" hits #2. (In the year 1962 his movies are Blue Hawaii #14, Girls! Girls! Girls! #31 and Kid Galahad #37 for the year in box office.)

December 19 1962 - January 11, 1963
Priscilla visits Elvis for the holidays in Memphis.

January 21 - March 22, 1963
Elvis records and films for his thirteenth film, another “formula” movie, Fun i\In Acapulco. Priscilla moves to Memphis in early March 1963, while Elvis was in Hollywood filming Fun In Acapulco. She graduates from high school on May 29, 1963, five days after turning 18 years old on May 24,1963.

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