ELVIS ON HIS LIFE AND CAREER AFTER THE ARMY

Q: What are your plans now that you’re leaving the army?

EP: Well, the first thing I plan to do naturally is to go home. And then after that I have a television show with Frank Sinatra some time the later part of April, then I start work on the picture GI BLUES for Paramount, Mr. Wallis, and then after that I have two pictures with 20th Century Fox, and after that Heaven knows, I don’t know.

Q: Have you recorded while you’re in the service?

EP: No, I haven’t.

Q: Not one tune?

EP: No, I was home on leave at the end of basic training I made two records but since that time I’ve done nothing, nothing at all in the line of show business.

Q: Where did you spend most of your leave time?

EP: In Paris. I went to Paris. I was in Paris twice. Once for 10 days and another time for 6 days.

Q: What do you remember most about those trips?

EP: (Whistles) Well, I’ll tell you it’s a gay town, I mean, if you like, you know, nightlife, and everything. I went over there to see some of the shows and you know, to get a touch of the old life, you know, a little bit.

Q: How much time have you spent while in the service on maneuvers?

EP: I couldn’t give you an exact number of days, but I would imagine about half the time we were over here.

Q: While were you in the field, were you bothered by reporters?

EP: No, not really. The army PO came out and took some you know training shots.

Q: Do press conferences bother you at all?

EP: No, they don’t bother you, it’s pretty interesting. I get a big thrill out of a press conference because you have all these different people there with different questions you know and they’re popping them to you like a district attorney and you’re sitting there like you’re on trial for something. They ask you is it true that on the night of so and so you were in so and so. Is it true that this girl that did that and you did this (laughs). And actually it makes me stutter, you know, because I have to think on all the questions in order to give them a sensible question, I have to think. And when they’re popping them to you so fast well I’m just saying "ah ah ah ah" like that you know.

Q: Do they upset you?

EP: Oh no. You get used to it after a while.

Q: While you’ve been in the service, the record market has changed some, hasn’t it?

EP: You mean the styles of music? That I couldn’t tell you. I won’t until I can get back. I’ve heard reports, I’ve read reports about the record industry, about what’s happening to the music, this is dying out, that is dying out this is finished, but actually I don’t know. I was reading the same thing in 1955 and that was the big beginning of the whole thing.

Q: What are your plans to sell another 45 million records, Elvis?

EP: I never make a statement like that, to tell you the truth, because I don’t know. In the entertainment business the future is very uncertain. You never know, you can only try. So I’m only going to say I’ll try to continue to please the people enough that they you know keep liking me and keep interested. As far as actually knowing what the future holds for me, I have no idea.

Q: Will you do anything to try to attract and older audience?

EP: My type of music – I say my type of music, I mean the kind of records that I’ve been making -- they don’t seem to appeal to the older people like they do the young people. But you’d be surprised by the older people who do like that type of music. And as far as making more of them like me, it’s almost impossible to make everybody like you. You can’t please them all – regardless if I change my style and started singing something that maybe would appeal to the older people I might lose something else, there fore you just have to let time to take care of itself.

Q: And I take it you are not planning on changing your style?

EP: I’ll be foolish to change to my style unless I was told to do so by the public themselves. In other words if I just took it on my own and said I’m going to change my style, I think I’d be making a bad mistake. If the people become disinterested in you or they get tired of whatever you’re doing, they’ll let you know.

Q: Earlier you mentioned GI Blues, when do you do the film?

EP: I can’t give you an official date, it’s after the Sinatra show, which is sometime around the first of May.

Q: And who will be in it?

EP: I don’t think they’ve picked a costar yet, not to my knowledge. They haven’t?

Q: Do you know what part you’ll play.

EP: No I don’t. I haven’t seen the script yet.

Q: Oh I see. You then perhaps haven’t had a chance to contribute your own ideas?

EP: No, not yet, You do that in the filming of the picture.

Q: European tour in 60 or 61?

EP: I’m not saying yes or no, actually that’s not my end of the business. That’s the manager’s end of it. But I would like to very much because this is all a new market for me.

Q: You’d rather be out in the field with the boys rather than perhaps entertaining in a service club somewhere?

EP: Oh yeah sure. I was in a funny position. Actually that's the only way it could be people were expecting me to mess up, to goof up in one way or another. They thought I couldn't take it and so forth. And I was determined to go to any limits to prove otherwise. Not only to the people who were wondering, but to myself.

ELVIS ON LIFE JUST BEFORE BLUE HAWAII