You’d think that being with Elvis would mean free live performances by the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll, but, for Priscilla Presley, it took years before she saw her husband sing live in front of an audience. When she finally witnessed him on stage, it was one of the most iconic performances of his career: the ’68 Comeback Special. The performance greatly impacted Elvis’s career, leading him back to what he loved to do most, which was perform live.
Seeing Elvis perform for the first time
Despite having met each other in 1959, it wasn’t until nine years into their relationship that Priscilla Presley saw Elvis perform. The first time she saw him live on-stage was at the taping of his iconic ’68 Comeback Special, which debuted later that year, on December 3, 1968.
“You see all the girls lined up, all the fans going nuts, and I’m looking at this going, ‘Wow,'” Presley explained in an interview with PEOPLE. “And he’d take his scarf off his neck and he’d give it to someone right there by the stage, and they would go crazy. It was really a treat. It was a trip, a great trip.”
This King himself was nervous about the performance, according to Presley, who revealed, “He was nervous because he hadn’t appeared [on stage] in so long. People would think, ‘How could he be nervous? He’s Elvis Presley.’ He was very nervous, but he did his homework. He would go and rehearse and rehearse and rehearse.”
Colonel Tom Parker took Elvis away from what he loved
The reason Elvis was so nervous was because it had been a long time since he’d last performed live. In fact, it had been about seven years since his last live performance.
At first, this was because he was drafted into the US Army, but, following his return to America in 1960, his manager, Colonel Tom Parker, had him doing other things. Particularly, he had Elvis locked into a multi-year movie contract for films he didn’t want to make. Most of the scripts Elvis was being offered were disappointing, and his longtime friend, Jerry Schilling, saw his frustration with them first-hand.
“One day he was reading a script, and he threw it across the room and said, ‘I’m not doing this,'” Schilling said in the 2024 Netflix docuseries about the iconic television special, Return of the King: The Fall and Rise of Elvis Presley. “The Colonel loved Elvis and vice versa, but Elvis outgrew the Colonel.”
Priscilla Presley confirmed this, saying, “Colonel did not get him really at all. That was hard for both Jerry and I, but you couldn’t say anything to Colonel. You just had to keep quiet.”
Watching a scene from 1967’s Double Trouble, when Elvis had to sing the children’s song “Old MacDonald Had a Farm,” Presley said, “That, to me, is a crime. It is a crime. To put him in that situation and sing that song. It made him a laughingstock. And he knew it.”
The ’68 Comeback Special changed things for Elvis
When the time came for the ’68 Comeback Special, the Colonel was pushing Elvis to do a more family-friendly version. This didn’t work for the King, who decided to return to his rock ‘n’ roll roots, instead.
“The Colonel, he came from the old school where he wanted Elvis to be Bing Crosby doing a Christmas Special, rather than doing a sexy rock and roll gospel, like the ’68 special,” Jerry Schilling explained. Elvis’ intuition was right, as it went on to become NBC’s highest-rated show for the year, much to his surprise.
“He did not know what the public was going to think of that,” Schilling continued. “It wasn’t until we saw it live on television with the rest of America that he realized it was good. Phone calls started coming in from special people he knew, and that was the first time he really relaxed and knew it was good. He was beaming at that point. That led to everything after.”
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The ’68 Comeback Special was a turning point for Elvis, pivoting him back to doing what he loved most: performing live. From then on, he dedicated himself to it, right up until his death in 1977, at the age of 42.