Hollywood years

In 1956, following his rise to stardom as a singer, Presley launched a parallel career as a film actor, beginning with the musical western, Love Me Tender. It was panned by the critics but did well at the box office. The original title—The Reno Brothers—was changed because of the advanced sales of the song Love Me Tender. The majority of Presley's films were musical comedies made to sell records and produce high revenues. He also appeared in dramatic films with musical interludes, like Jailhouse Rock and King Creole. To maintain box office success, he even shifted into beefcake formula comedy mode for a few years. He also made one non-musical western, Charro!.

Presley was a big movie fan. Interviewed while in the Army, he said on many occasions that more than anything, he wanted to be taken seriously as a dramatic actor. His manager, with an eye on long-term earnings, negotiated a multi-picture seven-year contract with Hal Wallis. The contract gave Presley a fee for each role and a percentage of any profits.

The singer withdrew from concerts and television appearances, except for The Frank Sinatra Timex Show: Welcome Home Elvis (1960) and three charity concerts (two in Memphis and one in Pearl Harbor, 1961). Although Presley was praised by directors, like Michael Curtiz, as polite and hardworking (and as having an exceptional memory for both his and the other actors' lines), he was definitely not the most talented actor around. The Presley vehicles, and the AIP beach movies (mainly made for an early sixties teenage audience) were generally viewed by critics as a pantheon of bad taste. The scripts of his movies were all the same, the songs progressively worse. Others noted that the songs seemed to be written on order by men who never really understood Elvis or rock and roll. For Blue Hawaii and its soundtrack LP, fourteen songs were cut in just three days. Julie Parrish, who appeared in Paradise, Hawaiian Style, says that Presley hated such songs and that he couldn't stop laughing while he was recording one of them. Critics would later claim that No major star suffered through more bad movies than Elvis Presley.

Presley movies were nevertheless popular, and he became a film genre of his own. Elvis on celluloid was the only chance to see him in the absence of live appearances, especially outside of the U.S. (The only time he ever toured outside of the U.S. was in Canada in 1957). His Blue Hawaii even boosted the new state's tourism. Some of his most enduring and popular songs came from those [kind of] movies, like Can't Help Falling in Love, Return to Sender and Viva Las Vegas. His films during the 1960s had grossed about $130 million, and he had sold a hundred million records, which had made $150 million.'

In 1964, Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole had starred in Hal Wallis' Becket. To Presley's anger and dismay, Wallis admitted to the press that the financing of such quality productions was only possible by making the commercially successful Presley vehicles. He branded Wallis a double-dealing sonofabitch (and he thought little better of Tom Parker), realizing there had never been any intention to let him develop into a serious actor.

Presley was one of the highest paid actors during the 1960s, but times were changing. [The] Elvis Presley film was becoming pass?. Young people were tuning in, dropping out and doing acid. Musical acts like The Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead, The Doors, Janis Joplin and many others were dominating the airwaves. Elvis Presley was not considered cool as he once was. Priscilla Presley recalled: He blamed his fading popularity on his humdrum movies and ... loathed their stock plots and short shooting schedules. She also noted: He could have demanded better, more substantial scripts, but he didn't.

Presley made his final acting appearance in the 1969 release Change of Habit. His last two films were concert documentaries in the early 1970s, although Presley reportedly continued to consider dramatic movie roles.

In spite of the formulaic movie songs of the 1960s, Presley did make noteworthy studio recordings, including Suspicion, (You're The) Devil in Disguise and It Hurts Me. In 1966 he recorded a cover of Bob Dylan's Tomorrow is a Long Time (which RCA relegated to bonus track status on the soundtrack album for Spinout). He also produced two gospel albums: His Hand in Mine (1960) and How Great Thou Art (1966), the latter winning Presley his first Grammy award. In 1967 he recorded some well-received singles in collaboration with songwriter/guitar player Jerry Reed, including Reed's Guitar Man.