Here at the Brooklyn POE where Elvis Presley,
Private Elvis Presley of the United States Army,
is due to embark for Germany today.
And let me tell you just a little of what the hubbub is like here.
We've been,
as I say,
waiting for the past two hours for Presley to come in.
There was some delay with his train.
And he has just stepped off an elevator,
which has brought him up from the lower level,
where many of his fellow embarkees have been
preparing to go aboard the General Randall,
the ship that he will take over to Germany.
Now Elvis moves over and is going to sit down behind the desk.
The microphones will be brought in.
More pictures will be taken.
Elvis apparently enjoying the whole thing very much.
He's been in smiles since he walked into the room.
Ma'am?
What are your medals for?
What are your medals for?
Uh,
is it all right to stand up, sir?
These medals right here, ma'am, are for
an expert
with a carbine rifle and also tank weapons.
Also what?
Tank weapons.
Tank weapons.
That's a 90 millimeter gun.
No, no, no.
Not getting any of that.
Oh, excuse me.
And this one right here I didn't do quite as well.
This is a pistol.
I got a sharpshooter with it.
Yes,
sir.
That's right.
Do you speak any German at all?
Do you speak any German, someone asks.
No, ma'am, I don't.
Do you have time to learn a little bit?
I probably have to in order to survive in Germany.
What does the A in your name stand for?
Aaron.
Gentleman over here.
Elvis,
what was the author of the book you were carrying
when you got off the train?
I had just gotten the book, sir.
I don't know.
Somebody gave it to you as a gift.
One of the boys gave it to me on the train.
The title of the book was Poems That Touch the Heart.
Did it touch your heart?
Have you had a chance to read it?
Yes, ma'am.
I read a couple of poems in it.
I read one in particular called Should You Go First,
which is a beautiful poem.
Do you prefer poetry to short stories?
Yes, ma'am, I do.
By whom the poem was?
The author was unknown in the poem.
Elvis,
is your dad going to Germany early after the same time?
Yes, ma'am.
He is supposed to leave, I think, on the 26th.
My
grandmother and one of the boys that
used to work for us is going too.
I'd like to thank the Brown and Pequod.
We have lots of fun pens there.
Do you have any...do you like to go to Germany?
I know you have no choice, but...
All over Europe.
It's very big.
Do they have still very active groups that
you hear about even though you're in service?
Yes, sir.
In fact,
I think my fan club has probably doubled.
Since you've been in?
Yes, sir.
That's amazing.
And the mail almost drove everybody crazy at Fort Hood.
What happened to all that mail?
It was all sent to Colonel Parker to be answered in Nashville.
How many letters do you guys say now?
How many fan mail letters do you get?
Well,
sir,
I suppose I get probably 15,000 letters a week.
15,000 a week?
Yes, sir.
Do you expect to get a chance to send over to Germany at all?
Well, sir, I don't know.
I really don't.
Do you hope to?
Actually, it's a pretty tough question.
So far,
I've just been soldiering and I've been doing very well at it.
I don't know exactly what they have planned for me.
March 24, 1960. Yes, sir.
With your career going while you're in the Army,
won't you get sort of press conferences,
you know,
as a paramount style and all that,
while you're in Europe?
I would imagine that there'll be quite
a few people from the press over there.
I really don't know.
I don't know how it's going to be handled over there,
you know.
Thomas,
at the time you entered the service,
I think it was Colonel Parker who said that
the federal government was going to lose
money by taking you into the service,
meaning,
of
course, income tax.
Did you share that sentiment with him?
Well, I'll put it like this.
I've paid a lot of income tax and all that.
Although the government
has a lot of money,
I hope.
Well,
it'd be out of uniform.
I can't take the hat off.
You can take it off.
You had a rougher time in the first day of the war,
later.
Some of them wouldn't look good in print, sir.
Now,
most people have a song that they start listening to.
Do you have a favorite song?
My favorite song is a song called Padre.
Are you familiar with it by Tony Arden?
And also,
You'll Never Walk Alone was always one of my very favorites.
Now,
was it your high school or the ROTC,
did you do any gun time in the army?
Yes, ma'am, I definitely did.
I knew my left leg from my right one at F.
Did the cover guard that you lost at Tewens High
School in Memphis give you any going away presents?
Was there a war or a civil war before that?
Your family's been here a long time.
Were any of your ancestors in the Civil War or the Revolutionary War?
Let me see.
On which side?
Let's see.
Do you still have your four Cadillacs?
Three, no, sir.
Pink and the black?
I traded one for a Lincoln, sir.
Are you going to take any of your cars with you?
I'll get a German.
When in Germany, do as the Germans do.
I'll probably get a German car.
Sir, do you have one on any basis?
I had one.
I gave it away, sir.
How does it compete with your non-inspector service?
Ma'am, I don't know.
It's not your choice.
You know what else?
Well, I haven't said anything.
I mean,
I guess the army knows what's best for me.
What kind of work do they have you doing?
Well,
for about 18 weeks, I was in the tanks.
I was a tank commander.
And then
the last few
weeks I was there, well, I was a truck driver.
I drove a truck.
All right,
Elvis,
if I could roll a diet option between
now and the time you got out of the
service.
I'll starve to death, sir.
Was there a question back there?
I beg your pardon, sir.
If rock and roll music were to die out,
which I don't think it will,
I would try something else.
I would really probably go in for the movies then.
I would try to make it as an actor,
which is very tough because you've got a lot of competition.
Elvis,
are you surprised that you're as big a
success and a lasting success as you are now?
Did you think it was going to turn out this well?
I didn't know, sir.
I was hoping,
but I just took every day as it come along.
I didn't anticipate that I was going to do well
or I didn't anticipate I was going to die out.
How many gold records do you have instead of that?
25, sir.
25?
Yes, sir.
That's the tops, isn't it, in the business?
Eight.
Sir, they're behind time.
I have 25 million sellers and two albums that have sold
a million each.
In fact, the RCA Victor men are here.
They can verify that.
Isn't that
right?
Mr. Schultz is right, Danny.
They've all disappeared, sir.
Isn't that right, Mr. Schultz?
The gentleman with the red badge over there.
Are you on furlough in Germany, Elvis?
I understand that's a privilege of all Army personnel.
Are you planning to make any records
while you're on furlough in Germany?
I understand that's a privilege of all Army personnel.
No, sir, I don't.
I don't think so.
On the rock and roll, Elvis,
do you think that it's a developing form of music?
In other words,
will it stay like it is or do you think it may change its form?
There's been criticism of the wiggle angle on that.
Do you think it's going to straighten
out or something like that?
You know what I mean.
Sir, the wiggle can't straighten out.
The wiggle can't straighten out, sir.
If you do,
you're finished.
Five more minutes, gentlemen.
That's like a guy down in Fort Hood.
Get the questions in that your editors want.
Well,
one of the sergeants one day,
I was sitting down on my footlocker and my left
leg was shaking.
I mean, just unconsciously.
He said, President, I wish you'd quit shaking
that leg.
I said,
Sarge,
when that leg quit shaking,
I'm finished.
You've probably seen that your fans brought
down a ceiling in London when King Creole
was showing last week.
Do you plan to go to England at all on furlough from Germany?
I would like to if I can make it on a three-day pass.
Hold a second.
What would you like to do the most in your first day in Europe?
I'd like to go to Paris
and look up Brigitte Bardot.
Gentleman over here,
do you have a question?
How many things in all do you say to
your many admirers before going overseas?
Any farewells or anything like that?
Well, yes, sir, I would.
I'd like to say that I'm going to do my best to keep
putting out the records and everything that they enjoy.
And I'll be looking forward to coming
back and entertaining them again.
Do you have any records cut that are not released?
Yes, ma'am, I do.
How many?
I have two.
Or is it three?
I know it's four.
Can you tell me what you think of
O'Mahony and his new Italian single?
Oh,
well,
I went out and bought the record when I first heard it.
I think it's great.
Do you think you might record something like that?
Me record an Italian song?
I don't know if I could cut the mustard.
While you were in the service,
did you plan to take advantage of any of the educational
benefits given by the armed services,
such as OSAC?
Well,
I have thought a lot about the different
types of school the Army has to offer.
And
I do know for a fact that a lot of fellows
have gone through the service and benefited
out of civilian life.
After they come out of the service,
a lot of guys that had nothing
prior to the time they went in,
and they go in service,
and they take some kind of
a schooling for maybe a year or two years.
And when they come out of the Army, well,
they're qualified for a good job.
Now,
it doesn't hurt for anybody to have a profession
to turn to in case something did happen to the
entertainment business or something happened
to me.
I don't know exactly yet what kind of
a school that I would like to go to.
On the trip here on the train from wherever you took off from,
from Fort Hood to here in Brooklyn,
you must have had some time to yourself.
What did you think about?
Well, there were 350 guys on the train with me.
They didn't give me much time to think.
You know,
the boys come around and they talk,
and they want to know about Hollywood,
and they want to know about different things,
making movies and things.
We were pretty well kept occupied.
I don't like to sit alone too much and think.
Have you formed any real close buddies in the service,
or friendships that you've been in?
Yes, sir.
I've got quite a few buddies in there.
Elton, did you ever go to college?
Right at the time,
we didn't have enough money to go to college.
I would have liked to have gone.
Would you like to go back?
It's according to what the future holds for me.