For a while, it looked like the singer had lost his Midas touch. But when he turned what was supposed to be a Christmas special into a searing reminder of his stage prowess, it would kickstart a third act for the King. We revisit the Elvis 1968 Comeback Special.
In 1968, Elvis Presley’s crown was slipping. He’d gone from being a guaranteed hit-making machine – with hordes of teenagers fainting at his shows – into a middling Hollywood presence whose movies were becoming more and more clichéd.
It wasn’t helped by the fact that his manager, the mysterious Colonel Tom Parker, was pushing the star into increasingly hackneyed roles. Elvis had longed to be a method actor like his idols James Dean and Marlon Brando. But the Colonel was more interested in a big payday than a great script, admitting as much in a 1964 Variety article. “We don’t have approval on scripts – only money,” he said of why his client was appearing in films bordering on the ridiculous. “Anyway, what does Elvis need? A couple of songs, a little story and some nice people with him.”
Elvis played along for a while. But when he was signed up for an NBC special by the Colonel – who wanted to stage a Christmas concert sponsored by the sewing machine company Singer, with a film later attached – for the first time in his career, Elvis would defy the man who controlled him.
It all began with his first meeting with the show’s producer, Bob Finkel. Bob had worked with other A-list stars including Eddie Fisher and Dinah Shore. And he knew that Elvis could do far more than don a Christmas jumper while singing standard carols.
Why didn’t they instead, he proposed, use this as a chance to revitalise Elvis’ singing career? At the time, The Beatles were the new shiny music stars; nobody talked about Elvis anymore. But Bob knew just the man who could turn his flagging career around: up-and-coming director Steve Binder, who was firmly tapped into the cultural Zeitgeist. And so Bob introduced the two men – a meeting that would make music history.
“[Elvis] sensed this was a make-or-break situation,” Steve would later say of their initial talk. “One of the first things he asked me was, ‘What do you think happens if I do this special and it bombs?’ And I said, ‘They’ll still remember your movies and your early hits, but that’ll be the end of your career in rock’n’roll.’ ”
It was a frightening thought for the man they called the King. He was also reluctant to address his current lack of relevancy. But after Steve gave him a challenge – to walk up Sunset Strip and see if anyone approached him – Elvis came around. Instead of being flooded with fans, he was left alone. Humiliated, Elvis agreed to do the special Steve’s way.
“It’s hard to put a finger on, but … he seemed to trust me more,” Steve recalled. “He was confident that I was on his side, whereas almost everybody else in his life was on Colonel Parker’s payroll. I’ve always felt strongly that everyone needs a Jiminy Cricket on their shoulder – and I was that for Elvis.”
And so the duo got to work, despite the Colonel’s furious objections.
Steve hired two writers, Chris Bearde and Allan Blye, who suggested that the show represent Elvis’ career through songs. While he progressed through them, the televised concert would also see him bantering with his musicians and the audience, and engaging in other informal and unscripted moments.
As rehearsals took place, Bob Finkel banned Elvis’ entourage from watching the singer at work. They were distracting, he argued, and were interfering with the creative process. As expected, Colonel Parker was incensed. But Elvis knew the team he was working with was onto something.
After Martin Luther King Jr’s assassination – an event Elvis was haunted by – the special’s musical director Billy Goldenberg and lyricist Walter Earl Brown wrote If I Can Dream. They proposed it take the place of the song Colonel Parker wanted to close the show with – a saccharine version of I’ll Be Home For Christmas.
The Colonel argued it wasn’t “Elvis’ kind of song”, but the singer himself had a very different reaction. He took to a microphone to “give it a shot”, moving those on set to tears at the magic of his rendition.
“Elvis never sung with so much emotion,” lyricist Walter recalled one stunned onlooker murmuring. “Looks like he means every word.”
If I Can Dream was in.
On June 20, Elvis began recording. The Colonel had promised he would handle ticket distribution, recruiting fans from across the country to sit down and watch Elvis perform his greatest hits live. Instead, he handed this task off to a security guard and promptly “forgot” about it.
When the day of filming arrived, Steve and Bob were livid to see only a few people lining up to see the star. Thinking quickly, they dashed across the road to a nearby restaurant to recruit a bigger audience and also put a last-minute call-out on the radio for people in the area to attend.
Needless to say, Elvis was spooked.
“He was very nervous because he hadn’t performed in years,” backup singer Darlene Love recently told Rolling Stone. “He had become a movie star and hoped the performance would be all right. He was very concerned about, ‘How do I look? Do I look all right?’ He was just like a normal person, but he was Elvis Presley. So how could you be normal?”
Dressed in the tightly fitting leather suit Steve had convinced him to wear, Elvis nervously paced the stage. But, as the show began, he relaxed. And there was not a single person on set that day who didn’t realise something magical was happening.
At his physical peak and not yet ravaged by the drug use that would haunt his later years, a tanned, toned 33-year-old Elvis reminded audiences of his sheer star power. He twitched his lip, swivelled his hips, effortlessly bantered with the people on set, and exuded the enthusiasm and energy that had made him a star all those years back.
When the special itself aired on December 3 – running at 50 minutes long and cut down from four hours of taping – it not only ranked first in the TV ratings, but 42 per cent of the available audience tuned in.
“It was a lot for him,” recalled Darlene, who would work with Elvis again in the 1969 movie Change of Habit. “He’d say, ‘How can this be a comeback, when you think about it. Come back? I’m here. I haven’t been anywhere.’”
When the soundtrack, Singer Presents … Elvis, was released later that month, it quickly went gold. It would be his biggest album in years.
And the man himself was reinvigorated. After the first live taping he told the Colonel in no uncertain terms that he wanted to start touring and recording original music again. January 1969 saw him lay down one of his signature tracks, Suspicious Minds. And the Colonel announced the star’s “comeback tour” – the start of “Vegas Elvis” and a third act in his gloried career.
Sadly, despite Elvis and Steve declaring they wanted to work together again, their relationship ended there.
“We were mirrors of each other,” Steve would reminisce. “We had the same internal fire, and were willing to put in the work. My whole experience with Elvis was positive, from the very first day I met him to the very last day we said goodbye, and I never saw or talked with him again.”
Where can I watch the Elvis 1968 comeback special?
You can stream Elvis Presley: ’68 Comeback Special now on Apple TV+ with a seven-day free trial. Subscribe here.
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