Elvis Presley’s last years had been marked by private {and professional} turmoil, with sloppy, drug-fueled performances that confirmed a legend in decline. But on Jan. 14, 1973, the King loved one final indeniable second of greatness when he staged his triumphant Aloha From Hawaii Via Satellite stay live performance broadcast.
After a seven-year hiatus from performing, Presley made a wonderful return to the stage together with his 1968 comeback particular. He kicked off a Las Vegas residency at the brand-new International Hotel the next summer time, and he toured the United States over the following a number of years.
Presley additionally obtained a number of profitable provides to carry out abroad however his supervisor, Colonel Tom Parker, shot them down, ludicrously claiming there weren’t massive sufficient venues to host him. The fact was that Parker, a Dutch-born undocumented immigrant, didn’t have a passport and didn’t need Presley to journey overseas with out him. As Presley elevated his drug consumption, Parker additionally doubted his star’s bodily health and frightened that he wouldn’t be capable to preserve any drug-related mishaps out of the press.
If Parker wouldn’t convey Presley to worldwide audiences, then he would do the following neatest thing: convey worldwide audiences to Presley. In mid-1972, the Colonel started arranging a live performance at Hawaii’s Honolulu International Center that will be broadcast world wide through satellite tv for pc.
Parker, a world-class propagandist, touted it as the primary leisure particular to be broadcast worldwide, and a press launch from RCA Records boasted that the particular could be seen by an “audience in excess of 1 billion people.” Both claims had been doubtful.
In actuality, the particular was solely broadcast stay in roughly three dozen international locations all through Asia and Oceania, whose cumulative populations totaled about 1.3 billion individuals. (It aired with a delay in Europe, and it did not air in the United States till that April.) Aloha From Hawaii additionally wasn’t the primary internationally broadcast leisure particular, because the 1967 Our World program predated it by practically six years. It was, nevertheless, the primary stay satellite tv for pc broadcast to characteristic a single performer.
Watch Elvis Presley Perform ‘My Way’ in ‘Aloha From Hawaii’
Inflated claims however, Aloha From Hawaii Via Satellite was nonetheless a momentous event for Presley, who needed to be in tip-top form for the efficiency. Producer and director Marty Pasetta minced no phrases in his assembly with the King, the place he outlined his imaginative and prescient for the present.
“I said, ‘I went to see you per NBC’s request in Santa Monica,’” Pasetta recalled years later. “‘Your music is outstanding, but let me tell you something: You weren’t exciting. It was boring – and I don’t know what I am going to do with you for an hour and a half, but I have an idea.’”
Pasetta then offered drawings of the stage, whereas Presley’s bodyguards “took out two silver-plated guns and put them on the table.” His title could be lit up in neon within the language of each nation the place the particular was set to air, together with a runway flanked by ladies carrying leis. But first, Pasetta mentioned Presley needed to drop pounds.
“He jumped up. And I said, ‘If you do all this, we’re going to have a good show,’” Pasetta remembered. “He threw his hat and glasses away, left his coat and ran over to me, grabbed me [and] hugged me. And he said, ‘You’re the first person who’s been honest with me.’ He said he would lose weight, and he lost 25 pounds. We became lasting friends until the day he died.”
Pasetta’s predictions proved true. Presley took the stage shortly after midnight on Jan. 14, 1973, earlier than an viewers of roughly 6,000 followers who had donated to the Kui Lee Cancer Fund as a result of Parker couldn’t cost a televised viewers for admission. The King’s 22-song set checklist featured early classics and covers comparable to “Hound Dog” and “Blue Suede Shoes,” latter-day hits like “Burning Love” and “Suspicious Minds” and thunderous renditions of “My Way” and “Can’t Help Falling in Love.”
The accompanying Aloha From Hawaii stay album, launched the next month, gave Presley his final Billboard chart-topper and finally offered 5 million copies within the U.S. The particular marked the final time Presley was actually on prime of the world and in charge of his talents. Even if it seemingly wasn’t seen by wherever close to 1 billion individuals, it was an unquestionable victory for the King.
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