On Monday, April 23, 1956, a twenty-one-year-old and very nervous Elvis Presley made his Las Vegas debut as a special added attraction to the Freddy Martin show, which was performing at the New Frontier on the Las Vegas Strip. Recently catapulted to fame on the back of "Heartbreak Hotel" and an explosive appearance on NBC's "Milton Berle Show" that prompted near hysteria from the live audience of sailors and their dates on board the USS Hancock, those in-the-know expected this dynamic new talent to take Vegas by storm.
The New Frontier gig was a two-week run as the opening act for Martin, which local critics anticipated was to be the start of something big. They were correct, only their timing was off: Contrary to expectations, the debuting young heartthrob bombed massively before his conservative middle-aged audience. As a reviewer in the Las Vegas Sun put it: "The brash, loud braying of his rhythm and blues catalog which albeit rocketed him to the big time, is overbearing to a captive audience." Las Vegas, evidently, was not yet ready for Elvis Presley.
Thus ended, somewhat unceremoniously, Elvis' first flirtation with Sin City, but he was back in 1963 to film Viva Las Vegas with Ann-Margret. Elvis again hit the headlines here in May, 1967, this time on account of his marriage to child bride Priscilla Beaulieu at the former Aladdin (since imploded and reincarnated as Planet Hollywood), but he didn't again take to stage in Las Vegas (or anyplace else) until August 1, 1969, when he broke an eight-year live-performance hiatus, commencing a four-week sold-out run at the brand new International Hotel, the night after the property debuted with Barbra Streisand. Owned and built by billionaire casino mogul Kirk Kerkorian, when it opened the International was the largest hotel in the world.
Elvis' return turned out to be nothing short of triumphant. He was greeted with all the pomp and circumstance of a Roman emperor, by the sound of it, making his grand entrance in a motorcade of 20 limousines, while loud speakers outside the resort declared: "Folks, today you are seeing history being made. Elvis Presley has arrived in town and he's here to stay. Las Vegas will never be the same again."
The reviews this time around were somewhat in contrast to the performer's best-forgotten debut, with a different critic from the same local publication now delivering a positively gushing description of the opening media night, which he termed "an evening of extreme worship ... before a select throng of invitees from the press, Hollywood, and local VIPs," plus the fans "who all but threw themselves into the isles."
It was more than enough to trigger a long-term contract with the International that saw The King performing two shows a night, seven nights a week, for weeks-on-end stints at the resort that would change hands in 1970 and be renamed the Las Vegas Hilton the following year. The so-called "International Years" ran from 1970-'76, with Elvis the "must-see" Las Vegas show that consistently rendered tickets a hot commodity, in spite of the extended runs. On the contrary, Elvis continued to break attendance records, time after time.
Such was his pulling power that back in the early '70s, his host property was prepared to pay the star $100,000 per week -- approximately $2 million today -- not to mention the perks that included, in the beginning, $10,000 a day in gambling chips (the casino was safe, since Elvis' Southern Baptist beliefs prevented him from hitting the tables).
The flipside of the fame and fortune, however, was the rapid breakdown of any kind of "normal" life and an associated disintegration of first Elvis, the Man, and then Elvis, the Performer.
For eight years, suite 3000 on the 30th floor of the Hilton was effectively his only home. (When not performing in Las Vegas, Elvis was mainly on tour somewhere else, never stopping, instead pushing himself to greater extremes.) The result was inevitable, with the relentless schedule and the collapse of his personal life together proving to be too much for the star, who imploded under the pressure, boredom, monotony, and loneliness of his megastar lifestyle.
As Elvis' dependency on prescription drugs intensified, so too did the deterioration of his health. Toward the end of 1973 the star spent three days in a coma in his hotel suite, following a barbiturate overdose; before the end of the same year he'd be hospitalized for the effects of his addiction to Demerol. As one observer put it, "He got used to taking downers to sleep and speed to get him up and that cycle got worse and worse." Elvis was a regular at Village East Side Drugs (5025 S. Eastern) and White Cross Drugs (1700 Las Vegas Blvd. South); neither pharmacy is in operation anymore, but the buildings are still there to be seen -- unlike their famous customer.
The depression and drug-dependency went hand-in-hand with the disintegration of the once-lithe and infamously gyrating performer's physique: Elvis was obliged to remain seated half the time during his later performances, as the weight piled on and the costumes grew both larger and more outrageous. His state of mind was none too healthy, either: We read an account of one concert in 1974 during which Elvis' frustration got the better of him in a public outburst. Amid the swirling rumors regarding his escalating drug habit, the performer lashed out live on stage, unleashing a string of expletives and promising to break the neck and pull out the tongue of the culprit(s), if he found them. Finally at the end of his rope, in 1976, after 837 sold-out shows over an eight-year run, Elvis Presley severed his ties with the Las Vegas Hilton, packed up his rhinestones, and returned home to Graceland.
In the midst of all this, Elvis' marriage to Priscilla had broken down and ended in divorce, a blow from which those close to him say the performer never recovered. While he continued to undertake ever-more demanding tour schedules, by early 1977, "Elvis had become a grotesque caricature of his sleek energetic former self. Hugely overweight, his mind dulled by the pharmacopoeia he daily ingested, he was barely able to pull himself through his abbreviated concerts," as one writer put it. To anyone paying attention, it can have come as no huge surprise when, on the afternoon of August 16, 1977 -- the date on which he was scheduled to fly out from Memphis to embark on yet another tour -- a bloated Elvis was found unresponsive on his bathroom floor. At 3:30 p.m., at the age of just 42, the so-called "King of Rock and Roll" was pronounced dead.
While his relationship with Las Vegas may have had its ups and downs, Elvis' sheer star power and unwavering fan base, coupled with the performer's loyalty to the city and his huge role in helping to crown Las Vegas as the "entertainment capital of the world," is a formula that's assured him an enduring spot close to the heart of a city that's renowned for its lack of sentimentality. The Elvis-A-Rama Museum may be history, along with any once-dreamed-of plans for an Elvis-themed casino, but you'll find Elvis commemorated not only with a statue outside what is now LVH, a star in our Walk of Fame, and roads with names like "Elvis Presley Street" and "Elvis Alive Drive," but also by an annual fan pilgrimage and festival to celebrate his birthday, not to mention a whole industry of look-alikes, from tribute acts to sky divers to marriage officiates. Perhaps his biggest legacy is the fact that we have counted no less than 42 different cover versions of the iconic anthem he has bequeathed to his sometime home, with "Viva Las Vegas" having been recorded by everyone from Ann-Margret to ZZ Top (see Question of the Day 8/31/2007 in the Archives.
