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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
Entertainment
Jim Farber

Baz Luhrmann: ‘There’s the image of Elvis and then there’s the man’

‘Much as I try, I have never been able to follow the system. I have to tell the story my own way’ … Baz Luhrmann
‘Much as I try, I have never been able to follow the system. I have to tell the story my own way’ … Baz Luhrmann. Photograph: Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images for IMDb

In the spring of 1972, a film crew trailed Elvis Presley everywhere he went to capture a pivotal moment in his career – his first tour in nearly a decade. Ironically, one of the most crucial things that happened during that project occurred way off camera. “We really wanted to get an interview with Elvis on film,” said Jerry Schilling, a confidant and employee of the King who at that time was working for the company behind the movie. “But he was tired when we were going to do it and for whatever reason we never wound up getting anything on camera.”

They did, however, get Presley to talk casually on tape for about 40 minutes, during which he said things he never put on record before. That was enough to raise concerns for his notoriously censorious manager, Colonel Tom Parker, who insured that little of that talk saw the light of day during his lifetime.

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