Elvis Presley was “nervous as hell” as he prepared for the 1968 Christmas TV recording that he knew could be critical to his career. His hip-swivelling breakthrough long behind him, the singer had spent much of a decade making a succession of mostly terrible movies. “He was extremely unhappy with where his career had taken him,” the show’s producer revealed many years later. “He wasn’t sure if he could come back.”
He needn’t have worried: a tight leather two-piece, a circle of adoring female fans and a few of the old lip curls was all it took. The 1968 Comeback Special, as it would come to be known, almost singlehandedly jumpstarted Elvis’s career back into life.
