Presleys in the Press

Yet this building is more important for Elvis today than Graceland itself. It houses the headquarters of Elvis Presley Enterprises Inc. The business of EPE and its nearly 500 employees, says president and CEO Jack Soden, is to ''protect the integrity of the legacy.''

Do you want to use Elvis's image for commercial purposes? License his name? Play music he bought the publishing rights to? This is where the requests get approved. More important, this is where the royalty payments get sent. ''In every respect, they do an excellent job, all the way from the director of the organization down to the gentlemen who run the tour [at Graceland],'' says Roger Richman, a Los Angeles attorney who heads an agency that represents the estates of deceased celebrities. ''I always used to joke [EPE's] mission statement was `Don't screw it up,' '' Soden says. ''Because it's got a life of its own, and the only thing dramatic we could do would be to mess it up.''

EPE hasn't messed it up. Forbes magazine estimates the company earned $37 million in fiscal year 2002. (No exact figure is available: EPE, a privately held corporation owned by Elvis's daughter, Lisa Marie Presley, doesn't make its records public.) According to Forbes, Elvis earned more than any other dead celebrity during that time; by contrast, the estate of ''Peanuts'' cartoonist Charles Schulz, the runner-up, took in $28 million.

Aug. 16 was the 25th anniversary of Elvis's death, and some 75,000 fans descended on Memphis to observe the occasion. Six Elvis songs appeared on the soundtrack of the hit Disney animated feature ''Lilo & Stitch.'' A remixed version of Elvis's 1968 recording ''A Little Less Conversation'' became a worldwide No. 1 hit. (Tellingly, the remix originated with a Nike ad, an example of Elvis's continuing appeal to marketers.) An even bigger success was ''30 No. 1 Hits,'' a compilation album that shipped some 9 million units worldwide and hit No. 1 in 26 countries.

Such successes might be attributed to the anniversary. But EPE doesn't lack for perennial revenue sources. Graceland, which attracts some 600,000 visitors annually, is reputed to be second only to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. as the most-visited residence in the United States. There are licensing deals with around 100 companies, including Russell Stover chocolates, the Franklin Mint, American Greetings Corp., Bradford Plates, and Wurlitzer Jukebox.

The company has a Los Angeles-based music-publishing division, and in recent years EPE has opened a pair of properties in Memphis: Elvis Presley's Heartbreak Hotel (free in-room Elvis movies included) is across from Graceland; Elvis Presley's Memphis, a restaurant and nightclub, is located in the Beale Street entertainment district downtown.

The most surprising thing, perhaps, isn't that EPE has so many ventures, but so few. ''Every day brings new proposals,'' Soden says. Especially popular have been high-tech propositions: computer-enhanced imagery and holography involving Elvis.

But what remains the most memorable proposal to come EPE's way -- submitted twice, in fact, by two different sources -- is a cemetery for Elvis fans. ''The front gates would look like Graceland,'' Soden recalls. ''All the roads would be named after songs. There'd be speakers in the trees playing Elvis music 24 hours a day. You just shake your head.''

It's not hard to imagine a different response to such a proposal 30 years ago. Back then, Elvis was seen as a cash cow to be milked ceaselessly -- and carelessly. The prime milker was his manager, Colonel Tom Parker. (It's a mark of how legendary Elvis is that even his manager became a legend.) Parker's reputation for shrewdness, self-promotion, and ham-fisted negotiating remains unmatched. No one ever associated him with finesse or aesthetic considerations, though.

''Elvis was put forward in a certain way that pretty quickly didn't make sense for an artist of his stature,'' says Rolling Stone contributing editor Anthony DeCurtis. Perhaps the nadir of Elvis marketing was ''Having Fun With Elvis on Stage,'' a 1974 LP that, as the critic Greil Marcus memorably described it, ''consisted of the King saying `Well . . . welllll . . . wellllllll' for thirty-seven minutes.''

EPE dates from the '60s, but the licensing of Elvis's image and name then was largely handled by Parker's Boxcar Enterprises. EPE was resuscitated in the early '80s, just in time for the opening of Graceland to the public, in 1982. Elaine Dundy, author of ''Elvis and Gladys,'' a study of Elvis's relationship with his mother, recalls researching her book at that time. Memphis abounded with ''stores selling awful things like white plastic Elvis swizzle sticks,'' she says. ''There was a freewheeling quality I miss [now], but they needed something like EPE to clean things up.''

Doing right by Elvis is a way of doing well, Soden notes. ''I suppose there's a devoted core who would visit Graceland even if it were done badly,'' he says. ''But even the most devoted fans would come less often if it were badly done, poorly organized.''

Soden, 56, was a stockbroker in his native Kansas City, Mo., when his business partner introduced him to Priscilla Presley. Priscilla, who'd been married to Elvis, oversaw the estate on behalf of their daughter, Lisa Marie, then still a minor. Soden recalls being more impressed by Priscilla's beauty than by the identity of her ex-husband. ''I was a Beatles fan,'' he says.

When she later approached Soden about going to work for EPE, he confessed his previous lack of interest in Elvis. ''That's good,'' he recalls Priscilla saying, ''because this job has to be done by somebody who's objective.'' Soden has had ample opportunity to make up for lost time. ''Listen, I've been doing this now, what, 21 years,'' he says. ''I've never had two days the same. I've never had a boring day. It's always changing.''

EPE has several projects it hopes to undertake, including a museum across the boulevard from Graceland and one or more traveling exhibits of Elvis memorabilia, but the soft economy keeps the plans on the drawing board. The impulsiveness that led Elvis to give away Cadillacs on the spur of the moment is not reflected in the EPE corporate culture.

Yet economic prudence may be the strongest argument for undertaking such ventures. Soden is quick to note that 53 percent of Graceland visitors are under age 35, but he's well aware that demographics are working against Elvis: The King's diehard fans are getting older.

''As time goes by it'll be more important through exhibitions to put the whole story in context,'' he says. ''When we opened Graceland in 1982, Elvis had been gone for five years. We had a huge visitorship base that knew the context; they'd lived it, they'd experienced it.''

Not that Soden thinks the King's reign is likely to end any time soon. He finds reassurance in the history of another Southern icon that conquered the world. ''It's like Coca-Cola,'' Soden says. ''There's this core thing that never changes -- the product is a formula that's 100 years old -- and on the other hand the whole competitive world they live in changes continually. We're kind of like that.'' FY 2003 should be even better.