early June, 2005
- Lawrence Native Peggy Lipton Talks About Elvis, Abuse and Her Terrible Films
By Dave Gil de Rubio
(Long Island Press, June 9, 2005)
The now nearly-60-year-old actress' new book, Breathing Out.
Tracing Peggy Lipton's career is a bit like scanning through the plot of an overblown movie-of-the-week. Artsy but unpopular Five Towns gal lands a Ford Modeling Agency contract, goes to California and becomes a huge television star at the tender age of 20. Flings ensue with names like Paul McCartney, Elvis Presley and Sammy Davis Jr. before a relationship kicks in with a very married Quincy Jones. Jones leaves his wife, has children with aforementioned Five Towns gal, who then endures bouts of mental illness, a heart-wrenching divorce from Jones and a triumphant battle over cancer. What reads like a melodramatic work of fiction is in fact the actual story of Peggy Lipton, and has become the inspiration for her new autobiography, Breathing Out.
At an Upper East Side cafe, not far from her Manhattan apartment, and dressed in an aquamarine sleeveless blouse, linen pants and strappy sandals, the bicoastal mom of two looks at least a decade younger than her 57 years. With barely any streaks of gray in her trademark, whip-straight hair, Lipton serenely sips her herbal tea while matter-of-factly recounting the rollercoaster life that began as a child growing up in Lawrence.
... As proud as Lipton is of her role in Squad, she's refreshingly honest about the quality of her work as a movie star up to and including the recently re-released, if maligned, Terrence Stamp hippie western, Blue. ... "I can't believe they released it on DVD," Lipton exclaims upon hearing the news. "It's one of the worst films ever, as are many films that I've done." Lipton's book recounts such trials and tribulations on movie sets, but these anecdotes don't provide half the sizzle of those about the famous men she ended up bedding. And while it would be easy to chalk retelling of these titillating encounters up to mere shock value, the rookie author insists they were included for a very real purpose: recounting the often-abusive relationships she'd been through at such a young age. Particularly harrowing were chapters about record mogul Lou Adler and Presley. ... "Even though the Elvis stories weren't the most important things in my life, it made me stop a pattern and signaled that all the running around was going to come to an end." ...
- Records offer glimpse at celebrity GIs' treatment, performance
By Andres R. Martinez
(KR Washington Bureau / Knight Ridder Newspapers, June 9, 2005)
Actor Steve McQueen made several great escapes in movie roles, but Marine Pfc. Terrance Steven McQueen went AWOL ignominiously while assigned to Camp Lejeune, N.C., in November 1949. Raleigh police picked McQueen up and jailed him. He got a month in the brig and a $90 fine. The story's among the records for 1.2 million military personnel that the National Archives will open up to the public Saturday. Archives officials on Thursday gave reporters a sneak peek at the records, which included excerpts from the files of a number of celebrity GIs. All were public figures when alive and now are at least 10 years dead, so they've no right to privacy, archives and Defense Department officials agreed. Other veterans get 62 years of privacy before their files are released. The clock starts running when they're discharged.
Elvis Presley, who got his sideburns cut to something like Army length in January 1957, is among the celebrities whose military careers are getting new publicity. Pfc. Presley's records show that while he was the most celebrated GI in peacetime, the Army bent over backward to treat him like a regular soldier. For example, Deputy Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. James F. Collins, in a 1959 memo, nixed a request that Presley be flown back to the United States for interviews from his assignment in Germany. Any suggestion of favorable treatment, Collins argued, would undo the Army's successful public relations work in creating "the public impression of a good soldier serving his military obligation." He added: "Many teenagers who look up to and emulate Private First Class Presley will, to a varied degree, follow his example in the performance of their military service."
During World War II, flyboy movie star Clark Gable got strikingly different treatment from the Army Air Corps. The service's commanding general decreed that Maj. Gable's cameraman be trained as an aerial gunner so that the star's adventures in bomber combat could be used in promotional films. Boxer Joe Louis also got special treatment in World War II, but it wasn't all good. Army Sgt. Joe Louis Barrow, then heavyweight champion of the world, won a Legion of Merit citation for his many voluntary boxing exhibitions for the troops in Europe and North Africa.
... To review such famous records, or just ordinary ones, in person, it's best to phone ahead to the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, Mo., at (314) 801-0850 and make a date to visit. Option two: Request copies of archival records in a letter to: National Personnel Records Center, 9700 Page Ave., St. Louis, Mo. 63132-5100. Copies cost 50 cents a page and take an average of 90 days to arrive. For non-celebrity veterans, available records cover those who served between 1885 and 1939 as enlisted Navy personnel. Records for Marine Corps enlisted personnel who served between 1906 and 1939 are also available. Records for Marine Corps officers will be available in 2036 and for Navy officers in 2040. ...
Singer Elvis Presley was drafted into the Army in 1958. National Archives photograph
- Files of military famous displayed: JFK, Elvis part of 1.2 million records
By Betsy Taylor
(Press - Telegram - News / Associated Press, June 9, 2005)
When Elvis Presley entered the Army, a fretful public launched a letter-writing campaign. ... [as below]
- Elvis Letters Among Documents Being Unsealed by National Archives
(KYW News Radio / Associated Press, June 9, 2005)
When Elvis Presley entered the Army, a fretful public launched a letter-writing campaign. ... [as below]
- Archives to Open Sealed Military Documents
By BETSY TAYLOR
(San Francisco Chronicle / Associated Press, June 8, 2005)
When Elvis Presley entered the Army, a fretful public launched a letter-writing campaign. "Will you please, please be so sweet and kind as to ask Ike to bring Elvis Presley back to us from the Army? We need him in our entertainment world," pleaded one 1958 letter from a Sacramento, Calif., couple to then-first lady Mamie Eisenhower. The anxious missive is among documents included in the 1.2 million military personnel files the National Archives will open to the public Saturday for the first time. Among the documents are records related to famous politicians, military leaders - and at least one rock 'n' roll star. The bulk, however, relate to former enlisted personnel in the Navy from 1885 to 1939, or in the Marines from 1906 to 1939.
The National Personnel Records Center, located in this St. Louis suburb, is highlighting the files of 150 prominent people who served in the military and died at least a decade ago, including several presidents, famous writers, professional athletes and military figures.
Elvis' time in the military sparked high interest. Parents of enlisted men wrote letters, too, worried the star would get preferential treatment or early release. "I am sure us poor people can do without his singing and rock and roll until he serves his country just like my son has to," an Oak Park, Ill., mother wrote to a congressman. While the files provide a glimpse of social history, they also cross into the world of politics, literature, sports and entertainment. ...
- Why Andy Williams tried to be like Elvis: Belfast-bound singer tells how he got his first no 1
By Eddie McIlwaine
(Belfast Telegraph, June 8, 2005)
Veteran crooner Andy Williams recalled today the one time in his career when he tried to sound like Elvis. It was way back in summer of 1957 when his record label London-American were insisting that he should record a song called Butterfly. "I didn't want to do it," he revealed last night. "It was an uptempo number which I knew Presley could do very well. Against my better judgment I gave in, but not before I had listened to Elvis singing some of his quick stuff like Don't Be Cruel and Jail House Rock."
So Andy, who plays the Waterfront on Thursday June 16, did record Butterfly the Presley way - and in the event it gave him his first No 1 hit in a vintage year of great pop hits like Around the World (Bing Crosby), When I Fall in Love (Nat King Cole), All Shook Up (Elvis) and We Will Make Love (Russ Hamilton). "I'm still singing Butterfly," says Williams. "I don't remember who wrote it, but it is the one song I was wrong about and yet so many people remember it with a lot of affection and associate it with me." ...
- Elvis by The Presleys (RCA)
By Jerry Z
(Malay Mail, June 7, 2005)
FORMER wife Priscilla and daughter Lisa are key figures in this 2005 documentary special which is made up of their memories of the legendary Elvis Presley. Thirty years after his death, they remember him as a father, friend, and of course singer and entertainer. Never before seen home-movie footage reveal Elvis at play, as a lover, goofing with his friends and so on.
Part of his mystique lies in his undoubted singing ability. Blues, rock, country, pop, ballads, he had the range and also the ability to impart deep emotion to his songs. As Priscilla says: "It's like he's singing that song to you." While there been have tons of Elvis compilation albums, the songs in this TV special have been chosen as the 'soundtrack' to his life.
The video special is made up of separately titled segments dealing with important phases in his life. So in the segment On Stage the rockabilly hit Trying To Get To You, a 1955 recording, kicks off this set. When he meets Priscilla, the song Heartbreak Hotel comes on. Recorded in 1956, the unbridled emotion in the song and the vocal colourations - from high pitched wails to bassy growls, it's clear that a singer of rare talent was on his way. There's a lot of variety in this collection. If you like blues, there's his take on Ray Charles' I Got A Woman, and James Taylor's tongue-in-cheek Steamroller Blues, and the supermacho Trouble.
If you like his gospel stylings, he does dramatic versions of Peace In The Valley, Bridge Over Trouble Water, and If I Can Dream. Of course he can rock with the best of them as on the joyful Burning Love and A Little Less Conversation (the remixed version is offered here). You also get another CD of interesting outtakes. Among them are one of his first demos It Wouldn't Be The Same Without You, alternate takes of Jailhouse Rock, and home recordings of Baby What You Want Me To Do and I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry.
It's a measure of his talent that his singing still stands the test of time - quite a few live cuts here show he could really, really sing - no need for lip-synching for this guy. And as a live performer, his dynamic presence, hip-swivelling moves, broke new ground. While this album perhaps leans too much on his middle-of-road repertoire, it still is a fine display of his talent.
- ALAMEDA: Burnin' love of Elvis drives prices at memorabilia auction
By Patrick Hoge
(San Francisco Chronicle, June 7, 2005)
"Rockin' " Robin Rosaaen, a veteran collector of Elvis Presley memorabilia, knows how serious her competition can be. That's why she changed her hair color from light brown to almost black for Monday's auction of Elvis artifacts in Alameda -- so that none of her regular competitors would recognize her. "People often follow my bid," said Rosaaen, a San Jose resident who claims at least 35,000 photos of Presley that she licenses for publication through her firm, All The King's Things. "Sometimes it can get vicious, the bidding wars." On Monday, the action at Auctions By The Bay in Alameda was swift, with a live audience of nearly 50 and people monitoring the bidding via the Internet and by telephone from as far away as Britain and the Netherlands. They were bidding on more than 200 pieces of memorabilia -- autographed records to personal notes -- put on the block by the son of Presley's former secretary. ...
- Elvis-A-Rama museum casts net for impersonators
(abc.net.au, June 7, 2005)
A Las Vegas museum dedicated to the memory and myth of Elvis Presley has launched a worldwide casting call for impersonators of the King. Elvis-A-Rama, a sprawling museum that is home to a collection of more than $6 million worth of Presley memorabilia, is casting a global net for anyone who can pay the King the highest compliment: imitation. The museum will hold a casting call in the desert gambling town of Las Vegas on August 8 and 9 and will then hold a series of elimination round events on four continents in a bid to find the ultimate Elvis tribute artist. The results will be captured for a reality television shown that will crown the top impersonator, who will be rewarded with a lucrative recording contract and a chance to record a song penned by the late superstar. ...
- A theory on trends
By Richard Tomkins
(Financial Times, June 6, 2005)
At the time Elvis Presley died in 1977, he had 150 impersonators in the US. Now, according to calculations I spotted in a Sunday newspaper colour supplement recently, there are 85,000. Intriguingly, that means one in every 3,400 Americans is an Elvis impersonator. More disturbingly, if Elvis impersonators continue multiplying at the same rate, they will account for a third of the world;s population by 2019.
Trends can be worrying things. If obesity continues rising at its present rate, today's children will be the first in recent times to die younger than their parents. If road traffic keeps growing at its present rate, it will eventually become necessary to coat the entire planet in asphalt. If prison populations keep growing at their present rate, we will all end up in jail.. ...
- Backstage at Elvis Fest featured a little chaos, but a lot of fun
By LEE MCALILLY
(Daily Journal, June 6, 2005)
Chuck Berry screeched into Tupelo on Friday night captaining his humongous RV, nearly slamming into a brick building and almost pummeling an Elvis Presley Festival volunteer. The Tennessee Boltsmokers arrived unpretentiously, talking as if they hadn't seen each other in months just before they took the stage to play a flawless, well-rehearsed set. The Spunk Monkees nonchalantly cruised through the backstage entrance in a retro painted moving van with oversized dice hanging from the rear view mirror.
The 2005 Elvis Festival's interesting backstage entrances were only the beginning to a weekend packed with behind-the-scenes action.
While it was certainly a weekend full of polished performances by professional musicians, there was a lot more chaos beyond the speakers and stage lights. ...
- PRESLEY WAS BEDROOM FLOP
(contactmusic.com, June 6, 2005)
Legendary rocker ELVIS PRESLEY proved to be a bedroom disappointment when he attempted to bed 1970s icon PEGGY LIPTON - he couldn't get aroused. The former MOD SQUAD beauty, who lists SIR PAUL McCARTNEY and KEITH MOON among her sexual conquests, was disappointed when her liaison with the King Of Rock 'N' Roll turned into an anti-climax. Lipton, ex-wife of veteran musician QUINCY JONES, recalls, "He took me away on his plane and brought me up to Tahoe, I believe. We tried to go to bed right away...
"There was nothing to talk about with Elvis. He was either doing his karate things or eating. There was really no dialogue there so we went to bed right away and it just didn't happen for him. We tried a few more times and nothing ever happened, so I just let it go. "It wasn't the most important thing to say that I had really done something with Elvis. I kind of was interested in his heart and his soul. He was very persistent in getting to know me, which I found interesting, so I saw him a number of times. But I did like him as a person. I thought he was kind of a beautiful person."
- Postal stamp-edes: Attractive offerings make millions for agency each year
By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID
(tucsoncitizen.com / Associated Press, June 6, 2005)
Elvis is still the king. Postal customers bought but didn't use more than 124 million Elvis stamps in 1993. As any good businessman does, David Failor works hard to understand customers and make sure he has a product they want to buy - and maybe save. That's when his employer, the U.S. Postal Service, reaps a big profit. Stamps that are bought but not used mean $150 million to $200 million annually for the Postal Service. ... The number of stamps that are purchased but never used is in the millions each year. Sales last year of philatelic products, including framed stamps, an annual stamp yearbook and other items, came to nearly $50 million, compared with $40 million a year earlier. That total is in addition to the $150 million to $200 million the Postal Service takes in from stamps that are purchased but not used. Elvis is still king of that group. The 29-cent Elvis Presley stamp issued in 1993 accounts for more than 124 million stamps bought but never used, the post office reports. That translates into almost $36 million in income for the agency. The Postal Service made $22 million each from the wildflowers stamps that were issued in 1992 and the rock 'n' roll series from 1993. ...
- Detective paints art thieves into corner
By Josh Kleinbaum
(Telegraph, June 6, 2005)
When about $100,000 worth of jewelry once owned by Elvis Presley disappeared from the wall-to-ceiling safe of a Los Angeles-area auction house, it seemed like the perfect crime, perpetrated by a master criminal. For Detective Don Hrycyk, it's just another whodunit. "To an outsider, it looks like the crime of the century,' said Detective Don Hrycyk.
The crime of the century, Hrycyk learned, was really a crime of stupidity. Hrycyk has recovered more than $62 million in stolen art in 11 years heading the LAPD's art theft detail. He is believed to be the only full-time art detective working for a municipal agency. In many of his cases, the key to the crime lies in the patterns of the victim, not the crook. At the auction house, only six people all loyal, longtime employees of the company had the combination to the safe. But they couldn't remember it. Instead, they kept the combination on a piece of paper in an unlocked drawer in the same room as the safe. "Every time someone needed something from the safe, they'd see this guy walk over, open up the drawer, pull out the combination, go over (to the safe), read the combination, and then put the combination back into the drawer,' Hrycyk said. "There was a part-time employee who had just been hired. He saw how easy it would be to get in there. "The problem is not clever thieves. For the most part, the problem is careless victims.' ...
- A bad hair day for the first man on the moon
By Jim White
(Telegraph, June 6, 2005)
Neil Armstrong has a fine head of hair for a man of 75. Lustrous, silvery, with only the merest hint of recession at the crown, the quality of his mane suggests that the one true cure for male-pattern baldness might be to step out on to the surface of the moon. In fact, so fecund are his follicles, Armstrong likes to visit his barber in Cincinnati once a month to ensure he does not turn into the wild man of Ohio. For years, he has patronised a barber's shop run by Marx Sizemore, an old-fashioned hairdresser who restricts the small talk to chit-chat about politics and current affairs, and perhaps the occasional reference to the fact it is a full moon. Armstrong valued Sizemore's discretion, the way he treated him like any other customer.
But recently it was drawn to Armstrong's attention that a collector called John Reznikoff was boasting that he had a lock of the first human hair to have visited the moon. Armstrong, who has always shunned celebrity, initially assumed this was a fib. He had never met Reznikoff, never mind given him a piece of himself. But no, the collector had a certificate of authenticity, given by the agent who had bought the hair from a third party, an affidavit swearing that it originated from Armstrong's barnet. The third party's name, Armstrong discovered, was Marx Sizemore.
It turned out that, in 2004, Todd Mueller, an agent dealing in celebrity memorabilia, had visited Sizemore's shop. During a conversation over the short back and sides, the proprietor was made suddenly aware of the value of the detritus tumbling on to the floor of his work place. The next time Armstrong visited for his monthly cut, instead of brushing it up and throwing it away as he normally did, and without telling the great astronaut what he was up to, Sizemore gathered the clippings and sold them to Mueller for $3,000, roughly £1,600. Which, you could say, was one small trim for man, one giant profit for his barber.
As soon as he found out what had happened, Armstrong lit up like Apollo 11 re-entering Earth's atmosphere. Furious at the invasion of his privacy, he briefed his lawyers to make immediate contact with Sizemore. They gave the barber a deadline of Friday, June 17, either to donate all financial gains to a charity nominated by Armstrong, or to return the hair. Armstrong, they said, preferred the latter course of action, though they didn't say why. Perhaps Mrs A was looking to stuff some cushions. Sizemore categorically refused to return his little windfall, claiming that the hair was his the moment it hit the cutting-room floor. And so an impasse has been reached. Cincinnati's lawyers must be rubbing their hands at the prospect of a nice little earner as they squabble over what could become an important precedent in our celebrity-obsessed world.
Anyone reading this story, however, would be less interested in what might happen to, say, Britney Spears's trimmings in future. What we want to know is why anyone would willingly hand over £1,600 (plus agent's commission) for a few crinkly bits of hair. What is Reznikoff's problem? And is he taking medication?
As it happens, it was a relatively modest outlay by his standards: it once cost him more than £110,000 to land a few curls from Elvis Presley's quiff. All told, his collection of more than 120 locks, including examples from Charles Dickens, Napoleon, Marilyn Monroe and Abraham Lincoln, is insured for more than £1 million. It is, he boasts, the largest anthology of famous hair in the world. Which, you have to say, cannot be a hard-won title.
Giving a lock of hair used to be considered a symbol of love: Pliny did it, as did Lord Byron. Hair was then reckoned to be a most intimate souvenir, although Byron, the world's first self-made celebrity, was pretty promiscuous with his cut-offs, dropping them with swooning ladies across Europe. Such gifts were not intended to end up in the hands of a man with a strange obsession with the tonsorial leavings of the famous. What, I wonder, does Reznikoff do with his purchases? Does he display them? If so, his little museum must be the epitome of dull, about as visually arresting as the floor of Sizemore's barber's shop after the members of Mötley Crüe have been in for a number-one crop. Maybe he gets them out and strokes them, feeling as he does so that he is somehow communing with history, forgetting that hair is dead the moment it pops out from the scalp. Or in the case of Elton John, the moment it leaves the factory.
I suppose Reznikoff is one up on those who engage in the market for celebrity nail clippings. But he has some way to go to match the most famous of body-part collectors. Cynthia Plaster Caster was a rock groupie in the 1960s who made casts of her conquests' manhoods. Cynthia had no need of third parties or agents. Judging by the size of some of them - that of Jimi Hendrix was rumoured to occupy two small rooms - she had a lot more fun gathering her exhibits than does Reznikoff.
And, as far as we know, none of those she coated in plaster has ever sued her for a return of their goods.
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