In 1980, the veteran journalist and screenwriter Ray Connolly examined the Elvis phenomenon in an insightful but melancholic essay in the Observer Magazine by focusing on his early years before Colonel Parker, his manager, and the army changed things for ever (‘Elvis Untamed’, 24 February 1980’).
Connolly based much of his essay on a series of photographs taken In 1956 by Alfred Wertheimer who had been assigned to cover the rising star. His extraordinary photographs were collected in a book, Elvis ’56, and they captured the singer before the publicity machine processed him. ‘He had the puppy-dog face of sensual pubescence,’ he wrote. ‘His lips were pouting and sulky, and his eyes were underscored with puffy bags suggesting an inner turmoil of wantonness.’
The pictures are of him ‘with his cheeks and shoulders pimple-scarred and his hair wet-combed into outrageous pompadours’, hanging out with his high-school sweetheart Barbara Hearn. He was, wrote Connolly, ‘the Elvis we wanted to be: how he was before Hollywood emasculated him, dyed his hair black, swapped his guitar for a child’s ukulele and made him pretend to be some asinine beach boy.’
There is further sadness in Connolly’s view that no photographer ever again got close to Elvis: ‘The road of the recluse was already being paved.’ Connolly noted that the single impression that came across was that of loneliness. ‘He is the country boy, shy and unsure, except when on stage.’
‘He was aware of the camera,’ he continued, ‘but, almost naively, unafraid of it, staring back into the lens with an expression, part defiance and part astonishment, that anyone should want to take so many pictures of him.’
When Elvis died in 1977 there was an outpouring of grief. ‘But it was not just for Elvis that the fans were crying,’ wrote Connolly. ‘They were crying for their own lost youth.’
