Fame and Elvis in space

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In an 8.10 piece about the toxic effect of fame, the Toronto Star's Geoff Pevere writes that "next week in Memphis, hundreds of thousands of people will converge to mark the 30th anniversary of the death of Elvis Presley, a man whose struggles with his own notoriety have become so deeply engrained in the popular consciousness they've taken on the contours of a kind of pop-cult mythology.

"That's why we all know the story, whether or not the specific subject is Elvis, Marilyn, Jacko, John Lennon, Kurt Cobain, Brando or Judy Garland. It goes like this: Fame comes early to the conspicuously gifted one, too early for such a sensitive soul to bear. The pressure warps the frail creative vessel, resulting in seclusion, addiction, madness and (often) early death."

One of the lousier scripts I wrote in the '80s (i.e., good concept but lacking a decent third act as well as that forward-motion purposefulness and clarity that all good screenplays have) was called Tupelo Honey, and I never understood why someone else didn't try and do something like this. Maybe someone did and it just sucked.

The basic idea was that aliens cruise down to earth in August 1977 and scoop up Presley just before he dies on the toilet at Graceland, leaving an immaculate genetic imitation to take his place. As one of their endless medical experiments, the aliens take Elvis up to the mothership and clean him out -- the drugs and the fat and the poisons sucked out of his system -- and then return him to earth all thin and primed and ready to go a few years later. In fact, they've de-aged him in the bargain. (Humans are always frozen in time in the company of aliens -- remember those soldiers and sailors returned to the earth in Close Encounters? -- and so the Elvis abductors have simply gone one better.)

The problem is that Elvis can't convince anyone that he's The Man when he tries to get work. Even his former friends and ex-girlfriends don't believe he's the real deal. (Too thin, too healthy, too alive.) The best he can do is get hired in Vegas as one of the coolest Elvis imitators in the world, and he hates that. So he quits Vegas and goes back to Tupelo, Mississippi, to try and sort things out and figure what to do with the rest of his life. Elvis is resigned to not singing anymore so he takes a job driving a truck for a soft-drink company. He meets a nice girl, starts to fall for her, makes friends with a couple of good ole boy musicians, and then slowly begins to go through a music reawakening -- finding himself again as a performer.

I could never figure out what kind of music he'd get into, or how he'd get past the image problem of being seen as an Elivs Presley imitator...or what the overall solution would be. But if somebody were to come up with a decent third act for this thing and if someone else were to make the movie with the right cast, I'd pay to see it. I really like the idea.

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Posted by Jeffrey Wells on August 11, 2007 at 2:47 PM

comment #1

mutinyco says ...

Didn't Scorsese make this with Dafoe as Elvis?

Posted by mutinyco at August 11, 2007 4:14 PM

comment #2

Eddie says ...

Bubba Ho-Tep meets Eddie & the Cruisers.

Posted by Eddie at August 11, 2007 4:23 PM

comment #3

source188 says ...

"then slowly begins to go through a music reawakening -- finding himself again as a performer."

He gets into blues-folk rock and dominates the world like he once did and eclipses his original fame (pre- alien abduction) but doesn't lead a downfall like before. He records one masterpiece album that everyone buys and everyone awards and his life is perfect but then the aliens return and abduct him right in front of the world for everyone to see. The realization of alien life changes mankind and once Elvis is returned, he is no longer admired and followed. The world's attention lies elsewhere now, it's a different world all together and Elvis is the one outsider since he's already known about alien life for long now and the whole alien thing is not alien to him. And so Elvis' new demise is not of his working, not a drug and booze laced self-indulgent downward spiral but a complete shut-off from society after a stronger and more profound revelation comes along and offs his spotlight. So Elvis was so hugely talented and unique, two times over, that he became the leading figure of popularity on earth so now it's time for attention to be set up towards the stars seeing as how man has now outdone himself on earth!....and hence the starchild is born!

Posted by source188 at August 11, 2007 4:37 PM

comment #4

Movie fan09 says ...

heh.

sounds like something i would write.

Posted by Movie fan09 at August 11, 2007 5:02 PM

comment #5

gruver1 says ...

Wells to source188: Trippy and all, but the Elvis thing has to stay on the ground. It's about second chapters, reinvention, discovering new paths, etc.

Posted by gruver1 at August 11, 2007 5:19 PM

comment #6

MilkMan says ...

That sounds like a really great script, Jeff. And you are right in pinpointing its weakness as towards the end. The idea of him becoming an impersonator of himself is quite profound, but instead of having him go back home and fall in love, why not pursue the impersonator angle. How about he becomes The Best Elvis Impersonator in the World, achieves a modicum of fame, from which he once agains spirals into depression and drugs and ends up the same as he did once before?

Posted by MilkMan at August 11, 2007 6:27 PM

comment #7

Movie fan09 says ...

after the reawakening..

he would probably end up on the country circuit and eventually make it back to the forefront where he be seen as another garage band wannabe.

the stripes,vines and hives do pretty much the same type of music and they're kinda seen as more of the same and nothing new.

that's the thing with music right now,
it's all more of the same.

you could lie and say he reinvented rock music for a new generation since he's "Elvis," but that would be too convenient.
rock music doesn't need an originator, it needs something new.

but after the grunge movement in the early 90s and the acceptance of punk into the mainstream, where else can you go than you already been before?

rock is known to recreate itself for each new generation (as the 90s rock doc "rock n roll: an unruly history" states) but now that it's essentially squeezed out the last of rock music for it's Lazarus pit, where else can it go to refuel it self?

Posted by Movie fan09 at August 11, 2007 6:38 PM

comment #8

Movie fan09 says ...

also,
the great thing about Elvis was he took all of the old blues and r&b stuff and made it new and original..he took Blue Moon of Kentucky and made it rock when before it just barely swayed.

Now, you could say his daughter kinda did that with her album..and from what I heard -maybe there's something good that wasn't released-it wasn't great.

Elvis was always listening to all kinds before he died (supposedly) but one of the last songs he listened to was gospel...so what he did was nothing new..

so maybe he tries to come back and instead just fades away or gets drugged up and kills himself like he did in his real life.

but this time, when they go to the body, they learn it was the real elvis and the public is like "whyyyyyy???"" and so they publish all of his unrelased or independently released music and release it with special liner notes,etc and make it all fancy by adding outtakes,etc i.e. beatles anthology and go crazy over elvis all over again and theres even more elvis mania than there was before and the world becomes bigger fans of elvis and there becomes a new graceland except this time its a 2bedroom house in the suburbs and instead of a pink cadillac, it's a '98 geo with all of his burger king wrappers still in the back seat.

Posted by Movie fan09 at August 11, 2007 6:50 PM

comment #9

Movie fan09 says ...

and it becomes a whole thing about how we as a society always cry more when theyre gone than when they are alive and how corporations know this and are always ready to say " we knew it too" but they really didn't care because the musician,etc wasn't a big enough seller to really matter to them, but he was able to sell something to make some sort of profit.

it's that whole "what if god was one of us?" theories.

Posted by Movie fan09 at August 11, 2007 6:53 PM

comment #10

Movie fan09 says ...

one more thing:

the fade away bit:

after much trying he falls back into bad habits..etc.

best addon-
the aliens are watching this and shrug -
and they try it with morrison but he's already been through it twice and failed.

the cast:

Billy Crudup for obvious physical reasons...

but Phillip Seymour Hoffman would be interesting for the pre elvis.

Posted by Movie fan09 at August 11, 2007 7:14 PM

comment #11

Movie fan09 says ...

he would need to have a col parker figure in his life..(in order to bring about the drug habits since he only went down that road when all of his creativity was zapped by all of those concerts)maybe this time its a shady armenian guy..

Posted by Movie fan09 at August 11, 2007 7:18 PM

comment #12

berg says ...

in the french film My Best Friend the cab driver dude remarks that Elvis' last words were "I am going to go read on the toilet." ... you know that the king had a twin brother who died at birth ... Elvis' first gig outside of TN was in Roswell ...

Posted by berg at August 11, 2007 8:42 PM

comment #13