{"id":187106,"date":"2025-10-09T03:36:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T03:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/187106\/"},"modified":"2025-10-09T03:36:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T03:36:10","slug":"the-one-movie-elvis-presley-was-completely-disgusted-by","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/187106\/","title":{"rendered":"The one movie Elvis Presley was completely \u201cdisgusted\u201d by"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Elvis<\/p>\n

(Credits: Far Out \/ MGM)<\/p>\n

Wed 8 October 2025 22:25, UK <\/p>\n

Since the dawn of cinema, the major\u00a0pop<\/a>\u00a0stars of the day have been trying their hands at the acting profession. The results of their forays onto the big screen, it goes without saying, have offered mixed results. <\/p>\n

But there is perhaps one musician who seemed like they could traverse from sound to screen most easily. Elvis Presley was such an icon on the radio that it seemed only natural for him to move into cinema. And he managed to do so with some success, setting a standard for pop stars everywhere.<\/p>\n

Recently, we\u2019ve seen Lady Gaga receive an Academy Award nomination for her turn in A Star Is Born, and she was also excellent as the ruthless and fiery Patrizia Reggiani, who single-handedly took down a fashion empire in House of Gucci. Justin Timberlake graced the silver screen in a number of run-of-the-mill rom-com flicks but was terrific as the slimy tech mastermind in David Fincher\u2019s The Social Network. David Bowie also worked with the great Japanese director Nagisa \u014cshima, as well as Christopher Nolan in starring roles. Most recently, Harry Styles has been flexing his acting chops in several prominent Hollywood releases and is soon to join the Marvel Cinematic Universe as the superhero Starfox.<\/p>\n

This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the superstars of the music world stepping in front of the camera, but very few were as prolific as the king of rock and roll himself, Elvis Presley. Anyone who has seen Baz Luhrmann\u2019s hypnotic whirlwind biopic Elvis<\/a> will appreciate the cultural phenomenon that followed Presley. It\u2019s no wonder then that Hollywood attempted to cash in on his tremendous public appeal.<\/p>\n

He starred in 31 feature films over the course of his career and, for a time, was one of Hollywood\u2019s top box office draws and one of the industry\u2019s highest-paid actors. It started in the 1960s with some critically well-received films such as Jailhouse Rock and King Creole, but by the end of the decade, the shine of Elvis was beginning to wear off as he churned out more generic and far less lucrative pictures such as Speedway and Change of Habit. And it turns out Presley\u2019s own feelings towards his acting career were far from positive at times.<\/p>\n

\"Elvis<\/a>(Credits: Far Out \/ Ollie Atkins)<\/p>\n

In 1961, Presley starred in the romantic comedy Blue Hawaii, which told the story of Chadwick Gates (Presley), a cool surfer discharged from the US Army and returning home to Hawaii. Back on home soil, Gates is pressured by his family to take up a role within the family pineapple business, much to the distaste of his overbearing and snobby mother, played by Angela Lansbury, and eventually, Gates takes a job as a tour guide on the island where his girlfriend also works.<\/p>\n

Blue Hawaii certainly exists as one of Elvis\u2019s more forgettable movies, and according to Anne Fulchino, it was clear the star wasn\u2019t happy even when shooting the picture. Fulchino was a publicity director and had worked with Elvis several years before, a time when the pair had mapped out his future career together. Fulchino visited Presley years later on the set of Blue Hawaii. \u201cIt was a while before he came over and talked to us, and when he did \u2014 you see at the beginning I used to call him Chief, and I said, \u2018Hi, Chief,\u2019 and he just looked at me like he wished I hadn\u2019t come,\u201d Fulchino said in the book Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley by Peter Guralnick.<\/p>\n

Fulchino continued, saying, \u201cWe made some small talk, and then he said something like, \u2018This isn\u2019t what we had in mind at Klube\u2019s (the German restaurant across from RCA, where they had drawn up their plan), was it?\u2019\u201d It was tough for Fulchino to see the star and colleague of hers so downbeat and, in her words, \u201cfrustrated\u201d by the progression of his career.<\/p>\n

However, Fulchino could apparently sympathise with Presley\u2019s feelings at the time, \u201cI said to myself, \u2018If I was making these crappy pictures, I wouldn\u2019t want to see anybody from my past either,\u201d she said. \u201cHe was obviously uncomfortable with what he was doing, he was frustrated and disgusted \u2014 it was all in his face,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

Adding: \u201cThe emotion I respected most was that he was ashamed of it, which meant that he knew better \u2014 but you could see that he was trapped.\u201d The pop star was seeing the career he had dreamed of so deeply being dismantled by one movie, and the shame of seeing something that fell down so badly meant \u2018The King\u2019 was disappointed. The truth is, Presley could be a tyrant of sorts, routinely delivering scathing retorts about his own work and the work of others. <\/p>\n

Blue Hawaii was released soon after Fulchino\u2019s visit in 1961 and was a financial flop. However, Presley went on to make a number of pictures until the end of the decade. It\u2019s a sad story that comes from another fascinating detour in the singer\u2019s turbulent career in the public spotlight.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Far Out \/ MGM) Wed 8 October 2025 22:25, UK Since the dawn of cinema, the major\u00a0pop\u00a0stars…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":187107,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[47872,16845,82360,18254,96,128,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-187106","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-baz-luhrmann","9":"tag-david-bowie","10":"tag-david-fincher","11":"tag-elvis-presley","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-music","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187106\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/187107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}