Days before his death, Elvis Presley saw a chance to earn the U.S. Marshal’s badge President Nixon had given him in the Oval Office back in 1970, where, in his bejeweled leisure suit, the drug-addicted Elvis had sworn himself to law and order. Spying a fight breaking out between two men and a gas station attendant, an overweight Elvis did his best to leap out of his limo and strike a karate pose. He was met with stunned disbelief and requests for autographs; when his police escort finally arrived, it was in hopes of a photo with the King.
In the 1950s Elvis was celebrity’s perfect storm. Gifted, charismatic, and telegenic, he was a rebel rooted in conservative Southern working-class morals. By the late 1960s, the storm had largely passed. A surging popular culture had upended those morals, and what had once seemed rebellious looked more and more reactionary. Far from daring and racy, Elvis’s moves seemed treacle; rather than trendsetting, his musical talent seemed grist for country ballads. Charles Ponce de Leon’s brilliant Fortunate Son succinctly places Elvis’s life within the larger shifts that redefined the cultural landscape during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, discovering in the mounting ironies of Elvis’s waning success the seeds of the mythology we live with today.
In the 1950s Elvis was celebrity’s perfect storm. Gifted, charismatic, and telegenic, he was a rebel rooted in conservative Southern working-class morals. By the late 1960s, the storm had largely passed. A surging popular culture had upended those morals, and what had once seemed rebellious looked more and more reactionary. Far from daring and racy, Elvis’s moves seemed treacle; rather than trendsetting, his musical talent seemed grist for country ballads. Charles Ponce de Leon’s brilliant Fortunate Son succinctly places Elvis’s life within the larger shifts that redefined the cultural landscape during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, discovering in the mounting ironies of Elvis’s waning success the seeds of the mythology we live with today.
