Priscilla Presley Never Saw Elvis Perform Live Until His “’68 Comeback Special”: ‘A Trip’ (Exclusive)

A brand new Netflix documentary explores the importance of the rock ‘n’ roll legend’s 1968 comeback, when he was at a significant crossroads in his profession

It wasn’t till was 9 years into her relationship with that she obtained to see him carry out dwell for the primary time in the course of the taping of his ’68 Comeback Particular, whichaired on NBC on Dec. 3, 1968.

“You see all the women lined up, all of the followers going nuts, and I’m taking a look at this going, ‘Wow,’” Priscilla, 79, remembers to PEOPLE. “And he’d take his scarf off his neck and he’d give it to somebody proper there by the stage, and they’d go loopy. It was actually a deal with. It was a visit, an ideal journey.”

The taping of the particular got here at a significant crossroads in Elvis’ profession, as explored in Netflix’s new documentary (out Wednesday, Nov. 13).

“He was nervous as a result of he hadn’t appeared [on stage] in so lengthy,” says Priscilla. “Folks would suppose, ‘How might he be nervous? He’s Elvis Presley.’ He was very nervous, however he did his homework. He would go and rehearse and rehearse and rehearse.”

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Previous to the taping, Elvis — who turned the most important music star on the planet within the mid ’50s — hadn’t carried out in entrance of a dwell viewers in seven years, partially because of him being drafted into the Military in 1957. After coaching, Elvis served in Germany, the place he first met a 14-year-old Priscilla.

Following his return from the Military in 1960, Elvis’ supervisor, , obtained him locked right into a multi-year film studio contract. He turned more and more annoyed with the scripts he was being provided.

“At some point he was studying a script, and he threw it throughout the room and mentioned, ‘I’m not doing this,’” says Elvis’s longtime good friend Jerry Schilling. “The Colonel beloved Elvis and vice versa, however Elvis outgrew the Colonel.”

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Priscilla says he “wished to be in nice motion pictures, not the silly motion pictures that he did like Women! Women! Women! That wasn’t Elvis.”

“Colonel didn’t get him actually in any respect,” she says. “That was arduous for each Jerry and I, however you couldn’t say something to Colonel. You simply needed to maintain quiet.”

In a single scene of the documentary, Priscilla and Schilling view footage of Elvissinging the kids’s tune “Outdated MacDonald Had a Farm” within the 1967 musical Double Hassle.

“That, to me, is against the law,” Priscilla . “It’s a crime. To place him in that scenario and sing that tune. It made him a laughingstock. And he knew it.”

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Although Parker tried to get him to do a household pleasant Christmas particular, Elvis insisted on a return to his rock roots.

“The Colonel, he got here from the old fashioned the place he wished Elvis to be Bing Crosby doing a Christmas Particular, reasonably than doing a horny rock and roll gospel, just like the ’68 particular,” says Schilling.

The particular went on to change into the highest-rated present of the 12 months for NBC, a lot to Elvis’ shock.

“He didn’t know what the general public was going to think about that,” says Schilling. “It wasn’t till we noticed it dwell on tv with the remainder of America that he realized it was good. Telephone calls began coming in from particular individuals he knew, and that was the primary time he actually relaxed and knew it was good. He was beaming at that time. That led to all the things after.”

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Elvis devoted himself to dwell performances from then on, and he performed tons of extra live shows earlier than his loss of life at age 42 in 1977.

“I really feel strongly I misplaced my good friend at an early age out of inventive disappointment. I do know I did,” says Schilling. “That inventive disappointment precipitated different issues. However when he had a problem just like the ’68 Particular, he would go into coaching like Muhammad Ali. He’d lose 20 lbs.”

With the documentary, Priscilla says, “I actually need the children of this technology to know why he was the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll.”

Return of the King: The Fall and Rise of Elvis Presley is streaming now.