Back from the dead? Tiny Elvis? There are the
TV and movie performances of The King nobody could forget!
One of the most surreal intersections of politics and pop culture happened on December 21,
1970. Elvis Presley visited President Richard Nixon at the White House in the hopes of
becoming deputized as a federal narcotics agent. Presley, though no stranger to illegal substances,
was reportedly disturbed by the youth drug culture of the day and wished to
lend his support and influence to the war on drugs. A photo was taken of the two men,
and Presley was presented with his very own badge. There's no world where this encounter
is anything but hilarious, or at least that's what "Rock and Roll High School" director Allan
Arkush must have thought when he helmed the 1997 Showtime mockumentary "Elvis Meets Nixon."
"Hosted" by Dick Cavett as himself, what's most surprising about the film is how straight it plays
the facts of the meeting. Longtime television actor Rick Peters doesn't much look like Elvis,
but embodies The King's swagger and charisma better than most,
even from underneath yet another terrible wig.
"Well, thank you very much."
Apparently, the story of Presley and Nixon's White House meeting was so nice they told it
twice. Nearly 20 years later, another version of the story was produced by Amazon Studios in 2016
as "Elvis & Nixon," featuring Kevin Spacey as Nixon and Michael Shannon as Presley. Director
Liza Johnson keeps the pace up with a jazzy score and heist movie energy, as Presley guilelessly
gets on a plane and arranges a meeting with the White House. Whereas in Arkush's film
the meeting is little more than a button at the end of the story, here the meeting takes up the
final half hour of the film. Spacey's full-body transformation into Nixon clashes with Shannon's
minimalist-to-the-point-of-nonexistent impersonation of Elvis.
"I don't know if I even know who he is anymore."
The film's placement on this list is tricky, and not just because of the distaste audiences
today might feel toward Spacey. Michael Shannon is arguably the finest actor here,
but he is so miscast as Elvis that it feels like an intentional choice. His gaunt face
and Midwestern rasp bear no resemblance to Presley. But at the same time, there
is something admirable in Shannon's commitment to the character as a man first and an icon second.
The 2005 Johnny Cash biopic "Walk the Line" doesn't feature Elvis as a character very much.
Though he and Cash both got their starts at Sun Records in Memphis and toured the
Southern circuit together, their stories diverge at a certain point. Until then,
though, Elvis serves as a potent symbol in the James Mangold-directed film. Cash
first sees Elvis on the street in Memphis and follows him to the Sun Records studio,
until owner Sam Phillips slams the door shut in Cash's face. Later, as Cash's career begins to
take off and they're booked together on the same tour, he tries amphetamines for the first time on
Elvis' recommendation. And as Johnny cheats on his wife backstage with a local woman, the sound of
Presley singing "That's All Right Mama" creeps up in the sound mix — specifically, the line:
Actor and singer-songwriter Tyler Hilton plays Presley and performs his own songs,
a rarity for Elvises on film. Vocally he doesn't sound very much like Presley,
but he has a good voice, and his natural confidence and charisma as a musician
makes him a fine substitute. It makes sense why the crowds in the film would treat him
like he's Elvis, and why Phoenix's Cash would respect and be intimidated by him.
Rumors and beliefs that Elvis had faked his death became widespread, either seriously or in jest,
almost immediately after his sudden death in 1977 at age 42. But despite this, there are hardly any
films or television shows in the "Elvis Lives!" genre. One of the few is David Winkler's 1998
road trip indie dramedy "Finding Graceland." The film stars Jonathan Schaech as Byron, a grieving
young widower who gives a ride to an older man who claims to be Elvis, played by Harvey Keitel.
He's trying to make his way to Graceland in time to attend a party in honor of his "death." Along
the way, as often happens in films like this, the two strangers share adventures and life lessons.
Keitel seems wildly miscast at first, looking or sounding nothing like Presley.
But there's a twinkle in his eye, and a sense of fun in his performance that
feels like a piece of Presley's own screen persona. Whether or not he really is Elvis,
he's good company; why would you want to spoil that by knowing one way or another?
The most notable "Elvis Lives!" film is the 2002 horror-comedy "Bubba Ho-Tep," directed
by Don Coscarelli. An aged Elvis, played by Bruce Campbell, and John F. Kennedy do battle
with a resurrected Egyptian mummy terrorizing the east Texas retirement home where they live.
At least one of these men may not be who he says he is, but the film mostly takes Elvis
at his word that he is the real deal. Like Rick Peters in "Elvis Meets Nixon," Campbell
is freed by the film's comedic tone to play Presley as a swaggering cartoon, which in a
way feels more realistic than some of the more dramatic, low-key performances on this list.
"Just what are you getting at, Elvis?" "I think you know what I'm getting at, Mr. President.
We're gonna kill us a mummy."
The film itself is undercooked, padded out to hit its already slim running time. It
is at times refreshingly forthright about the indignities of old age,
but just as often playing old people falling down for laughs.
One of the most popular depictions of Elvis in the last 20 years has not been on film,
but on stage. The mega-popular jukebox musical "Million Dollar
Quartet" tells the story of a day in 1956 when Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis,
and Carl Perkins all happened to be at Sun Records at the same time. In 2017 writers
Colin Escot and Floyd Mutrux adapted and expanded the show into the CMT miniseries "Sun Records."
Musician and Elvis impersonator Drake Milligan plays Presley as a high schooler swept up into
the burgeoning world of rock and roll. Thus far the series is his only acting credit other than
a 2014 short film where he also played Elvis. He's been a contestant on both "American Idol"
and "America's Got Talent," and above all he has the moves, the look, and the sound
of Presley down to a science. The series is a handsome gloss on those rough-and-tumble years,
and asks little of Milligan other than to be handsome and glossy in return.
In all the decades of actors playing Elvis on screen,
it apparently never occurred to anyone to cast an actual rock star in the role
until Jack White's one-scene cameo in the vastly underrated 2007 parody "Walk Hard:
The Dewey Cox Story." John C. Reilly plays the eponymous rock music prodigy, Dewey.
White appears in a scene taking place in the 1950s, showing up just long enough to
aggressively mumble a karate-based threat to Dewey for the crime of talking to him.
"There's two things you need to know. I'm the king, and number two is look out, man!"
Perhaps before White there was never a rock star with the improbable combination of having
a passable Elvis impersonation and being a big enough fan to lovingly skewer The King's persona.
He's Elvis. He's very small. He spends his days marveling at how much bigger
everyone and everything is than he. That's the premise and single joke of "Tiny Elvis,"
a 1992 "Saturday Night Live" sketch from Nicolas Cage's first and only time as host.
Cage has long been an avowed Elvis fan, and many of his early roles, from "Rumble Fish"
to "Raising Arizona" to "Wild at Heart," are played at a certain rockabilly pitch.
The sketch has two scenes that follow the same pattern: Elvis sits around with Memphis Mafia
members Sonny and Red West delighting in how huge everything is. But when one of
them takes it too far and calls him "cute" due to his size, Elvis flies into a rage.
"Well that's it! Out of the car, all ya!"
On one hand, the sketch is little more than a vehicle for Cage's
above-average Elvis impersonation and some impressive-for-live-TV
blue screen work. But in pairing Tiny E with his entourage members,
it lands a satirical shot at the way Elvis was coddled and enabled by those around him.
Irish actor Jonathan Rhys-Myers donned the sequins and sideburns in the CBS 2005 miniseries "Elvis,"
which covers The King's early days in Memphis up through his 1968 "Comeback Special." That concert
works here as a natural climax that allows Presley to go out on top in a way he didn't in real life,
and also spares the whisper-thin Rhys-Myers the indignity of wearing a fat suit.
Rhys-Myers makes for an intense, live-wire Presley in his private moments,
though a less-than-convincing singer on stage. The miniseries makes the odd
choice to have him lip sync to the studio recordings of Elvis' songs,
even when he's meant to be performing live. The series and Rhys-Myers are
refreshingly unafraid to show Presley as unsympathetic and even something of a weirdo.
The short-lived HBO rock and roll series "Vinyl" was perhaps, above all, a failure
of imagination. Set in 1971 New York City, it follows bad boy record executive Richie Finestra
as he hustles everyone in his life on behalf of his beloved label, the fictional American
Century. Considering that it was executive produced by Mick Jagger and Martin Scorsese,
it's all the more disappointing how often the series falls back on tired clichés.
One episode, however, breaks the mold. In "The King and I," Richie and his
second-in-command hear a rumor that Elvis is considering leaving his longtime record label,
RCA-Victor. They take a plane to Las Vegas to have a meeting with Presley in an effort to get
him to sign with American Century. In addition to bearing a striking physical resemblance,
professional impersonator Shawn Klush gives a surprisingly tender one-scene performance.
He sheds light on The King in an era that is too-often played for laughs or drug-fueled drama,
trapped in a gilded cage above the Vegas strip, unable to break free.
In 2019 it was announced that Austin Butler, a former Nickelodeon and Disney Channel heartthrob
recently seen getting mauled to death by Brad Pitt's dog in "Once Upon a Time...In
Hollywood," was cast as Elvis. Nearly three years later, director Baz Luhrmann's dizzying,
gaudy biopic of The King premiered to rapturous applause at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival.
Butler, more than nearly every other actor on this list, put in the work to become Elvis.
He does his own singing, dancing, and guitar playing in the film. In return,
Luhrmann's camera worships him from head to toe, especially in the parts
of the film detailing Presley's 1950s heyday when he was young, beautiful, and dangerous.
The screenplay covers The King's entire life and beyond, perhaps biting off more
than it can chew. As good as Butler is and as much effort as he is clearly giving,
Presley's hedonistic final years don't fit him quite as well as the pink-suited mama's boy of
his early years. And like many actors before him, playing Elvis seems to have left a mark;
it's been months since filming completed, but you can still hear it in his voice.
"And it's hard to, in the beginning, feel anything but small compared to him."
The best Elvis was the first Elvis. In 1979, just two years after Presley's death,
ABC aired the miniseries "Elvis." It covers Presley's early days through his Army stint,
his movie career, and up through his comeback special and the triumphant early Vegas days.
What sets the 1979 miniseries apart from its decades-later counterpart or any of
the other films on this list are two things: The patient, painterly filmmaking of John Carpenter,
and the megawatt charisma of Kurt Russell in the title role.
What's most remarkable about Russell's performance here is the way that he manages to make a full
character out of Presley while also working in all of the famous "Elvis impersonation" tics:
the voice, the pout, the swivel. Even his sideburns look good,
which would have been enough alone to put him at the top of the rankings.
"Man, I been away too long."
Perhaps he picked up some mojo when he had appeared as a child actor in Presley's "It
Happened at the World's Fair." 15 years later Russell would return to the role,
providing the voice to Peter Dobson's body in "Forrest Gump," and would wink
at it in 2001's other Vegas-set heist movie, "3000 Miles to Graceland."