Director Baz Luhrmann won’t be limited by a just-the-facts approach, especially since his subject, Elvis Presley, lends itself to theatrics. We kept a list while watching Elvis because he had so many unbelievable moments. Consider us startled to learn that the majority of them—the oddest detours of an oversized life—were real.
Did Elvis really sing to a dog on television?
Elvis Presley truly sang to a basset hound while wearing a top hat, despite how absurd it may look. Presley was told not to dance when he appeared on The Steve Allen Show after giving a daring hip-swiveling performance on The Milton Berle Show.
“You know, those folks in New York are not going to change me none — I’m going to show you what the real Elvis is like tonight,” Presley said after singing “Hound Dog” to the dog on a pedestal.
Did Elvis really nearly get arrested for his style of performing?
His overtly provocative performance style fuelled puritanic fear, and won him the ridiculous moniker “Elvis the Pelvis,” and alerted the FBI to a potential security danger.
A judge’s injunction to curb his movements during a concert in Jacksonville, Florida, and the vice squad filming him at a concert in Los Angeles in 1957.
Did Elvis really mistake an overzealous fan for an assassination attempt?
Presley almost shoots a fan who is rushing the stage in Elvis, which highlights the singer’s slow substance-fueled spiral into paranoia. Presley did get death threats, and at a 1970 show where the FBI thought a real threat had been made, Elvis performed with a loaded Derringer in his boot and a 45 handgun in his waistband.
Presley got fixated on the thought that Mike Stone, a karate instructor who had an affair with Priscilla, had sent the guys to kill him.