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This programme contains some strong language.
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'A life that was the stuff of fables. The world didn't notice his birth
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'in a two-roomed shack. But it noticed his death.
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'Elvis Presley, country boy,
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'died in a mansion on a street that was named for him.'
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'Police estimated that as many as 80,000 mourners gathered
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'to pay their last respects to the dead singer.'
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POLICE TALK THROUGH MEGAPHONE
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'Dozens of people fainted while waiting in the long line,
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'and some uncontrollably saddened.'
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SHE WAILS
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- How do you feel about seeing him for the last time?
- I hate it.
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I can't believe it.
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It's just unreal right now.
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I'm just numb.
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I've been very upset since I heard the news.
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I just wish he would come back.
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CROWD CHEERING
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Thank you very much.
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# Now, you can't judge an apple by looking at the tree
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# You can't judge honey by looking at the bee
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# Can't judge a daughter by looking at her mother
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# Can't judge a book by looking at the cover... #
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'There are plenty of people who think the King is still alive,
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'and every once in a while someone claims they've actually seen him.
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'In fact, if Elvis is alive, he wears a mask and goes by the name Orion.'
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# You can't judge a book by looking at the cover... #
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Orion Eckley Darnell, that's your full name?
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- Right.
- Where you come from?
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I was born at Sun Records, in the studio.
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- Do you ever take off your mask?
- Only when I go through customs.
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The multimillion dollar question - are you Elvis or are you not Elvis?
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I am Orion. Period.
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He just had that magic about him. Look at this guy. Who is he?
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'Here is Orion on the Sun label with Ebony Eyes.
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'Listen to a wonderful voice, and a superstar to be.'
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# Oh, the weekend passed
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# I wouldn't have time
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# To get home and marry... #
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They always tell you, especially down here in Nashville,
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sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction.
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Well, in Jimmy's case, that's exactly what it was.
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# ..My beautiful ebony eyes. #
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# See the tree, how big it's grown
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# But, friends it hasn't been too long
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# It wasn't big
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# You know, I laughed at her and she got mad
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# The first day that she planted it
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# Was just a twig
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# Then the first snow came
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# And she ran out to brush the snow away
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# So it wouldn't die
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# Came running in all excited
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# Slipped and almost hurt herself
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# I laughed till I cried
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# And, honey, I miss you
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# And I'm being good
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# And, honey, I miss you
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# And I'm being good
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# And I'd love to be with you
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# If only I could... #
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- Your real name is Jimmy Ellis, isn't it?
- That's correct.
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- Where are you from?
- Little town called Orrville, Alabama.
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CHEERING
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Orrville, Alabama. It's about 15 miles south of Selma, Alabama.
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I know you've heard of Selma, Alabama.
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Jimmy was sort of famous around our community for being the guy
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that could really sing. He could never have any peace and quiet.
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Folks would always want to get him to, "Sing us a song, Jimmy."
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If he was in a good mood, he'd sing one.
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If one of his girls had made him mad, he wouldn't sing at all.
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# A love is but a love
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# A kiss is but a kiss... #
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We met when we were 18 years old. One of Elvis's songs was playing.
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One of the ballplayers said, "Do you know who that is singing?"
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"Well, sure. It's Elvis Presley." All the guys kind of laughed.
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I said, "No, it's not. It's that guy."
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That was just a shock to hear a guy that sounded like he did.
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Back then, Elvis was a big deal. You know, he was the thing.
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THEY SCREAM
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- What did Jimmy think of Elvis?
- He loved the way he sang.
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He said, "There was nothing Elvis could sing that I can't sing."
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I think he knew he had a real talent.
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It was just unreal that he sounded so much like Elvis.
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When we graduated, at the ceremony,
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he sang some of the most beautiful songs. I knew the music was in him.
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You know, it was in his soul.
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He'd either entertain you with his singing,
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or he'd entertain you with his joking around.
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If you were down, you'd be around Jimmy five minutes
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and you'd be laughing and cheerful, and forget all your problems.
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# You said we had to part
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# I thought my heart would break
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# You were my only love
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# It's more than I can t-a-a-a-a-ke... #
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Then Jimmy had a meeting with Phil Walden with Capricorn Records.
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He actually offered Jimmy a contract. A recording contract.
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This part of the country, people worked hard on land.
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You know, this is cattleman country
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and farming country and cotton country.
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And when you talk about being a singer, they just frown on it.
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No question about Jimmy. He lived, breathed and ate walking horses.
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And actually trained three world champions.
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Jimmy was a star, just like he was a star of the stage.
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Jimmy's heart wasn't in it.
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Mr Ellis just constantly pushed Jamie more and more into the horses,
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and you could see him sitting on a horse sometimes,
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he just looked like, "Oh, great."
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Mr Ellis groomed him to take over their business,
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so that, one day, when they weren't there, it would be his.
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Daddy was so talented,
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but his interest was music.
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He would sing driving down the road. I mean, it was...
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Wherever you went, you'd be sitting in a pond somewhere fishing
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and he'd just be singing.
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Just where you was.
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I don't know, I can't explain it.
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It's not like a lightning bolt struck him in the head
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and, bam, "You can sing now." He was always that way.
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# If my lonely tears could talk
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# I know just what they'd say... #
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He took me to a little nightclub there in Selma,
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and I didn't know he could sing.
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I knew nothing about it.
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And the guy that ran the nightclub knew him
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and encouraged him to get up and sing.
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And when he opened his mouth, I nearly hit the floor!
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# Please come kiss the hurt away
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# Oh-oh, make it well
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# And take me away
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# From this earth
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# Wave a spell
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# In my lonely, lonely... #
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Growing up, Elvis was my idol.
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I don't guess there's ever been anyone else
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that could even touch the way I felt about Elvis.
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But when Jimmy started singing, I was astonished.
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And I think that was it right then. I said, "This is meant to be."
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This has to be the man I'm meant to be with the rest of my life.
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# And kiss the hurt away! #
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His dad always thought the music business was a bunch of foolishness.
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And I'd heard him say many times,
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"I do not know why Jimmy Ellis wants to run off
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"around the world singing when he has the finest horse farm
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"and the most talents of anyone in the country."
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And that was so. When you raise three world champions,
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you're obviously pretty sharp at what you do.
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- JIMMY:
- It just got to the point where I had to either go do it full time,
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cos that's where my heart was...
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..or either I had to just forget about it.
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Well, I couldn't forget about it.
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The saddest thing to me -
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it didn't seem to bother him, though -
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he laid out all of his saddles and bridles
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and everything that belonged to his horses on the ground,
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and it was all for sale in his barn.
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And to walk through there and see
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what I felt like was his entire life laying before me, it was...
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it was heartbreaking to me,
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but he was so excited to sell everything he had
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and go to Los Angeles and try his best to make a career.
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# Tell him his time is over Say goodbye
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# And if he asks the reason Then you can tell him why... #
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His aim was to put together a show that he could take on the road.
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I thought, once Hollywood saw him, that would be it.
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The drawback was they had one Elvis.
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How were they going to make him different?
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They worked with him to try to make it about him.
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The first thing for him to do was to learn to dance,
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and have a stage presence.
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But it was so hard because, one day, at the end of practice,
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when they opened the doors, there was a line.
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One of the girls had called a girlfriend and told her,
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"You won't believe who's here.
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"Elvis is in the building, he's practising."
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And the girls had lined up outside the door
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to wait for him to come out.
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# Never been loved before
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# I can love you better
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# Than you've ever been loved before... #
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They had him go around and meet with different stars,
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and put it in the newspaper to build up interest.
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They would just have him go to different parties
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to introduce him to Hollywood.
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# Than you've ever been loved before
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# La-la-la-la
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# Oh-oh-oh-oh
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# I can love you better... #
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The people in Hollywood, they're there for the money.
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They're there for the bottom line. They knew exactly how much he had.
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They were going to give him something for his money.
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But they, in the end, they were going to get all the money he had.
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And it didn't take them but about a year to do that.
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He had to go back home.
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He had a child. Little Jim, and his mum and dad, and the farm.
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It felt like he had really maybe missed the mark
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because he didn't start at 18.
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He knew that it was a fight for a 30-something
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to actually make his mark and to have a big career.
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It was a very, very defeating time in his life.
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A very depressing time in his life.
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All of us have had opportunities in life
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where we're this close to success,
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or something big happening in our lives, you know?
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For that to fall apart was, obviously, a very depressive time.
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We ended up engaged, and trying to have a normal life.
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But he couldn't let it go. He had too much talent.
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It was a dream that he could not let go.
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That's when we went and stayed with friends of his in Georgia.
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He and his girlfriend stayed with us for three months.
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And I got an appointment to see Bobby Smith.
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Bobby had a little recording studio
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and he had recorded Otis Redding at one time.
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A person called me. He brought a tape down -
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would I listen to this thing?
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I listened to it and I said, "I've got an idea."
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I was in the studio with my band, Avalanche,
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and Bobby Smith was our producer. And he said to me,
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"You need to come in here and listen to this guy."
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So we walked into Bobby's office,
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and I seen this tall drink of water, and he had that look,
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even then when I first walked in there, I said,
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"This guy is somebody. He has to be."
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You just don't look like that, you know, and not be somebody.
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So, Bobby, he's got a big smile on his face.
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He said, "Listen to this. Who do you think that is?"
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And he played this tape. I said, "That sounds like Elvis.
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"You're going to tell me that's this guy right there."
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Well, Jimmy started to sing right along with the tape.
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And I just shook my head and said,
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"I just cannot believe what I just heard!"
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What a combination this would be.
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Here we are, a disco band,
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and here comes this pop, country, rockabilly, Elvis sound-alike.
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Bobby said, "What do you think?"
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And I said, "It would be kind of interesting, wouldn't it?
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"Because people wouldn't know what to think. Let's try it!"
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# Well, I tossed and turned all night since you've been gone
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# I cried a pool of tears wanting you to come back home... #
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Well, before you know it, we had every screaming woman in the town
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coming to see this big, tall drink of water that sounds like Elvis.
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And those girls screamed and hollered,
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and I'm seeing them myself.
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This guy is unreal on stage.
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So I said, "I'll put two records out on you,
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"let's just see what'll happen."
247
00:17:31,400 --> 00:17:34,640
# Oh, the games you've been playing
248
00:17:34,640 --> 00:17:37,440
# Oh, the games you've been playing... #
249
00:17:42,680 --> 00:17:47,240
I was pretty sure that he was "playing around", I'll call it.
250
00:17:47,240 --> 00:17:49,600
Nothing serious with anybody else.
251
00:17:49,600 --> 00:17:51,160
As he put it to me,
252
00:17:51,160 --> 00:17:54,880
"You're in the driver's seat, what more do you want?
253
00:17:54,880 --> 00:17:56,960
"You're at the head of the line."
254
00:17:56,960 --> 00:17:59,880
Now, to him, that was the best place to be.
255
00:17:59,880 --> 00:18:01,920
To me, I didn't want a line.
256
00:18:01,920 --> 00:18:05,360
And I said, "If you think that I'm going to stay at home
257
00:18:05,360 --> 00:18:08,040
"and you're going to travel out on the road,
258
00:18:08,040 --> 00:18:10,600
"and you're not going to let me go with you,
259
00:18:10,600 --> 00:18:12,360
"that's not going to happen."
260
00:18:13,520 --> 00:18:15,880
And I took the ring off and handed it back to him.
261
00:18:15,880 --> 00:18:17,640
And he started laughing, and he said,
262
00:18:17,640 --> 00:18:20,960
"I wonder how many times this is going to go back and forth."
263
00:18:20,960 --> 00:18:23,920
And I thought, "Once."
264
00:18:23,920 --> 00:18:28,600
And I got a ticket to Los Angeles, and I moved the next day.
265
00:18:28,600 --> 00:18:30,680
And I never went back.
266
00:18:35,920 --> 00:18:38,160
So, I put the first record out on him.
267
00:18:38,160 --> 00:18:40,560
We had disc jockeys that, "I'm not going to play you,
268
00:18:40,560 --> 00:18:42,320
"you sound too much like Elvis."
269
00:18:42,320 --> 00:18:47,440
In the United States, if you sound like Elvis, it's the kiss of death.
270
00:18:48,480 --> 00:18:50,880
Because Elvis was more than just a voice.
271
00:18:52,120 --> 00:18:54,640
He gave all of the people of my generation
272
00:18:54,640 --> 00:18:56,920
a freedom that we hadn't had before.
273
00:18:58,880 --> 00:19:00,520
It was a blessing and a curse.
274
00:19:01,520 --> 00:19:04,120
Everybody always said he's an Elvis impersonator,
275
00:19:04,120 --> 00:19:05,960
and that was the furthest thing.
276
00:19:05,960 --> 00:19:09,240
He wanted to get so far away from that, it was crazy.
277
00:19:09,240 --> 00:19:13,000
But...God gave him that voice.
278
00:19:33,720 --> 00:19:39,600
# Well, I'm not trying to be just like Elvis
279
00:19:40,760 --> 00:19:46,400
# I'm doing my best to make it on my own... #
280
00:19:46,400 --> 00:19:49,400
Jimmy tried all kinds of things.
281
00:19:49,400 --> 00:19:53,880
Great recordings, but didn't really do a lot.
282
00:19:55,480 --> 00:19:59,720
Bobby Smith, who was producing him, he brought him to Nashville.
283
00:19:59,720 --> 00:20:01,520
I always used to tell people,
284
00:20:01,520 --> 00:20:04,040
"If you want to be a model, you go to New York.
285
00:20:04,040 --> 00:20:06,120
"If you want to make cars, go to Detroit.
286
00:20:06,120 --> 00:20:08,560
"If you want to be a star, go to Hollywood.
287
00:20:08,560 --> 00:20:11,160
"If you want to make records, go to Nashville."
288
00:20:33,840 --> 00:20:37,040
I would say probably 1,000 a week come through Nashville
289
00:20:37,040 --> 00:20:39,040
looking for recording contracts.
290
00:20:39,040 --> 00:20:41,240
What percentage of them make it?
291
00:20:41,240 --> 00:20:44,040
Er, probably 1/100 of 1 percent.
292
00:20:46,120 --> 00:20:48,960
Of course, the original Sun Studios are in Memphis.
293
00:20:48,960 --> 00:20:51,480
We are standing in the birthplace of rock and roll.
294
00:20:51,480 --> 00:20:55,440
Sun Studio, Memphis Tennessee. It's where it all began.
295
00:20:55,440 --> 00:20:59,040
Elvis Presley stood on that X and changed history.
296
00:21:01,080 --> 00:21:05,720
Shelby bought Sun Records, the label, from Sam Phillips
297
00:21:05,720 --> 00:21:07,880
and moved Sun Records to Nashville.
298
00:21:08,960 --> 00:21:13,040
Jimmy Ellis says, "You know Shelby Singleton, don't you?"
299
00:21:13,040 --> 00:21:19,480
He came to see me and I didn't have any idea of how to promote him
300
00:21:19,480 --> 00:21:21,760
because of the way his voice sounded.
301
00:21:21,760 --> 00:21:24,040
You know, if there wasn't an Elvis at that time,
302
00:21:24,040 --> 00:21:26,760
he could have probably been a star.
303
00:21:26,760 --> 00:21:30,240
Jimmy wanted to be a superstar. And he should have been.
304
00:21:31,240 --> 00:21:36,480
There was no way that he could have failed if Elvis had never lived.
305
00:21:40,000 --> 00:21:44,440
'Tonight, August 16, reported from the NBC News Centre in New York.'
306
00:21:47,080 --> 00:21:48,280
Good evening.
307
00:21:48,280 --> 00:21:51,560
Elvis Presley died today. He was 42.
308
00:21:51,560 --> 00:21:53,440
Apparently, it was a heart attack.
309
00:21:53,440 --> 00:21:56,960
When word of Presley's death came, there was a rush on his records.
310
00:21:56,960 --> 00:21:59,760
You can't even buy one here now. They're all sold out.
311
00:21:59,760 --> 00:22:02,760
We had people lined up outside the store this morning
312
00:22:02,760 --> 00:22:05,520
waiting to come in to buy Elvis records.
313
00:22:05,520 --> 00:22:09,200
RCA Records is reportedly working day and night to turn out
314
00:22:09,200 --> 00:22:11,920
as many new albums as it needs to meet the demand.
315
00:22:11,920 --> 00:22:14,520
Charles Osgood, CBS News, New York.
316
00:22:18,120 --> 00:22:19,960
Shelby had an idea.
317
00:22:19,960 --> 00:22:24,640
He owned the masters on Jerry Lee Lewis, Charlie Rich, Carl Perkins,
318
00:22:24,640 --> 00:22:27,960
all the old entertainers at Sun Records.
319
00:22:27,960 --> 00:22:31,760
I decided I could bring him in and over-dub him on the tracks
320
00:22:31,760 --> 00:22:35,600
and, of course, everybody thought that I'd found an Elvis master
321
00:22:35,600 --> 00:22:38,360
in the catalogue after I'd bought Sun.
322
00:22:53,120 --> 00:22:56,200
- How was the label put out on that record?
- Did not have my name on it.
323
00:22:56,200 --> 00:22:59,240
Right, it didn't have your name on it? It caused a bit of a stir.
324
00:22:59,240 --> 00:23:01,280
Yeah, it was a controversial record.
325
00:23:01,280 --> 00:23:04,200
Bobby was a promotional man and he knew that outrageous schemes
326
00:23:04,200 --> 00:23:05,960
could sometimes draw a lot of attention.
327
00:23:05,960 --> 00:23:09,680
Is this Elvis, or is it not? Sort of what he was trying to sell.
328
00:23:09,680 --> 00:23:12,120
And then he started pairing him with other Sun classics -
329
00:23:12,120 --> 00:23:15,120
Carl Perkins and Charlie Rich and Johnny Cash,
330
00:23:15,120 --> 00:23:16,600
as if they were old recordings.
331
00:23:16,600 --> 00:23:20,120
The timing was right because all this happened
332
00:23:20,120 --> 00:23:24,240
within six months after Elvis had died.
333
00:23:24,240 --> 00:23:27,600
Elvis was getting the credit. That was the only problem, you know?
334
00:23:27,600 --> 00:23:29,720
If someone else is getting the credit,
335
00:23:29,720 --> 00:23:31,600
then you don't make the money.
336
00:23:31,600 --> 00:23:35,080
So...I would rather be known for my own ability.
337
00:23:36,320 --> 00:23:39,000
And then we come along with this great idea.
338
00:23:40,080 --> 00:23:43,640
And it gives him something to do. Something that's different.
339
00:23:45,920 --> 00:23:48,360
And now, ladies and gentlemen, if you will, please,
340
00:23:48,360 --> 00:23:51,200
big round of applause. Mr Jimmy Ellis!
341
00:23:51,200 --> 00:23:53,000
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
342
00:23:54,720 --> 00:23:57,240
How's everybody tonight at Nashville South?
343
00:23:57,240 --> 00:23:59,200
CHEERING
344
00:23:59,200 --> 00:24:01,320
Everybody holler one time real loud.
345
00:24:01,320 --> 00:24:03,360
- CHEERING
- Play it.
346
00:24:04,440 --> 00:24:08,440
MUSIC: There You Go by Jimmy Ellis
347
00:24:12,560 --> 00:24:14,960
# There you go... #
348
00:24:14,960 --> 00:24:17,840
We were in a little club called Nashville South.
349
00:24:17,840 --> 00:24:20,720
And I really didn't know who was performing that night.
350
00:24:20,720 --> 00:24:25,160
But when music is being played, the music comes right to me.
351
00:24:25,160 --> 00:24:28,200
And I said, "My goodness, who is that?"
352
00:24:28,200 --> 00:24:30,680
He was so magnetic.
353
00:24:30,680 --> 00:24:32,960
The audience was just in his hand.
354
00:24:32,960 --> 00:24:35,800
I met him when he came off the stage and I said,
355
00:24:35,800 --> 00:24:39,280
"You know, I might have something that's going to change your life."
356
00:24:41,040 --> 00:24:44,280
I began Orion in 1977.
357
00:24:44,280 --> 00:24:47,200
The concept of Orion came from what it would be like
358
00:24:47,200 --> 00:24:50,400
to be a prisoner of your own fame, such as Elvis Presley.
359
00:24:50,400 --> 00:24:53,960
- So, did you start writing Orion before Elvis died?
- Oh, yes.
360
00:24:53,960 --> 00:24:58,280
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got real serious about it the day he died.
361
00:24:58,280 --> 00:25:02,520
Because I felt I needed to hurry and finish this.
362
00:25:02,520 --> 00:25:05,960
Because people needed to understand what this poor man went through.
363
00:25:05,960 --> 00:25:07,880
That's what this book is.
364
00:25:07,880 --> 00:25:11,960
It's exploring the tragedy of a superstar.
365
00:25:11,960 --> 00:25:15,040
And how he had to escape that tragedy
366
00:25:15,040 --> 00:25:17,760
just to be able to walk down the street.
367
00:25:17,760 --> 00:25:21,440
So, Orion, in order to escape, he fakes his own death.
368
00:25:22,800 --> 00:25:24,560
Gail is a great writer.
369
00:25:24,560 --> 00:25:26,800
And I was writing the songs to go with the book.
370
00:25:26,800 --> 00:25:30,760
We were intending to have a movie, and we had Hollywood interest.
371
00:25:30,760 --> 00:25:34,840
And so, when I met him, I knew there was more to this.
372
00:25:34,840 --> 00:25:37,800
I mean, it was just incredible that he sang like this.
373
00:25:37,800 --> 00:25:39,760
And that he looked like he did.
374
00:25:39,760 --> 00:25:42,200
I told Gail, "I want you to go with me.
375
00:25:42,200 --> 00:25:45,040
"I'm going to show you something you won't believe."
376
00:25:45,040 --> 00:25:47,120
Jimmy had a beautiful voice.
377
00:25:47,120 --> 00:25:50,320
We talked about him doing the songs for the movie,
378
00:25:50,320 --> 00:25:51,880
should there be a movie.
379
00:26:11,160 --> 00:26:13,840
It just seemed meant to be...
380
00:26:13,840 --> 00:26:16,960
that I would be in that club on that night.
381
00:26:16,960 --> 00:26:19,280
Because he did one-nighters at that time.
382
00:26:19,280 --> 00:26:22,000
And he was in his early 30s.
383
00:26:22,000 --> 00:26:24,400
He had been trying to make it for years.
384
00:26:24,400 --> 00:26:26,400
And he needed a vehicle.
385
00:26:26,400 --> 00:26:29,400
He felt like it was the answer to his prayers.
386
00:26:29,400 --> 00:26:33,240
And we actually thought that Jimmy would kind of walk out of that book.
387
00:26:45,000 --> 00:26:50,240
The creation of Orion off of the book was really my idea.
388
00:26:50,240 --> 00:26:53,440
It was part accident and part madman genius.
389
00:26:53,440 --> 00:26:56,760
I thought that I could create this mystique
390
00:26:56,760 --> 00:27:00,440
of everybody thinking that he really was Elvis,
391
00:27:00,440 --> 00:27:04,240
and that he had faked his own death, like the book.
392
00:27:04,240 --> 00:27:07,240
My character hoaxed his death.
393
00:27:08,360 --> 00:27:11,720
Then, all the rumours began. I didn't start them.
394
00:27:11,720 --> 00:27:15,000
Um, about, "Is Elvis dead?"
395
00:27:16,880 --> 00:27:18,400
Timing is everything.
396
00:27:18,400 --> 00:27:23,760
People were very, very emotional and receptive to anything Elvis.
397
00:27:23,760 --> 00:27:27,800
Shelby Singleton came along at the right time and the right place
398
00:27:27,800 --> 00:27:30,560
with nothing more than a gimmick.
399
00:27:30,560 --> 00:27:32,120
A gimmick.
400
00:27:32,120 --> 00:27:33,640
Despicable gimmick.
401
00:27:35,640 --> 00:27:39,240
Shelby says, "Bobby I've got an idea.
402
00:27:39,240 --> 00:27:42,320
"It's going to be up to you to talk him into it.
403
00:27:42,320 --> 00:27:45,040
"It's going to be something he's not going to want to do,
404
00:27:45,040 --> 00:27:47,120
"cos he was a nice-looking person."
405
00:27:47,120 --> 00:27:49,800
He says, "Wear a mask."
406
00:27:49,800 --> 00:27:51,360
I said, "Wear a mask?"
407
00:27:51,360 --> 00:27:54,200
And I said, "He's not going to like that,
408
00:27:54,200 --> 00:27:56,040
"I can tell you that right now."
409
00:27:56,040 --> 00:27:57,880
He was very reluctant.
410
00:27:57,880 --> 00:28:00,440
As a matter of fact, he didn't even like the idea.
411
00:28:00,440 --> 00:28:03,640
But Shelby pretty much persuaded him
412
00:28:03,640 --> 00:28:06,880
that either you put on the mask and you do this,
413
00:28:06,880 --> 00:28:08,280
or you go back to Alabama
414
00:28:08,280 --> 00:28:11,080
and see if you can get another deal somewhere else.
415
00:28:11,080 --> 00:28:15,400
He didn't want to do it, but we finally talked him into doing it.
416
00:28:15,400 --> 00:28:18,040
Otherwise, he was just Jimmy Ellis, you know?.
417
00:28:18,040 --> 00:28:21,840
And Jimmy Ellis didn't really mean nothing.
418
00:28:23,680 --> 00:28:26,080
In order to be a successful entertainer,
419
00:28:26,080 --> 00:28:28,760
you have to want it more than you want to breathe.
420
00:28:28,760 --> 00:28:30,920
You have to want it more than air.
421
00:28:30,920 --> 00:28:34,040
And Jimmy desperately, desperately wanted it.
422
00:28:54,720 --> 00:28:57,480
We had a guy who sounded like Elvis.
423
00:28:57,480 --> 00:28:59,920
Maybe if he's photographed a certain way
424
00:28:59,920 --> 00:29:01,880
he could sort of look like Elvis.
425
00:29:01,880 --> 00:29:05,760
Left the fans kind of hoping it was Elvis behind that mask.
426
00:29:07,200 --> 00:29:10,160
You have this real guy. They put a mask on him.
427
00:29:10,160 --> 00:29:12,640
And they brought this fictional character alive.
428
00:29:13,920 --> 00:29:16,200
That's all he was - fiction.
429
00:29:16,200 --> 00:29:18,160
Some people give birth to babies.
430
00:29:18,160 --> 00:29:20,880
I gave birth to a 6'4" man with a mask!
431
00:29:20,880 --> 00:29:23,320
It was a hard delivery!
432
00:29:23,320 --> 00:29:25,120
SHE LAUGHS
433
00:29:25,120 --> 00:29:27,880
I didn't even know he was going to go on stage, quite frankly.
434
00:29:27,880 --> 00:29:30,240
I thought they were just up there, going to cut the song
435
00:29:30,240 --> 00:29:32,240
so I could take him to the producer.
436
00:29:32,240 --> 00:29:34,360
I don't know how this got to this.
437
00:29:34,360 --> 00:29:36,760
CHEERING
438
00:29:36,760 --> 00:29:39,440
He's a cross between Elvis and the Lone Ranger.
439
00:29:40,920 --> 00:29:44,840
He's called Orion, but his true identity is a well-kept secret.
440
00:29:45,960 --> 00:29:48,760
His character was born in the pages of the book Orion.
441
00:29:48,760 --> 00:29:51,200
The book's here.
442
00:29:51,200 --> 00:29:54,080
I'm here. Which I'm glad of.
443
00:29:54,080 --> 00:29:56,160
I wouldn't know of any other place
444
00:29:56,160 --> 00:29:59,040
I'd rather be right now than to be here.
445
00:29:59,040 --> 00:30:01,480
I think that's the most important thing.
446
00:30:01,480 --> 00:30:03,400
And that we make a few people happy.
447
00:30:05,880 --> 00:30:07,760
# Is my love going a-walking?
448
00:30:07,760 --> 00:30:09,640
# It's a mighty dreary life
449
00:30:09,640 --> 00:30:11,320
# Loneliness can wound a man
450
00:30:11,320 --> 00:30:13,320
# Like the cutting of a knife
451
00:30:13,320 --> 00:30:15,000
# How long must I suffer?
452
00:30:15,000 --> 00:30:17,080
# Tell me, when will I be free?
453
00:30:17,080 --> 00:30:20,320
# Anybody out there wanna be close to me?
454
00:30:20,320 --> 00:30:22,680
# Well, a man can die of hunger
455
00:30:22,680 --> 00:30:24,560
# He can die of thirst, I know
456
00:30:24,560 --> 00:30:26,000
# Loneliness can kill me
457
00:30:26,000 --> 00:30:27,640
# Why, this ain't got far to go
458
00:30:27,640 --> 00:30:29,840
# How long must I suffer?
459
00:30:29,840 --> 00:30:31,640
# Tell me, when will I be free?
460
00:30:31,640 --> 00:30:34,880
# Anybody out there wanna make love to me?
461
00:30:34,880 --> 00:30:39,040
# Anybody out there wanna come and take my blues away?
462
00:30:39,040 --> 00:30:42,600
# Hold me close and say the words I want to hear you say
463
00:30:42,600 --> 00:30:45,920
# I'm in pain and misery as lonely as can be
464
00:30:45,920 --> 00:30:50,080
# Anybody out there wanna make love to me? Oh, yeah!
465
00:30:50,080 --> 00:30:53,000
# Anybody out there wanna make love to me? #
466
00:30:53,000 --> 00:30:54,160
Whoo!
467
00:30:54,160 --> 00:30:56,920
How about it, ladies and gentlemen? Put your hands together
468
00:30:56,920 --> 00:30:58,720
for the fantastic Orion, how about it?
469
00:30:58,720 --> 00:31:02,240
That was when it all started right there, that's 1979.
470
00:31:02,240 --> 00:31:07,360
It was a phenomenon. I mean, I'd never seen anything like it.
471
00:31:07,360 --> 00:31:09,920
We had sell-out crowds.
472
00:31:09,920 --> 00:31:14,440
I mean, you get a place that seats 1,500 to 2,500 people
473
00:31:14,440 --> 00:31:16,080
and you're selling those out,
474
00:31:16,080 --> 00:31:18,080
that's a lot of people coming out to see you.
475
00:31:19,760 --> 00:31:23,040
You want to hear one more, let him hear you, Orion!
476
00:31:23,960 --> 00:31:26,000
One more song, Orion!
477
00:31:26,000 --> 00:31:29,040
Everyone loves a fairytale
478
00:31:29,040 --> 00:31:32,640
and everyone would like to think you can come back from the dead,
479
00:31:32,640 --> 00:31:35,080
so, let's face it, that's what they were after.
480
00:31:36,320 --> 00:31:39,360
Sun Records would say, "If you could get a tenth of the Elvis fans,
481
00:31:39,360 --> 00:31:42,520
"you'd have millions of fans." They were trying to live through Jimmy
482
00:31:42,520 --> 00:31:45,280
what they would have liked to have lived through through Elvis.
483
00:31:45,280 --> 00:31:47,800
They'd have loved to meet Elvis when he got on his bus,
484
00:31:47,800 --> 00:31:49,440
but they could do that with Jimmy.
485
00:31:49,440 --> 00:31:53,280
So you drew that same type fan and many of the same fans.
486
00:31:53,280 --> 00:31:55,000
Elvis that you couldn't talk to,
487
00:31:55,000 --> 00:31:57,400
all of a sudden here's this sort of stand-in Elvis,
488
00:31:57,400 --> 00:31:59,560
taking pictures with you with his arms around you.
489
00:31:59,560 --> 00:32:01,640
Elvis hadn't been able to do that for a long time
490
00:32:01,640 --> 00:32:04,280
and all of a sudden the fans wanted that sort of magical touch
491
00:32:04,280 --> 00:32:05,400
would go up and touch him.
492
00:32:05,400 --> 00:32:08,320
He'd hang out afterwards and sign autographs and the fans loved him.
493
00:32:08,320 --> 00:32:10,800
It was an experience, I'm telling you
494
00:32:10,800 --> 00:32:14,720
and I have actually seen girls standing there crying, just shaking.
495
00:32:14,720 --> 00:32:18,240
He really affected people, he really did.
496
00:32:18,240 --> 00:32:22,600
The lady sitting beside us said, "Do you know that's Elvis?"
497
00:32:22,600 --> 00:32:25,080
She said, "You know why he wears the mask?
498
00:32:25,080 --> 00:32:27,400
"To cover up all the scars that he's got.
499
00:32:27,400 --> 00:32:30,680
"He had plastic surgery to change his looks."
500
00:32:30,680 --> 00:32:34,640
I remember some girl coming up to the stage
501
00:32:34,640 --> 00:32:38,880
with a bouquet of flowers, and comes up reverently
502
00:32:38,880 --> 00:32:42,600
and bows and genuflects and puts it at his feet
503
00:32:42,600 --> 00:32:46,840
and I thought, "This is strange. This is just kind of weird."
504
00:32:46,840 --> 00:32:49,160
She obviously thought he was Elvis.
505
00:32:49,160 --> 00:32:52,640
To me, it always has been very obvious if you looked at the man,
506
00:32:52,640 --> 00:32:56,520
even with the mask on, you could tell this was not Elvis Presley.
507
00:32:56,520 --> 00:32:59,360
His eyes were brown, his nose was different.
508
00:32:59,360 --> 00:33:03,800
He's built different, he was much taller, he was much younger,
509
00:33:03,800 --> 00:33:06,680
but there were so many people back in the early '80s
510
00:33:06,680 --> 00:33:09,280
who so desperately wanted Elvis to still be alive,
511
00:33:09,280 --> 00:33:12,240
and they took it hook, line and sinker.
512
00:33:12,240 --> 00:33:15,560
It's almost like the fans become part of the fantasy.
513
00:33:16,880 --> 00:33:20,320
They're performing - the singer's performing and they're performing.
514
00:33:20,320 --> 00:33:23,520
They're acting the way they think they're conditioned to act.
515
00:33:25,680 --> 00:33:27,880
It's all just a myth.
516
00:33:30,080 --> 00:33:34,560
We preyed on, not only the fans, but on the press itself.
517
00:33:34,560 --> 00:33:38,200
You know, you couldn't buy the publicity that we did.
518
00:33:39,240 --> 00:33:42,000
The more lies we told, the more people believed them.
519
00:33:44,040 --> 00:33:46,920
One of the things playing up the mystery that this could be
520
00:33:46,920 --> 00:33:51,440
the dead Elvis who was still alive is that his first album had
521
00:33:51,440 --> 00:33:52,680
this shiny coffin,
522
00:33:52,680 --> 00:33:55,280
much like the one that Elvis was buried in, on the cover,
523
00:33:55,280 --> 00:33:58,280
so it was as if he's risen from the dead or he's been born again
524
00:33:58,280 --> 00:33:59,600
or the coffin is empty -
525
00:33:59,600 --> 00:34:01,880
you could look at it in a lot of different ways.
526
00:34:01,880 --> 00:34:07,000
They wanted to put the album on the racks in Walmart and Kmart
527
00:34:07,000 --> 00:34:09,360
but they got objections from the buyers
528
00:34:09,360 --> 00:34:11,400
because of the casket that was on there,
529
00:34:11,400 --> 00:34:13,120
so I had to change the cover on it.
530
00:34:14,080 --> 00:34:16,600
This one originally...
531
00:34:16,600 --> 00:34:18,520
turned into that one.
532
00:34:21,920 --> 00:34:26,920
I was, I guess, shocked when the album came out.
533
00:34:26,920 --> 00:34:29,240
Everything from my book was on the back of the album.
534
00:34:30,480 --> 00:34:33,280
This is the prologue of my book
535
00:34:33,280 --> 00:34:38,320
and he even had Orion Eckley Darnell as a songwriter.
536
00:34:38,320 --> 00:34:40,200
That's a character in my book.
537
00:34:40,200 --> 00:34:42,560
It had him under the guidance of Mac Weiman,
538
00:34:42,560 --> 00:34:44,000
a character in my book.
539
00:34:44,000 --> 00:34:48,120
Write to Orion, care of Dixie-Land, that's my book.
540
00:34:48,120 --> 00:34:50,400
Everything was my book.
541
00:34:50,400 --> 00:34:53,840
Instead of Graceland, like, down in Memphis, you know,
542
00:34:53,840 --> 00:34:58,000
where Elvis lived, in the book Orion, it was called Dixie-Land
543
00:34:58,000 --> 00:35:00,480
and then it said Ribbonsville, Tennessee.
544
00:35:00,480 --> 00:35:03,440
I always knew there was no such place as Ribbonsville, Tennessee.
545
00:35:03,440 --> 00:35:06,880
- Where do you call home?
- Ribbonsville, Tennessee.
546
00:35:06,880 --> 00:35:08,520
Well, home is Nashville.
547
00:35:08,520 --> 00:35:10,920
- I live in Nashville, but I was born in...
- Ribbonsville?
548
00:35:10,920 --> 00:35:14,600
..a little town called Ribbonsville, Tennessee. It's hard to find.
549
00:35:14,600 --> 00:35:16,880
How many people? What's the population?
550
00:35:16,880 --> 00:35:20,120
- Well, it was three and now it's two.
- Where is it?
551
00:35:21,200 --> 00:35:24,040
- It's, er...
- Really, I've never heard of it.
552
00:35:24,040 --> 00:35:29,040
You're getting into the mysterious part of my life, Mother.
553
00:35:29,040 --> 00:35:32,320
I mean, he'd just played, like, two weeks before as Jimmy Ellis
554
00:35:32,320 --> 00:35:34,720
and all of a sudden he's in the mask, he's Orion,
555
00:35:34,720 --> 00:35:36,840
and you're not supposed to know who he is.
556
00:35:36,840 --> 00:35:40,120
It's like we're charging everybody 25 if they call him Jimmy,
557
00:35:40,120 --> 00:35:43,280
cos you couldn't call him Jimmy, or the secret would get out.
558
00:35:43,280 --> 00:35:45,080
Taking her character
559
00:35:45,080 --> 00:35:48,640
and creating the character in reality is what we did.
560
00:35:48,640 --> 00:35:50,920
I didn't know they were going to do this
561
00:35:50,920 --> 00:35:53,600
and they never licensed any right to do this.
562
00:35:53,600 --> 00:35:55,120
How much were you paid for this?
563
00:35:55,120 --> 00:35:56,640
Nothing.
564
00:35:56,640 --> 00:35:59,720
Zilch, zero. Nothing.
565
00:35:59,720 --> 00:36:01,280
Nothing!
566
00:36:01,280 --> 00:36:05,840
So Shelby said, er, "So sue me."
567
00:36:07,960 --> 00:36:12,440
Well, I will say that we were naive a lot.
568
00:36:12,440 --> 00:36:16,640
We didn't do a lot of things we should have done in contracts.
569
00:36:17,640 --> 00:36:19,400
Back in the early '80s,
570
00:36:19,400 --> 00:36:23,400
Shelby Singleton was the most sued man in Tennessee
571
00:36:23,400 --> 00:36:25,720
for failing to pay
572
00:36:25,720 --> 00:36:28,200
and for doing things...
573
00:36:29,720 --> 00:36:32,280
..maybe not quite the way they should have been done.
574
00:36:33,320 --> 00:36:34,640
Why didn't I sue?
575
00:36:34,640 --> 00:36:38,240
We thought about it, we thought about even getting an injunction.
576
00:36:38,240 --> 00:36:41,200
I didn't want to hurt Jimmy, this was just starting up for him.
577
00:36:41,200 --> 00:36:44,280
I didn't want to hurt Carol Halupke, her songs were getting cut,
578
00:36:44,280 --> 00:36:47,560
so that's basically what happened - they just ran with it
579
00:36:47,560 --> 00:36:49,960
and I kind of was the victim.
580
00:36:52,480 --> 00:36:56,040
# Yeah, the one I love forever is untrue
581
00:36:57,160 --> 00:36:58,400
# And if I could
582
00:36:58,400 --> 00:37:01,120
# You know that I would fly away with you... #
583
00:37:01,120 --> 00:37:04,280
Orion is being billed as the superstar of the '80s
584
00:37:04,280 --> 00:37:07,000
by Shelby Singleton's Sun Record group, here in Nashville.
585
00:37:07,000 --> 00:37:10,920
And the response to his singing is almost unbelievable.
586
00:37:10,920 --> 00:37:14,240
A few weeks ago, he put on a show at Nashville's Tennessee Theatre
587
00:37:14,240 --> 00:37:17,720
and was scheduled to go on stage at ten o'clock in the evening.
588
00:37:17,720 --> 00:37:21,240
At four that afternoon, fans started lining up for seats.
589
00:37:21,240 --> 00:37:23,680
What do I like about him? Everything.
590
00:37:23,680 --> 00:37:25,760
This is our 15th time to see him.
591
00:37:25,760 --> 00:37:28,920
- How many times have you seen him?
- Oh, too many times to count.
592
00:37:28,920 --> 00:37:33,440
I thought he was Elvis, I went all the way to Alabama to see who he was,
593
00:37:33,440 --> 00:37:35,320
followed him ever since.
594
00:37:35,320 --> 00:37:37,320
One of the things I admire about you
595
00:37:37,320 --> 00:37:39,840
is you've managed to keep your head about it all.
596
00:37:39,840 --> 00:37:43,840
You're getting to be, as they say in the business, a mighty big star.
597
00:37:43,840 --> 00:37:45,320
How do you handle it?
598
00:37:45,320 --> 00:37:47,960
It's not hard for me to handle.
599
00:37:47,960 --> 00:37:51,040
I enjoy the fans, I enjoy the publicity,
600
00:37:51,040 --> 00:37:53,240
I enjoy the business, I enjoy my work,
601
00:37:53,240 --> 00:37:56,080
so, you know, it's really not hard for me to handle.
602
00:37:57,160 --> 00:37:58,920
He was developing such a fanfare.
603
00:37:58,920 --> 00:38:01,920
A promoter could take him at any club or any venue,
604
00:38:01,920 --> 00:38:04,640
almost guarantee that they'd sell the place out.
605
00:38:04,640 --> 00:38:08,920
Our fan club now, in one year's time, is up to 20,000 members.
606
00:38:08,920 --> 00:38:10,440
It's almost to the point now
607
00:38:10,440 --> 00:38:12,840
where your fan club is nearing a cult following.
608
00:38:12,840 --> 00:38:17,840
Well, we used to have about 500 fans that would follow him
609
00:38:17,840 --> 00:38:19,560
every place that he went.
610
00:38:19,560 --> 00:38:24,160
In fact, we had two ladies that lived in their car out in our parking lot
611
00:38:24,160 --> 00:38:27,000
and just waited until he would leave town,
612
00:38:27,000 --> 00:38:29,320
so they could follow him wherever he was going.
613
00:38:30,400 --> 00:38:33,880
When Jimmy would go out on tour, his fans followed right along
614
00:38:33,880 --> 00:38:37,960
behind the bus and they'd travel hundreds, thousands of miles.
615
00:38:37,960 --> 00:38:40,360
It was just so stupid,
616
00:38:40,360 --> 00:38:41,840
but you're following the damn bus,
617
00:38:41,840 --> 00:38:43,600
so you'd look through the back of the bus,
618
00:38:43,600 --> 00:38:47,400
see if they'll stop at the red light and hop out, it's crazy.
619
00:38:49,320 --> 00:38:51,640
How do you like the life on the road?
620
00:38:51,640 --> 00:38:55,080
I think I'm just geared for entertainment life.
621
00:38:55,080 --> 00:38:56,640
I like to be on the road.
622
00:38:56,640 --> 00:38:59,680
If I'm on the road nine days a week, I like it.
623
00:38:59,680 --> 00:39:01,480
My agent can tell you that.
624
00:39:01,480 --> 00:39:03,240
But if I'm home for three days,
625
00:39:03,240 --> 00:39:06,000
I'm ready to get back on the road the fourth day.
626
00:39:10,000 --> 00:39:13,400
I remember Daddy flying in from Las Vegas,
627
00:39:13,400 --> 00:39:15,200
just to watch me play ball,
628
00:39:15,200 --> 00:39:18,000
and get home and he'd be gone, had to fly back out.
629
00:39:19,280 --> 00:39:21,480
So he always set aside time for me,
630
00:39:21,480 --> 00:39:25,200
a couple of weeks that there was nobody but me and him.
631
00:39:25,200 --> 00:39:26,960
You know, we fished and so on.
632
00:39:29,240 --> 00:39:32,320
The music business has never been my thing, you know,
633
00:39:32,320 --> 00:39:34,600
born and raised on a farm
634
00:39:34,600 --> 00:39:38,160
and, of course, he was too, raised on a farm,
635
00:39:38,160 --> 00:39:41,760
but, you know, he chased his dream.
636
00:39:44,360 --> 00:39:46,680
When Jimmy would come into...
637
00:39:46,680 --> 00:39:50,080
round Orrville after he became Orion,
638
00:39:50,080 --> 00:39:51,400
people were critical.
639
00:39:52,520 --> 00:39:56,320
They felt like Jimmy's trying to reach out for the stars
640
00:39:56,320 --> 00:39:59,600
or something, but they would snub him.
641
00:40:02,520 --> 00:40:06,480
I think it bothered Jimmy worse that we all thought it was silly
642
00:40:06,480 --> 00:40:09,560
and many of his close friends would tell him it was silly.
643
00:40:09,560 --> 00:40:12,840
His hometown folks never really accepted him
644
00:40:12,840 --> 00:40:18,880
as being any possibility but Jimmy Ellis who wanted to be like Elvis.
645
00:40:20,160 --> 00:40:21,840
Well, I didn't think I was anything
646
00:40:21,840 --> 00:40:24,120
except a guy trying to make a living, you know.
647
00:40:24,120 --> 00:40:27,560
I was not for making people believe that I was somebody else.
648
00:40:27,560 --> 00:40:29,440
I was not for that.
649
00:40:29,440 --> 00:40:32,800
Orion insists that he wants to be known for his own singing
650
00:40:32,800 --> 00:40:36,240
and not because he sounds like Elvis. But that has not been easy.
651
00:40:38,200 --> 00:40:41,040
Quite honestly, when Shelby put the mask on him,
652
00:40:41,040 --> 00:40:45,040
as far as Nashville went, he lost all credibility whatsoever.
653
00:40:45,040 --> 00:40:47,560
Yeah, he's really good, he's got a lovely voice,
654
00:40:47,560 --> 00:40:49,720
but he's got a mask on.
655
00:40:51,440 --> 00:40:54,320
Country and western singer Orion is our guest today,
656
00:40:54,320 --> 00:40:56,640
and, Orion, before you sing,
657
00:40:56,640 --> 00:41:00,120
I want you to tell the audience a little bit about the mask.
658
00:41:00,120 --> 00:41:01,920
I'm not hiding anything.
659
00:41:01,920 --> 00:41:05,960
It's a trademark, it's an idea that the promotional people
660
00:41:05,960 --> 00:41:08,640
in Nashville, Tennessee, came up with.
661
00:41:08,640 --> 00:41:12,240
Shelby Singleton, who is the president of Sun Records,
662
00:41:12,240 --> 00:41:14,680
is probably known in the music business
663
00:41:14,680 --> 00:41:18,160
as one of the most flamboyant promoters in the business.
664
00:41:18,160 --> 00:41:22,720
He'll do most anything to promote a product and...
665
00:41:23,760 --> 00:41:27,560
..he'll try to do it differently than anyone else does it
666
00:41:27,560 --> 00:41:29,880
and so he wanted to make the thing a little different,
667
00:41:29,880 --> 00:41:32,000
and I'll grant you it's a little different,
668
00:41:32,000 --> 00:41:34,960
when you walk into a crowd of people and you're wearing this mask.
669
00:41:38,600 --> 00:41:40,520
Under his contract with Sun,
670
00:41:40,520 --> 00:41:43,760
he wasn't allowed to take his mask off when he was in the public eye.
671
00:41:43,760 --> 00:41:46,520
Every time we'd come out of a hotel, we'd look in the bushes
672
00:41:46,520 --> 00:41:49,640
and there would be a camera crew set up trying to catch Jimmy
673
00:41:49,640 --> 00:41:52,680
without the mask, so when I'd come back in the room and say,
674
00:41:52,680 --> 00:41:54,800
"Jimmy, the National Enquirer's in the bushes,"
675
00:41:54,800 --> 00:41:57,400
I mean, he had come out and he had to wear the mask
676
00:41:57,400 --> 00:42:00,080
and he hated the mask the entire time he wore it, you know.
677
00:42:09,960 --> 00:42:14,080
Well, Shelby had had a contract with Walmart that if ever an album
678
00:42:14,080 --> 00:42:18,320
came out on Orion, we'd have to go into Walmart at a certain time
679
00:42:18,320 --> 00:42:20,840
and autograph records, you know.
680
00:42:20,840 --> 00:42:24,440
You can imagine people in the shop buying groceries
681
00:42:24,440 --> 00:42:26,680
and looked around and seeing a masked man -
682
00:42:26,680 --> 00:42:30,280
oh, he hated that more than anything and I hated it too.
683
00:42:37,960 --> 00:42:41,960
I think even from the start, Jimmy Ellis wasn't completely sure
684
00:42:41,960 --> 00:42:44,320
this was a great idea, but it worked.
685
00:42:44,320 --> 00:42:46,440
It worked so well and it was so successful
686
00:42:46,440 --> 00:42:49,480
and this is after years of not being successful, all of a sudden he has,
687
00:42:49,480 --> 00:42:50,920
you know, records are selling,
688
00:42:50,920 --> 00:42:52,920
he has people showing up wanting to hear him
689
00:42:52,920 --> 00:42:55,600
and not just wanting to hear him but going crazy, you know,
690
00:42:55,600 --> 00:42:58,520
and rushing the stage and grabbing in on him.
691
00:42:58,520 --> 00:43:01,840
It had to be heady but, at the same time, you know,
692
00:43:01,840 --> 00:43:04,840
he knew he was selling something that wasn't quite him.
693
00:43:23,280 --> 00:43:26,400
As much as he hated being under the mask,
694
00:43:26,400 --> 00:43:31,160
he did have a weakness...for women.
695
00:43:31,160 --> 00:43:36,840
He was a complicated person, he wasn't Mr Happy-Go-Lucky.
696
00:43:36,840 --> 00:43:40,640
I mean, he had some issues about women.
697
00:43:40,640 --> 00:43:45,320
He had a lot of women in his life, a lot.
698
00:43:46,360 --> 00:43:50,880
Elaine Thompson was in the audience and ended up being his girlfriend
699
00:43:50,880 --> 00:43:52,600
and he married her.
700
00:43:52,600 --> 00:43:56,520
She was more like a groupie that was following him around,
701
00:43:56,520 --> 00:44:00,400
but he had a lot of other girls following him around the same time
702
00:44:00,400 --> 00:44:04,800
and he seemed to stick with her more than the rest of them,
703
00:44:04,800 --> 00:44:07,400
although there were many women.
704
00:44:08,560 --> 00:44:12,520
Jimmy was married to Elaine twice in the early '80s.
705
00:44:12,520 --> 00:44:14,360
They divorced twice.
706
00:44:14,360 --> 00:44:17,800
They had a very rocky on-again, off-again relationship,
707
00:44:17,800 --> 00:44:21,560
probably somewhat like Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton,
708
00:44:21,560 --> 00:44:23,280
quite stormy.
709
00:44:23,280 --> 00:44:26,400
Elaine was a spitfire, she never trusted him
710
00:44:26,400 --> 00:44:30,720
and I guess she shouldn't have, but he never trusted her either.
711
00:44:30,720 --> 00:44:32,800
They were both, like, tit-for-tat.
712
00:44:32,800 --> 00:44:35,120
What one did, the other one did just as much.
713
00:44:35,120 --> 00:44:38,440
Jimmy was never, ever true to one woman.
714
00:44:38,440 --> 00:44:41,840
It was just like he was a chauvinist pig at that point in time
715
00:44:41,840 --> 00:44:43,480
cos he could have it all.
716
00:44:43,480 --> 00:44:46,800
It would never be a secret where he was staying at,
717
00:44:46,800 --> 00:44:48,760
every room would be booked by fans.
718
00:44:48,760 --> 00:44:51,400
You know, it was just a big party the whole time he was there.
719
00:44:51,400 --> 00:44:54,440
He would call from room to room to room.
720
00:44:54,440 --> 00:44:57,760
He didn't like to sleep alone, he didn't want to be alone
721
00:44:57,760 --> 00:44:59,640
when he went to sleep.
722
00:44:59,640 --> 00:45:02,720
I don't know why, but he didn't, and you'd think,
723
00:45:02,720 --> 00:45:06,000
"No, I'm not coming to your room, I saw what just left your room."
724
00:45:06,000 --> 00:45:08,440
I never did some of the things the others did.
725
00:45:08,440 --> 00:45:10,040
I was asked to do some,
726
00:45:10,040 --> 00:45:11,840
but I never did that
727
00:45:11,840 --> 00:45:14,680
cos I know he did have a briefcase full of pictures -
728
00:45:14,680 --> 00:45:17,400
he would be happy to show you that - and I'd be like,
729
00:45:17,400 --> 00:45:20,280
"I don't want to see that, I work at those all day long.
730
00:45:20,280 --> 00:45:23,320
"I see those where I work, I don't need to see that here."
731
00:45:23,320 --> 00:45:27,400
- But he was into...
- What do you mean?
732
00:45:27,400 --> 00:45:31,400
I worked for a gynaecologist and he's got pictures of every...
733
00:45:31,400 --> 00:45:35,120
Lucy is what I call mine. ..every Lucy in town.
734
00:45:35,120 --> 00:45:37,680
He'd be like... He did!
735
00:45:37,680 --> 00:45:41,200
Oh, he was silly. I don't know why.
736
00:45:41,200 --> 00:45:45,560
It's like a trophy collector, he had hundreds of Polaroids
737
00:45:45,560 --> 00:45:49,360
and how did he know whose was whose is what I want to know.
738
00:45:50,480 --> 00:45:53,240
He said, "Those women,
739
00:45:53,240 --> 00:45:56,400
"they don't mean any more to me than smoking a cigarette."
740
00:45:57,560 --> 00:45:58,720
And they didn't.
741
00:45:58,720 --> 00:46:04,760
I almost felt he was sort of afraid to trust people wholeheartedly.
742
00:46:04,760 --> 00:46:06,440
Afraid of being hurt.
743
00:46:06,440 --> 00:46:10,560
To me, he acted like somebody that had been hurt badly.
744
00:46:10,560 --> 00:46:12,480
By who, I don't know.
745
00:46:35,840 --> 00:46:40,040
Daddy had a rough childhood from birth to five years old,
746
00:46:40,040 --> 00:46:45,400
until my grandparents, his adopted parents, found him
747
00:46:45,400 --> 00:46:50,560
and, I mean, there are some stories that he told me that...
748
00:46:50,560 --> 00:46:52,080
that would make you...
749
00:46:52,080 --> 00:46:56,200
I don't really want to talk about it, but when he found them,
750
00:46:56,200 --> 00:46:58,240
it was just a whole different world.
751
00:46:58,240 --> 00:47:00,640
And it took him a while to get used to that
752
00:47:00,640 --> 00:47:02,720
because he didn't know who to trust.
753
00:47:02,720 --> 00:47:05,600
Trust is a bitch at five years old.
754
00:47:05,600 --> 00:47:07,880
He all didn't trust everybody.
755
00:47:09,200 --> 00:47:10,480
Keep that in mind.
756
00:47:11,880 --> 00:47:14,520
He was pulled from foster home to foster home
757
00:47:14,520 --> 00:47:17,400
and he had a thing even into his 30s and 40s
758
00:47:17,400 --> 00:47:19,760
where he didn't put his things up
759
00:47:19,760 --> 00:47:22,640
when he was going to be in a hotel for a few days
760
00:47:22,640 --> 00:47:25,960
because he was pulled from so many different foster homes
761
00:47:25,960 --> 00:47:27,960
that if you put your things up,
762
00:47:27,960 --> 00:47:31,120
one of the other kids would get them or you'd be moved.
763
00:47:31,120 --> 00:47:35,920
So, you know, he always kept everything packed up.
764
00:47:35,920 --> 00:47:37,760
I thought a lot about it.
765
00:47:37,760 --> 00:47:39,600
How would you really feel
766
00:47:39,600 --> 00:47:46,080
if you really didn't even know who your birth mother and father was.
767
00:47:46,080 --> 00:47:49,760
It would be a lonely... an emptiness.
768
00:47:49,760 --> 00:47:53,920
I never saw Jimmy really happy. I mean, he was having a good time.
769
00:47:53,920 --> 00:47:57,600
Most of his days were involved in doing something,
770
00:47:57,600 --> 00:47:59,240
trying to be successful.
771
00:48:01,440 --> 00:48:04,160
- ARCHIVE INTERVIEW:
- How many albums have you put down?
- Seven.
772
00:48:04,160 --> 00:48:05,640
Seven already, in two years?
773
00:48:05,640 --> 00:48:08,880
- Seven albums in two years.
- You've been a busy man!
774
00:48:08,880 --> 00:48:12,760
Orion, I believe one album will be the rockabilly-type album?
775
00:48:12,760 --> 00:48:15,840
Yeah, and the other one Orion has planned to be released real soon
776
00:48:15,840 --> 00:48:17,720
is a gospel-type album.
777
00:48:17,720 --> 00:48:20,560
Texas Tea is a little bit more on the country side
778
00:48:20,560 --> 00:48:23,040
and comes from your album Orion Country.
779
00:48:23,040 --> 00:48:25,000
We've done a lot of experimenting with
780
00:48:25,000 --> 00:48:27,920
the middle-of-the-road album, which was the second release
781
00:48:27,920 --> 00:48:31,520
and, you know, we did the Jerry Lee Lewis album and the Trio Plus album,
782
00:48:31,520 --> 00:48:33,800
which was a duet with Jerry Lee Lewis, Charlie Rich
783
00:48:33,800 --> 00:48:35,120
and Carl Perkins and myself
784
00:48:35,120 --> 00:48:37,920
and we've just done a lot of experimenting and we are...
785
00:48:37,920 --> 00:48:40,360
I think, sooner or later, we're going to come into our own
786
00:48:40,360 --> 00:48:42,480
and really do some really nice things later.
787
00:48:42,480 --> 00:48:45,320
Even if the disc jockeys in the early '80s
788
00:48:45,320 --> 00:48:48,320
were willing to accept a man with a mask on,
789
00:48:48,320 --> 00:48:50,640
you can't market all that to the same station.
790
00:48:50,640 --> 00:48:53,200
At least, you couldn't back in the 1980s.
791
00:48:53,200 --> 00:48:54,760
Now, you could probably market
792
00:48:54,760 --> 00:48:56,680
everything he did now as just country,
793
00:48:56,680 --> 00:48:59,640
but at the time, you couldn't. So...
794
00:49:00,840 --> 00:49:03,840
You know, he threw himself in so many different directions,
795
00:49:03,840 --> 00:49:06,120
I guess, hoping something would stick.
796
00:49:06,120 --> 00:49:09,160
It seemed like he was pretty fast in the studio,
797
00:49:09,160 --> 00:49:11,000
so they could probably get...
798
00:49:12,360 --> 00:49:15,200
..oh, four songs in three hours.
799
00:49:15,200 --> 00:49:19,360
It wasn't months and months on one track like some artists do.
800
00:49:19,360 --> 00:49:24,360
This was originally the Sun studio
801
00:49:24,360 --> 00:49:28,200
where Jimmy Ellis, Orion, recorded in the '70s and '80s.
802
00:49:28,200 --> 00:49:32,360
We, a couple of years ago, turned it into our merchandise warehouse.
803
00:49:35,920 --> 00:49:39,960
Not only was it a working studio, it was also a "tour studio",
804
00:49:39,960 --> 00:49:42,920
and Shelby had a deal with one of the tour-bus companies.
805
00:49:42,920 --> 00:49:45,400
They would bring in a busload, you know,
806
00:49:45,400 --> 00:49:47,520
a big Greyhound bus full of tourists.
807
00:49:47,520 --> 00:49:49,080
HE LAUGHS
808
00:49:49,080 --> 00:49:52,640
That's funny. I had never been in that situation before.
809
00:49:52,640 --> 00:49:54,120
We'd be in the middle of a session.
810
00:49:54,120 --> 00:49:56,760
All of a sudden, Paul would run in and say, "Bus, bus!"
811
00:49:56,760 --> 00:49:59,480
and we'd have to stop. I'd be in the middle of a guitar solo.
812
00:49:59,480 --> 00:50:01,560
It would get aggravating
813
00:50:01,560 --> 00:50:05,080
because a great solo only comes along once in a lifetime
814
00:50:05,080 --> 00:50:08,000
and all of a sudden somebody comes in and says, "Cut!"
815
00:50:09,080 --> 00:50:12,680
You've lost it, you can't never get that back again.
816
00:50:12,680 --> 00:50:16,280
We'd have to sit there for another hour or two to get the groove back
817
00:50:16,280 --> 00:50:18,400
and finally get into it again
818
00:50:18,400 --> 00:50:20,800
and here comes another tour.
819
00:51:07,720 --> 00:51:11,160
Shelby would release an album first through mail order music,
820
00:51:11,160 --> 00:51:14,440
which meant he'd send these flyers out to all the fans
821
00:51:14,440 --> 00:51:15,560
and they'd all buy it,
822
00:51:15,560 --> 00:51:18,600
THEN he would send it to the record store and it wouldn't sell.
823
00:51:18,600 --> 00:51:22,160
Why? Because he's already sold thousands through the mail at retail.
824
00:51:22,160 --> 00:51:24,040
He wanted that retail money first.
825
00:51:24,040 --> 00:51:25,360
We should have stopped that
826
00:51:25,360 --> 00:51:27,560
and had 'em go into the record store to get it,
827
00:51:27,560 --> 00:51:30,480
but they'd look like bad record sales when they didn't sell
828
00:51:30,480 --> 00:51:33,160
and one of the worst things, I think, that happened to Jimmy,
829
00:51:33,160 --> 00:51:35,000
I don't think there's any doubt in the world
830
00:51:35,000 --> 00:51:38,040
that Save The Last Dance with Jerry Lee sold a million copies,
831
00:51:38,040 --> 00:51:40,240
but Jimmy didn't get a gold record for that.
832
00:51:40,240 --> 00:51:42,800
I think it's a shame that he's never going to go down
833
00:51:42,800 --> 00:51:44,120
as a gold-selling artist
834
00:51:44,120 --> 00:51:47,360
because the money was done in a way that it didn't show up or something.
835
00:51:47,360 --> 00:51:49,680
But we know he sold at least a million copies of that
836
00:51:49,680 --> 00:51:51,640
and Reborn might have come close to that.
837
00:51:51,640 --> 00:51:53,520
To my knowledge,
838
00:51:53,520 --> 00:51:56,120
he never got a royalty cheque from Shelby Singleton,
839
00:51:56,120 --> 00:51:57,800
despite the fact that
840
00:51:57,800 --> 00:52:01,000
there are millions of those albums floating around
841
00:52:01,000 --> 00:52:04,080
and he should have made some money on that.
842
00:52:04,080 --> 00:52:06,760
It might have only been 25,000 or 30,000,
843
00:52:06,760 --> 00:52:08,720
but he should have gotten something.
844
00:52:46,600 --> 00:52:50,240
# If you've got a lot of loving and you don't know where to put it
845
00:52:52,120 --> 00:52:56,160
# You been racking your brain and you don't know who might want it
846
00:52:57,840 --> 00:53:02,480
# If you need someone to hold on to and you don't know who it will be
847
00:53:02,480 --> 00:53:04,400
# Just look me up
848
00:53:05,400 --> 00:53:07,200
# And lay it on me
849
00:53:08,880 --> 00:53:11,960
# Well, look me up and lay it on me
850
00:53:11,960 --> 00:53:15,200
# I swear I won't regret it
851
00:53:15,200 --> 00:53:18,000
# I'll love you so many ways
852
00:53:18,000 --> 00:53:20,760
# Baby, you won't ever forget it
853
00:53:20,760 --> 00:53:23,960
# If you've got that feeling and you don't know what to do
854
00:53:25,880 --> 00:53:29,640
# And you need somebody that you can cuddle up to
855
00:53:31,560 --> 00:53:32,960
# You can't ever tell
856
00:53:32,960 --> 00:53:36,400
# I just might be the very thing you need
857
00:53:36,400 --> 00:53:38,960
# Honey, look me up
858
00:53:38,960 --> 00:53:40,640
# And lay it on me... #
859
00:53:42,920 --> 00:53:46,840
Shelby had scheduled a tour for Orion in Germany
860
00:53:46,840 --> 00:53:52,000
because he was a very popular artist in Germany
861
00:53:52,000 --> 00:53:56,000
and they just had crowds and crowds there.
862
00:53:56,000 --> 00:54:00,160
But somewhere, while they were there, something happened.
863
00:54:00,160 --> 00:54:05,160
Orion was standing on a table in a pub in Germany,
864
00:54:05,160 --> 00:54:08,200
doing tracks to Elvis songs,
865
00:54:08,200 --> 00:54:11,920
which he hated to do, but he was doing it.
866
00:54:11,920 --> 00:54:15,880
They were walking down the street and Shelby basically told him,
867
00:54:15,880 --> 00:54:18,480
"You're always going to be an Elvis impersonator."
868
00:54:18,480 --> 00:54:21,520
He was basically performing by lip-syncing
869
00:54:21,520 --> 00:54:24,600
and he didn't think that was fair to the fans.
870
00:54:24,600 --> 00:54:28,160
We had a big argument and he and I almost got into,
871
00:54:28,160 --> 00:54:30,680
but we never got to fisticuffs.
872
00:54:30,680 --> 00:54:34,800
Now, Orion, six foot three.
873
00:54:34,800 --> 00:54:37,760
Shelby, five eight.
874
00:54:38,800 --> 00:54:41,000
Orion took his arm...
875
00:54:41,000 --> 00:54:44,600
Whap! He hit Shelby in the face.
876
00:54:44,600 --> 00:54:48,920
Shelby fell back in his jumpsuit, his little bitty jumpsuit,
877
00:54:48,920 --> 00:54:52,440
like a turtle that had been turned over on its back.
878
00:54:52,440 --> 00:54:58,560
At that point in time, Shelby tried to distance himself from Orion.
879
00:55:11,320 --> 00:55:13,400
He really didn't want to be Orion.
880
00:55:14,480 --> 00:55:16,080
He wanted to be Jimmy Ellis.
881
00:55:18,360 --> 00:55:24,960
The frustration built, it... it started off very small.
882
00:55:24,960 --> 00:55:28,240
"All right, I have to wear the mask, let me wear the mask,
883
00:55:28,240 --> 00:55:30,560
"I'll get used to it." That attitude.
884
00:55:30,560 --> 00:55:34,880
As time went along, it would burn him, it would irk him.
885
00:55:45,240 --> 00:55:47,160
Why do you wear the mask, Orion?
886
00:55:50,040 --> 00:55:51,760
Good question.
887
00:55:52,960 --> 00:55:55,280
He wore it because he was under contract.
888
00:55:56,880 --> 00:55:58,720
Point blank, simple.
889
00:56:01,760 --> 00:56:03,840
For a while, he had been arguing with Shelby
890
00:56:03,840 --> 00:56:06,840
about whether they should take off the mask to stop the charade
891
00:56:06,840 --> 00:56:09,560
and Shelby kept telling him, "No, the only way this works
892
00:56:09,560 --> 00:56:11,360
"is if you keep up the mystery."
893
00:56:24,800 --> 00:56:29,920
It was a gimmick and he hated it because it took his identity.
894
00:56:31,160 --> 00:56:32,480
I mean, you can imagine
895
00:56:32,480 --> 00:56:35,800
walking around with a paper bag on your head all your life.
896
00:56:35,800 --> 00:56:38,800
You know, that's basically the way he summed it up.
897
00:56:40,600 --> 00:56:43,800
You know, I guess everybody wants a mask to hide behind when you fail,
898
00:56:43,800 --> 00:56:46,000
but if you succeed...
899
00:56:46,000 --> 00:56:51,040
"If I do reach the pinnacle... who am I?"
900
00:56:54,880 --> 00:56:57,400
Reality doesn't mean anything in show business.
901
00:56:57,400 --> 00:56:59,760
It's all perception and that perception was set.
902
00:56:59,760 --> 00:57:01,760
There was no way he could have changed it.
903
00:57:03,080 --> 00:57:05,640
He said, "I'd be up there on that stage doing the show
904
00:57:05,640 --> 00:57:08,680
"and I'd see these people clapping and applauding
905
00:57:08,680 --> 00:57:10,400
"and reaching up to grab me."
906
00:57:10,400 --> 00:57:14,400
And he says, "It dawned on me. They weren't clapping for me.
907
00:57:14,400 --> 00:57:16,760
"They were clapping for a ghost."
908
00:57:19,960 --> 00:57:24,120
So, after years of that, he just got tired of it
909
00:57:24,120 --> 00:57:28,600
and this one day, he decided he'd had enough,
910
00:57:28,600 --> 00:57:30,240
in the middle of a show.
911
00:57:43,480 --> 00:57:46,040
I can still see Bobby Smith's face to this day,
912
00:57:46,040 --> 00:57:50,120
when Jimmy took that mask off and threw it out into the audience.
913
00:57:50,120 --> 00:57:54,400
Bobby come up off his chair - "Noooo! Noooo!"
914
00:57:54,400 --> 00:57:55,920
It was like you see in the movies.
915
00:57:55,920 --> 00:57:59,720
"No! We're done! We're through!" You know? HE LAUGHS
916
00:57:59,720 --> 00:58:01,160
And basically it was.
917
00:58:01,160 --> 00:58:04,960
Pretty much after that, it was... Shelby finally said,
918
00:58:04,960 --> 00:58:07,480
"No, that's it," tore up the contract.
919
00:58:07,480 --> 00:58:10,200
"You're either going to do it my way or it's the highway."
920
00:58:10,200 --> 00:58:11,800
And Jimmy took the highway.
921
00:58:26,200 --> 00:58:30,880
Fans were disappointed before I'd got back to Nashville.
922
00:58:30,880 --> 00:58:34,400
Fans had already called in to Sun Record Company complaining.
923
00:58:34,400 --> 00:58:37,160
He was finished at that point.
924
00:58:37,160 --> 00:58:39,440
What made him had been destroyed.
925
00:58:39,440 --> 00:58:43,760
If he'd have kept the mask on, he could've been a superstar.
926
00:58:43,760 --> 00:58:46,360
Do you think it was a mistake, him taking the mask off?
927
00:58:47,960 --> 00:58:49,880
HE SIGHS
928
00:58:49,880 --> 00:58:51,280
Well...
929
00:58:52,960 --> 00:58:57,160
Yes, if he wanted to continue as Orion.
930
00:58:58,320 --> 00:59:00,920
No, for his own sanity.
931
00:59:01,960 --> 00:59:05,040
But the fans liked the mask.
932
00:59:05,040 --> 00:59:09,080
It's like the guy wearing a Santa Claus suit taking off his beard.
933
00:59:09,080 --> 00:59:13,600
"Oh, no!" Same thing with the mask.
934
00:59:13,600 --> 00:59:16,240
"Don't take the mask off.
935
00:59:16,240 --> 00:59:19,960
"Let me be in this paradise fantasy that I love,
936
00:59:19,960 --> 00:59:21,760
"let me close my eyes
937
00:59:21,760 --> 00:59:24,880
"and just imagine what you might be without the mask.
938
00:59:24,880 --> 00:59:26,040
"Don't take it off."
939
00:59:27,640 --> 00:59:31,440
I think, when he took the mask off, it brought it all to reality.
940
00:59:32,800 --> 00:59:37,280
It was a gamble. He couldn't be happy with just the success.
941
00:59:37,280 --> 00:59:39,200
He had to be known.
942
00:59:39,200 --> 00:59:43,160
There was no way that you could sell him
943
00:59:43,160 --> 00:59:48,680
to a major label like RCA, CBS, Capitol.
944
00:59:48,680 --> 00:59:51,160
I think he went through all of them,
945
00:59:51,160 --> 00:59:54,360
trying to get, you know, deals with them.
946
00:59:54,360 --> 00:59:57,200
They wanted nothing to do with it.
947
00:59:57,200 --> 00:59:59,640
If he'd have gone out to Las Vegas
948
00:59:59,640 --> 01:00:03,120
and gotten recognised as the man with Elvis's voice,
949
01:00:03,120 --> 01:00:06,360
they would have kept calling him to do soundalikes of Elvis.
950
01:00:06,360 --> 01:00:08,760
Somebody wants a movie, there's your guy,
951
01:00:08,760 --> 01:00:12,520
that's who you needed to call and he turned down those
952
01:00:12,520 --> 01:00:16,120
because, "I'm my own man and I'm not an Elvis impersonator."
953
01:00:42,720 --> 01:00:46,600
Tony put this out, the Who's The Next Superstar Of The '80s?
954
01:00:46,600 --> 01:00:50,760
This was all rock and roll, a la Rick Springfield.
955
01:00:50,760 --> 01:00:52,840
And he was a teenybopper idol.
956
01:00:52,840 --> 01:00:56,400
His target audience was probably 12-18.
957
01:00:56,400 --> 01:00:59,680
But, you know, here you had a man who was in his 30s,
958
01:00:59,680 --> 01:01:02,160
and you were marketing him to the same audience.
959
01:01:02,160 --> 01:01:04,000
I didn't ever quite understand that,
960
01:01:04,000 --> 01:01:06,400
but Tony at least seemed to have the connections
961
01:01:06,400 --> 01:01:09,160
to be able to make it work, if anything was going to work.
962
01:01:09,160 --> 01:01:10,960
# That's what she told me, she was
963
01:01:10,960 --> 01:01:14,000
# Still in love with Billy
964
01:01:14,000 --> 01:01:16,000
# Still in love with Billy... #
965
01:01:26,840 --> 01:01:29,200
Most of these people that put the money in
966
01:01:29,200 --> 01:01:31,200
didn't have a background in music.
967
01:01:31,200 --> 01:01:33,960
They didn't know anything about the industry.
968
01:01:33,960 --> 01:01:37,720
Except what they saw on TV, movies, that type of thing.
969
01:01:38,720 --> 01:01:41,960
And that was the other thing, he went by so many different names.
970
01:01:41,960 --> 01:01:43,000
You had Jimmy Ellis.
971
01:01:43,000 --> 01:01:45,120
Then you had Mr E.
972
01:01:45,120 --> 01:01:48,000
I think we also had Mr Excitement.
973
01:01:48,000 --> 01:01:50,800
There was another one they called Ellis James,
974
01:01:50,800 --> 01:01:53,320
which was just his name backwards.
975
01:01:53,320 --> 01:01:56,920
Followed by the Cadillac Man.
976
01:01:56,920 --> 01:01:59,520
And then later Steven Silver.
977
01:01:59,520 --> 01:02:02,360
You know, Madonna constantly reinvented herself
978
01:02:02,360 --> 01:02:05,560
through the '80s and '90s, but in a good way.
979
01:02:05,560 --> 01:02:10,480
With Jimmy Ellis, he probably just needed to pick one and stick with it.
980
01:02:10,480 --> 01:02:13,160
Who are you? You know, make up your mind.
981
01:02:14,640 --> 01:02:17,640
And the only reason why he changed his name so many times
982
01:02:17,640 --> 01:02:19,360
was he wanted to get away from...
983
01:02:19,360 --> 01:02:21,440
So nobody would know who he was.
984
01:02:21,440 --> 01:02:25,440
But his voice was distinctive, it didn't matter what name he used.
985
01:02:25,440 --> 01:02:28,680
He could use Harvey Schwartz and it was just, you know,
986
01:02:28,680 --> 01:02:31,760
it was still that voice.
987
01:02:31,760 --> 01:02:33,200
Didn't matter.
988
01:02:33,200 --> 01:02:37,880
His vocal ability was God-given. He had a God-given talent.
989
01:02:37,880 --> 01:02:40,720
He has no idea where he came from, he was adopted.
990
01:02:41,840 --> 01:02:45,440
A lot of people have tried to say maybe he was related to Elvis.
991
01:02:45,440 --> 01:02:47,160
He could have been, he didn't know.
992
01:02:47,160 --> 01:02:50,680
There's no resemblance to Elvis whatsoever.
993
01:02:50,680 --> 01:02:53,120
But there is to Vernon.
994
01:02:53,120 --> 01:02:57,760
Vernon Presley and Jimmy Ellis look like the same person.
995
01:02:59,360 --> 01:03:01,400
He looked just like Vernon Presley.
996
01:03:01,400 --> 01:03:05,320
I could see the same look, the same hairline, the same ears.
997
01:03:05,320 --> 01:03:06,920
The same... It was just...
998
01:03:06,920 --> 01:03:10,120
Can that be a coincidence, have this vocal? I don't know.
999
01:03:10,120 --> 01:03:12,440
I saw his birth certificate.
1000
01:03:13,600 --> 01:03:16,160
And I remember it was from the state of Mississippi,
1001
01:03:16,160 --> 01:03:18,560
and it said mother, Gladys Bell.
1002
01:03:18,560 --> 01:03:21,200
Father, Vernon, with no last name.
1003
01:03:21,200 --> 01:03:24,800
And it was just blank. And that was all he had ever known.
1004
01:03:24,800 --> 01:03:31,200
Vernon Presley, in his carousing days, could be Jim Ellis's Father.
1005
01:03:31,200 --> 01:03:33,720
I just have a hard time believing
1006
01:03:33,720 --> 01:03:37,280
that two people could look so much alike,
1007
01:03:37,280 --> 01:03:40,360
and then, where does that voice come from?
1008
01:03:40,360 --> 01:03:43,240
Pretty amazing, isn't it? Pretty amazing.
1009
01:03:44,760 --> 01:03:47,440
Jimmy never really told us.
1010
01:03:47,440 --> 01:03:50,520
He never would divulge that part of his life.
1011
01:03:50,520 --> 01:03:53,400
It's almost like he had these secrets,
1012
01:03:53,400 --> 01:03:56,080
and you knew he had a secret, but he would never really...
1013
01:03:56,080 --> 01:03:58,320
He would give you hints.
1014
01:03:58,320 --> 01:04:01,680
Clues. You know, it was like a riddle to Jimmy.
1015
01:05:14,720 --> 01:05:18,160
And then, in the late '80s, he went back to being Orion,
1016
01:05:18,160 --> 01:05:19,640
and even put the mask back on.
1017
01:05:19,640 --> 01:05:22,760
So someone talked him into that, which really surprised me,
1018
01:05:22,760 --> 01:05:24,720
because he hated it so much.
1019
01:05:24,720 --> 01:05:28,720
Hi, everybody, I'm Jim and I've got a real treat for you.
1020
01:05:28,720 --> 01:05:33,000
As a matter of fact, here's the tape we've been waiting for.
1021
01:05:33,000 --> 01:05:37,400
Here's Orion, in concert at Celina, Ohio.
1022
01:05:44,400 --> 01:05:46,280
Now, we...
1023
01:05:46,280 --> 01:05:52,440
We appreciate anything that you folks can do as far as applause.
1024
01:05:52,440 --> 01:05:55,080
We don't care if you get up and dance a little bit, do we?
1025
01:05:55,080 --> 01:05:56,760
No, we don't.
1026
01:05:56,760 --> 01:05:59,960
This is one strange phenomenon about show business.
1027
01:05:59,960 --> 01:06:05,480
One day, that man appears, and all of a sudden,
1028
01:06:05,480 --> 01:06:07,560
you've experienced a superstar.
1029
01:06:07,560 --> 01:06:12,840
And I truly believe tonight you will see a superstar.
1030
01:06:12,840 --> 01:06:16,200
- And if y'all ready to just clap your hands...
- CLAPPING
1031
01:06:16,200 --> 01:06:18,120
get your feet together...
1032
01:06:18,120 --> 01:06:21,880
your minds and your bodies, because you're going to see...
1033
01:06:21,880 --> 01:06:26,320
- CHEERING
- ..Orion!
1034
01:06:28,360 --> 01:06:30,400
I can't find my way out of here!
1035
01:06:33,880 --> 01:06:35,480
# Uh-huh-huh-huh
1036
01:06:35,480 --> 01:06:37,120
CHEERING
1037
01:06:39,280 --> 01:06:41,200
# I'm making all right
1038
01:06:41,200 --> 01:06:43,440
# From Monday morning to Friday night
1039
01:06:43,440 --> 01:06:46,080
# And oh, that lonely weekend
1040
01:06:46,080 --> 01:06:48,680
# Since you left me
1041
01:06:48,680 --> 01:06:50,560
# I'm as lonely as I can be
1042
01:06:50,560 --> 01:06:53,600
# Oh, it's a lonely weekend
1043
01:06:53,600 --> 01:06:55,280
# Said you'd be
1044
01:06:55,280 --> 01:06:56,640
# Good to me... #
1045
01:06:56,640 --> 01:07:00,200
Orion, an entertainer you'll be hearing and seeing
1046
01:07:00,200 --> 01:07:03,000
as his career continues to grow.
1047
01:07:03,000 --> 01:07:07,720
And he becomes more and more the superstar he deserves to be.
1048
01:07:07,720 --> 01:07:10,320
NO SOUND
1049
01:07:24,520 --> 01:07:27,000
I was going to ask, after a few years of being out there
1050
01:07:27,000 --> 01:07:29,520
without the mask, what made you decide
1051
01:07:29,520 --> 01:07:31,440
to put the mask back on again?
1052
01:07:51,040 --> 01:07:52,800
He hated it.
1053
01:07:52,800 --> 01:07:55,480
But, you know, it's like everybody else,
1054
01:07:55,480 --> 01:07:58,200
you're looking for a payday.
1055
01:07:58,200 --> 01:08:02,160
I got to do this, I got to do that, I got to make ends meet.
1056
01:08:02,160 --> 01:08:03,760
Well, what do you do?
1057
01:08:06,240 --> 01:08:08,320
Do I turn this down because of pride?
1058
01:08:22,320 --> 01:08:26,960
I think the first eight to ten years were semi big time.
1059
01:08:26,960 --> 01:08:30,840
He travelled in a bus like this, there was more money backing him,
1060
01:08:30,840 --> 01:08:33,520
and he was making records on a regular basis.
1061
01:08:33,520 --> 01:08:37,200
And my time with him there, from '88 to '98,
1062
01:08:37,200 --> 01:08:40,600
we tended to travel in a van pulling a trailer.
1063
01:08:40,600 --> 01:08:43,680
They were always fun gigs, they paid OK,
1064
01:08:43,680 --> 01:08:45,760
but it didn't seem real big time.
1065
01:08:51,080 --> 01:08:52,600
It looks bad.
1066
01:08:52,600 --> 01:08:54,400
It looks real bad.
1067
01:08:56,640 --> 01:09:01,360
Unfortunately, Jimmy never made any money except off the concerts.
1068
01:09:01,360 --> 01:09:04,080
Even some of those didn't...
1069
01:09:04,080 --> 01:09:08,240
He got paid X amount to go, but there were so many problems
1070
01:09:08,240 --> 01:09:12,520
with the bus falling apart on the road, getting stranded...
1071
01:09:12,520 --> 01:09:14,000
I mean, things happened.
1072
01:09:14,000 --> 01:09:17,680
So you weren't always turning a profit on every single concert.
1073
01:09:18,800 --> 01:09:21,520
There were other things he could have done to make a living.
1074
01:09:21,520 --> 01:09:23,480
And sometimes that's what he did for a while,
1075
01:09:23,480 --> 01:09:25,240
but he always went back to singing.
1076
01:09:25,240 --> 01:09:26,880
Always.
1077
01:09:26,880 --> 01:09:30,320
If that's something you love to do, you've got to find a way to do it.
1078
01:09:30,320 --> 01:09:32,040
You've got to feed the monkey.
1079
01:09:35,040 --> 01:09:40,520
At 48, most musical careers are over at that time.
1080
01:09:40,520 --> 01:09:42,800
Jimmy didn't understand that.
1081
01:09:42,800 --> 01:09:47,560
He thought he was going to be 32 till the day he was going to die.
1082
01:09:52,400 --> 01:09:56,320
If it had all worked out, it would have been extremely lucrative.
1083
01:09:56,320 --> 01:09:57,920
And towards the end of his career,
1084
01:09:57,920 --> 01:10:00,880
he was like, "To hell with the fame, give me the fortune."
1085
01:10:00,880 --> 01:10:03,520
Because he never really...
1086
01:10:03,520 --> 01:10:05,360
Never saw any of it.
1087
01:10:07,800 --> 01:10:10,680
I think talent is rampant in this town.
1088
01:10:10,680 --> 01:10:14,640
And you can find talent on any street corner, literally.
1089
01:10:14,640 --> 01:10:19,720
So talent really wasn't the issue, it was talent with a hook.
1090
01:10:19,720 --> 01:10:21,360
Talent with...
1091
01:10:21,360 --> 01:10:25,080
what else? Because everybody's talented.
1092
01:10:25,080 --> 01:10:28,240
Oh, I found this great guy and he can sing.
1093
01:10:28,240 --> 01:10:31,120
So what? So can my brother.
1094
01:10:31,120 --> 01:10:33,840
So can his brother. So can his dad.
1095
01:10:33,840 --> 01:10:36,120
Everybody sings, everybody writes.
1096
01:10:36,120 --> 01:10:37,560
It's Nashville.
1097
01:10:39,480 --> 01:10:42,360
Is it a tough place?
1098
01:10:42,360 --> 01:10:43,560
Yeah.
1099
01:10:43,560 --> 01:10:48,360
It's, er... I think it's one of the toughest industries around,
1100
01:10:48,360 --> 01:10:50,800
because it's built on emotions.
1101
01:10:53,160 --> 01:10:56,280
You don't get really interviewed for a job.
1102
01:10:58,640 --> 01:11:00,640
You have to be...
1103
01:11:00,640 --> 01:11:03,120
what somebody wants
1104
01:11:03,120 --> 01:11:05,800
BEFORE you get that interview.
1105
01:11:09,080 --> 01:11:11,840
Probably the toughest industry there is,
1106
01:11:11,840 --> 01:11:15,000
because it plays with your emotions and your mind.
1107
01:11:15,000 --> 01:11:17,520
You have sleepless nights wondering
1108
01:11:17,520 --> 01:11:21,200
if somebody's going to accept this, somebody's going to accept that.
1109
01:11:21,200 --> 01:11:23,120
And that's just the business end of it,
1110
01:11:23,120 --> 01:11:26,280
you've got to get through that before the fans hear you.
1111
01:11:28,360 --> 01:11:31,360
I would not advise anybody to waste their life...
1112
01:11:33,840 --> 01:11:35,280
..doing it.
1113
01:11:35,280 --> 01:11:37,760
It's a one in a million deal.
1114
01:11:39,280 --> 01:11:42,800
You hope to God you run across people you can trust.
1115
01:11:42,800 --> 01:11:44,640
I mean, they're like sharks.
1116
01:11:46,240 --> 01:11:48,120
It's all for me and not you.
1117
01:11:50,160 --> 01:11:53,000
And that's the problem, he trusted everybody.
1118
01:11:54,200 --> 01:11:57,360
MUSIC: I Remember by Saint Saviour
1119
01:12:01,520 --> 01:12:06,760
# Someone should have told you that you'd always have a place to go
1120
01:12:08,440 --> 01:12:11,560
# Oh-oh
1121
01:12:12,680 --> 01:12:17,280
# We thought you would have known
1122
01:12:17,280 --> 01:12:22,800
# Someone should have told you that you'd never find yourself alone
1123
01:12:24,240 --> 01:12:27,160
# Oh-oh
1124
01:12:28,560 --> 01:12:34,520
# We lost you to the snow
1125
01:12:37,760 --> 01:12:41,520
# Or maybe you climbed out after all? #
1126
01:13:07,640 --> 01:13:11,560
It was all going so downhill that even he lost interest.
1127
01:13:11,560 --> 01:13:16,160
"OK, I'm going back to the farm, I'll do a show here and there."
1128
01:13:16,160 --> 01:13:20,680
He still wanted it, but didn't know what he had to do to go and get it.
1129
01:13:32,720 --> 01:13:35,240
MUSIC ON CAR RADIO: Because He Lives by Bill Gaither
1130
01:13:43,480 --> 01:13:45,960
JIMMY SINGS ALONG
1131
01:13:45,960 --> 01:13:49,520
# I'll cross that river
1132
01:13:51,200 --> 01:13:53,400
# I'll fight life's final
1133
01:13:56,440 --> 01:13:58,920
# War with pain
1134
01:14:01,440 --> 01:14:03,760
# And then as death
1135
01:14:06,000 --> 01:14:09,880
# Gives way to victory
1136
01:14:11,720 --> 01:14:15,640
# I'll see the lights of glory
1137
01:14:15,640 --> 01:14:20,040
# And I'll know He lives
1138
01:14:21,440 --> 01:14:26,400
# Because He lives
1139
01:14:26,400 --> 01:14:32,240
# I can face tomorrow
1140
01:14:32,240 --> 01:14:35,520
# Because He lives
1141
01:14:36,680 --> 01:14:39,560
# All fear is gone... #
1142
01:15:23,880 --> 01:15:27,880
Jimmy decided he would get in a business to make a living.
1143
01:15:27,880 --> 01:15:30,200
The horse industry was out of the question,
1144
01:15:30,200 --> 01:15:31,920
he'd been out of it so many years,
1145
01:15:31,920 --> 01:15:34,520
so he decided to open up two businesses.
1146
01:15:34,520 --> 01:15:37,120
One was a pawn shop.
1147
01:15:38,800 --> 01:15:41,480
I was out of money, so I stopped by there,
1148
01:15:41,480 --> 01:15:44,320
because I lived right around the corner.
1149
01:15:44,320 --> 01:15:47,840
Jimmy offered me to work for him.
1150
01:15:47,840 --> 01:15:49,400
And I said, sure.
1151
01:15:49,400 --> 01:15:52,240
That's where we hit it off. We became friends then.
1152
01:15:52,240 --> 01:15:55,280
He was just a fun person to be around with.
1153
01:15:55,280 --> 01:15:57,320
Did anybody else work in the stores?
1154
01:15:57,320 --> 01:15:59,760
Elaine, his ex-wife.
1155
01:15:59,760 --> 01:16:02,120
- What was Elaine like?
- Oh, Elaine...
1156
01:16:03,760 --> 01:16:06,240
She is...crazy.
1157
01:16:06,240 --> 01:16:07,960
A sweet kind of crazy.
1158
01:16:07,960 --> 01:16:11,720
To be honest, they still loved each other.
1159
01:16:11,720 --> 01:16:13,640
I know Elaine did, she was crazy about him
1160
01:16:13,640 --> 01:16:15,480
and he was still crazy about her.
1161
01:16:16,640 --> 01:16:19,640
They can't live together.
1162
01:16:19,640 --> 01:16:22,040
They fuss and fight all the time.
1163
01:16:22,040 --> 01:16:24,960
But they can't be without each other.
1164
01:16:26,520 --> 01:16:33,800
In December of 1998, we had a very sensational robbery in our store.
1165
01:16:33,800 --> 01:16:36,000
And Jimmy came straight down and said,
1166
01:16:36,000 --> 01:16:38,000
"Man, I heard about the robbery."
1167
01:16:38,000 --> 01:16:43,160
And we talked about the dangers of being in business,
1168
01:16:43,160 --> 01:16:46,680
dealing with a large number of people every day,
1169
01:16:46,680 --> 01:16:49,880
in an area where the crime rate is high.
1170
01:16:49,880 --> 01:16:55,760
We both talked about dying or getting killed in a robbery,
1171
01:16:55,760 --> 01:16:58,120
on December the 2nd.
1172
01:16:58,120 --> 01:17:00,680
And Jimmy was killed December the 12th.
1173
01:17:12,120 --> 01:17:13,880
In an armed robbery.
1174
01:17:16,720 --> 01:17:21,720
The morning of December 12, 1998, we sat down
1175
01:17:21,720 --> 01:17:25,040
and started joking about who was going to go buy lunch today.
1176
01:17:25,040 --> 01:17:28,320
Elaine kept saying, "It's your turn, Helen." I said, "No, it ain't.
1177
01:17:28,320 --> 01:17:29,920
"I went yesterday!"
1178
01:17:29,920 --> 01:17:32,160
All of a sudden, the door flew open.
1179
01:17:32,160 --> 01:17:34,960
This guy came in and started firing.
1180
01:17:36,320 --> 01:17:39,640
He hit Elaine first, he blew Elaine's face open.
1181
01:17:39,640 --> 01:17:42,480
Then he turned around and shot Jimmy, then he shot me.
1182
01:17:42,480 --> 01:17:44,520
This is where he shot me.
1183
01:17:44,520 --> 01:17:47,160
And I also still got a pellet in my arm.
1184
01:17:48,320 --> 01:17:51,400
As soon as I hit the floor, I came to,
1185
01:17:51,400 --> 01:17:55,120
but I held my breath, pretended I was dead.
1186
01:17:55,120 --> 01:17:58,840
Because if he had seen me move, he would have shot me again.
1187
01:17:58,840 --> 01:18:01,400
So I just stayed still, holding my breath, I said,
1188
01:18:01,400 --> 01:18:04,280
"Lord, if he's going to kill me, let him kill me quick."
1189
01:18:04,280 --> 01:18:06,360
I was saying that in my mind.
1190
01:18:06,360 --> 01:18:08,320
He was trying to pull the register.
1191
01:18:08,320 --> 01:18:11,720
When he couldn't get the register off the counter, he ran out.
1192
01:18:11,720 --> 01:18:15,600
I heard Jimmy moaning, and I saw Jimmy on the floor,
1193
01:18:15,600 --> 01:18:17,720
he was sitting down holding his side.
1194
01:18:18,800 --> 01:18:22,080
And he was practically barely breathing.
1195
01:18:22,080 --> 01:18:24,640
I didn't see no blood at first.
1196
01:18:24,640 --> 01:18:27,440
And so I looked down, and then I saw it.
1197
01:18:29,120 --> 01:18:32,360
One of the sheriffs came, I guess he was the first one
1198
01:18:32,360 --> 01:18:35,160
that heard it on the radio, he kept trying to revive him.
1199
01:18:35,160 --> 01:18:36,840
You know, trying to wake him up.
1200
01:18:36,840 --> 01:18:38,880
It was already too late.
1201
01:18:42,880 --> 01:18:47,120
I don't know why would somebody do that to somebody so nice as Jimmy.
1202
01:18:49,560 --> 01:18:52,920
He made you feel like you're a family.
1203
01:18:52,920 --> 01:18:55,920
You know, and I loved him for that.
1204
01:18:59,200 --> 01:19:01,240
He's a good person.
1205
01:19:01,240 --> 01:19:04,000
And that's all that happened.
1206
01:19:05,880 --> 01:19:08,880
Everybody started showing up, I don't know how they heard it,
1207
01:19:08,880 --> 01:19:11,720
but all of a sudden the whole place was packed.
1208
01:19:14,640 --> 01:19:16,160
I got here, there was...
1209
01:19:17,600 --> 01:19:18,840
You couldn't even...
1210
01:19:19,960 --> 01:19:25,280
There were cars everywhere. It was like a damn rock concert going on.
1211
01:19:25,280 --> 01:19:27,320
Your heart sank, you know?
1212
01:19:27,320 --> 01:19:30,520
It was a day just like today, except it was cold.
1213
01:19:31,760 --> 01:19:34,000
And there was nothing but blue lights.
1214
01:19:36,680 --> 01:19:38,080
It just...
1215
01:19:38,080 --> 01:19:39,400
It'd tear you up.
1216
01:19:40,680 --> 01:19:41,960
It'd tear you up.
1217
01:19:44,400 --> 01:19:45,560
All for nothing.
1218
01:19:49,600 --> 01:19:53,360
Walked out of here with nothing. Right out that door, right there.
1219
01:19:59,440 --> 01:20:01,440
It is what it is, I can't change it.
1220
01:20:03,720 --> 01:20:05,440
I wish to hell I could.
1221
01:20:07,720 --> 01:20:08,880
Wish I could.
1222
01:20:18,440 --> 01:20:22,000
Sometimes I wonder, if we had stayed together,
1223
01:20:22,000 --> 01:20:27,040
and if we had been able to have the life on the farm and be normal...
1224
01:20:28,480 --> 01:20:30,360
..you know, if he'd still be here?
1225
01:20:35,280 --> 01:20:38,120
I wished he hadn't been there.
1226
01:20:38,120 --> 01:20:39,880
He shouldn't have been.
1227
01:20:39,880 --> 01:20:42,640
He should've been singing. He should've been performing,
1228
01:20:42,640 --> 01:20:45,040
he shouldn't have been in that town.
1229
01:20:46,120 --> 01:20:51,280
# Swing low
1230
01:20:52,560 --> 01:20:56,840
# Sweet chariot
1231
01:20:59,360 --> 01:21:07,000
# Coming for to carry me home... #
1232
01:21:08,160 --> 01:21:12,200
There were wreaths from most of the Nashville entertainers.
1233
01:21:12,200 --> 01:21:14,840
Some of the big names, the big labels.
1234
01:21:14,840 --> 01:21:19,160
You don't realise how big of a star you are
1235
01:21:19,160 --> 01:21:21,240
until something like that happens.
1236
01:21:22,720 --> 01:21:25,880
I couldn't cry, I just said,
1237
01:21:25,880 --> 01:21:29,320
"Man, you need to get your ass up out of that box.
1238
01:21:29,320 --> 01:21:31,320
"Come on, let's go play some music."
1239
01:21:32,560 --> 01:21:35,760
And right about then, some people put their arm around me and...
1240
01:21:35,760 --> 01:21:36,920
You know.
1241
01:21:40,080 --> 01:21:42,280
I couldn't face up to it.
1242
01:21:43,440 --> 01:21:44,720
That he was gone.
1243
01:21:47,960 --> 01:21:53,360
# Just tell all my friends
1244
01:21:54,560 --> 01:21:59,080
# That I'm coming too
1245
01:22:01,040 --> 01:22:09,000
# Coming for to carry me home
1246
01:22:10,640 --> 01:22:16,320
- # Yes, Lord, I feel like going home
- Feel like going home
1247
01:22:16,320 --> 01:22:18,520
# Guess I tried and failed
1248
01:22:18,520 --> 01:22:21,560
# And I'm tired and weary
1249
01:22:21,560 --> 01:22:27,120
- # Everything I thought was wrong
- Thought was wrong
1250
01:22:27,120 --> 01:22:31,720
- # And I feel like going home
- Sweet Lord
1251
01:22:31,720 --> 01:22:35,640
- # Sweet chariot
- Sweet Lord
1252
01:22:35,640 --> 01:22:39,720
# Swing low, sweet chariot
1253
01:22:39,720 --> 01:22:46,760
- # I'm going home
- Going home
1254
01:22:48,360 --> 01:22:53,720
# I am going
1255
01:22:53,720 --> 01:23:03,560
- # Home
- I'm going home. #
1256
01:23:22,400 --> 01:23:25,040
# Trees grow tall
1257
01:23:25,040 --> 01:23:27,840
# Where I come from
1258
01:23:27,840 --> 01:23:32,120
# The leaves are green and fine
1259
01:23:33,480 --> 01:23:36,040
# I was born in a world... #
98808
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