DALLAS — Even his wardrobe was memorable. He wore black pants and white shoes, with a black cummerbund accented with white stripes hugging a super-thin waistline. He wore what looked like Daddy’s sport coat, with a white shirt and a narrow black tie. His curly black hair was tousled and wet, because, after all, there would soon be a whole lotta shakin’ goin’ on:
Elvis Presley had arrived in Dallas.
At the time, the kid from Tupelo, Mississippi, was barely drinking age — a spry 21 — giving what came to be known as a landmark performance in a career that lingered for a quarter-century until he died, tragically, in 1977, when he was only 42.
The concert some in Dallas still remember took place at the Cotton Bowl, during the State Fair of Texas, on Oct. 11, 1956. Only about 26,000 people came to see Elvis in a stadium that, at the time, had a seating capacity of 75,504.
Sixty-five years later, we are forced to recall Elvis’ Cotton Bowl moment because of a Hollywood movie released this week, titled — what else? — "Elvis." Thirty-year-old Austin Butler is cast in the title role. His previous credits include having played Dallas native Charles “Tex” Watson in the 2019 movie, "Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood." Watson, a football and track star at Farmersville High School, ended up as a figure of outrageous infamy, as one of the ringleaders of Charles Manson’s murderous “family.”
"Elvis" may well be a breakout film for Butler, whose charisma and flamboyance manage to capture what made a cultural icon so memorable. Dallas turned out to be a noteworthy stop on the Elvis fame train, with the Cotton Bowl show coming barely a month after his debut appearance on "The Ed Sullivan Show," which, a la the Beatles in 1964, catapulted a kid from Mississippi to international prominence.
Back in those days, Elvis arrived by train at Union Station and stayed at the historic Stoneleigh Hotel. Elvis’ notorious manager, Colonel Tom Parker — played in the movie by Oscar-winner Tom Hanks — opted for the Stoneleigh, in an effort to ward off a rising tide of teenage girls, who had already gone Elvis-hunting in downtown Dallas.
The stalking amped up fiercely at the Cotton Bowl, where Elvis did not disappoint, shaking, shimmying, and crooning among other rising hits, “Heartbreak Hotel” and “Hound Dog.”
Of course, The Dallas Morning News covered the show, with Frank X. Tolbert writing: “If that earthquake-recording machine at SMU didn’t register the Elvis Presley disturbance in the Cotton Bowl, then they’d better swap it in for a new one.”
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