Tagged: Rockabilly
Elvis Presley’s White Suit in the ’68 Comeback Special: Reel vs. Real

Elvis Presley’s iconic “If I Can Dream” performance in his 1968 comeback special (left) was recreated on screen by Austin Butler in the 2022 biopic Elvis (right).
Vitals
Austin Butler as Elvis Presley, rock star on the eve of a comeback
Burbank, California, June 1968
Film: Elvis
Release Date: June 23, 2022
Director: Baz Luhrmann
Costume Designer: Catherine Martin
Tailor: Gloria Bava
Original Concept: Bill Belew
Background
Fifty-five years ago tonight, the King signaled his return to glory in the music world when NBC aired Singer Presents… Elvis, now also known as the ’68 Comeback Special.
Despite his start in music, Elvis Presley’s career through much of the ’60s was anchored in movies. There were a few winners among the mix, but the singer’s famously shrewd manager Colonel Tom Parker engineered them closer to formulaic, low-budget comedies that would yield higher profits—particularly when they could be linked to a soundtrack album, an opportunity less possible or profitable with the more dramatic (and often higher-quality) roles that Elvis preferred.
By late 1967, Elvis had grown disenchanted with the programmatic films like Clambake, Double Trouble, and Stay Away, Joe that had led him far from the recording and touring that cemented his colossal popularity in the ’50s. At the same time, Colonel Tom approached NBC with a million-dollar deal to feature Elvis in what would be a holiday special, designed to conclude with the King of Rock and Roll crooning Christmas carols.
Luckily for Elvis, producer Bob Finkel convinced his cohorts and presenting sponsor Singer Corporation to green-light a different concept that focused exclusively on Elvis—intended to connect him with younger audiences and refresh the cultural mindset of Elvis as a groundbreaking rock star and not the tired star of corny comedies. Despite expected resistance from Colonel Tom, Elvis was fully on board with Finkel and director Steve Binder’s renewed vision for the special, which was rehearsed, recorded, and produced through June 1968.
It was during this tumultuous month that Bobby Kennedy was shot and killed in Los Angeles, just two months after Martin Luther King, Jr. was murdered in Memphis. The King assassination particularly troubled Elvis, who “definitely wanted to say something more with his music than a song like ‘Hound Dog’ could express,” as Peter Guralnick wrote in Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley. “Binder wanted a musical statement based on [Elvis’] conversations about the assassinations and the discord gripping the country,” wrote Donald Liebenson for Vanity Fair on the 50th anniversary of the special. Binder charged songwriter Walter Earl Brown Jr. to craft “the greatest song you’ve ever written,” which Brown did—overnight.
The next day, Brown played “If I Can Dream” for the core members of the production. After Elvis asked Brown to play it at least six times, he simply stated “We’re doing it,” and the special’s finale was determined. Of course, Finkel knew that “the Colonel will blow his stack. It’s got to be a Christmas song,” and even after Colonel Tom’s initial protest that it “ain’t Elvis’ kind of song,” taste prevailed and “If I Can Dream” became the closing number of Singer Presents… Elvis. Continue reading
True Romance: Clarence’s Aloha Shirt and Cadillac
Vitals
Christian Slater as Clarence Worley, newlywed rockabilly enthusiast and former comic store clerk
Los Angeles, Spring 1992
Film: True Romance
Release Date: September 10, 1993
Director: Tony Scott
Costume Designer: Susan Becker
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Earlier this year, I commemorated National Road Trip Day with a brief look at Christian Slater’s rockabilly-inspired style in True Romance, the Quentin Tarantino-penned romantic crime thriller directed by Tony Scott. Now, to kick off Car Week for the summer that this film celebrates its 30th anniversary, let’s revisit Slater’s style as the scrappy newlywed Clarence Worley.
Clarence and his new wife Alabama (Patricia Arquette) have driven across the country in his pink (more like purple) Cadillac convertible, hoping to leave Detroit—and his murder of her former pimp Drexl Spivey (Gary Oldman)—far behind them. Continue reading
Austin Butler as Elvis: Black Suit for a 4th of July Concert
Vitals
Austin Butler as Elvis Presley, country rock guitarist and singer
Memphis, Tennessee, July 4, 1956
Film: Elvis
Release Date: June 23, 2022
Director: Baz Luhrmann
Costume Designer: Catherine Martin
Tailor: Gloria Bava
Background
It doesn’t get much more American than Elvis.
Austin Butler went all out in his performance as the King of Rock and Roll in Baz Lurhmann’s characteristically flamboyant biopic, released last summer. Butler’s performance received particular praise—including endorsements from the Presley family—and Elvis would be nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Costume Design.
Elvis follows Presley’s brief life from boyhood through the various levels of stardom, particularly through the lens of his complicated relationship with his domineering manager, Colonel Tom Parker (Tom Hanks). In the early years of his fame, Presley’s hip-swinging celebration of Black music is shown to so enrage the bigoted establishment that he’s being threatened with legal trouble.
The film presents his July 4, 1956 concert in Memphis as an opportunity for Presley to maintain the cleaned-up “New Elvis” image he had introduced three days early while performing “Hound Dog” on The Steve Allen Show three days earlier, stuffed into a white tie and tails as he crooned to an actual basset hound. Instead, having rediscovered the meaning behind his music among the blues joints on Beale Street, Elvis delivers a sweltering performance of “Trouble”—and lands himself right in it, arrested by the Memphis vice squad when he soundly disobeys being told to not “so much as wiggle a finger.” To avoid prosecution, Colonel Tom devises a plan for Elvis to swap out his blue suede shoes for spit-shined service derbies: “It’s either the Army or jail.”
Except that isn’t quite what really happened. Continue reading
True Romance: Clarence’s Rockabilly Road Trip Style
Vitals
Christian Slater as Clarence Worley, newlywed rockabilly enthusiast and former comic store clerk
Mojave Desert, Spring 1992
Film: True Romance
Release Date: September 10, 1993
Director: Tony Scott
Costume Designer: Susan Becker
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
The Friday before Memorial Day has been designated National Road Trip Day, celebrating the open road and the start of the summer travel season. As this year is also the 30th anniversary of the Quentin Tarantino-penned, Tony Scott-directed genre-blender True Romance, let’s follow the felonious newlyweds Clarence Worley (Christian Slater) and Alabama Whitman (Patricia Arquette) as they make their way west from Detroit in the Elvis-obsessed Clarence’s pink Cadillac convertible. Continue reading
Walk the Line: Johnny Cash in Black for an On-Stage Engagement
Vitals
Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash, country rock star
London, Ontario, February 1968
Film: Walk the Line
Release Date: November 18, 2005
Director: James Mangold
Costume Designer: Arianne Phillips
Tailor: Pam Lisenby
Background
Fifty-five years ago on February 22, 1968, Johnny Cash surprised both the audience and perhaps also his frequent performing partner, June Carter, by proposing to her in the middle of a performance in London, Ontario. The pair had been friends—and eventually lovers—for nearly a decade, as depicted in the 2005 biopic Walk the Line, which culminated with Cash’s on-stage proposal following their performance of “Ring of Fire”, the song June had composed with Merle Kilgore four years earlier to meditate on her own emotions about their relationship. Continue reading
Austin Butler as Elvis: Pink-and-Black Rockabilly Suit
Vitals
Austin Butler as Elvis Presley, country rock guitarist and singer
Shreveport, Louisiana, January 1955
Film: Elvis
Release Date: June 23, 2022
Director: Baz Luhrmann
Costume Designer: Catherine Martin
Tailor: Gloria Bava
Background
Elvis Presley was born 88 years ago today on January 8, 1935. Little introduction is needed for the King of Rock and Roll, who remains one of the most significant cultural figures of the last century even nearly 50 years after this death. Several movies have been made about Presley’s life and musical career, the most recent being the highly publicized Elvis, released last year with an astounding and immersive lead performance by Austin Butler that has been touted as a likely contender for an Academy Award. Continue reading
True Romance: Clarence’s Rockabilly Wedding Style
Vitals
Christian Slater as Clarence Worley, comic store clerk and rockabilly enthusiast
Detroit, Winter 1992
Film: True Romance
Release Date: September 10, 1993
Director: Tony Scott
Costume Designer: Susan Becker
Background
Happy Valentine’s Day! In the spirit of today’s love-centered holiday, it felt like the right time to start exploring the style of True Romance, specifically the slapdash quasi-rockabilly wardrobe worn by its leading character, the energetic comic enthusiast-turned-killer Clarence Worley (Christian Slater).
True Romance begins with Clarence striking out at a bar before celebrating his birthday in solitude at a local cineplex with a Sonny Chiba triple feature… instantly signaling writer Quentin Tarantino’s involvement to the informed viewer. Among the scattered audience, Clarence makes the acquaintance of the bleach-haired amateur call girl Alabama Whitman (Patricia Arquette). Despite Alabama’s post-coital admission that Clarence’s boss hired her to assuage Clarence’s birthday loneliness, the two almost immediately fall in love and impulsively marry, appropriately scored by Billy Idol’s “White Wedding”. Continue reading
Walk the Line: Johnny Cash in Rockabilly White and Black
Vitals
Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash, rising country rock star
Texarkana, Texas, Summer 1955
Film: Walk the Line
Release Date: November 18, 2005
Director: James Mangold
Costume Designer: Arianne Phillips
Tailor: Pam Lisenby
Background
Eighty-nine years ago on February 26, 1932, J.R. Cash was born in Arkansas. His childhood was dominated by music, as there was little else to encourage the family enduring the hard years of the Depression made worse by a dangerous flood and the violent death of Jack, one of the seven Cash children. It was when he joined the military that the 18-year-old Cash expanded his first name as the Air Force wouldn’t allow just initials, though it wasn’t until cutting his first recording at Sun Records that he established the name that would become legendary: Johnny Cash. Continue reading