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00:02Elvis Presley, the king of rock and roll.
00:08Teenagers, they all wanted to hear Elvis, to see Elvis, and many of them wanted to be Elvis.
00:14With the swivel of his hips, a curl of his lip, and a sound that set hearts racing, he didn't
00:21just change music, he changed the world.
00:25Probably the most important figure of the 20th century.
00:28Yet behind the spotlight stood his manipulative manager, Colonel Tom Parker, a smooth-talking hustler who operated in a music
00:38business riddled with organized crime.
00:42You either con or you get con.
00:46When Parker brought Elvis to Las Vegas, he was stepping into a city built by the mob, where shadowy figures
00:54pulled unseen strings.
00:59The mob was completely enmeshed in Las Vegas. They controlled the city.
01:04Elvis lit up Vegas, but gangsters owned the ground beneath his feet, and Parker knew it.
01:11You couldn't do business in Las Vegas without the mob.
01:16As the colonel gambled with the mob, Elvis slid deeper into a world of temptation, control, and corruption.
01:23Las Vegas made Elvis a legend.
01:26But in a town run by mobsters and money, even a king could be brought to his knees.
01:46Five years after World War II, a new era.
01:52Dwight D. Eisenhower is president of the United States.
01:57Factories are booming.
02:00America is alive with promise and possibility.
02:05The 1950s are a time of amazing change in America.
02:09It's a time of huge, huge optimism.
02:11And I think one of the really interesting things is the music.
02:20Sweeping across America's airwaves comes a new sound.
02:24Raw, wild, unstoppable.
02:30Rock and roll.
02:32Created by African-American pioneers like Chuck Berry and Little Richard, it's shaking the nation.
02:39But one name will eclipse them all.
02:48Elvis Presley was a blazing star in the mid to late 1950s.
02:53He was something genuinely new.
02:55It was this combination of country, rhythm and blues, and rock.
03:03And he was able to merge all of those into a style and a format that was so appealing to
03:09young people.
03:09Not to their parents, but certainly to young people.
03:14The world changed.
03:16He ushered in a teenage culture all its own.
03:20The audiences just went crazy for him in a way that they didn't for any performer before then.
03:26He's symbolic of something that young people could aspire to if they were rebelling.
03:33The frenzy that he created was something that show business had never seen before.
03:42Elvis Aaron Presley transformed rock and roll.
03:46But his story starts a long way from the spotlight.
03:49He is born on January 8th, 1935 in Tupelo, Mississippi, to Gladys and Vernon Presley.
03:58Raised in poverty, he makes his first step into the music business in 1953 when he is 18 years old.
04:06Elvis walked into the Memphis Recording Service one day to make a record.
04:11The receptionist asked him who he sounded like.
04:14And he said, I don't sound like nobody.
04:17And indeed, he didn't sound like anybody.
04:20And she told Sam Phillips, who owned the Memphis Recording Service, as well as Sun Records, about him.
04:27And eventually, they brought him back in and recorded him.
04:33Sam always said, if I could find a white singer who could sing with the passion of a black singer,
04:38I'd be a rich man.
04:39I'd make a million dollars.
04:41Well, he found one.
04:45Elvis' first single, That's Alright, is recorded in July 1954.
04:52Released on Sam Phillips' record label, Sun, it is a hit in the local Memphis charts.
04:58Elvis is on the rise.
05:01But the music industry awaiting the young star isn't built on dreams.
05:06It's built on corruption, run by crooked businessmen, shady moguls, and powerful figures with deep ties to organized crime.
05:20The thing about the entertainment industry and the music industry is mobsters have been involved in it since the very,
05:25very beginning.
05:26There were some real crooks in the record business.
05:30They run jukebox scams, which is essentially skimming money out of jukeboxes that have cash put into them.
05:36You've got payola, which is bribery, essentially, to play records in the charts.
05:40So the mobs are there right from the off.
05:42In some cases, bright-eyed newcomers could find themselves at the mercy of record company mobsters.
05:50They would hire young singers.
05:52They would get a few thousand dollars upon signing a contract, and maybe a car, and then nothing else after
05:58that.
06:00And lawyers were frightened of taking cases to represent these young singers when they learned that the mafia controlled the
06:07record companies.
06:10Sam Phillips, who founded Sun Records, he was able to stay out of the clutches of the mob which operated
06:17in the record business.
06:20The interesting thing about Elvis Presley is that his dealings at the very beginning with people like Sam Phillips, these
06:25are honest brokers in the industry.
06:28But then Colonel Tom comes into his orbit, and Colonel Tom is anything but.
06:40A silver-tongued promoter in his late 40s, Colonel Tom Parker is a man of mystery.
06:48Claiming to hail from West Virginia, he's clawed his way into show business from the shadowy world of traveling carnivals
06:55and sideshows.
06:57He came across for some people as this kind of hayseed, carny guy.
07:02He was a razzle-dazzle character.
07:05He worked for several carnivals, but mostly he was a concessionaire.
07:10He sold hot dogs where he would take the middle out of the hot dog, he'd fill it with kraut,
07:15and he'd charge full price for it.
07:19And when he made change, he glued a quarter to his ring.
07:24He would show them the change in his palm with the quarter, of course, stuck to his ring.
07:28And then he would put it in their palm and close their hand so they wouldn't count it, so they'd
07:33just go off.
07:34And that way he was always a quarter ahead.
07:37He was a salesman.
07:40He was a concessionaire.
07:41I'd like to live up to my reputation of being a nice guy. This is it, folks.
07:45He gave off an air of danger that was threatening and intimidating, even when he was laughing and smiling and
07:54looking you right in the eye.
07:56He's the only person I ever met that I felt was evil.
08:03Yet if Colonel Tom carries an air of menace, he can be equally charming.
08:11And he has an uncanny ability to turn his carnival-honed hustler skills to his advantage.
08:17He understood why carnivals and circuses were popular.
08:24He also came to understand and appreciate the love so many Americans had for country and Western music.
08:31And he thought, I can combine the love of country and Western music and my abilities as a carny.
08:38And he started putting together these tours of country and Western stars to communities that had never seen a live
08:45show.
08:46And they were sellouts.
08:49He had some of the big or budding stars of country music in these.
08:54Ernest Tubb, Roy Acuff, Hank Snow.
08:58But the one he came across that gave him the most success was this mild-mannered singer named Eddie Arnold.
09:07And he controlled Arnold's recording contracts.
09:11He controlled Arnold on these tours.
09:13And made Arnold a lot of money.
09:15And made Colonel Parker a lot of money.
09:18In 1953, after eight years together, Arnold is worn down by Colonel Tom's controlling style.
09:26And the two men part ways.
09:34Colonel Tom begins hunting for a new act.
09:38And in January 1955, he finds him.
09:42A young man whose rock and roll swagger sends audiences into a frenzy.
09:52He saw Elvis and he realized this was something special.
09:56And so he kind of stalked him for a while.
10:02They would see him in the shadows backstage when they performed in Shreveport or in Texarkana.
10:09He wouldn't really approach them.
10:11He would just be there, the glow of his cigar in the shadows.
10:17And suddenly, Tom Parker got to him.
10:20And convinced his parents that he'd be very good for the boy.
10:25He said, Elvis has a million dollar talent and I'm going to make him a million dollars.
10:30He had incredible foresight that this was not just a quick flash in the pan,
10:35but this was a guy he could really build into a major, major star.
10:40And Elvis trusted him.
10:42And Colonel Parker was able to sign Elvis at 21 and all bets were off as to how big a
10:49star he could be.
10:56The Colonel had big plans for Elvis from the very beginning.
11:00So the first thing he did was get Elvis off of Sun Records, take him over to RCA.
11:05And very, very quickly, Elvis was a big star with Heartbreak Hotel.
11:121956 was probably the greatest year for any pop music artist in history.
11:18He began at the beginning of the year with one hit song, Heartbreak Hotel.
11:24He got TV appearances on several shows, including the Ed Sullivan Show.
11:30And by the end of 1956, he was the hottest entertainer in America.
11:35Between 56 and 58, Elvis achieves massive success.
11:39He has a ton of hit singles.
11:40He's got All Shook Up, Don't Be Cruel, Teddy Bear.
11:45Amazing singles that we still listen to today.
11:47He has three albums, Elvis, Elvis' Back, and Elvis' Christmas album.
11:53I mean, he's gone stratospheric.
11:55The partnership between Colonel Tom and Elvis Blossoms.
11:59And Elvis' career soars.
12:14In 1956, Elvis sells 12 million records alone.
12:19His debut album raking in over a staggering $1 million in sales.
12:24On the surface, the partnership between the Colonel and Elvis is a perfect match.
12:30But behind the scenes, the Colonel is quietly taking half of everything Elvis earns.
12:36A shocking and unheard of amount.
12:39The Colonel had had a 25% royalty and a 25% management fee.
12:47Most agents take 50% or 20%.
12:50The Colonel took 50%.
12:52But Elvis went along with it.
12:55Everybody was a sucker.
12:57Everybody was a mark.
12:59But he thought he was above it.
13:01With Elvis' meteoric rise, the money floods in.
13:05Making both him and Colonel Tom wealthy men.
13:09Elvis spends generously lavishing money on his parents and buying his Memphis mansion graceland.
13:19Colonel Tom, meanwhile, throws away his cash in pursuit of an old addiction.
13:25Colonel Tom Parker loved to gamble his entire life.
13:29Because it reminded him of his glory days on the carnivals.
13:33He was attracted to games of chance, which he knew that he couldn't really win.
13:38But he couldn't stop himself.
13:40The Colonel always liked doing things in a slightly shady way.
13:45That's why he was attracted to Hot Springs, Arkansas.
13:57Since the late 19th century, it had been America's hidden capital of gambling.
14:02A town where the law looked the other way and the mob ran the tables.
14:07Colonel Tom first visited in the 1930s, still hustling on the carnival circuit.
14:13Drawn to the city's smoky back rooms and easy money.
14:18It was off-track betting. Hotels offered prostitution.
14:22There was anything he wanted as far as illegal activity.
14:27And he loved it there.
14:29He was really in his element.
14:31It's because he could rub shoulders with so-called important people.
14:35This is a place that attracted the elite of organized crime.
14:40Lucky Luciano loved to go to Hot Springs, Arkansas.
14:43Al Capone liked to go to Hot Springs, Arkansas.
14:46Frank Costello also went to Hot Springs, Arkansas.
14:50It became a kind of resort for mobsters who were on the lam.
14:54And we know that Parker went there.
14:56He could get away pretty much with doing what he wanted.
15:081,500 miles west of Hot Springs, another city was rising from the desert.
15:13Las Vegas.
15:15A place where casinos thrived and betting was a way of life.
15:19It soon captured Colonel Tom's imagination.
15:24But when he got to Las Vegas, he must have said,
15:27Oh my goodness, this is heaven for a gambler.
15:30There are all these places and they're legal.
15:33Colonel Tom fell hard for Las Vegas.
15:36And the feeling was mutual.
15:39The casinos adored the Colonel, especially when they saw how much he was willing to lose.
15:45In one sitting alone, the Colonel reportedly lost $800,000, making him a prime target for the city's powerful mob
15:54bosses.
15:55A glittering playground of crime and cash, Vegas would soon play a defining role in the lives of both the
16:02Colonel and his sole client, Elvis Presley.
16:13A city that Elvis Presley and his manager, Colonel Tom Parker, will come to see as a second home.
16:21Drawn to its wild energy, endless action, and dangerous allure.
16:28A city where roulette wheels spin night and day, and the promise of sin and sleaze is never more than
16:35a dice roll away.
16:37Mobsters run the town, from the smallest casino to the grandest hotel.
16:44But Vegas wasn't always like this.
16:47It began as a dusty railroad stop in the Nevada desert back in 1905.
16:52And within just a few decades, it exploded.
16:59Two things happened in 1931 that have consequences for the rest of the century for Las Vegas.
17:07Number one, they started construction of Hoover Dam.
17:11The biggest public works project in American history.
17:16And what that does is to bring in thousands of workers who will want to have a good time on
17:22the weekends.
17:23And the closest place to have a good time is Las Vegas.
17:27Second of all, the state of Nevada legalized gambling.
17:32And Las Vegas was getting this idea that gambling could be the centerpiece of an economy.
17:38But the little light bulb goes on over the head like, hmm, maybe Las Vegas could be a place that
17:44would attract tourists.
17:51So during the course of the 1930s, you see building up along Fremont Street in downtown Las Vegas, a series
17:58of hotel casinos.
18:00They're small, but they're active.
18:03And there's entertainment, and there's gambling, and it's something you can't get anywhere else.
18:09The legalization of gambling changes everything.
18:12For America's crime syndicates, Las Vegas isn't just a city.
18:17It's an opportunity.
18:20It's going to be an open invitation for organized crime to come into the state of Nevada.
18:25So what you see is the migration of organized crime from all parts of the United States.
18:32You have people coming in from Chicago, New York, Cleveland, Detroit, Milwaukee, Miami, New Orleans, Los Angeles.
18:42All of these cities are getting their piece of what's happening in Las Vegas.
18:54Once the mob arrived, they played a really important role in the development of the major industry, the casino industry
19:00here.
19:01By bringing expertise, entertainers, money, all kinds of different elements that they had picked up in their own underworld ways,
19:10you know, around the country, to Las Vegas.
19:14Some LA gamblers, they've been running these casinos in LA and offshore gambling boats for quite some time, see Las
19:22Vegas as a safe place to go, and the leader among them is a former police vice-captain named Guy
19:28McAfee.
19:30Guy McAfee comes in from California. He had been a gambling and prostitution racketeer in Los Angeles. He's kind of
19:38driven out of town. He moves to Las Vegas, and he buys a place called the Paradise Club.
19:43And he does some renovations, and he turns it into the 91 Club.
19:49But he doesn't stop. He, a few months later, opens the Frontier Club on Fremont Street downtown, and it's a
19:56success. And within two years, he's opened with a consortium of other gamblers from California, the Pioneer Club.
20:09Once a sleepy desert stopover, Las Vegas is becoming unrecognizable. The mob are turning it into their own shimmering kingdom,
20:18built on crime, sin, and entertainment.
20:28In 1946, it's a huge year because you see two really iconic casinos open here. One, the Golden Nugget. And
20:39the other one, even more important, was the Flamingo Hotel.
20:44And the Flamingo was built and operated principally by Bugsy Siegel, a New York mobster who came to Las Vegas
20:53in a desire to go legit, if you will, and to do something more constructive with his life and kill
20:59people.
21:00And so he builds with help from a lot of his partners in the mob, the Flamingo.
21:06The Flamingo was the breakthrough hotel in Las Vegas because it was a real spiffy place with not kind of
21:15an Old West decor, which the earlier hotels had, but a real sort of L.A., Miami Beach kind of
21:21sophistication.
21:22Really the first of its kind in Las Vegas. And it was attracting the Hollywood crowd. It was attracting the
21:29Los Angeles crowd in a way that the other places in Las Vegas couldn't.
21:33And it looks like it's going to be a success because he sells luxury at a low price. But most
21:40notably, he decides the best way to bring ever more customers into the Flamingo is to offer top flight entertainment.
21:49Entertainers would continue to keep people entertained while they're gambling. This was a way to keep them in the showroom,
21:55to keep them spending money. And it was great. Everywhere you went, there was entertainment.
22:00So by the late 1940s, Vegas was beginning to get a reputation as a magnet for the top nightclub stars
22:09in America.
22:18With entertainment now a major draw for tourists, Las Vegas continues to grow as hotel casino after hotel casino spring
22:26up.
22:32The real heyday of Las Vegas didn't come until the early 50s when the new hotels, the sort of classic
22:40Vegas hotels began to open one by one.
22:43The Desert Inn, the Sahara, the Sands, the Riviera.
22:49In about five, six, seven years, suddenly you had this strip of hotels, one more glamorous than the next, all
22:58of them competing for the top nightclub stars in America.
23:08What really appeals to these figures from organized crime is that when the take is picked up at the end
23:14of the gambling day and taken to the count room, virtually all of these mob owned casinos will skim off
23:24some of the profit.
23:26It happened at all the casinos. There would be people working in the cash room, counting up all the cash,
23:33and someone from the mob would go into the cash room and start filling up briefcases with money, hundreds of
23:40thousands of dollars at a time.
23:42And the people counting the money pretended not to see this.
23:47This illegally skimmed money often finds its way to entertainers, paid under the table on top of their official earnings.
23:55This lucrative bonus makes Las Vegas an irresistible draw for the biggest names in show business.
24:02You know, with the logical place for any entertainer to go.
24:07Perhaps it's the promise of easy money that draws Elvis Presley's manager to Las Vegas.
24:13Once settled in, Colonel Tom begins to move in powerful circles, befriending casino bosses and local kingpins.
24:21Among them, Milton Prell, the visionary behind one of its most iconic resorts, the Sahara.
24:29Prell's business partner is an underworld-linked figure called Al Winter, leading some historians to speculate over Prell's own possible
24:37mob connections and his friendship with Colonel Tom.
24:42Well, Sahara is a very popular place, and ever since it opened, people have tried to puzzle out, how did
24:49Prell get the money?
24:50One rumor is that it came from the Detroit mob, but we just don't know for sure.
24:55My own conclusion is that Milton Prell got his money through legitimate means.
25:01The relationship between Milton Prell and the Colonel is kind of murky.
25:07I think Prell was the front man for the Detroit mob, but he was closely involved with Moe Dalitz.
25:16Moe Dalitz was, of course, Mr. Las Vegas.
25:19Moe Dalitz has sort of epitomized the Las Vegas story in the sense that he was very much had a
25:24dark past.
25:25He had been involved in bootlegging and illegal gambling for years.
25:29But he comes to Las Vegas, and somehow he is now one of the leaders of the city.
25:40Parker was no fool. He was aware of what Las Vegas was like.
25:44So Parker had to know that he was entering a place where organized crime was a fixture.
25:51Well, the Colonel spent so much time in Vegas, he's meeting everyone.
25:54He's meeting all the casino people, he's meeting all the people who run the venues.
25:58Parker had to promote Elvis.
26:00He has this ambitious idea of how to promote this new star.
26:05And he knows Las Vegas.
26:07He knows Las Vegas has become ever more popular for people to go to.
26:11He knows about the sands.
26:13He knows, obviously, about the Sahara where his friend Milton Prell is.
26:17So he decides to book Elvis in Las Vegas at the New Frontier Hotel in summer 1956.
26:30I think the Colonel took Elvis into Vegas in 1956 for a number of reasons.
26:35One, it had now become his playground.
26:37He wanted to go gamble.
26:39But most important, I think, he wanted to be a big shot.
26:42And people there knew his name and were taking him seriously.
26:46The 91 Club started life as Paradise, one of the earliest mob-affiliated casinos on the Strip.
26:54Now renamed The New Frontier, it's where Elvis Presley makes his Las Vegas debut.
27:00But Las Vegas isn't ready for him yet.
27:03When Elvis played Las Vegas in 1956, he was too new to play Vegas.
27:09He had just come on the national scene and he was 21 years old.
27:15And you can hear his jokes, they're just almost painful to listen to.
27:19His accent is very deep south.
27:22He's mush-mouthed.
27:23He's kind of embarrassing.
27:27The people who came to Vegas then were an older crowd.
27:31They were raised on very different kinds of music than rock and roll.
27:37And Elvis was just too green.
27:39He was too young.
27:41He was too unsophisticated for the Vegas audience.
27:46One local later recollected that she went to one of the shows and found it vulgar.
27:57Elvis' first appearance in Las Vegas was not successful yet.
28:03He loved being in Las Vegas.
28:05He loved the whole atmosphere of the city.
28:07He loved staying at the Sahara, Milton Prell's hotel.
28:10He liked the entertainment possibilities in Las Vegas.
28:15He loved the restaurants and he met an awful lot of attractive women.
28:22Indeed, the one thing that Colonel Parker got really upset about the following year
28:27is that there were photos snapped of Elvis with a famed stripper named Tempest Storm.
28:33Parker said, no, you can't do it.
28:36But we're trying to create an image of you and that's not going to be helpful at all.
28:40Now, Tempest Storm is famous because she has affairs with so many famous people.
28:44Sammy Davis Jr., Mickey Rooney.
28:47And she also has an affair with Mickey Cohen, who is one of the most notorious mobsters of the era.
28:53So it shows that Elvis was dating people who were certainly connected to the mob.
29:07Elvis Presley revels in the neon buzz of Las Vegas.
29:11It's glamour, it's danger, it's sin.
29:14His first show in the city may have fallen flat, but his fame keeps rising around the world.
29:21He stars in films like Jailhouse Rock and King Creole, movies that utilize his raw charisma to powerful effect.
29:31And he records more classic singles like Love Me Tender, Shake, Rattle and Roll and Trying to Get to You.
29:38Elvis seems unstoppable, but soon his rise will come to a screeching halt.
29:51In the middle of the most spectacular show business rise in history, Elvis had to drop out.
30:01In 1958, Elvis was drafted.
30:05He went to Germany and spent two years in the army.
30:10It's possible Colonel Tom could have kept Elvis out of the army if he had wanted.
30:15But military service is good for business.
30:19It scrubs Elvis' image clean, turning the rebellious rocker into an all-American boy.
30:28Elvis' time in the army doesn't just stall his career.
30:33It ends his Vegas escapades, too.
30:39Meanwhile, the city is hitting its stride, pulsing to a rhythm all its own.
30:47At this time, there's a different entertainer who's associated with Las Vegas.
30:53And that man is Frank Sinatra.
30:56Frank Sinatra was the leading Vegas entertainer in the 1950s.
31:01He was a superstar.
31:02Early 1960, Frank Sinatra came to Las Vegas to shoot Oceans 11, a film that he had helped produce and
31:12enlisted a lot of his Hollywood friends in the cast.
31:16Peter Lawford, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., and Joey Bishop.
31:22They decide, why don't we perform at the Sands, two shows a night, while during the day, we film Oceans
31:3011.
31:32That show became known as the Rat Pack shows.
31:35Those five performers came on stage and just tore up the place.
31:40It becomes a phenomenon.
31:42All those guys were really the kings of Las Vegas in those years.
31:48While Elvis is in the army, Frank Sinatra cements his reign over Las Vegas.
31:54To the crowds who flocked to Las Vegas, Sinatra and his crew are the ultimate entertainers.
32:04Yet underlining Sinatra's many years at the top of the entertainment industry are the friendships and alliances he's built over
32:12decades with a web of organized crime figures.
32:17One of the more intriguing aspects of the Rat Pack performances is that comedian Joey Bishop, when he would bring
32:24on Frank Sinatra, he would say, Frank, why don't you come on and say something positive about the mafia?
32:30And Sinatra inevitably would say, it's a good group.
32:35Yet if he downplays his connection on stage, Sinatra's buddies include some of the most vicious mobsters of the era.
32:44While he's performing at Sands, Sinatra's maintaining a strong friendship with a Chicago gangster named Sam Giancana, who was the
32:56head of the Chicago outfit.
32:59He had met Giancana in the early 1950s.
33:03They became friends.
33:04Sinatra would claim that he was friends with them, but he had nothing to do with their business.
33:09But definitely it was always something that tainted Sinatra's reputation.
33:17Elvis, stuck in the army, misses the rise of the Rat Pack.
33:21But when he's finally discharged in 1960, Colonel Tom sets the stage for their worlds to collide.
33:40Elvis did a welcome home special with Frank Sinatra when he came home from the army.
33:47Sinatra and Elvis were a pretty odd couple.
33:50During the mid 50s, Sinatra was one of the people who really badmouthed rock and roll.
33:55Frank was the epitome of the classic nightclub singer.
33:59And this new music, this crazy rock and roll, was something that was kind of a threat to the traditional
34:06pop jazz singers.
34:08But by 1960, when Elvis came out of the army, Frank Sinatra realized that this was going to be the
34:15biggest comeback probably in American show business history.
34:18And he managed to negotiate that Elvis would make his first appearance on TV after getting out of the army
34:25on a special that Frank Sinatra was doing for American TV.
34:30It was really a weird sort of get together of these two icons of two different styles of American music.
34:37Pairing Elvis with Frank Sinatra, he was signaling that Elvis was now a respectful character.
34:43He was not that hooligan who used to wiggle around on the stage.
34:48He was the boy next door. Come home.
34:57Thanks to his appearance on Frank Sinatra's TV special, Elvis Presley is now tied to the old guard of Las
35:03Vegas.
35:04But after Elvis' disastrous first shows there, Colonel Tom is reluctant to bring Elvis back to the city.
35:13He had an offer from Milton Prell at $75,000 a week to play Las Vegas and the Colonel turned
35:20it down.
35:21He couldn't risk sending Elvis back to Las Vegas yet after that really embarrassing bombing in 1956.
35:31In 1961, Elvis Presley retreats from live performing entirely.
35:37Instead, the Colonel steers him into acting and across the 1960s, Elvis stars in dozens of mostly mediocre Hollywood films.
35:47With names like Speedway, Clambake, Change of Habit, Double Trouble.
35:53Yet, whenever Elvis is not filming, he's back in Las Vegas, indulging in the city's endless temptations with his entourage,
36:01who have picked up a playful new nickname.
36:04He would bring his pals along with him, they would travel around town in their dark suits and sunglasses and
36:11they became known as the Memphis Mafia.
36:15Elvis loved Las Vegas. He loved to go and play and see shows. He wasn't a big gambler, but he
36:21loved the freedom of Las Vegas. He loved it as an adult playground.
36:27There are hookers there, there are beautiful showgirls, and the mob runs these places.
36:34The mob might have its hands in every corner of the city, but if Elvis notices, he doesn't seem to
36:40care, and he is about to play with fire.
36:45Elvis was having an affair with Phyllis McGuire, who is one of the McGuire sisters.
36:50It was a big pop scene group from the 50s and 60s. Her boyfriend was Sam Giancana, a well-known
36:57mob figure.
36:58And when Elvis met Phyllis, she was carrying a gun and said that Sam Giancana, her boyfriend, wanted her to
37:05carry a gun.
37:06And Elvis says, will you tell Sam that I carry two guns?
37:15At the height of it all, Elvis makes a movie in the city that has become his playground, a glittering
37:22love letter to Las Vegas itself.
37:26Viva Las Vegas was one of the better films that Elvis made.
37:31What Viva Las Vegas did was really showcase Las Vegas. There were scenes in the hotels, in the showrooms, up
37:39and down the strip.
37:41This film is just almost a perfect promotional film for Las Vegas because what you see is what Las Vegas
37:48promoters want you to see.
37:50You don't see organized crime. You see how spectacular a resort city it is.
37:56Glitz and glamour and fun and desert vistas and everything that's portrayed in the movie.
38:02And you have Elvis and his peak.
38:06That film did a lot to sort of raise people's consciousness of Vegas and maybe attract more people there.
38:20Viva Las Vegas shows a sparkling, cleaned up version of the city.
38:24No gangsters, no crime, just music, glamour and fun.
38:30In real life, the mob is everywhere, woven into the very fabric of Vegas life.
38:36But somehow Elvis keeps his hands clean.
38:41The guys in Elvis' entourage were puzzled by the fact that they really didn't see the mafia around Elvis very
38:50much.
38:50And they wondered how the colonel was able to keep them away from Elvis as much as he did.
38:56But it was clear that they were there and watching.
39:02One day, Elvis' friend, Marty Lacker, was in the coffee shop at the Thunderbird.
39:07This obvious mafioso looking figure stopped by and he asked how Elvis was.
39:13Marty told him he was doing fine and he said, he's a good boy, it's good to hear.
39:17But tell him if he ever needs anything, let me know.
39:22Working tirelessly behind the scenes, Colonel Tom's old friend Milton Prell helps keep Elvis' image squeaky clean.
39:30Milton Prell's main role with Colonel Parker was an arrangement by which Milton protected Colonel and Elvis from the more
39:39malignant figures in the mafia.
39:43That, I believe, was the key to that relationship.
39:48So, he wouldn't allow Elvis to be photographed with most of the players, and by that I mean the mafia
39:56figures in Las Vegas.
39:58He kept it all on the hush-hush.
40:03Yet Colonel Tom isn't above using the threat of the mob to keep control.
40:08Especially when Elvis begins to grow restless with his endless string of film roles.
40:13And the Colonel uses the recent homicide of a famous soul singer to his advantage.
40:25By the mid-60s, Elvis was just fed up with the movies.
40:29He wanted to be a Brando.
40:32He wanted to be James Dean.
40:33He wanted to win an Oscar.
40:37Instead, he ended up making this string of formulaic movies.
40:42And he was embarrassed by them, and he didn't want to do them anymore.
40:47And he got to where he would show up late, and of course the Colonel would be furious with him.
40:52He told him that his fellow RCA artist, Sam Cooke, that the mob had gotten to him.
40:59Because he was stepping out of line, and the Colonel threatened Elvis that these very kinds of things could happen
41:07to him.
41:07The mafia wasn't just gangsters in the streets anymore.
41:12It was the heads of corporations.
41:16These were men whose names ended in vowels.
41:19Men with uncles with names like Jimmy the Thumb.
41:23So, Elvis needed to keep it all squeaky clean, do it as he is told, and earn money.
41:37The mid-60s.
41:39Music tastes are changing, and psychedelic rock is the new sound.
41:44The king of rock and roll's crown is slipping.
41:50Colonel Tom needs a way to get the nation talking about Elvis again.
41:54And he has the perfect occasion.
42:03The wedding of Elvis and his girlfriend, Priscilla, at Milton Prell's new hotel, the Aladdin.
42:13Elvis hadn't planned on getting married in 1967, nor had he planned on getting married at all.
42:19But this is a way to get him in front of the national media again.
42:23They marry inside Milton Prell's private suite at the Aladdin.
42:27And of course he gives the Colonel another chance to go to his favorite city, where once again he can
42:31gamble.
42:36There are very few people at the wedding.
42:38Most of the people there are photographers and news folks.
42:43The Bilyeu-Pressly wedding was really the Parker-Prell wedding.
42:49Parker and Prell are able to pull off this remarkable event that captured the nation's attention.
42:58Elvis' wedding closes one chapter and opens another.
43:01And as his life evolves, so too does the ever-changing face of Las Vegas.
43:13A new era is dawning in Las Vegas.
43:17As outside investment pours in, the mob's grip on the city starts to slip.
43:25In the mid-60s, Vegas was starting to change.
43:28The mob-controlled hotels were still there, but suddenly in 1966, billionaire Howard Hughes moved into Las Vegas.
43:37He and his entire entourage took over the top two floors of the Desert Inn, which was owned by Moe
43:45Dalitz.
43:47And they were all Mormons, so they neither drank nor gambled.
43:53They wanted him to leave because they needed those penthouse suites for the big pie rollers that they would bring
43:59in around Christmas time.
44:02Hughes refused to leave and he bought the hotel instead.
44:06Then he goes and buys the Sands and three or four other hotels.
44:10As Howard Hughes snaps up properties across the Strip, his money brings respectability.
44:22As Vegas changes, Elvis stagnates.
44:26By the late 1960s, Elvis hasn't performed live for over seven years.
44:31Trapped in a Hollywood film career he no longer believes in, he's been overshadowed by bands like The Beatles and
44:37The Rolling Stones.
44:38But in 1968, a visionary TV producer gives him the push he needs, relaunching Elvis for a new generation.
44:49Steve Binder was a fan of rock and roll, a young guy, and he really wanted to reintroduce Elvis to
44:56the American public.
44:58So he created a special that really showcased Elvis as a live performer in a way that people hadn't seen
45:05for almost a decade.
45:07And it's the most watched program on American television in 1968.
45:13And after that special, the Colonel decided, okay, now it's time maybe to get Elvis back to live performing.
45:22Back in Las Vegas, the Strip continues to change.
45:26More corporate figures are arriving.
45:29The next mogul seduced by Las Vegas' allure is a powerful businessman named Kirk Kirkorian.
45:38Kirkorian was someone who, like Howard Hughes, saw Las Vegas as an opportunity.
45:44He decided to start investing here.
45:47He decided to build a brand new hotel in Las Vegas, the biggest hotel in Las Vegas, in fact, the
45:55biggest hotel in the world, the International Hotel.
45:59Getting ready for an opening in summer of 1969, he was looking for the biggest act he could find in
46:06America to open the hotel.
46:08Well, they focused on Elvis Presley.
46:17Elvis is back.
46:20And for the first time in years, he's returning to the stage.
46:25But behind the scenes, there's a darker motive at play.
46:32Colonel Tom's choice of venue may have less to do with music and more to do with the mob connections
46:38that still shape the city and his own entanglements with organized crime.
46:45The Colonel's gambling debts and all the things that he owed to the mob and the control that they had
46:52over him completely and totally shaped the last third of Elvis Presley's career.
47:01What should be a thrilling comeback for the king of rock and roll will soon fall apart, fueled by drugs,
47:09paranoia and the dark underbelly of Las Vegas.
47:14What comes next will rewrite the legend forever.
47:22And that's coming up next tonight.
47:25Support information for the themes raised can be found online at channel4.com slash support.
47:30With a bit of Odysseus all the rage at the moment, Richard E. Grant explores where it all happened.
47:35Join him for a very modern odyssey tomorrow night at 8.
47:38Stream the series so far now.
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