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Elvis Presley Elvis Presley - Nachrichten | Aktuelles | Wissenswertes | Bemerkenswertes Alles über den King of Rock 'n' Roll |
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11.07.2005, 21:06
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Q : How did "If I Can Dream" come about?
A : Well the Colonel obviously had a lot of problems as the special was progressing. But I do want to say, in all honesty, that Colonel Parker at any given time in my opinion, could've pulled the plug and gotten rid of me. He could've fired me in a minute. I truly believe that and I think as much as he hated the fact that I had gotten in between him and Elvis, he respected the fact that he thought something--- he didn't know what but something was happening with this special that was different. So you know, all he would do basically is have these personal confrontations. When he liked me my name was Bindel, B I N D E L. And when I knew it was serious it was always Binder. And he called a meeting every once in awhile with Elvis and myself, where he had a problem with the show. And one of the things is that he knew there was no Christmas song in the show. And he had lost the battle long before of this was not gonna be a Christmas show with "I Believe," which Frankie Laine and Perry Como were singing at the end of their shows and so forth, which is what he wanted, as the closing number of the show. And so he called me in one day and, with Elvis, and the three of us were in this little water closet that he had called an office. He always loved playing these games. He had two William Morris agents, dressed in uniforms, standing out this little tiny literally broom closet which they had cleaned out for him. And he insisted upon that to be his office. And we walked in there and, he said, "Binder it's been called to my attention that you don't plan on having a Christmas song in the show at the end." And I said, "Yes." And he said "Well, Elvis wants a Christmas song in the show. Don't you, Elvis?" And Elvis sort of had his head down and his eyes lowered and he said "Yes sir." And I said "Fine. If Elvis wants a Christmas song in the show we'll put a Christmas song in the show." And, I won't use an expletive but we walked out of the Colonels office, thinking it was resolved and, Elvis jabbed me in the ribs and he said, you know, "Blank him. We're not gonna worry about that." So, I had gotten to know Elvis pretty well in terms of his philosophy. One night when we were rehearsing, the television set was on the other room and all of a sudden there was this moment of silence. And I said, "I think Bobby Kennedys just been shot." And we all rushed into the other office and that's exactly what happened. They had live at the Ambassador Hotel, Kennedy making his speech. We were in the piano room at the time, but there was just something weird that evening and I just sensed something had gone wrong. Then we spent the whole night basically talking about the Kennedy assassination, of both Bobby and John. And I really liked him. I thought Elvis was one of the nicest, kindest, funny guys I had ever been exposed to. He may not have been college educated but he was sure street smart and well read. And, Elvis basically had in those moments of pure honesty, had been saying things that I felt we should say on the air in the special. So I went to Earl Brown, our special material writer and choral director, and to Billy Goldenberg and I asked them to disguise. I had read an article that in World War Two all the German artists were disguising their art work so, you know, the Nazis would never know what they were saying cause it was too abstract for them. And I said, "We're gonna get it passed the Colonel if we just write a speech. But if we can put it in the lyrics of a song, he's never gonna know what we did." So I asked them go home and write a song about the philosophy of what I was hearing from Elvis personally. That, you know, we're all created equal. We're all deserve to walk hand in hand with our brothers, and all that stuff. And, one morning, very early in the morning, I got a phone call from Earl Brown saying "I think we did it. I think you've got your song." And so we rushed down to the studio to hear it and Billy Goldenberg played piano and Earl sang "If I Can Dream". And the lead sheet that I was handed had Earl Brown and Billy Goldenberg as the writers of it. And I said "Well let's wait till Elvis shows up and we'll play it for him." In the meantime Colonel Parker was saying over my dead body "Are we gonna play that as the last song of the show?" And I waited for Elvis and Elvis came into the dressing room. And I ushered him into the piano room and Colonel Parker was in the outer room with Tom Diskin and a few of the RCA people and so forth. And I could hear them mumbling, you know, their discomfort and not wanting us to do what we were doing. And we played "If I Can Dream" for Elvis and Elvis listened to it. He said "Play it again." So we went through it again and Elvis said, "Which I had become accustomed to." When Elvis was really making decisions he didn't just want to make rash fast decisions. He wanted to, you know, absorb it and hear it over and over. He had Billy and Earl play this song I would say three or four times. And he looked at me and said, "Okay I'll do it." I said "You'll do it" and immediately the door burst open, and contracts were in hand to give away the publishing and so forth for RCA and Elvis publishing company. Once they realized this is going in the show whether they like it or not. And the really great story about this is that when Billy Goldenberg knew that Elvis was gonna sing it, he walked over to the piano. He took out a pencil and eraser, and he erased his name from the lead sheet, because in reality, Earl Brown had written that song all by himself. That probably cost Billy Goldenberg a zillion dollars, you know, in songwriter fees and what have you. But the integrity of that staff was second to none. I mean, I love these guys to this day I'm very, very close to all of 'em. Q : What did Elvis tell you about the show? A : Well when we finished the show and I had gone down into the catacombs of NBC. In those days we recorded the show on two-inch videotape. And then when you ever made edits you had to use a razor blade to cut the tape physically and so forth. So it was a very, very laborious system. And, because I was allowed to recreate. I never was allowed to do the real thing but I was allowed to recreate the improvisational acoustic session. I had tons of footage beyond the show that we originally prepared, which was a well organized written affair. But when I saw the improv I said, "This is what the world wants to see. This is Elvis with his hair mussed up and sweat under his arm pits," which NBC objected to when I showed 'em the show. They wanted that taken out of the show cause this is prime time. Q : Pick it up with the improv section. A : The improvisation section for me was what we called the money in the show. I mean, once I realized it was on tape, and there was Elvis totally untelevised. He had no concept that there were cameras shooting him. He was into the moment. He was having the time of his life, with Scotty and DJ and, you know, the little boxing ring and the audience around him and so forth. And he was just having a ball. And, when I went into editing said "This is the show." I've got to get a lot of this material in. So when I finished editing the show, I walked it up to the tower at NBC and I said "Okay here it is but there's one problem." And they said "Whats that?" Said "You know that 60 minute show that you wanted to air for Singer and prime time?" And they said "Yes." I said "Well it's 90 minutes, so I'm hoping we can get them to buy another half hour or, you know, get somebody else to sponsor the other half hour because I've cut a 90 minute show." And they said, you know, it's Binder again. He's crazy and, you know, this is NBC. This is the network. And since we had no guest stars it was one artist, which now we take for granted with HBO and all these special concerts and so forth. But in those days nobody ever did those kind of shows. And, so anyway, I was ordered to go back into the dungeon and cut out a half hour of the show, which I eventually did. And I felt it was pretty well aborted. I used the improv just as inners and outers, transitions to the production numbers. And then, when Elvis passed away, some genius at NBC said "Okay, we got to rush out a Elvis Presley tribute and we'll take the Hawaii special and we'll take the 68 special and we'll put em together and we'll make a big show out of this. We'll get Ann-Margret to host it." Well, whoever went down into the dungeon and into the library, not knowing anything, pulled the 90 minute tape out. And they ended up doing three hours, as a tribute, and played the 90 minute special. Well there was technically no 90 minutes on tape. I thought they had erased it or destroyed it or whatever but they obviously didn't. And that ended up restoring and getting back the full 90 minutes, which had a lot of the improv segments in it. And then eventually, the outtake reels became more important than the show itself. And HBO calling it "One Night With You" aired the entire unedited improv sections which were, you know, which I had nothing to do with, I mean, is Elvis Presley and that proved he wasn't just a myth of the Colonels PR machine. And it even proved to Elvis himself that he was that special and that fantastic. Cause I think in the very beginning and the reason that Elvis bought that doing the special in the first place is because I thought he had lost confidence, which most artists do at one time in their life. And I thought he was afraid. In fact I think he expressed it to me. He didn't think he had it any more for the audience cause he had been taken away from that live audience for so many years making those movies. And I could visually see him gain his energy, excitement, confidence. You could just tell if you're behind the scenes, just by his facial expressions. At first he didn't even want to go out there and do it. In fact I was called into the dressing room. I think Joe Esposito came and got me. Said "We got a crisis." I said "Whats the crisis?" He said "Elvis doesn't want to go out there and do this improv." So I had to go into the makeup room, and he cleared the makeup lady out of the room. He said "Steve I can't do it." I said "What do you mean you can't do it?" And he said, "I don't know what to say. I don't know what to do." And I said "Elvis, go out there. I mean, if you go out there and say hello and good bye, I'm happy. But you've got to go out there. You're not gonna cop out at this point. We got an audience waiting for you. And all your friends are here and you've got to go out." And when he went out there, he was scared to death. And he went out there and the opening number he was shaky. His throat was dry. And you could see all these things. Then little by little boy, this just, you know, amazing urge of confidence just flowed through his body and we had this cue at the end of the improvs, of playing Memories, which was a recorded track. And he sang live to the track. And the cue was, Elvis let me know when you've finished all the improv, and then I'll play the track. So we had this little hand signal between us. But the reality is when he did both of the improvs, both of them, he never gave me the cue. I kinda had to just sense the moment when I felt it was time to play the track. Q : He was like a caged tiger on stage. A : Well I think he was. I mean, the great thing about Elvis was his natural instinct and he never gave himself credit for being a great musician, though most musicians really feel he was. He was always sort of down playing himself, as strange as that may sound. And, when we did the improv, you know, I think he really had so much curiosity and fear in him as to whether he really had it that when he walked out there and realized, you know, "Hey. They not only are loving it but, you know, my guys are loving it and I'm loving it." I mean, this is what it's all about. Q : How did Colonel Parker feel about it? A : Well, the whole idea of the improv came--- it was inspiration cause Elvis had physically moved into NBC. He was living in the dressing room, and that was kinda unheard of, for the whole period that we filmed this. Q : Was he in Dean Martins dressing room? A : Exactly. Well it was the Dean Martin stage. And, so Elvis had basically by moving in, he'd go get up and we'd start rehearsals early in the morning and, you know, there was a cast of hundreds. And, at the end of the day when everybody was wiped out and going home to rest up for the next day, Elvis went into the dressing room, and all the guys went in there, and they started to unwind. And how they unwound was to just jam. These are those moments where'd you get to look through keyholes and see things that you're just in awe of because you're not supposed to be seeing this stuff. I said I got to get a camera in there and got to film this. This is better than anything we're doin out on the stage. And Colonel Parker said "No he wouldn't allow it, no cameras, no still photography." And so I was trying to figure out how to do it. And Colonel said "Okay I'll tell you what I'll do. Providing that I have total control and it won't go into the show unless I say it's okay to go into the show, I'll let you recreate it out on the stage," which is how the whole improv began. And, that's exactly what I did but it never was as great as it is, it never was the real thing that I saw in the dressing room. Q : Was there a mix-up of tickets where no one showed up and you had to get people from Bob's Big Boy? A : The incident with the tickets was --- I went to Colonel Parker and when I was told it was okay to do this and I decided we'd have two audiences and we were inviting 250, 300 people to come to each one of these sessions. And so I had NBC guest relations print up the Elvis Presley tickets. And believe me, we could've sold those tickets for $1000 apiece or something, even in those days. I mean, to see Elvis Presley for an hour or two, you know, improvisationally singing and talking and everything was just unheard of. And so I went to the Colonel and I said "How many tickets do you want for your friends or your family or RCA or whatever?" And he said, "Bindel, said you don't understand how the Colonel works." He said, "I don't want any tickets. But, if you want all of Elvis fans with the bouffant hairdos and all the screaming and yelling and everything from Memphis," he said, "I want all the tickets. And if you give me all the tickets, that means all of 'em. You can't have any, NBC can't have any, Singer can't have 'em, nobody gets 'em." So I went to NBC and I went to Bob Finkel, and I went to the sponsors and I said "This is the deal. And for me there's no contest, let's give 'em to the Colonel and let's get this, cull this audience." Not taking into consideration that my real feelings were, in all honesty, is I didn't trust what the Colonel said. I mean, I just didn't feel 100 percent confident when he said he was gonna do something it was really gonna happen. And I usually try and protect my backside all the time by anticipating whether things are gonna happen. In this case I didn't. I convinced everybody to give the Colonel all of the tickets for both shows, which I did. He got out his briefcase and all the tickets went into the briefcase. And I'm expecting these airplanes to fly in from Memphis, and all these screaming women coming out and all the Elvis hard core fans and so forth. And about two days after the tickets were given to the Colonel, the guard at NBC while I was driving out one evening, said "Hey Steve, do you need any tickets for Elvis?" And I said "What are you talking about?" And there on his desk in the guard booth was a stack of Elvis Presley tickets. That was my first indication we're in trouble in River City, you know, we're in deep trouble if this doesn't come off. So the next morning I got there extra specially early, expecting to see the Johnny Carson, Jay Leno fans lined up outside of NBC but, you know, tenfold. I just expected there'd be fans taking over all of Burbank wanting to see Elvis Presley. There was nobody and I drove into the gate and we're gettin ready to organize the staff and the stage to shoot this sequence and all of a sudden the head of the guest relations comes to me and said "Steve we're in big trouble." There's just a few people standing outside. Those tickets weren't distributed. They didn't go to anybody. So we panicked. I mean, we called some friends of ours at some local radio stations and asked them to promote it on the air. We sent somebody over to Bob's Big Boy to ask customers eating hamburgers and malts to come over to see Elvis Presley and we somehow pulled together with enough people at NBC who were there, calling their friends and families and what have you to get these audiences in there. Q : Did the special change your own life? A : Well I certainly am flattered over the years of people saying "Oh you're the guy that produced and directed the Elvis 68 special." But in reality it hasn't. I've tried to live my life, you know, if somebody asks me what's my favorite project it's always the next one. And I'm better for having done Elvis Presley, to be honest with you. I never thought it was going to be what it became in terms of folk legend or whatever. I was just doing 100 percent the best I could at doing a special. Q : Is there a lot of unreleased footage for the 68 special and is there a chance for future specials? (This interview was done in 2001) A : As far as any unreleased material, I think the Elvis Presley estate has probably gone over material with a fine tooth and comb. They have been acquiring anything and everything that could ever be connected with him. The only thing is, that when I shot the improvisation segments I actually shot two hours. And I believe that only one of those two hours has ever been broadcast. The funny story behind it is that I got a phone call from the people who owned the RCA specials in New York and a gentleman named Jose Razkoff who was the business manager of the Elvis Presley estate for awhile. And they said, "We just worked out a deal with RCA and we're going to do another Elvis Presley tribute show. Do you have any ideas?" And I said, "Absolutely." I said "You don't even have to pay a penny for it. In the vault at Beacons, is two hours of the most incredible Elvis Presley outtake footage that exists." So they didn't know what I was talking about and I went over to Beacons and got a letter from them authorizing me and I yanked out the two masters. And I brought 'em to them and evidently they viewed it and they called me up and said, "Do you think anybody cares about this stuff?" I mean, it blew my mind. And I said, "Just play it in front of an Elvis Presley fan and there's your answer." And they went ahead and sold it to HBO for I heard a million dollars. Just for the right to air it and it became one of HBO's biggest successful specials ever run to this day on their cable network. And, you know, it was retitled "One Night With You." And I know that--- all they ran I believe was take one. I think there's take two which had a repeat of a lot of the same songs, but certainly it was totally different because it was all improvisational. So even if he did the same songs he would've done 'em a different way. Q : Where were you when you found out Elvis had passed away? A : I can't even tell ya. I think I was doing another special at the time and was very involved in work and, I was very sad to hear that because my last conversation with Elvis, when we were alone at NBC just viewing the special, was that I had hoped--- because he told me how much he passionately loved the special. He really did, which is very rare hearing an artist tell you to your face how much they love what they see of themselves on the screen. A lot of artists don't even want to look at themselves after they finish a movie or a special. And he said how much he loved it, and he expressed to me that he was never ever going to record a song again that he didn't believe in and he wasn't gonna make a movie that he didn't passionately feel something about the script. And I said "I hear you and I hope you're strong enough to live up to that" because, the reality is having observed Elvis in his relationship with the Colonel, is that I didn't know if he had a lot of real close personal friends. I equated him to Hamlet, who was afraid to go out into the real world because he was sort of insulated and isolated. And, I did go to see Elvis in Las Vegas when he performed the first time there and I was really excited about him exploring new worlds for himself. And then the next time I went to see him, he had his back to the audience and I knew he was bored. And I think that was the big danger of Elvis future was to prevent boredom. And I think he overstayed his welcome mat in Las Vegas as a Las Vegas entertainer. I would've loved to see him make movies, go around the world and do concerts and so forth and so on. For whatever reasons, he chose not to. Q : It's a shame you weren't able to contact Elvis and do another special. A : I don't know if you could--- I mean, my experience in my career has been, and I think the reason I got into the specials business so heavily is the fact that it was a one and only. It had it's own beginning, it's own middle, it's own end and when it ended it was over. And I'm not sure if Elvis and I hooked up again and did another special or whatever it would've ever matched what we did the first time. Because, we were both experimenting. I mean, I didn't care about ratings. I didn't care about my relationships with the network or with Colonel Parker. I cared about doing the greatest special I could possibly do. And, I think he had the attitude of, this is our little window of opportunity to do something that he'd been yearning to do for a long time, and never had the opportunity to do it. Q : Were there any celebrities who visited Elvis on the set? A : The only thing I remember regarding celebrities is that, I remember there were lots of phone calls from the Beatles trying to talk to him but he never took the phone calls, to my knowledge. There were certain people who claimed to be very close friends of Elvis and they tried to get in the rehearsal rooms. And they were immediately person non grata and told to leave and, I never saw him one on one with any celebrity. I do have a great story, which is the first time I took Elvis out to NBC to see where he was gonna shoot the special. I think part of the success is, the first time I met Elvis, he said he was basically afraid of television. It was not his turf quote unquote. And I said then, you know, "Your turf is makin' records so why don't you make a record and I'll put the pictures to it." And he told me later on that that's the line that relaxed him, because he never thought about him doing a television special. He was makin' a record and they were puttin' pictures to it. But the really funny story is the first time I took him out to see the stage, there was a group of tourists, who were going out on a tour of NBC. They were gonna see the shoe shine guy in front of the Johnny Carson stage. They were gonna see where Dean Martin did his special and so forth and so on and there was like eight little old ladies kind of huddled as we walked in. And the two of us stood waiting for the NBC person to come and greet us and take us to the stage. And while we were standing there and Elvis had his sunglasses on. And we're just standing and chatting and all of a sudden this little woman came up and she said "Excuse me boys, but are there any celebrities here today?" To this day she never knew, nor does she probably know now if she's alive, that that was Elvis Presley that she walked up to and asked that question. Q : Were there any other funny incidences on the set? A : Well every day was fun. I mean, it truly was. We had a great group of people. There was a great energy about wanting to do the show. Elvis was always in a good mood. The only time ever that I remember him being in a bad mood, I think was when Bob Finkel told him that he was using too much hair dye in his hair. He like freaked out over that and came to me and said "Do you think my hair's too dark?" I said "No, I think it looks fabulous." But, other than that, there were a lot of laughs. You know, Joe Esposito and the gang were around and they were always filled with laughs. We just had a great time with all of them, you know, Elvis had this little bubble around him and nobody was allowed to penetrate it. But we all got along great together and we all had a lot of fun and I had a lot of respect for everybody. Q : I had a lot of fun interviewing you, too. Thanks a lot. - Director Of Elvis' '68 Comeback Special Talks About The King |
Stichworte |
binder, englisch, interview, steve |
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