Elvis Presley – Baltimore Magazine

Movie Review: Priscilla

Max Weiss — Mon, 06 Nov 2023 22:29:24 +0000

It’s difficult to resist the temptation to psychoanalyze Sofia Coppola through her films. As a girl, she was unfairly thrust into the arena of adults—miscast as Mary Corleone in her father’s Godfather 3—where she learned hard lessons about how cruel and unforgiving the world could be (the critics and public were…not kind).

As a filmmaker—in such works as Lost in Translation, Marie Antoinette, Somewhere, and The Virgin Suicides—she has focused almost exclusively on innocence lost, on young girls stripped of their agency and thrust into worlds they’re not ready for.

It’s facile, obviously, to make the connection—there’s much more to Sofia Coppola, as an artist and as a person, than this bit of her biography. But that’s sort of the point. The young women she examines on screen—both fictional and real—all have interior lives that are rarely considered, much less explored by the world. Coppola aims to rectify that.

In that sense, Priscilla Presley, the focus of her latest feature, is the perfect Coppola subject. When you think of Priscilla Presley, what comes to mind? That she was pretty. That she married Elvis young. That her own life has been marked by tragedy (the loss of an ex-husband, grandson, and daughter). Rarely have we asked ourselves: What was it like for her to be courted by the most famous man in the world? Who really was she? (And rarely have we considered that she took Elvis’ flagging fortune after he died and turned it into an empire.)

When we meet her, she’s just 14. And Cailee Spaeny, the talented newcomer who plays Priscilla with a mixture of wide-eyed wonder and roiling strength, was at least partly cast because she looks so young. She’s at a diner on a base camp in Germany, where Elvis is fulfilling his military service, when she’s approached by a friend of Elvis’ inviting her to a house party.

The friend is a military man, and married, making him somehow less threatening, and it’s that veneer of respectability that ultimately convinces Priscilla’s parents (Dad is an army officer) to let her go. But what exactly is going on here? Why did Elvis’ friend approach Priscilla to begin with? Was he sent to stake out pretty American girls in Germany? Was he specifically looking for pretty young girls?

Coppola never answers that question, but it’s clear that Priscilla’s innocence is a huge part of what draws Elvis (Jacob Elordi) to her.

When Priscilla arrives at the party, in a babydoll dress with ribbons, she immediately becomes Elvis’ focus. He’s surprised she’s that young—he was hoping she was 16 or 17, not 14—but he’s undeterred.

He begins courting her—in almost a teen dream fantasy of what it might be like to date a rock star. He’s kind, gentlemanly, filled with gifts and compliments. He confides in her—telling her how much he misses his mother, who has recently died, and how much she reminds him of home.

Notably, he doesn’t have sex with her. And it becomes clear this is not because he’s waiting for her to turn 18, but because he suffers from what we used to call the “Madonna/whore complex.” Starlets, groupies, et al, are for sex (he cheats on Priscilla many times throughout their relationship). But Priscilla, whom he calls “Little One” and treats like some sort of precious Fabergé egg, is too pure for such things.

Once Priscilla is flown off the base and sent to live at Graceland permanently—she spends her senior year of high school at a Catholic school in Memphis where she’s gawked at and gossiped about—Elvis’ infantilizing of her becomes more frustrating.

For one, she wants to have sex. She has desires. But her desires are of no interest to Elvis. He begins to control every aspect of her life—what she wears, how she applies her makeup, the color of her hair (he likes black). And, once they get married and have Lisa Marie, we begin to see her chafe a bit under his authority. But whenever she complains, he threatens to exile her from Graceland—and his life. His temper comes out—he never strikes her, per se, but he becomes violent during a pillow fight when Priscilla shows a bit of gumption. He wants her to be demure, not aggressive.

Despite all the clothes, cars, and jewels a girl could ask for, Graceland becomes a kind of gilded prison for Priscilla. And life with Elvis becomes less a fantasy and more a nightmare.

Elvis doesn’t come across as a monster in this film—we sense his own arrested development, that he, too, was cast into a world of fame too soon, that he was permanently unmoored by his mother’s death. But this is not the hagiography of Baz Luhrmann’s recent biopic. Notably, we never see Elvis perform (except for a brief tinkling on the piano at a party and once, from behind, on stage as he wiggles his ass to the disco version of “Thus Spake Zarathustra”). This is officially because Coppola could not secure the rights to Elvis’ music, but it works for the film, which is laser focused on Priscilla’s journey, not his.

Elvis, too, seems to be searching for meaning—we see him reading Buddhist books and taking psychedelic drugs, trying to find purpose in his own journey. But he’s simply too much the product of the patriarchy to view Priscilla as anything other than his personal property, or to reflect even slightly on what she’s going through.

And while Elordi doesn’t have to do the heavy lifting that was required of Austin Butler—who sang and danced and packed on the pounds to play Vegas Elvis—he makes an excellent Elvis Presley, particularly as he goes from dreamy gentleman caller to cruelly indifferent spouse. I was concerned that his height (he’s 6’5”!) would be distracting, but it works here—underscoring the contrast between man and girl; between power and vulnerability. And Spaeny, who won Best Actress for this role at the Venice Film Festival, is a real find as Priscilla, drawing us into her fears and aspirations. She’s in almost every minute of the film and she holds our attention easily, conveying her feelings with the slightest flash of her eyes or jut of her chin.

The muted Priscilla is so different from Luhrmann’s Elvis, in terms of tone, tempo, and palate, it almost seems like a rebuttal. But this is what Coppola does. She luxuriates in the details of a “girly” exterior—pink shag rugs, ornate jewelry boxes, false eyelashes, wardrobes of glamorous clothing—but equally demands that we look beyond those things.

Again and again, her films proclaim: There is so much more to this woman than meets the eye. Do not be distracted by the shiny baubles—something far more interesting happening here.

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Profile on rock and R&B saxophonist Del Puschert

Jess Mayhugh — Wed, 30 Jul 2014 10:00:00 +0000

Del Puschert’s most prized possessions are two scraps of fabric, each about six inches long and frayed at the edges. One is lavender-colored cotton with faint white lines forming a rectangular pattern; the other is black wool with thin pinstripes and a zipper attached. At first glance, they’re nothing special. In fact, if they weren’t framed together and hung on the wall of Puschert’s Annapolis home, you’d pay them no mind. Puschert stands before the scraps like a pilgrim in the presence of a reliquary. “There they are,” he says, dialing back his boisterous voice to a murmur.

For rock-and-roll devotees, the scraps do, indeed, have near-religious significance—they were cut from a jacket and pants that clothed Elvis Presley. In fact, photos of a young Presley wearing these clothes are displayed alongside the fabric. Del Puschert appears next to the King in a few of the pictures, which ran in Photoplay magazine in 1956.

“It was the week before he went to Hollywood to film Love Me Tender,” the 81-year-old saxophonist says later, sitting at a desk in his memorabilia-crammed “off-limits” room. (“Jesus is coming. Look busy,” reads a sign, amongst many.)

Puschert leans back in his chair and hoists one foot, clad in an ostrich-skin boot, onto the desk. “I played with him at the Olympia Theater in Miami,” he says. “We had some fun.”

Presley played seven shows to a total of 15,000 fans over two days in August. Puschert, who first met Presley in a Texarkana nightclub, recalls that girls started lining up at 4:30 in the morning for the first concert, which was scheduled for 3:30 p.m. He watched Presley dangle a leg out of an upstairs window, setting off a riot of shrieks and screams below. By the time Presley hit the stage for his set, the crowd was charged.

“The mob of girls surged to the stage, where they knelt, arms upraised,” a Miami Herald review noted. “A band of policemen, who were shaking their heads in disbelief, rushed in and pried the kids from the stage. Presley smiled, his shaggy brown hair began to fall like a horse’s mane, and even that brought a thundering of delighted squeals.”

At one point, the crowd got ahold of Presley and tore at his jacket and pants, and, after the show, some women exited the theater clutching pieces of his ripped clothing. Once safely upstairs, Presley cut the remains of his tattered jacket and pants into small pieces and tossed them out the window to fans lined up for the next show.

Puschert went home with a few of those pieces, and some great stories. “Those were lean years, but good times,” he says. “I’ve had 60 years of good times. Playing with Elvis wasn’t even the best part.”

Puschert lives on a few acres off of Route 450 in Annapolis. He and his wife, Harriet, occupy something of a compound—next to Best Buy and across the street from Mr. Tire—consisting of two small houses, a barbershop, and a few barns and workshops housing everything from vintage cars to a pair of life-sized Elvis figures, one of which looms over the property from an upstairs barn window.

“He was probably the best R&B saxophonist I’ve ever seen. He was the man.”

Chik-fil-A contacted Puschert about selling his land, and so have developers wanting to build a high-rise office tower, but he isn’t interested. “They would bulldoze this place, plain and simple,” he says, “but it means more to me than money. So much of my history is here.”

Puschert was born and raised in Annapolis, the son of a clarinetist in the Naval Academy band. He started playing a small soprano sax at the age of 3 and made his professional debut with a local dance band at 10. Around that time, he also played a New Year’s Eve show with the Academy band at the Elks Lodge. It wasn’t long before he was gigging regularly and knew what he wanted to do with his life. “My schoolteachers knew it, too,” says Puschert. “I flunked four years of school and never graduated. They’d be talking to me in class, but my mind would be drifting, thinking about where I was playing that weekend,” places like Baltimore’s 2 O’Clock Club, where he accompanied stripper Blaze Starr.

Del Puschert going through his files. - Photography by Mike Morgan

Del and Elvis Presley in 1956. - Photography by Mike Morgan

Puschert says he set out in search of fame and fortune in 1953 and, in the next breath, mentions “chasing a girl piano player” he met on a show in North Beach. Bette Kirby was touring at the time and, though the band included her sister on vocals and husband on drums, the 21-year-old Puschert was undeterred. “Musically, we just clicked,” he says.

He followed Kirby to Chicago and Texarkana, a town on the Texas/Arkansas border, where she had a run of shows at Chaylors Starlight Club. Puschert put together his own band with musician friends from home and got booked at The Hut Club, a roadhouse up Highway 67, just north of town. His group outdrew the Kirby Sisters, who were given an ultimatum by the manager of the Starlight: “Hire that damn horn player or you’re fired.”

So Puschert found himself in a band with the woman he was crazy for
and her husband. Not long after, “she and I started hooking up,” says Puschert. “We were young. You know how it goes.”

It got even more complicated after Kirby’s husband learned what was going on, and Puschert left the band and returned to The Hut Club, where he’d been promised more money: $20 a night. His relationship with Kirby fizzled, but the Texarkana gig remained steady.

He first met Elvis Presley when the singer showed up unannounced one night in November 1955. After a show at nearby Arkansas Municipal Auditorium, guitarist Scotty Moore crashed Presley’s pink Cadillac into a pick-up truck, stranding the group in Texarkana for the night. Looking to salvage the evening, Presley, Moore, and bassist Bill Black were directed to The Hut Club, where they sat in with the band.

Puschert recalls that Moore and Black played “Night Train,” a blues instrumental, and Presley sang “St. Louis Blues,” the W.C. Handy standard. “They were nice guys,” he says, “and we hit it off. After that, whenever they came through town, they’d stop by the club and hang out.”

Puschert reaches into a desk drawer and pulls out old snapshots of the guys onstage at The Hut Club. The back of one photo is signed by Presley and Moore.

A year later, the friends reunited at Presley’s Olympia Theater show in Miami, where Puschert had enrolled in barber school.

Barber school was a hedge against the insecurities of the music business. Puschert’s father, with firsthand experience as a musician, advised him: “Boy, you’d better learn a trade, so you have something to fall back on.”

Puschert reasoned that people always need haircuts no matter what the economy’s doing, so he learned to cut hair and returned to Annapolis. After working at a few different places, he opened a shop behind his house in 1961.

Del’s 3-Mile Oak Barber and Styling Shop, formerly known as Del’s Styling Ranch, still has a loyal clientele, though Puschert is officially retired. He employs eight stylists and regularly drops in, urging everyone within earshot to “keep smiling.” The shop does a brisk business of flat tops ($16), regular cuts ($15), layered cuts ($18), beard trims ($7), and goatee trims ($4). Long hair is extra. The women’s portion of the salon is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays.

“I cut hair for years,” says Puschert, “but I never quit playing music.”

“He plays like he’s getting a jolt of electricity. We love Del’s energy on and off stage.”

Soon after coming home, he joined R&B greats The Van Dykes, an integrated group (Puschert was the only white member) that played the teen center circuit, Sparrow’s Beach in Anne Arundel County (backing up the likes of Otis Redding and The Coasters), and the Dixie Ballroom at Gwynn Oak Park. They also recorded a single for Atlantic Records, “Stupidity,” that was a local hit in 1962. “The Van Dykes were great!” recalls filmmaker John Waters, who saw them frequently at Gwynn Oak. “They were a bad-boy band you could dance the ‘Dirty Boogie’ to. The checkerboard girls loved them, and so did I.”

“That band was excellent, and Del Puschert was probably the best R&B saxophonist I’ve ever seen,” says country music legend Charlie Daniels. “He was the man.”

Long before “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” made Daniels a household name, he toured relentlessly and ran into Puschert while playing in the area in 1960. “I tried to hire him for my band,” says Daniels, “but he didn’t want to leave. He already had a good gig.”

That gig lasted until 1966, when musical tastes shifted, and The Van Dykes broke up. Puschert put together a series of “tuxedo bands” to play weddings and Bar Mitzvahs around Annapolis and appeared regularly on New Year’s Eve at the local Elks Club.

These days, he splits his time between Annapolis and a winter home in McAllen, TX. He’s made his presence felt around Austin, playing with Dale Watson, the Cornell Hurd Band, and Asleep at the Wheel. “He plays like he’s getting a jolt of electricity,” says Asleep at the Wheel pianist Floyd Domino. “We love Del’s energy on and off stage. He hangs out like a 22-year-old.”

In October, Puschert will be playing the 25th annual Lincoln County Cowboy Symposium with Mel Tillis and Connie Smith in New Mexico.

Never a note, or hair, out of place. - Photography by Mike Morgan

Closer to home, he picks up the sax when the mood hits, so you can still catch him around the region. In recent years, he’s appeared with Chuck Berry at Strathmore, backed local favorite Tommy Vann at the Towson American Legion, and played some shows, including the Eastern Shore’s Bay Music Festival, with Deanna Bogart.

“I don’t perform that much anymore, but who really gives a rat’s ass?” he says. “I had my time, and it was a pretty wild time at that.”

Puschert pulls out a small comb and runs it through his white hair—left side first, then the right. He does the same thing after soloing onstage. “You gotta sound good and look good,” says Puschert.

He returns the comb to his pocket and smiles.

For more images of Del, including his 1955 Plymouth, check out our exclusive gallery below:

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Cameo: Jim Parsley

Jess Mayhugh — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 08:30:00 +0000

“I’d say around 10 or 11 years old, a friend of mine introduced me to Elvis. He was a big Elvis fan. I’d go over to his house and just started listening to his records and thought, ‘This guy is gooood.’

Elvis had everything, man. He was cool. He had the sound, the moves, the looks. He was also just a good human being. He’d give you the shirt off his back. When he had money, he loved buying people things and giving people things. How can you hate someone like that?

You think, ‘I wish I could be like that!’ All you do is learn the songs, learn his moves, and you just have a great time. I would put on Elvis records and have a strobe light going when I was a kid. I’d be up there in my bedroom dancing, and my mother would scream at me all the time because I sounded like I was going to come through the ceiling.

I never thought I’d be doing this. I’ve only been doing it about eight or nine years. My idea, when I first started out, was I wanted to do a tribute to Elvis but without dressing up like Elvis, without the black hair and sideburns, without the jumpsuit and all that. It wasn’t drawing a crowd.

I got the attention of a friend of mine, and he asked me to open up for his band a couple times doing Elvis stuff, so I did. One day he wanted me to open up at this wedding reception and this time he said, ‘Jim, do me a favor. Do it as Elvis.’ I was like, ‘I’m not going to do it as Elvis. That’s not what I do.’ ‘No, no, no, do it as Elvis, just this one time.’

I went ahead and bought this cheap Elvis suit and glasses and all that stuff. When I walked in, the place went crazy. Cameras started going off and I’m thinking, ‘Oh! Pretty neat!’ And that was before I got to the microphone and—as they say—that’s all she wrote. I was hooked.

Thankfully, I have the vocal ability to do ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s Elvis. So, sometimes I’ll do a three-hour show. I usually like to come out in a ’50s outfit, and then, for the ’60s, I’ll come out in the Elvis leather outfit from the ’68 Comeback Special, and then, of course, the ’70s is the jumpsuit. That’s always people’s favorite. There’s something about that outfit that people love.

I do my very best to spread myself around to the fans. But sometimes I can sing close to 50 or 60 songs in a show and out of those 60 songs, you’d be surprised how many people will come up to me after the show and say, ‘You didn’t sing my song.’

During a show, I sing, I mingle with the crowd, I make the women feel that when I’m singing to them that they’re the only one in the world that matters. They eat it up. I’m married for the second time. At first she wasn’t sure how to handle it, because I’m singing to all these women, and some of these women are just goo-goo ga-ga all over me. Sometimes their hands go where they shouldn’t go. But when they do that, I do my very best not to offend them, and I kinda just ease out of the situation and go my merry way. But you can’t do this and not expect that.

Now there are some Elvis Tribute Artists that go too far. They’ll participate in a way that makes Elvis look like some sleazeball. I don’t do that, and I don’t respect those that do. That’s not who the man was. Don’t say, ‘I’m here to represent Elvis Presley.’ Do it in a respectful way.

Someone told me about Night of 100 Elvises, and I got in contact. It’s a big, crazy event. They have three floors of entertainment. You have the main stage. You have your live bands—and they can be rap artists—as long as they’re doing Elvis music. I think I’m going on now about seven years, out of the 18.

I’ve brought a lot of joy to people by doing this. I believe that Elvis today is just as popular as Santa Claus. I hardly ever call anyone for a gig. It’s mostly by word of mouth that people call me. Sometimes I’ll be riding to a gig dressed as Elvis and people will drive past me and give me the thumbs up. It really, really does make people happy.

One day I’ll be giving this up. You know, you have your moments. But then something will happen that will give you that spark back. But the main thing is to try to stay as trim as I can and not lose any more hair—because I refuse to be the bald Elvis!”

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