He had one chance to show the world he was still the King of Rock 'n' Roll. Discover the story behind Elvis Presley's triumphant '68 comeback special.
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Short filmTranscript
00:00You're an embarrassing standing out here, Steve. I gotta do something.
00:03Everything for his future depended on this special.
00:08Okay, are you ready?
00:10No, but we'll try anyway.
00:11He's really, really nervous. He's sweating nerves.
00:14He knew that this could be a failure and that would be it.
00:16Well, I'm gonna have to do it sooner or later, so I might as well get on with it, baby.
00:23Elvis was a new type of 20th century man.
00:26The pure arc light of his talent.
00:29It was as cool as it possibly gets.
00:32He was the highest paid movie star in America.
00:38But it evolved to a thing in the 60s.
00:40He was doing music that wasn't great, doing movies that nobody believed in.
00:45He was the original rebel, and now he's relegated to really being a family entertainer.
00:50And I think that really hurt.
00:52Overnight, it was all gone. It was like a dream.
00:59People start looking for meaning in music.
01:02Something that's deeper than anything they heard from Elvis.
01:05I didn't know what to do. I just felt I was obligated to things that I didn't fully believe in.
01:10No matter how big Elvis got, he's still the guy that grew up in a tar shack.
01:15There's always somebody in here saying, you're not far from going back there.
01:19They couldn't have paid me no amount of money in the world to make me feel any satisfaction inside.
01:24He thought, if this is ending, I want to end as the Elvis I want to be.
01:28Not the Elvis they want me to be.
01:30The 68th Comeback Special, it's sort of the first step towards control of his own destiny.
01:36Here's Elvis Presley.
01:40He was very nervous because he hadn't done anything like that before.
01:43There ain't no room around here for a guitar man.
01:46He comes out and he's the best looking guy on the planet.
01:50It was the first time I saw him perform and I went, whoa.
01:54I felt like my team came back and they're winning again.
02:01What you see that night is the one time Elvis decided to be who he wanted to be for himself.
02:13Elvis took Elvis to the next level.
02:16Elvis Presley's Comeback