Elvis Ignited

by Kealing, Bob;

  “I got my name on the applicants list just about as fast as I could,” Hall said. With his range of experience in theater, Hall got a call back and was offered the chance to work with Presley in front of and behind the camera. So did another Marion Player, Jim Huber, whose mother, Mary Kay, also worked at the bank.

  A friend from the Marion Players asked George “Red” Langdon if he would like to sign up to work on the Elvis Presley movie. “I thought he was pulling my leg,” said Langdon decades later. At eighty-one he still kept a photo of Presley and himself in his wallet. Because of their comparable size, Langdon would do stand-in work for Presley and a little bit of everything else he was asked. Often he was simply there to help the film’s big star pass the time in between takes.

  Langdon estimated that more than five hundred people signed up to be extras. Some of those who weren’t chosen planned to show up early on Saturday, July 15, to watch the stages of Ocala filming, the first scene being the arrival of Presley’s character driving up to the bank in an old Model A Ford. Louise Sherouse, the young wife who thought she had missed her one and only chance to see Presley up close and in person at Ocala’s Southeastern Pavilion in 1955, was thrilled to learn she would get another chance. “I was blessed my Dad was a security officer and could get us into the bank,” Sherouse said.

  Her father, Tom High, was among the adults who condemned Presley for his vulgar movements after the Ocala concert and expressed similar disdain watching him on the Ed Sullivan Show. For High, a job was still a job, even if it meant having to stand guard over Presley in person. For Sherouse, Betty Langdon, and other diehard Elvis fans not lucky enough to be extras, getting inside the bank became the ultimate backstage pass. The crew planned to film multiple scenes over the course of the weekend. When cameras weren’t rolling, in that controlled environment with Tom Parker perched in a corner like a cigar-chomping gargoyle, Presley could walk and talk casually with fans, not having to worry about being swarmed.

  “We arrived at the bank at 8 o’clock Saturday morning in dark suits, blue shirts, plain ties, summer hats and black shoes,” said Hall, who was supposed to look like a typical Florida businessman on a summer day. “But if you’ve ever seen a typical Floridian in the summer you know he wears about as little clothing as possible. We nearly died of the heat in those suits!”

  Police in full uniform blocked off traffic on Silver Springs Boulevard, a busy artery running into and through downtown Ocala. Filmmakers announced that Presley was running late; all anyone associated with the film could do was wait. Out in the crowd of hundreds of bystanders was a blond-headed eleven-year-old boy from Gainesville whose family had come down to meet Elvis.

  22

  A Fella Who Wiggled

  “I was eleven years old and I remember this vividly,” began rock and roll superstar Tom Petty during an interview with author Paul Zollo. For more than a year of Saturdays, Zollo met with Petty for a book entitled Conversations with Tom Petty. The superstar talked about his own path to fame and riches, all his lifetime triumphs and tragedies. “I could feel so clearly the sorrow and the joy,” said Zollo. “Certain chapters were very sorrowful, and others the opposite. Like when he spoke about the Wilburys, he lit up. It was the same with Elvis…. It changed him forever.”

  Unlike Buddy Holly, Waylon Jennings, Gram Parsons, and Roy Orbison (Tom Petty’s bandmate in the ’80s super group the Traveling Wilburys), Petty never saw Elvis live in concert during his early tours of the South. Still, Petty’s life-altering encounter with him in 1961 remains a testament to Presley’s magnetism, charisma, and influence.

  Due to his father’s volatility, Petty suffered a fearful, physically abusive childhood. Meeting Presley provided young Tom a roadmap, albeit a rocky one, out of workaday Gainesville, Florida. In great detail Petty recounted the morning his life started to change. It began with him sitting in a pile of pine straw under a giant tree, wondering what the day had in store. “My Aunt pulls in the drive and says, ‘Tommy, would you like to go and see Elvis Presley?’”

  Petty said he thought he might like to go. A week later the family piled into the car to make the forty-mile trek from their home in Gainesville to Ocala, where Presley was filming Follow That Dream. “I’ve always thought that was a cosmic title,” Petty recounted. In the days leading up to the shoot, Petty tried to remind himself exactly who Presley was. Prior to search engines and smartphones, there wasn’t much information on Presley; just film footage of his rock and roll days. “He was known to me as a fella who wiggled,” Petty recalled. “And I did a little impression with a broom of wiggling like Elvis.”

  That quote evokes memories of nine-year-old Gram Parsons doing an Elvis impersonation on the front porch of his home in Waycross, Georgia, on Saturday mornings. After seeing Presley at Waycross City Auditorium in 1956, Parsons’ life was similarly altered; set permanently on a course for music stardom.

  Petty’s uncle, Earl Jernigan, was the only northerner in their decidedly southern family. Petty’s father was also named Earl. Tommy’s grandmother, being the suspicious woman she was, thought the name “Earl” was bad luck. Refusing to say that name, she addressed Petty’s father as “Petty” and his uncle became “Jernigan.” In 1961 Jernigan had gotten a job as prop master on the Presley film. The weekend they shot scenes inside the bank on Silver Springs Boulevard, Petty’s aunt and uncle brought along eleven-year-old Tommy and several cousins.

  Unlike the lucky ones allowed to remain inside the bank while Presley filmed, Petty and his family had to stay outside in the parking lot. “There was a huge crowd when we got there,” Petty remembered. “We were driven through the crowd and around back into the film set.” That morning, the film crew was setting up a simple shot; Elvis and Anne Helm were to drive up Silver Springs Boulevard in their old convertible Model A and pull up outside the bank. Anne Helm’s character gets out of the car to look for a parking meter with time still on it. Both would appear in their down-home dungarees looking like the squatters they played in the film.

  Before cameras rolled, anticipation built for Presley’s arrival. At around 10:30 on Saturday morning, July 15, a line of white cars pulled up, sending a jolt of adrenaline through members of the crowd, who roared in response. Petty’s account is riveting: “And then suddenly I go, ‘That’s Elvis.’ He stepped out as radiant as an angel. He seemed to glow and walk above the ground. It was like nothing I had ever seen in my life.”

  From about fifty yards away he walked straight toward Petty and his family; the sunlight seemed to cast his dyed black hair a shade of blue. And before the shocked young boy knew what was happening, there was Elvis, close enough to touch. “These are my nieces and nephews, Elvis,” said Petty’s uncle. Presley smiled and nodded, likely saying something to the children, who were too awestruck to respond. He disappeared into his dressing room trailer. Excited girls pressed against the chain-link fence gripping album covers and pictures of Presley in hopes of getting them signed.

  When Presley reemerged in costume to begin the day’s work, girls rushed the barricades to get his autograph. Just the process of getting onto the set to film a simple scene took much longer than it should have because Presley continued to oblige fans. He’d made a lifelong devotee in little Tommy Petty. Zollo could see it in the way Petty recounted the experience: “It was like a religious feeling, seeing a vision,” Zollo said. “Elvis was shining like Jesus.”

  Petty wasn’t the only youngster moved at the site of Elvis Presley on the streets of Ocala. That Saturday morning a fourteen-year-old African American janitor named Jeremiah Wesley was just finishing his shift cleaning the Florida Theater. Blacks had their own entrance to the theater and were required to sit in the balcony. Wesley caught sight of Presley in costume. “He had on a pair of jeans and a jean shirt,” Wesley recalled, not knowing at first Presley was even filming a movie in the teen’s hometown. Imagine catching sight of Elvis Presley walking on the streets of your town, not knowing he was going to be there. It must have
seemed like an apparition.

  Growing up on Magnolia Street in Ocala’s Sugar Hill neighborhood, Wesley said he’d heard some of Presley’s early standards like “Jailhouse Rock.” The fact that this kind of rhythm and blues–influenced rock and roll came from a white artist made no difference. “I just enjoyed the music and color didn’t matter,” Wesley said. Intrigued by the goings-on, he stuck around to watch Presley that weekend.

  In between scenes, Presley continued to mingle with fans and practiced karate, breaking boards, three in quick succession, with short, sharp chops. What guy could possibly be cooler as seen through the eyes of a spellbound fifth-grade boy, or a fourteen-year-old movie house janitor? “That is one hell of a job to have, that is a great gig—Elvis Presley,” Petty concluded. “I caught the fever that day and never got rid of it.”

  Uncle Earl Jernigan, who for decades worked on movie sets and shot films of University of Florida football practices and other Gainesville-area events, managed to get a few candid photos of Presley on the movie set. But only a few, thanks to Tom Parker who admonished him to put the camera away. “Ya’ll will sell them to Life Magazine,” Parker barked, ever conscious of the Presley brand he exploited for monetary gain at every turn.

  From that day, the one and only day he visited the set of Follow That Dream, Petty found out all he could about Presley. He sent away for a Presley handbook; he collected rock and roll records. His father worried as Tommy never went outside, preferring to cloister himself in the house playing records all day. “I just loved the music,” Petty gushed. “I played it endlessly.” He took guitar lessons in Gainesville from another young rock superstar-to-be, future Eagle Don Felder.

  Petty was right. The film’s title was cosmic and apt for the effect it had on him. After that day in a bank parking lot, meeting Elvis Presley became his epiphany, and Tom Petty followed his dream all the way to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. That story, in slightly differing versions, has become beloved in Florida lore: the confluence of an American icon and little Tommy Petty.

  Presley, the Beatles, and BB King, who played Florida at the height of their careers as live acts, had an immeasurable effect in the Sunshine State; thanks to their influence, a stellar roster of soon-to-be stars picked up guitars, wrote songs, and embarked on their own careers: Petty, Gram Parsons, Gregg and Duane Allman, Stephen Stills, Don Felder, and Bernie and Tom Leadon. They and many other important artists matriculated in Florida youth centers, fraternity houses, and small town juke joints.

  “A little abused child took refuge in Rock and Roll,” Petty told Rolling Stone. After his wife Evelyn died in 1980, Earl Jernigan could only sit by and watch as the convenience and inexpensiveness of videotape destroyed his once-thriving Gainesville film business: Jernigan’s Motion Picture and Video Service. In 1992 he sat in his store among the unused processors, spools, and projectors that once hummed. “I have stuff here that I can’t use and I can’t sell,” he said, “To just shove it outside the door, I can’t do that.”

  Among the keepsakes was a framed photograph of himself, his late wife, and the little boy he hadn’t seen much of since he’d grown up. It was inscribed: “To Aunt Evelyn and Uncle Earl, with love, Tommy.”

  23

  Hot Times Inside

  As impactful as it was for fans who saw and met Elvis outside Ocala’s Commercial Bank and Trust, those inside were fortunate enough to have even longer and more engaging interaction with the film’s leading man. What a memorable month it was for Ocala thespian Michael Hall. He went from directing one-act plays for the Marion Players to directing Elvis Presley. Besides playing a variety of extras in the film, like a bank teller and a member of the “curious crowd,” Hall was enlisted to cue Presley when it was time for his character to enter the bank.

  That thrill didn’t take away from the fact that it was still hot as blazes, and he was standing on Silver Springs Boulevard in a dark suit, long sleeves, and a tie. In an article he wrote for his old hometown paper shortly after filming was over, Hall reflected on the nature of film work: “It’s hot, tiring, repetitious and not one bit glamorous, but nonetheless exciting,” Hall wrote. “I would have gladly done it for nothing. It’s interesting, fascinating work.”

  Inside the bank was no better. Because the air-conditioning made too much noise, it had to be turned off. For employees and others inside thrilled to have a front-row seat to watch filming, spotlights turned the bank lobby into a sweltering hot box. The most run-of-the-mill scenes required dozens of takes. Photographs show Presley sweating through his long-sleeved denim shirt, something that happened again and again. Bill Layton, a seventeen-year-old local extra, recalled Presley wearing down from the heat, sweat, and monotony of doing scenes repeatedly in the oppressive environment.

  Throwing in a loud expletive, Presley groused, “What’s it going to take to get this scene done?” Though Layton was surprised at the salty language, he said that was atypical. “He was human,” Layton said. “But that was an exception, because as soon as you were around him you knew Presley was a genuinely nice guy.” After Presley sweated through yet another shirt, Layton’s mother, Jean, was dispatched to go home and fetch an iron to press the many replacement shirts Presley needed that steamy July day.

  Another meeting of American icons came when Presley’s character inadvertently gave a nervous bank officer, played by Howard McNear, the impression that he’d come to rob the place. McNear faints, and Presley’s ham-handed but good-hearted character Toby Kwimper scoops him up, cradles McNear like a baby, and calls out for help.

  There, in the lobby of the Commercial Bank and Trust in Ocala, Florida, Elvis Presley stands holding the actor who went on to play one of television’s most beloved characters, Floyd the Barber on the Andy Griffith Show. “Every time we watched Andy Griffith, we said we met him,” the bank’s phone operator Bonnie Benningfield said of McNear. “We were sitting in the teller’s cages watching the filming.” McNear appeared in a total of three Presley films.

  During downtime, when crews had to readjust cameras and lighting, Presley mingled with actors, extras, and spectators. In the break room he answered all kinds of questions, signed autographs, and posed for pictures. “I was crazy with excitement,” Benningfield remembered. “He was very, very attractive.” For decades Benningfield carried with her the laminated photos she took with Presley that day.

  Those who saw Presley barnstorming Florida witnessed all the accompanying hype and hysteria surrounding an electrifying new performer. Inside the Commercial Bank and Trust, his fans saw a much truer version of the young star; someone at ease mingling with his fans, flirting with women, playing with children. While all the security, yes-men, and fenced-off fans outside were a reminder that Presley was now a big time film star, in the walled-off confines of the bank, people at least had a chance to feel they really got to know him. And that was the predominant sentiment from so many who interacted with him.

  “I wouldn’t trade seeing what I did see,” said Louise Sherouse. “If I saw him in concert I wouldn’t have been able to get that close to him.”

  Sherouse introduced Presley to her four-year-old son Tony. “Here, let me hold him in my arms so you can get a picture,” he said, hoisting the boy. Presley accommodated scores of autograph requests, leaving Sherouse in a mild state of panic; she didn’t have one scrap of paper to her name. “All I could find was a bank deposit slip,” she recalled. With Presley’s signature it became an instant family heirloom. “I had it mounted for my son for Christmas,” she said.

  Presley’s easygoing way even melted the ice with her father, security guard Tom High, one of the adults disgusted by his early headlining performance at Ocala’s Southeastern Pavilion in 1955. “My Dad came to really like Elvis,” Sherouse remembered. “He said Elvis was so polite and well-mannered.” Presley had won over another adult who once considered him an anathema.

  Follow That Dream’s fifty-four-year-old director, the established filmmaker Gordon Douglas, had worked with art
ists as diverse as Frank Sinatra, Doris Day, Bob Hope, and Jimmy Cagney. In 1936 his short film Bored of Education, starring the beloved child comedy troupe Our Gang, won Douglas an Academy Award. In his expansive career he was known to take on a wide array of serious and comedic films, moving with ease between genres.

  With his dark hair and pencil-thin mustache, Douglas could have passed for a leading man of a bygone Hollywood era. Follow That Dream was in the hands of an experienced journeyman director who knew how to keep the production moving, even if problems cropped up while filming on location. “Elvis was a good actor, and played some damned good scenes,” Douglas declared in an interview about making the film. “He could do more than sing.”

  Anne Helm on location with Elvis Presley in Crystal River. Courtesy of Anne Helm.

  Watching all the goings-on at the bank and still taking in the magnitude of her co-star’s stature was Anne Helm. In keeping with the Beverly Hillbillies analogy, Helm’s character Holly wore her shirt tied at her partially exposed midriff, evoking the country-girl sex appeal of television character Elly May Clampett. Some thought Presley’s shy co-star was standoffish, as she kept her distance from fans between takes. What young woman who harbored romantic feelings for Presley wouldn’t be a little resentful of so many attractive young women fixated on him?

  One of them, nineteen-year-old local beauty contestant Linda Longo, scored a part as an extra in the bank. She sat staring at Presley as he propped himself in a corner and started playing guitar. “It was like a fantasy,” Longo remembered. “That man was beautiful. He had an aura about him.” Getting to hear him sing between takes meant his fans had the entire Elvis experience up close. No wonder it remains such a vivid memory.

  Presley looked out of the window at thousands of people still camped out in the summer sun, waiting. At that moment, when it just might have been cooler outside than inside, Presley stepped out of the door near the bank entrance to try to catch a breeze. “He began to twist and shake his body as if he were singing ‘Hound Dog,’” writer Anthony Violanti reported in the Ocala newspaper. “The whole thing lasted about a minute, but that’s all it took to thrill the crowd. The people began screaming, yelling and waving.”