NEW ELVIS PHOTOS SURFACE AFTER 51 YEARS IN GARAGE

Dateline: New York, N.Y.

October 28, 1956

Up and coming music idol Elvis Presley appears live on the CBS hit variety program "The Ed Sullivan Show." This is Elvis's second appearance on Sullivan although it will be his first appearance in CBS's New York studios with Ed hosting. Presley's first engagement on the show was accomplished via live feed from Los Angeles with actor Charles Laughton guest hosting in New York while Sullivan recovered from injuries suffered in an automobile accident.

Also on set that day was 25 year old aspiring photographer Richard Weede. His father, famed opera baritone and musical theater star Robert Weede, was to appear along with the cast of the Broadway hit "The Most Happy Fella" on the show that night. The younger Weede obtained permission from CBS brass to be on premises and to photograph all the performers during daylong rehearsals prior to the live airing that night.

Sullivan had been reluctant to invite young Elvis on his show known for its wholesome family oriented entertainment....and with good reason. Presley had recently earned the moniker "Elvis the Pelvis" following his performance on Milton Berle's Texaco Star Theater, when he slowed down the final chorus of "Hound Dog" to a blues tempo, then gyrated to the beat in a manner that drove the studio audience wild. The outcry in the press the next day was loud and harsh, with John Crosby of the New York Herald Tribune going so far as to call Elvis "unspeakably untalented and vulgar." Presley's growing army of fans enthusiastically disagreed with the press.... as did the television ratings. When Elvis appeared on The Steve Allen Show opposite the Sullivan show in the same Sunday night time slot and attracted nearly twice as many viewers as Sullivan, Ed saw the light and relented.  Col. Tom Parker negotiated a deal for Elvis calling for three appearances on Sullivan at a fee of $50,000, an amount unprecedented at the time.       

When the curtain rose for his second appearance on Sullivan that historic evening in October 1956, young Presley , true to form, sang up a storm and once again loosed his pelvis on millions of shocked and delighted fans across America. In spite of enormous ratings garnered by the show that night, Sullivan, by all accounts, was less than amused with Elvis's onstage antics. Ed would take no future chances on more hijinks from the spirited young megastar. During Presley's third and final appearance on Sullivan's show in January, 1957, the cameramen were given strict instructions to shoot Elvis only from the waist up.       

"I spent most of the day," recounts Weede," backstage with Elvis and snapped these photos with available light and a hand-held camera. Little did I realize at the time I was capturing a truly unique moment in rock and roll history....  involving arguably the most famous music icon of his or any other generation." 

Fast Forward: Present Day

So what became of these historic photographs? For a very long time, precious little! Richard Weede, by his own admission, when the photographs were created was not a huge fan of Elvis.

"I had been raised in and around the world of musical theater and opera. It was not unusual for me to come home from school and find my father giving singing lessons to the likes of Mario Lanza. I didn't even really know who Elvis was at the time and I certainly had no great affection for songs such as "Don't Be Cruel" or "Hound Dog." If I had known then what I know now, who Elvis Presley was about to become, obviously I would have shot roll after roll of the young star."

"It is amazing to me the photos I did manage to create are now being regarded as a pictorial essay of a seminal moment in rock and roll history.... as well as a commentary on censorship in America at that time. The series of shots with Ed leaning toward Elvis, discussing what exactly only God will ever know, and the look on Elvis's face and his body language .... I  believe these images  truly capture the essence of a night which will live forever in the annals of rock folklore.... proving once again that a picture can indeed be worth a thousand words."

At the time, however, Weede was so little impressed with his subject that he printed just a few of the negatives, stashed what prints he did develop and the negatives in separate boxes, then deposited those boxes among countless others which accumulated over 50 years of work. In his garage..... where they languished unseen and unpublished for 51 years!

Then one evening in early February, 2007, Richard Weede's son and a friend, both musicians themselves,  were engaged in a discussion about bands and performers they had liked over the years. The friend casually mentioned that his 11 year old daughter was a huge Elvis fan and how the King had managed to transcend generations with his enormous talent and charisma. Weede's son replied that his father had taken some photographs of Elvis during one of his appearances on the Ed Sullivan show and that he believed they were lying around somewhere.

Intrigued to say the least, the friend asked if he might view the photos. Weede's son rummaged through a stack of clutter on his kitchen table and soon produced a somewhat tattered manila envelope. When his friend examined the contents of the package his eyes nearly popped out of his head. In his hands was a treasure trove of rock legend in the making. Anybody who ever knew anything about Elvis had heard of the Sullivan shows and how they had defined Presley as the original, quintessential, bad boy rockabilly rebel. One of the most significant events in Elvis's meteoric rise to super stardom had been indelibly documented in gorgeous black and white images and could finally now be shared with his millions of fans all over the world.....

Post Script:

The original envelope mentioned above contained only five developed photos. After  convincing Richard Weede  the photos he had created were truly remarkable, not to mention truly valuable, he was persuaded to embark on a search for those pictures still missing, as well as the original negatives. Over a period of several months more and more photos were recovered from the boxed archives in his garage, but still no negatives.

Then in late October, 2007, disaster struck. The worst wildfires in California history raged out of control and Weede's home in Escondido was at the epicenter of the inferno. Hundreds of thousands of acres and several thousand homes were reduced to ashen wasteland. More than one and a half million Southern California residents were forced to vacate their homes under mandatory evacuation notices. Richard and his wife Peggy were among those forced to flee.

On October 21 at approximately 11:30 that night, they received a phone call telling them they had an hour to get out. As the flames, fanned by fierce Santa Ana winds, swiftly crept up the hill behind their home, the couple first transported their two horses to safety, then packed a few scant belongings into their car and prepared to leave.

In spite of the encroaching danger,  Weede convinced his wife they should make one last ditch effort to locate the missing negatives. Miraculously, they found them at the bottom of the last box they had time to search before beating a hasty retreat.

A little more than a week later, when the worst of the fires were at last contained, they were allowed back up the hill to their homesite to survey the damage. Nearly every home in the neighborhood had burned to the ground, as had their horse barn and tool shed. Their house, though suffering extensive smoke and water damage, remained standing.

"We had a home to come back to," said Weede later. "And we found Elvis..... Some things were meant to be!"    

THE FRIEND