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Elvis, The Beauty Queen & Me Update

June 28, 2009 | Video

It's been a year in the making, but we are almost ready to release "Elvis, The Beauty Queen & Me", with Jeanne LeMay. The majority of this DVD was filmed during Jeanne's trip to the UK last year. She was filmed talking candidly about her time with Elvis at Graceland, on tour and in Vegas. She openly discusses how she was able to enjoy a close relationship with Elvis through her friendship with Linda Thompson, how she became a secretary at Graceland and what went on there. Her memories of those times are funny, fascinating and extremely riveting. Jeanne is a great talker and her warmth comes across beautifully in the programme according to Essential Elvis' editor Andrew Hearn on his blog.

Over the past few months Essential Elvis has been lucky enough to have tracked down and acquired some stunning new 1974 cini film of Elvis, still on the original reels! He and and David Wilson have been working hard on having the reels digitally transferred and restored. The speed has now been expertly corrected, the picture quality has been enhanced and the brightness and colour has been worked on enabling us to now offer the footage in virtually perfect quality.

So, what is the footage of?

You'll get to see Elvis in Vegas during his August 29th 1974 midnight show, September 1st dinner show and the infamous September 2nd closing show (wearing the beautiful Tiger jumpsuit). There's lots of karate on these clips with Red West coming on stage at one point. Elvis even knocks poor Charlie on his backside.

There will also be some 1973 footage shot at Graceland. This includes the gates, the grounds, up at the mansion itself and the pool area. This is not the poor quality Dutch footage that has been doing the rounds for years, but new footage taken from the reels and restored by Essential Elvis. This is TV quality material.

They are also extremely excited to tell you that we have been restoring some amazing footage (running for a staggering 13 minutes) of Elvis in Kansas City, Missouri on the evening of June 29th 1974. This is the most beautiful clear, close-up footage that they have seen in a long, long time with Elvis wearing the fantastic Embroidered Eagle jumpsuit

Source:Essential Elvis
NONE000000 wrote on June 29, 2009
I wonder if there's audio on the concert footage, or if Elvis is in the Graceland footage from 1973?
tcb1 wrote on June 29, 2009
73 footage of Graceland is fan footage from August 1973 while Elvis was in Las Vegas. & being an official DVD release the live footage will not have matching sound although there may be a few sections throughout the documentary where original sound may be used where Elvis is talking and not singing, this is due to the copyright issues. The programme is in the final editing stages now.
Wiebe wrote on June 29, 2009
This looks really interesting, especially the Kansas City stuff, since we can add the sound ourselves. I'd say this will be the most spectacular release in years.
ranskal wrote on June 30, 2009
This looks very interesting. I wonder if the "strung out" monologue is in the footage.
Andrew Hearn wrote on June 30, 2009
Unfortunately, the "strung out" dialogue is not included, but there is several minutes of great karate footage, with Red West coming on stage at one point to help Elvis into his karate gi and belt. Elvis then offers an impressive kata, even knocking poor Charlie on his backside!