In 1974, Elvis Presley walked into a Memphis furniture store called Donald’s, looked at a set of wild Polynesian furniture, and bought the entire collection in about thirty minutes. Carved wood. Fake fur upholstery. Tiki faces. And to finish it off, thick green shag carpet on the floor and on the ceiling. It is the … Read more
In 1961, Elvis Presley bought a chimpanzee. Not a puppy. Not a horse. A forty-pound chimp named Scatter — who would go on to wear tailored suits, drink whiskey straight from the bottle, ride around Beverly Hills in a Rolls-Royce, bite half the Memphis Mafia, and become the single most chaotic member of Elvis’s inner … Read more
On 20 September 1996 Michael Jackson performed on an old military runway at Bemowo Airport in Warsaw. It was the fifth show of the HIStory World Tour. Officially 100,000 tickets were sold. Police put the real crowd closer to 120,000 after thousands pushed through a gap in the fence. Three Antonov cargo planes had flown … Read more
Michael Jackson had already transformed music videos into major events, but Captain EO pushed that ambition into another universe. The 17-minute science fiction musical brought Jackson together with Disney, director Francis Ford Coppola and executive producer George Lucas. Reports place its budget somewhere between $17 million and $30 million, making it widely regarded as the … Read more
Michael Jackson was already known worldwide as the King of Pop when another royal title found him in a small West African village. In February 1992, traditional leaders in Krindjabo, the capital of Côte d’Ivoire’s Sanwi kingdom, welcomed him beneath a sacred tree and gave him a name that would take on a haunting meaning … Read more
Elvis Presley became one of the most famous men on earth, but Memphis remained the place where his story felt most personal. Long before Graceland became a landmark, the city watched him grow from a nervous young singer into the King of Rock and Roll. Rare photographs show that the deeper his fame became, the … Read more
In 1983 two of the biggest voices on earth stood in the same room. Michael Jackson was fresh off Thriller, the best selling album in history. Freddie Mercury was the frontman of Queen and was taking a break from the band to work on solo material. Jackson had been a Queen fan for years and … Read more
An 18-year-old Elvis Presley fan arrived in Las Vegas with enough money for three days and an unlikely promise to his mother. Ian Fraser-Thomson told her he was going to meet Elvis. Within hours, he had slipped past security and discovered something no ordinary fan was supposed to witness: Elvis rehearsing for his historic return … Read more
Every year, more than a million people stand on the white memorial floating above Pearl Harbor and look down at the sunken hull of the USS Arizona, where 1,177 crewmen still lie. Almost none of them know that the memorial nearly didn’t happen. By 1960, the fundraising had stalled badly, and the project was quietly … Read more
Before there was Priscilla, there was Anita Wood. She was a beauty queen and TV performer from Tennessee, and in 1957 Elvis Presley told the world she was his “No. 1 Girl.” He gave her a nickname — “Little” — and he meant it seriously enough to put a promise in writing while stationed overseas: … Read more
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