Elvis Left His Acting Career Behind Because It Was Making Him ‘Violently Ill’
Elvis Presley kicked off his acting career with a supporting role in 1956’s Love Me Tender. This would be the only film in which Elvis did not receive top billing. For the next 30 films, Elvis was the lead and main attraction, cementing his status as a movie star on top of his music career. Despite the success, Elvis was not happy. He said he realized he had to stop making movies because it was making him sick.
Elvis Presley said his acting career stressed him out to the point of illness
When Elvis began to work as an actor, it was just another step that his manager felt he should take on his rise to success.
“It was work,” he said, per the book Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley by Peter Guralnick. “It was a job. I had to be there at a certain time in the morning and work a certain amount of hours, and that’s exactly how I treated it.”
As he made more films, though, he became increasingly interested in acting as an art form. Because of this, the lackluster quality of his films began to chafe against his ambitions. He felt there was nothing he could do about this, though.
“I cared so much until I became physically ill,” he said. “I would become violently ill. I’d get a temperature, something would happen to me … at a certain stage I had no say-so in it. I didn’t have final approval on the script, which meant that I couldn’t tell you, ‘This is not good for me.’ … I don’t think anyone was consciously trying to harm me. It was just Hollywood’s image of me was wrong, and I knew it, and I couldn’t say anything about it, couldn’t do anything about it.
Finally, he felt that he needed to step back from acting entirely.
“I was never indifferent, I was so concerned until that’s all I talked about,” he said. “It worried me sick, so I had to change it. Which I did.”
He felt that he didn’t have any control over the roles he took
When discussing this with Pierre Adige, the director of Elvis on Tour, Elvis said he “had to” force himself to do the movies. He wanted to act in a dramatic role, but he was stuck in a cycle of breezy musicals. Priscilla Presley believed Elvis should have advocated for this goal, but he was too afraid to stand up to his manager.
“The main reason, however, was his inability to stand up to the Colonel,” Priscilla wrote in her book Elvis and Me. “In Elvis’ personal life, there were no stops in letting anyone know how or what he felt. But when it came time to stand up to Colonel Parker, he backed off. Elvis detested the business side of his career. He would sign a contract without even reading it.”
As a result, Elvis never had the chance to achieve his goal of winning an Oscar.
Elvis’ acting career also wore on Priscilla Presley
Elvis was not the only one whose health suffered as a result of his acting career. As he agonized over the roles he took, Priscilla fretted over her inability to help him. He ignored her advice and brooded over the problem on his own. The stress took a toll on their relationship and manifested itself physically in Priscilla.
“I would put on my brightest smile, my prettiest dress — and my phoniest personality — and try to rouse his spirits,” she wrote. “When I couldn’t get him out of the dumps, he would shut himself up all day in his room. This left me devastated. Afraid of doing or saying the wrong thing, I suppressed my real feelings and eventually developed an ulcer.”
Elvis acted in his final film in 1969.
