Elvis Presley nearly lost his crown — here’s how ‘The King’ got it back
nypost.comnew Paramount+ documentary, “Reinventing Elvis: The ’68 Comeback,” which takes viewers behind the curtain of the original NBC telecast through the eyes of Binder, 90, who shares candid, emotional, behind-the-scenes stories of working with Presley and with his notoriously iron-fisted, sketchy manager, Col.
Tom Parker (identified here as “The Villain”), who’d relegated Elvis to a string of laughably bad movies throughout the 1960s to keep the gravy train rolling along.“Reinventing Elvis: The ’68 Comeback” is produced by Spencer Proffer (“The Day The Music Died: The Story of Don McLean’s ‘American Pie'”) and directed by John Scheinfeld(“The U.S.
vs. John Lennon”), with Binder and Bruce Gilmer executive-producing.“Steve [Binder] was the only guy that Elvis would truly listen to,” Proffer told The Post. “This is Steve’s documentary, and Elvis is the vehicle by which we were able to tell Steve’s story about [the ’68 special] and standing up to Tom Parker,” said Proffer, who’s known Binder since 1968. “Steve could not be manipulated … [NBC] wanted him to be the guy to bring Elvis forward … and [‘The 68 Comeback Special’] is what he did on his terms, in his own way.”Binder wrote the coffee table book “Elvis ’68 Comeback: The Story Behind the Special,” published last year; the Paramount+ documentary was a chance for him “to bring Elvis back to life visually,” Proffer said.“Steve is the only living authority on the making of that special — he directed it, he produced it and it was his brainchild,” he said. “This is not a documentary on Elvis.
This is a documentary about bringing Elvis back from where Col. Parker flushed his career away with the bad movies he made after the Army.
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