JERICHO, NY, August 12, 2002 – The legendary producer Hal Wallis once quipped, "A Presley picture is the only sure thing in Hollywood." Twenty-five years after his death, Elvis Presley is still a sure thing, with a recent No. 1 hit on the pop charts and over one billion albums sold. On Saturday, August 17, AMC remembers the "King" of rock n' roll with the "Long Live the King" festival. The line-up of three films and two documentaries includes his first and last dramatic roles in LOVE ME TENDER and CHANGE OF HABIT.
Presley left a legacy of 33 feature films when he died 25 years ago, on August 16, 1977. His films deftly combined his undeniable sex appeal with his innovative music style, and his movie soundtrack albums were popular throughout the late 1950s and 1960s, with 11 making the Top 10 on the pop charts and four reaching No. 1.
"Long Live the King" begins at 10:30 AM (ET) with the documentary ELVIS '56 (1987), featuring footage of his early appearances on "The Steve Allen Show," "The Ed Sullivan Show" and others. Musician Levon Helm narrates this one-hour look at Presley's rise to fame in a watershed year for rock n' roll, when he reached the Billboard Top 20 nine times and held the No. 1 spot five times. That same year, Presley made his film debut in the Civil War-era drama LOVE ME TENDER (1956), airing next at 11:30 AM. Elvis stars as Clint Reno, one of two brothers in love with the same woman (Debra Paget). Richard Egan co-stars.
Following, at 1:15 PM, Presley portrays John Carpenter, an inner city doctor struggling to make a difference in a poor community in CHANGE OF HABIT (1969), his final film. When he falls for his nurse (Mary Tyler Moore), little does he know that she's a nun who must choose between him and her vows. In EASY COME, EASY GO (1967), airing at 3:00 PM, Elvis stars as Ted Jackson, a diver on the hunt for buried treasure – and the ship captain's daughter. Dodie Marshall and Elsa Lanchester co-star.
The festival concludes with ELVIS IN HOLLYWOOD (1993), airing at 4:45 PM, an intimate documentary about the King's film career. Memphis DJ and close Presley friend George Klein and songwriters Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller, who wrote some of Presley's most memorable hits, reminisce about life with Elvis on Hollywood's backlots.
AMC is a premiere 24-hour movie network dedicated to the world of American film. Showing one of the finest, most comprehensive libraries of popular films, and a diverse blend of original series, documentaries and interstitials, AMC offers an elegant and contemporary entertainment destination. AMC is a fully distributed network reaching over 83,000,000 U.S. homes (as of July 2002) and ranking #16 in size among all 55 networks.
Since its launch in 1984, AMC has been dedicated to deepening the movie experience for its viewers, featuring film-loving celebrity hosts and an increasingly visible, critically acclaimed slate of original programming. AMC has more than doubled its original programming over the past 3 years and garnered many of the industry's highest honors, including seven Emmy awards.
AMC is owned and managed by Rainbow Media Holdings, Inc., a leader in news, sports and entertainment programming. A subsidiary of Cablevision Systems Corporation (NYSE:CVC) and NBC, Rainbow manages American Movie Classics, WE: Women's Entertainment, Bravo, The Independent Film Channel, MuchMusic USA, Rainbow Sports Networks, News 12 Networks, MetroChannels and Mag Rack, as well as the Rainbow Advertising Sales Corporation and Rainbow Network Communications. In addition, Rainbow is a fifty-percent partner in FOX Sports Net. AMC is one of the assets included in the Rainbow Media Group tracking stock (NYSE: RMG), a series of Cablevision common stock. MGM (NYSE: MGM) owns a 20% stake in four of Rainbow's national networks – AMC, Bravo, IFC, and WE: Women's Entertainment.