On this day in 1956, Elvis introduces his new single, "Hound Dog," on The Milton Berle Show. Elvis scandalized the audience with his suggestive hip gyrations. In the media frenzy that followed, other show hosts, including Ed Sullivan, denounced his performance. Sullivan swore he would never invite Presley on his own show, but that autumn he booked Elvis for three shows.
Presley had been recording since 1954. While working at a Memphis electrical shop, the 18-year-old Presley dropped by a Memphis recording studio on a lunch break and paid $4 to record two songs for his mother's birthday. The office assistant at Sun Records, where he made the recording, was so impressed that she brought the record to studio executive Sam Phillips, who signed him in 1954. His first recording, "That's All Right," hit No. 4 on the country-western charts in Memphis.
Elvis soon began performing regularly on radio programs and made his television debut on a Memphis show in March 1955. That September, he had his first No. 1 country record--a rendition of Junior Parker's "Mystery Train." RCA purchased Presley's contract, and he made his first RCA recordings in Nashville in 1956, including "I Got a Woman," "Heartbreak Hotel," and "I Was the One." On January 28, 1956, television audiences met Presley on the variety program Stage Show. He appeared on several more programs before filming his first movie, Love Me Tender (1956), which took just three days to earn back its $1 million cost. All of Presley's singles that year went gold. Elvis' controversial dancing, with his trademark hip gyrations, upset parents but delighted teenage girls. During an appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1956, cameras showed him only from the waist up.
Elvis received his draft notice in December 1957 but took a deferment to finish filming his fourth movie, King Creole. Before his military induction, he recorded enough material so that the stream of Elvis hits was uninterrupted during his tour of duty. He continued to dominate the charts through the mid-'60s and made more than 20 movies.
Elvis stopped performing live in 1961 but made a comeback in the late '60s, becoming a Las Vegas fixture and releasing several top singles, including "In the Ghetto" and "Suspicious Minds" in 1969. As his popularity continued to skyrocket, the "King of Rock and Roll" reportedly turned to drugs. His final live performance was on June 25, 1977, and on August 16, 1977, the day of his next scheduled concert, his girlfriend found him dead in a bathroom at Graceland, the Memphis mansion where he'd lived. Congestive heart failure was cited as the cause of death, but prescription drug abuse was suspected as a contributing factor. He was buried at Graceland. Nine years after his death, he was one of the first 10 people inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. During his life, he had scored 94 gold singles and more than 40 gold LPs.
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