When a man single-handedly changes the course of popular music with one of the most pure and passionate original sounds of the 20th century, it's tough to care about his sideline occupations. But Elvis Presley wanted to be an actor as much, if not more, as he wanted to be a singer. Many Elvis fans didn't like his movies, and neither did Elvis, very much. And yet, the vast majority of them were box office smashes, sure-fire money making hits. Someone was buying tickets. In the 1960s, it seemed everyone was buying tickets. This book considers Elvis Presley's films not as an unwelcome intrusion into the insular Presley universe, even though this is how Presley and his associates usually viewed them, but as a significant part of the late 1950s and primarily 1960s pop culture they represented. Elvis Presley, after all, loved film and TV. The Elvis Films puts these guilty pleasures into context with not only Presley's life and circumstances at the time, but looks at how they related-or in some cases did not relate to-the other popular culture of the period. Jon Abbott has been writing about popular culture for over thirty years in a variety of specialist and trade publications, and his kaleidoscopic knowledge of his subject leaves no stone unturned in this provocative and fact-filled analysis of the Elvis movies and the arts and media environment that surrounded them. He is the author of Irwin Allen Television Productions 1964-1970, and Stephen J. Cannell Productions: A History of All Series and Pilots.
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Jon Abbott was born in London, England in June, 1956. Thanks to Huckleberry Hound and Supercar, he has been writing professionally about popular culture for around thirty years, during which time he has written over four hundred articles on American film and television for over two dozen different trade, specialist, and populist publications in the U.K. These have included City Limits, Television Weekly, TV Comic, Video Today, Starburst, Stills, Media Week, Adult Movies on Video, What Video, What Satellite, TV Zone, Time Out, The Face, The DarkSide, Video Buyer, Video World, Cult Times, Comedy Review, SFX, Home Entertainment, Infinity, and Dreamwatch. He has had two books published by McFarland, and he is also now self-publishing. For all current titles, please click on Jon Abbott above for the Amazon Author's Page. He has a wide range of interests in 20th century film, television, and music, including gangster films ranging from Cagney through to Corman and Scorsese, classic cartoons, 1950s sci-fi movies, 1960s TV and comics, and 1970s cinema. He is particularly fond of the work of Laurel and Hardy, Phil Silvers, Lucy, Dick Van Dyke, Termite Terrace, Tamla Motown, the Beatles, Hanna-Barbera, Irwin Allen, Gerry Anderson, DC Comics, Marvel Comics, Elvis Presley, Clint Eastwood, Stallone and Schwarzenegger, Jackie Chan, and Stephen J. Cannell. He's also a fan of Tom and Jerry, Republic Serials, The Untouchables, The Outer Limits, The Beverly Hillbillies, The Man from UNCLE, the Daleks, the Adam West Batman, the Emma Peel Avengers, The Invaders, the original Star Trek, Godzilla and Gamera films, pulp magazine covers and pop art, cheesy, sleazy sex films ( and good ones), shameful Italian comedies, Chinese gangster films (especially with Chow Yun Fat), Fawlty Towers, Frasier, and The Sweeney. Despite the above, he doesn't live in the past, because he's bought the best of it into the future with him, and he prefers his i-pad, i-pod, DVDs, and big screen TV to vinyl, censorship, and two-channel television. See more about his books at the Amazon Author's page.
