Jerry Hopkins (1935–2018)

To look at this coffee table sized book with Elvis smiling on the cover, you'd think this would be a fluffy story of the making of Blue Hawaii and the comeback special and how Elvis is still a big tourist draw to the islands. Those subjects are covered, but as Hopkins was with Rolling Stone magazine for twenty years, he dug deeper and is sometimes critical about what he finds, especially with the two follow-up Hawaiian movies.
This book is filled with very rare photos that even a big fan may never have seen before, such as Elvis aboard the ship to his first visit to the islands in 1957. There's the story about the local rock radio station's publicity stunt for Elvis' first concert there, with the station's engineer dressing like Elvis and wearing a black wig while another employee dressed as Col. Tom Parker. They were chauffeured around the island in a convertible while the station kept reporting on Elvis sightings. "Elvis" came to the radio station, located at the top of a fourteen story hotel, wiggled for the screaming crowd below, then pulled his wig off and dropped it to them. Stunned silence.
Elvis' last visit to the islands, just months before his death and with an entourage of thirty-one people, is remembered by a long-time friend. There's also a few pages of Elvis-in-Hawaii collectibles.… (meer)