“Jailhouse Rock”

Elvis arrived in Hollywood in August 1956. He would get $100,000 for his first movie, $150,000 for the second, and $200,000 for the third. Although these were high figures for an untried actor, the profits from Elvis's movies would average ten times these amounts

The first movie was a western called Love Me Tender, after the ballad that Elvis recorded for the movie's sound track. Unlike Elvis's later movies, this one has few songs in it.

Love Me Tender premiered at the Paramount Theater in Times Square, New York, and there was a forty-foot Elvis cutout looming above the movie marquee. The Colonel swam through the crowd, handing out ‘'Elvis for President'’ buttons. The national release that followed was the largest one in the history of 20th Century Fox. The movie got bad reviews but did well at the box office.

To get an idea of how much Elvis's career shifted when he started doing movies, consider that he did 200 concerts in 1955. He did more than one hundred live performances in 1956, and he performed eleven times on television. In 1957, after his movie career started, Elvis performed only twenty concerts and did one television appearance. And, after more than two years and nine hit singles, Elvis was about to be drafted!