Todd Meadows died after going overboard off the coast of Alaska last weekCredit: Facebook/Todd MeadowsHis mother has begged for footage of his death not to be airedCredit: GoFundMe
The 25-year-old fell into the freezing waters of the Bering Sea while filming the long-running Discovery Channel series.
His body was recovered ten minutes later, but attempts to resuscitate him were unsuccessful.
His mother, Angela, told TMZ: “We don’t want to see any footage of the accident and do not want Discovery to air any of that footage or make money off of our son’s death.
“We hope they only air good things of Todd on that boat.”
Instead, Angela said the family has requested footage of Todd crabbing so they can remember him doing what he loved.
The family is still waiting for a definitive answer about how he died, but Angela says she has been assured her son did not suffer in his final moments.
“We don’t want to put the blame on anyone, but someone has to take responsibility. We will have justice for Todd,” she added.
A spokesperson for the US Coast Guard said that on February 25, just after 5pm local time, officials were alerted that Meadows had gone overboard.
The alarm was raised by the fishing vessel Aleutian Lady, which reported he fell into the water about 170 miles north of Dutch Harbour, near Alaska.
Captain Rick Shelford confirmed the devastating loss in a Facebook post, calling February 25 “the most tragic day in the history of the Aleutian Lady on the Bering Sea.”
“We lost our brother, Todd Meadows,” he wrote.
“Todd was the newest member of our crew, he quickly became family. His love for fishing and his strong work ethic earned everyone’s respect right away.
“His smile was contagious, and the sound of his laughter coming up the wheelhouse stairs or over the deck hailer is something we will carry with us always.”
Discovery Channel also released a statement: “We are deeply saddened by the tragic passing of Todd Meadows.
“This is a devastating loss, and our hearts are with his loved ones, his crewmates and the entire fishing community during this incredibly difficult time.
“Our hearts are broken in a way that words can’t fully express.”
Todd is survived by three sons, and a GoFundMe has been started to support them.
The Bering Sea – known for its shallow depth, volatile weather, and freezing temperatures – is widely regarded as one of the most dangerous bodies of water in the world.
The hazards of the job are well-known among those who work the waters.
Captain Sig Hansen has previously described facing “life-threatening situations” at sea.
“We’ve had events where the boat was icing down to the point where I thought there was no return, he told Fox News.
Todd is survived by three young boysCredit: GoFundMe
Darkness engulfs me right before I step into a dream. The Oscar-winning Mexican filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu guides me from a pitch-black hallway into an open space, where beams of light and smoke, interspersed with sounds from the streets of Mexico City, create a vortex into a unique cinematic experience.
Inside the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Iñárritu is giving me a tour of his new installation “Sueño Perro:” a sensorial celebration of his 2000 debut film, “Amores Perros,” in honor of its 25th anniversary. The only physical elements on display are six film projectors and the celluloid that contains frames of unreleased footage, which are shown on screens of different sizes around the room. Detached and unburdened by the need of a narrative, the images simply exist.
“I love doing installations,” Iñárritu says in Spanish. “It’s like playing a game with your friends. And it’s liberating for me, because I don’t have to think about selling tickets.”
Before arriving at LACMA, his “Sueño Perro” mesmerized audiences in Milan, Italy, and in his hometown of Mexico City. LACMA previously hosted Iñárritu’s intense and immersive project “Carne y Arena,” which allowed visitors to put themselves in the shoes of a person crossing the U.S.-Mexico border on foot.
In Milan and Mexico City, “Sueño Perro” occupied labyrinthine spaces with multiple rooms. Contained within a single room, the L.A. iteration is the “paranoic version,” Iñárritu says. Once inside, there’s no respite to the barrage of images and the soundscape that surround you. He aptly describes the projectors’ beams of luminosity as “light sculptures.”
Curiously, he notes, people have such reverence for these hypnotic streams of light that they duck to avoid disturbing them rather than crossing in front of them. Iñarritu wishes they would, in fact, disrupt the light, so their shadows can enter the frame and transform it.
Never-before-seen footage from “Amores Perros” projects from 35mm projectors across the walls at LACMA, Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2026.
(Sarahi Apaez / For De Los)
The projected footage is material that didn’t make it to the final cut of “Amores Perros”: a gritty, visceral drama following three different stories across different social classes in a chaotic Mexico City during the turn of the millennium. Back in 2018, Iñárritu learned that all his dailies (raw takes) from that shoot, which in most productions are thrown away, were preserved at Mexico’s National University (UNAM).
“It was like looking through an album you haven’t opened in 25 years, which smells of dust,” he says. “Because of the distance, the images actually evoked a beautiful nostalgia in me.”
And that album was substantial. Iñárritu recalls that he and cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto shot an immense amount of footage, nearly 1 million feet of film.
Gael García Bernal from a scene in “Amores Perros,” released in 2000.
“It’s like the placenta that’s thrown away when a baby is born. Suddenly, that discarded material, rich in DNA, which was already dead but was once part of a living being, has a life of its own,” Iñárritu explains vividly. “I didn’t know that these fragments, this dead material could be resurrected, but light has given new life to something that was forgotten.”
Critically acclaimed and Oscar-nominated for international feature film (foreign-language film back then), “Amores Perros” marked a watershed for the Mexican film industry, as an ambitious production that captivated both local and international audiences while unflinchingly portraying the country’s social ills from a humanistic standpoint.
“Look at Gael! He was 19 then. That’s a beautiful image of him,” Iñárritu says of “Amores Perros” lead García Bernal, whose shaved head is projected on one of the installation screens. The actor made his feature film debut in “Amores Perros” and has since had an extraordinary career.
At one point, three of the six projectors go dark — and the three remaining show the pivotal car crash that connects the film’s three narratives. Iñárritu and Prieto shot the imposing accident with nine different cameras. Seeing all nine different angles unspool in “Sueño Perro” provides a new understanding of the moment’s challenging orchestration.
Such a sequence evinces that “Amores Perros” was the work of an artist in his mid-30s willing to put it all on the line, uncertain whether he would get to make another film.
“I’ve changed a lot as a filmmaker, but I’m still the same idiot I’ve always been. That’s the bad news,” Iñárritu says laughing. “The other bad news is that I couldn’t make a film like that anymore, because of the number of shots and setups, and the energy behind each of those shots.”
The passage of time, in tandem with the film’s anniversary, allowed an opportunity for Iñárritu and screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga (who wrote “Amores Perros,” “21 Grams,” and “Babel”) to reconcile after a long-standing falling out. The two mended their bond in public last year during an event in Mexico City.
“It was very important for me to close this chapter,” Iñárritu explains. “There was something so special about our friendship as people — and our children were also very close. I truly missed him as a friend. As you get older, you realize that grudges and animosity are the worst investment; it’s like having a disease inside you and not wanting to let it go.”
While most exhibits celebrating a film’s legacy feature artifacts or costumes that appeared on screen, Iñárritu ultimately decided to opt out of that route. Initially, he admits, the director was tempted to find the scraps of the wrecked car that belonged to García Bernal’s character in the film, a black Ford, and place it at the center of the installation. But it was LACMA’s CEO Michael Govan who persuaded him to preserve the purer approach.
“Michael loved the idea of the projectors, of the light and memory. And he wisely told me, ‘Perhaps the material object will be distracting. This work is ethereal, and maybe something solid will create a knot.’ I thought it was a great reflection, and I said, ‘That’s true. I’m going to try for this exhibition to exist without physical matter, because it’s about the analogous, but also the immaterial, which is light and time.’”
The objects or “archaeological remains of a film,” as he calls them, cause Iñárritu great sadness. To him those relics are akin to looking at a collection of lifeless butterflies preserved in a box. “When I see the shoes that so-and-so wore or the dress that so-and-so wore, they seem to me like butterflies that once flew and now they’re dead,” Iñárritu says. “Objects that once appeared in film lack life afterwards. They’re like skeletons.”
(Sarahi Apaez / For De Los)
For young people who have mostly watched movies on their electronic devices, Iñárritu thinks witnessing “Sueno Perro” could spark great curiosity about the way cinema existed for most of its history: on film. It will allow them to think of cinema in a primal manner.
“We are organic beings, and our capacity for understanding and our development involves all our organs, and digital screens have forced us to perceive everything only on an intellectual level,” he says. Entering the installation, he hopes, will resemble the feeling of entering a womb or a cave. “The flickering light from the lamps in the projectors is reminiscent of the fire in caves when people gathered and shared stories,” he adds.
Sonically, “Sueño Perro” envelops attendees not in lines of dialogue or a musical score, but the sounds of life in Mexico City — from street vendors to a marching band — recorded over the years and brought to L.A. with the help of sound designer Martín Hernández, who’s worked on every single Iñárritu film since “Amores Perros.” And while some of those aural elements still exist today, “Amores Perros” also serves as a time capsule of a city that has evolved and mutated incessantly.
“I still recognize the city when I watch the film, but it makes me laugh so much to see the cars and the clothes of the time,” he says. “It now looks like the Paleolithic era. And I think, ‘I’m so old!” But yes, it was definitely a different city back then.”
(Sarahi Apaez / For De Los)
Like Iñárritu, I still lived in Mexico City, then known as Distrito Federal, when “Amores Perros” was released. In those days, international tourists often feared visiting the metropolis for fear of being kidnapped. To see Mexico City become a trendy, sought-after destination for “digital nomads” from the U.S. and elsewhere feels jarring.
“People from the U.S. have for so long been snobbish about Mexico, and now they go and say, ‘F—, this is a city with incredible cultural depth,’” Iñárritu says. “They realize that their snobbishness came from a misconception, based on propaganda they’ve been fed, which portrays us Mexicans only as “sombrerudos.’”
What’s so bewitching about Mexico City, and the country at large, Iñárritu thinks, is the people’s worldview and how they confront their realities.
“There’s no other country that has that kind of vitality, because despite all of its problems, and there are many — like how violence and corruption have become so normalized — the people have an energy, a joy, a vitality that’s very hard to find in any other city around the world,” he says.
On the subject of the ingrained issues that still plague his home country, Iñárritu recalls that those in power were not pleased with how “Amores Perros” addressed them on screen.
“The Mexican government was ashamed of the film,” he says. Whenever the film would win an award at an international festival, the Mexican ambassadors or diplomats in any given country would decline invitations to celebrate the accomplishment.
“They said it was a bad representation of Mexico, that what the film showed wasn’t Mexico,” Iñárritu recalls. “They said it showed too much violence. Give me a break, as if I were the secretary of Tourism.”
Aside from promoting this latest stop in the “Sueño Perro” installation’s journey, Iñárritu is in the post-production stage of his upcoming film “Digger,” starring Tom Cruise. Besides that, he’s also working on a project to honor Mexican American artist Judy Baca.
Baca is best known for the mural “The Great Wall of Los Angeles,” which extends for over half a mile along the Tujunga Wash and depicts the complex history of California. Iñárritu and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki shot a piece on this major work that will be screened at Walt Disney Concert Hall on March 7, alongside a special concert put together by Gustavo Dudamel and Gabriela Ortiz, and featuring several guest composers.
“I want to showcase the work of Judy, a Chicana who was 50 years ahead of her time and told the story of California through her eyes. I want it to be a landmark in Los Angeles. I want people to say, ‘You can’t go to L.A. and not see this mural.’”
As part of the ongoing celebration of “Amores Perros,” MACK has published a book featuring essays, behind-the-scenes photos, and storyboards. A double vinyl compilation including Gustavo Santaolalla’s score, plus tracks by generation-defining Mexican rock bands like Control Machete and Café Tacvba, has also been recently released.
Iñárritu hadn’t seen the film in a theater in many years. But when he saw it again at the Cannes Film Festival last year, he was pleased to realize it maintains its potency.
“I was struck by how well the film holds up. And it’s not just because I made it. It still has a rhythm and a muscle. It hasn’t aged badly at all. On the contrary, it’s like a young old soul,” he says with a laugh.
“Sueño Perro” will be open to the public from Feb. 26 until July 26.
The first hour of “EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert” convinces you that the King is the greatest entertainer who ever lived. By the end of it, he’s a god. Director Baz Luhrmann claims he made this Imax documentary so that any poor souls who never got to see the King live can worship him in action. Really, I think Luhrmann is praying that in a thousand years, some alien civilization will discover this footage and build a whole religion around the thrall Elvis’ hip thrusts had over a crowd.
If that future comes to pass, then Luhrmann himself will be elevated as a key disciple. He’s so devoted to Elvis that this is his second tribute in four years, the other being, of course, his 2022 biopic “Elvis,” starring Austin Butler, who was good in the role if not quite iconic. That more traditional film hewed to the genre’s standard rise-and-fall narrative and was dinged mostly because the King’s life represents so many things to so many people — race, class, controlling relationships — that it’s impossible to please everyone or for any actor to fill his blue suede shoes.
“EPiC” sticks to the surer footing of documentary footage: the man himself performing over two dozen tunes — including “That’s All Right,” “Burning Love” and “In the Ghetto” — plus twice that number on the background soundtrack. (I’m not into his gospel hits, but they suit the mood.) A dream concert that’s longer and larger than what fans could have seen in reality, the movie is stitched together primarily from Elvis’ Las Vegas appearances in 1970 and 1972. You can tell which year it is by the amount of rhinestones on his costumes, which become increasingly maximalist.
When Elvis retook the stage in 1969, he hadn’t performed before a live audience in nine years and he’d gotten a little uncool. Beatlemania had dinged his appeal so perilously that editor Jonathan Redmond splices its arrival with images of car crashes and missile attacks. Reporters at that comeback show noted that most of his fans were now — horrors! — over 30, with the exception of a 25-year-old who said he attended out of nostalgia.
Luhrmann quickly sets up the essential framework, then Luhrmann picks up a year after Elvis proved he was still a smash. No longer constrained by moral panic, the Army draft or the decade he spent trapped within the Hollywood industrial complex, this is the King at arguably the high point of his career, right in that sweet spot before his 1973 divorce from Priscilla Presley, after which his mood and health started to flag.
This Elvis comes across confident, breezy, comfortable and funny. In one scene, he jokes about the difficulty of lunging to the ground in a tight jumpsuit (an outfit he adopted because he was nervous of ripping his pants). Later, he switches up the lyrics to “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” to croon, “Do you gaze at your forehead and wish you had hair?”
The camera often seems to be right under his chin, gazing as the sweat on his cheeks and lashes shimmers under the Vegas lights like diamonds. His spell over the crowd feels at once intimate and volcanic. You get the best look at his charisma when Elvis targets his energy at an unsuspecting back-up singer in the middle of “Suspicious Minds.” Slowly striding toward the girl, he hypnotizes her as skillfully as a snake charmer and then, as a punchline, lunges in her direction. She jumps and giggles.
While we become familiar with the faces of his band members, the film doesn’t bother to mention any of their names, not even in the credits. They deserve better, but the film is about how the concert felt, not how it came to fruition. Still, once you get over the contact high of Elvis’ psychedelic neon pink paisley shirt in the rehearsal studio, it’s delightful to see that he gives as much of himself when performing in a small setting as he does in a massive one. He loses himself in thrall to the beat, gyrating his pelvis so fast it resembles a machine gun.
Naturally, there’s a montage of the women in the audience overwhelmed by joy, from a sobbing little girl who won’t let go of his arm to a glamazon in a dangerously low-cut minidress who scoots under the curtain before it closes. The ladies tug on his scarves and toss bras at him, one of which he wears on his head. Surprisingly to modern eyes, when his female fans grab and kiss him, Elvis smooches them back, even after he wades into a sea of his admirers and emerges with the chains on his jumpsuit torn off. If you happen to spot your mother or grandmother in the crowd, well, good for her.
In lieu of mentioning Elvis’ off-stage reality, Luhrmann deepens a song’s effect by cutting to personal photographs that are a little out of context. As Elvis wails the line, “And I miss her,” from his cover ballad about a bad husband, we see a shot of Elvis’ dead mother, Gladys. “Always on My Mind” becomes a brisk yet moving acknowledgment of Priscilla and his infant daughter Lisa Marie. Otherwise, Lurhmann only wants to celebrate the good stuff. There’s no tragedy here. It’s ecstasy minus the agony.
If Elvis was ever cranky, that’s been stripped out. Though we hear him get hound-dogged by nosy questions from the press, the closest Elvis comes to snark is when he sits on a stool to play “Little Sister.” He sings the chorus, then cranks up the tempo a notch and suddenly starts belting the Beatles’ “Get Back,” before smoothly transitioning once more into his own song. Point made: Don’t give those Brits too much credit for revolutionizing rock ‘n’ roll.
Lurhmann’s got his own score to settle. In the Butler version of “Elvis,” he made the case that, as big an artist as Elvis was, he should have been bigger. Colonel Parker, Elvis’s manager, kept his cash cow on a leash, tethering him first to middling B-pictures, then to casinos. The Beatles invaded his country; he never played a single gig in theirs. We never got to find out who Elvis, with his magpie love for all music, might have become if he’d traveled the world and gotten to pick up an ashram sitar.
And while that argument got a little drowned out in the biopic by Tom Hanks’ double-phony put-on accent as Parker, this rapturous salute to the King’s majesty wants to make sure we don’t miss it now. Lurhmann even scores his footage of the Colonel to “The Devil in Disguise.” Hey, every religion needs a heel.
Chelsea FC footballers have been blasted on social media after they appeared to snub young mascots before their clash with Hull City ahead of Friday night’s match
Daniel Bird Assistant Celebrity and Entertainment Editor
14:55, 16 Feb 2026Updated 14:55, 16 Feb 2026
Baroness Sharron Davies blasted the Chelsea team(Image: ITV)
Chelsea FC players have been slammed for the treatment of young mascots at their FA Cup game. Ahead of match against Hull City, the stars of the Premier League side appeared to snub the mascots of their opposition.
Ahead of kick off on Friday night, the official X, formerly known as Twitter page for the Blues, shared footage of players, led by Reece James, walking out, and completely ignoring the young mascots who were eagerly waiting to see them dress in their Hull kits.
While the smiling young lads appeared ready to engage with the Chelsea players, they were relentlessly snubbed by the players who walked on by without acknowledging them. Liam Delap looked as if he was walking towards the boys, but later hugged a member of the Hull team, having previously spent time on loan with the Yorkshire club in his earlier career.
The Blues’ actions have been slammed by stars including Baroness Sharron Davies, who said on X: “Very disappointing @chelseafc could no one be bothered to even say hello to those young footballers as they passed? 5 seconds of their time!”
Former Apprentice star turned GB News presenter, Michelle Dewberry, fumed on social media: “You should be ashamed your players act like this with little boys. Instead, you’re proud and desperate to share it. Gross.”
Meanwhile, fellow anchor Bev Turner commented: “Say hello to the children you fools!! You only kick balls for a living. But you would give these kids a massive thrill. Give them high fives! Anything!!”
Fans have also criticised the move, with one saying: “Not one Chelsea player acknowledging or high-fiving the mascots. Who stole the soul?” Another added: “(It would) be nice if they looked at the mascots at all, even a smile, a glance or a wave. Would mean the world to those kids.”
A third penned: “We have a great video of our overpaid, arrogant and self-centred players walking past a bunch of kids and ignoring them. Great for social content.” However, it remains unclear if the Chelsea players interacted with the mascots after the cameras stopped rolling.
Elsewhere, Jeff Stelling said on talkSPORT earlier today: “Chelsea players are getting a bit of stick online for apparently snubbing Hull City mascots on arrival. You can see the mascots in the background there, all standing to attention, and the Chelsea players do not bat an eyelid and walk straight past.”
Meanwhile, Ally McCoist added: “It’s not a good look!” Jeff went on to add: “It’s not a good look, is it? Do they need reminding that they have some responsibilities?” Ally went on to say: “Never mind not a good look, it’s not good. One of the best I’ve seen at it is Jack Grealish, right?
“Jack Grealish to me, plays a game with a smile on his face. He looks as though he’s very thankful to the opportunity that has been given to him to play football. I just think he’s brilliant, and I don’t know, I’m not watching him all the time, but any time I see him arriving at grounds, he’s always got a word for whoever that is, the guy at the front door, the kids waiting to see them. It costs nothing.”
Ally continued: “You may be underestimating how much it means to people, those kids, for sitting there. Imagine the kid in the playground, ‘You know, so and so came up and said hello to me.’ I’m loath to use the word wee things like that because those wee things are big things in the grand scheme of things, Jeff. That is not a good look at all. What does it take to come out of your way and walk and give the kids a wee high five on the way through?”
Chelsea eventually won 4-0 following a hat-trick from Pedro Neto and a goal from Estêvão, meaning that they’re in the hat for the fifth-round draw later today.
EPiC is a hip-shaking, lip-curling, fist-pumping, wise-cracking, sequin-spangled, sweat-soaked, all singing and dancing grand spectacle.
It stands for Elvis Presley in Concert — a film that brings The King back into the building.
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EPiC is a hip-shaking, lip-curling, fist-pumping, sequin-spangled, sweat-soaked spectacle bringing The King backCredit: SuppliedEPiC presents Elvis singing and telling his story ‘like never before’ using restored unseen footage and unheard interviewsCredit: SuppliedEPiC is a dazzling companion to Baz Luhrmann’s 2022 biopic ElvisCredit: Supplied
Using an incredible patchwork of unseen footage and unheard interviews, painstakingly restored by high-end technicians, he is presenting Elvis singing and telling his story “like never before”.
You hear the music icon talking about his adoring fans, saying: “Those people want to see a show. They want to see some action.”
The “action” centres on two years, 1970 and 1972, and features the singer’s residencies in Las Vegas, tour engagements and upbeat rehearsals, all interspersed with telling insights from the man himself.
Aside from fleeting visits to Canada, Elvis never did shows outside the US and yet, as he admits in the movie, he yearned to spread his wings and bring THAT voice to the world.
Movingly, he performs Never Been To Spain which includes the line: “Well, I never been to England but I kinda like The Beatles.”
‘Seen all the stuff’
Now, with EPiC, he’s getting the world tour he never had.
To celebrate its cinema release next Friday, along with a soundtrack album, I’m speaking to one of the most qualified experts on “the kid from Tupelo” who changed popular culture for ever.
Angie Marchese is Vice President of Archives and Exhibits at Graceland, the Memphis mansion bought by Elvis in 1957 for $102,500.
It’s where he lived with wife Priscilla, where the couple welcomed their only child, Lisa Marie, and where he died on August 16, 1977.
Since 1982, Graceland has been a museum with exhibits including Elvis’s pink Cadillac, his private jets, his gold records, his jewellery, his ornate furniture, his deep-pile carpets and, of course, his legendary jumpsuits.
During her years living and breathing the place, vivacious curator Marchese has seen “a whole lot of Elvis footage”.
“I’ve scrolled YouTube and seen all the stuff,” she tells me.
But nothing quite prepared her for EPiC, which she first saw last year when it premiered at Toronto International Film Festival.
“I was captivated for 96 minutes,” she says. “I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen.
“You get to see a real person through this movie. That’s the guy I know from going through his archives.”
Marchese highlights the frequent snatches of interviews with Elvis, which she describes as a “window into his mind”.
“You’re hearing him telling his story for the first time, in his own words,” she affirms.
“It involved lots of manpower — finding all these interview clips, dissecting them and making a story out of them. That brought it to a personal level. If Elvis had ever done an autobiography, this is what it would be.”
Hollywood’s image of me was wrong. I knew it and I couldn’t do anything about it
Elvis Presley
Marchese also saw EPiC at Graceland on January 8, on what would have been the music legend’s 91st birthday.
“That was very special,” she says. “It was the first US screening of the movie — and you would have thought that you were at a live concert.
“Everybody in the theatre was dancing and singing and applauding. With the clarity of the footage, it felt as if you could reach out and touch him and he’s there.
“The look in his eyes, the little smirks — I’ve never seen Elvis performing this clearly before.”
EPiC begins with a rapid-fire retelling of the Elvis story and how he led the rock ’n’ roll revolution in the Fifties, even if a few stuffed shirts thought his high- octane antics “triggered juvenile delinquency”.
You see him being drafted into the US Army and posted to West Germany, serving with a tank battalion. There are glimpses of his frustrating movie career which saw him given increasingly lightweight roles, culminating in him talking to an actor dressed as a dog in Live A Little, Love A Little.
“Hollywood’s image of me was wrong,” he decides. “I knew it and I couldn’t do anything about it.”
EPiC continues with the dying throes of Elvis’s movie career coinciding with the momentous 1968 Comeback Special, his televised return to the live arena, looking as fit as a fiddle.
“The black leather suit has a 28in waist,” says Marchese, again proving what a mine of fascinating information she has at her fingertips.
“That size rolls into the next couple of years of touring. Even the Aztec Sun jumpsuit which Elvis wore in ’77 [for his last ever concert, on June 26, in Indianapolis] is not as large as people might envision it to be.”
The focal point of EPiC is his Las Vegas residencies which began at the International Hotel in 1969 and continued until the end of 1976.
You hear Elvis confessing to stage fright before emerging on to the stage in 1970 in his off-white “fringe” jumpsuit (Marchese’s favourite) and launching into the song that started it all, That’s All Right, his first hit from 1956.
Marchese believes his anxieties stemmed from a burning desire to make shows as special as he could for his fans.
“He was the kid who lived the American dream, coming from poverty in Tupelo to being on top of the world and able to do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted.
The focal point of EPiC is Presley’s Las Vegas residencies which began at the International Hotel in 1969 and continued until the end of 1976Credit: SuppliedAngie Marchese is Vice President of Archives and Exhibits at Graceland, the Memphis mansion bought by Elvis in 1957 for $102,500Credit: facebook/elvisontourexhibition
“But he never forgot where he came from.”
Despite everything, Elvis was never exactly shy and retiring, as Marchese explains.
“He sure knew how to dress. If a kid was going to high school in the Fifties with sideburns, greased hair, his collar pulled up and wearing pink, then he was confident in who he was as a person — even if he had come from humble beginnings.”
There’s some astonishing footage of Elvis climbing off stage and wading into the crowd, hugging and kissing women — some on the lips.
Marchese continues: “One of the questions I get asked the most is, ‘Why is Elvis still so popular?’
‘He sang just to you’
“The answer is that he had a personal connection with his fans. If you were in the crowd and there were 18,000 other people in the audience with you, you felt like he was just singing just to you. He had this energy about him, and he was just so personable.
“Even if you never had a chance to get a scarf or a kiss or even get close to him, you felt like he was there for you. That really comes across in this movie.”
Another key aspect of Elvis, which shines through, is his mischievous sense of humour.
There’s a moment where he grabs a drink after complaining of feeling “dry — like Bob Dylan, only in my mouth”.
Marchese calls him “Graceland’s worst practical joker” and tells her favourite prank story. “Every year, he gave the Memphis Mafia [the nickname given to Elvis’s inner circle] Christmas bonuses,” she says.
“One year, he overheard the guys as they sat around imagining what the bonus might be. So, Elvis goes to McDonald’s down the street from Graceland and buys them all 50-cent gift certificates.
“He puts them in envelopes with their names on. Christmas Eve comes around, Elvis brings the envelopes out and hands them out.
“The guys open them up and stare at Elvis — and he just falls about laughing but, mind you, back then 50 cents would have got you an entire meal.”
Next, I ask Marchese if there’s a song in the EPiC movie which particularly grabs her attention.
He never lost this desire to please his fans, to be with them and to perform for them
Angie Marchese, Vice President of Archives and Exhibits at Graceland
“Like everyone, I love the popular ones such as Suspicious Minds, but when he sings gospel, that’s huge for me. It takes everything to another level. So my answer is, How Great Thou Art. I don’t think anyone could have done it better.”
Marchese describes how Elvis became infatuated with gospel at a young age. “He used to go to these all-night gospel sings at the North Hall in downtown Memphis when he was a kid.
“He didn’t have money to buy a ticket so he would go round to the back door and listen. Sometimes, JD Sumner [who sang at Elvis’s funeral] would sneak him in.”
Of his towering rendition of How Great Thou Art, Marchese says: “Typical gospel hymn, but Elvis put it in the middle of a rock concert. The crowd is silent, listening to every word, but it doesn’t slow down the vibe, it raises it even more.”
Just before How Great Thou Art, you see cute home movies of Elvis with Lisa Marie when she was a baby and toddler.
“It made me cry,” says Marchese. “I wonder if Baz [Luhrmann] did that on purpose because How Great Thou Art was her favourite Elvis song.”
It’s so sad to think that, like her dad, she died young and is buried beside him in Graceland’s Meditation Garden.
“Lisa was the apple of Elvis’s eye, and loved her dad more than life itself,” says Marchese.
“She was loyal, authentically who she was and also a beautiful, doting mother to her kids [Riley, twin girls Harper and Finley, and the late Ben].”
As the owner of Graceland, Lisa Marie also got to know Marchese well. “She really was a special friend. She had a lot of Elvis’s traits — she had no filter so whatever she was thinking was what she was trying to do.”
Before we go our separate ways, Marchese returns to the subject of EPiC, which showcases some of Elvis’s best-loved songs with breathless intensity — Always On My Mind, Can’t Help Falling In Love, In The Ghetto and so on.
Elvis announces that it’s time to “get dirty” before launching into a relentless Polk Salad Annie — a truly remarkable feat of film editing, employing footage from two concerts and a rehearsal, all spliced together to thrilling effect.
“That was masterful editing [by Jonathan Redmond] right there,” enthuses Marchese.
There are wonderful intimate moments where Elvis rehearses Beatles songs Yesterday and Something.
Cue one final, illuminating anecdote from the curator with an encyclopaedic knowledge.
“I actually took Paul McCartney through Graceland. He was most fascinated by the fact that Elvis had a remote control for his TV in 1965 — years before most people had them.
Elvis in a still from EPiCCredit: SuppliedEPiC captures The King at his dazzling, larger-than-life bestCredit: Getty – Contributor
“Oh, and we have the first microwave ever sold in Memphis, inside Graceland’s kitchen.”
Finally, I ask Marchese if Elvis felt “caught in a trap” by Vegas, resulting in him not touring the world.
“He loved his Vegas audience. He loved being on tour. But there was a moment in time when he couldn’t get off the hamster wheel. He had so many people relying on him.
“Yet he never lost this desire to please his fans, to be with them and to perform for them.”
If you get the chance to see EPiC, you’ll realise Elvis Aaron Presley is STILL The King.
EPiC comes to iMAX and cinemas from Feb 20. Soundtrack out same dayCredit: Supplied
