In a FOX 5 exclusive, newly discovered video shows Elvis Presley during a 1956 trip to New York City—footage never seen until now. The video captures a rarely documented moment in the life of the King of Rock and Roll. Robert Moses has the story.
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Now to a Fox 5 exclusive, newly discovered and never-before-seen video of the king of rock and roll
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That's right. We've unearthed video from a trip that Elvis Presley took to New York City in 1956
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Robert Moses here now with the story you won't see anywhere else. Robert, this is wild
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It's great. Steve and Natasha, as journalists, we like to say that we will travel as far as we need to get the story
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Well, in this case, we didn't have to go far, proving that sometimes the best stories are right in front of you
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If you just look. As far as the eye can see, a press of excited youngsters from all over the region are on hand for the return of Elvis Presley to Tupelo, Mississippi, the town where he was born
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In September of 1956, nearing the apex of his rise to stardom, Elvis Presley received a hometown hero's welcome
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Nearly seven decades later, Elvis still fascinates. On January 8th, he would have turned 90
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a milestone birthday for the king of rock and roll worthy of a mention on our 6 o'clock newscast
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Producer Max Weiskopf asked managing editor Peter Fassini to find footage to use on the air that night
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The Fox Movie Tone archive had been digitized over the last couple of years
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which makes it kind of easy to find things. There was this one clip, this one file that came up, and I'm just, I'm looking at it, and I'm like, okay, this looks different to me
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There seemed to be a good story here. Peter examined the unedited silent clip, which runs a little more than two minutes, frame by precious frame
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What is Elvis doing, and where is he? Almost immediately, the slate offers some key clues
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The date October 29 1956 and the director R Webb as in Robert Webb A quick search reveals that on October 29 1956 Elvis was in New York City shooting a new ending scene for Webb movie
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Love Me Tender. Love Me Tender, Elvis' first feature film. It was just in the archives, a terrific find
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Brooklyn College film professor Foster Hirsch, the author of Hollywood and the Movies of the 50s
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saw the film when he was 13 years old. The shrieks from fellow audience members
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forced Hirsch to go back and see it again. I wanted to find out if he could act
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because I thought if I wait a week or two, the pandemonium will die down
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And it did. It did. You could hear his dialogue after about a week or two
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but not the opening weekend. And what about that ending? Our story, after all, revolves around that infamous ending
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When they were previewing it to audiences, the reaction was extremely negative
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Teenage girls were not happy that Elvis, spoiler alert, dies at the end of this film
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Producers added a scene to cushion the blow of his death, showing the ghost of Elvis on screen singing the title song Love Me Tender
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Happiness will follow you. It is this ending that Elvis was recording in New York on that October day in 1956
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But there is still the issue of where. Where in New York City is he recording it
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Again, the video speaks, albeit silently, when Elvis walks out of the studio and onto the sidewalk to greet his fans
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It was just blind luck. This building looks familiar to me. And I kept pausing it and going back and looking at the exterior
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It's like, I think I know where this is. How many times have you walked by that building
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Dozens dozens The building an old carriage house sits on the north side of East 69th Street between 3rd and Lex just two blocks from our television station The building once housed Junco Studios
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Isn't it amazing? You can walk the streets of Manhattan and not realize what has happened in that spot years before. It's pretty cool
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So we figured out the where and the what, but we still wondered, so what
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how significant of a find is this two-minute clip? Where do you go for the answers
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And it took me a little bit, and you go to Graceland. And that's when I called Angie
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My name's Angie Marchese, and I'm the vice president of archives and exhibitions
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at Elvis Presley's Graceland. Angie Marchese was five when Elvis died. I feel like he's like a long-lost uncle
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that I know everything about, but I never had the opportunity to meet. Angie started working at Graceland when she was 17
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She is the world's foremost Elvis expert. If she hasn't seen it, nobody has
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So she, of all people, can put the discovery in perspective. It's very rare, especially almost 50 years after someone has passed away
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to find something that's truly never been seen before. All the casual behind the scenes and interacting with the director
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and meeting the fans outside and the studio and him going to the car
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all of that stuff was brand new to me. To find two minutes of unedited Elvis film from 1956 is pretty priceless
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Like Peter, Angie poured over the silent footage. She scrutinized everything. You can see how Elvis was being very professional, but also wanting to do it right
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and taking direction very well from the director so they could capture that moment perfectly
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And he could have been behind the door and wave at them through the window. But no he opened the door and he was signing autographs and taking pictures He never forgot who made it possible for him to buy this beautiful mansion in Memphis It was the fans Elvis had a whirlwind couple of days in New York City On October 28 1956 the day before his recording session at Junco Studios
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he appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show, and it was there where he performed perhaps the most valuable service of his entire career
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He very publicly got the polio vaccine. David Rose works as a historical consultant for the March of Dimes
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The first mission was to find a solution to the problem of polio
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It was a huge effort to make sure that teens got the message that you can't rock and roll with polio
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And that was a tagline for all the brochures that the March of Dimes sent out after this famous shoot with Elvis getting his shot
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In the spring of 1957, just a few months after his visit to New York, Elvis bought Graceland
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23 million visitors and counting have made the pilgrimage there to get closer to a superstar who remains relevant to this day
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Graceland is home to 1.5 million artifacts, soon to be 1.5 million and one
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Angie plans to start using this clip that we found to help tell the world Elvis' story
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It's a really unique piece of footage that has been found and that we're excited about displaying here at Graceland
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and sharing with the world. And Professor Hirsch from Brooklyn College told me that when Elvis took his mother to
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a private screening of Love Me Tender, she cried upon his character's death
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And from that point on, he made it a condition of his movie contracts that he would never
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again be killed on screen. Oh, my goodness. No one makes Elvis's mama cry
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Wow, that was fascinating. From one little clip of video, all that information
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WALK PAST IN NEW YORK CITY. REALLY FASCINATING. I KNOW THAT BLOCKS SO WELL. THAT WAS AMAZING
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ROBERT, GOOD JOB. THANK YOU. AS WELL. AMAZING. MAX, EVERYBODY, GREAT
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