In 1956, Elvis Presley released his first, self-titled album and made his film debut in the movie Love Me Tender.
But early that year, with Presley’s meteoric and ultimately tragic ride to fame and renown still to come, recording company RCA hired Alfred Wertheimer to photograph their 21-year-old star.
The photos Wertheimer shot – nearly 3,000 that year – showed the young Memphis crooner assuredly taking the first steps on the path to become an icon.
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The Kiss: Alfred Wertheimer’s work, including this iconic shot of Presley before a show, provided an intimate look at the young star
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Unguarded: ‘He got there right when he was still a human being,’ Wertheimer’s niece Pam told the New York Times, since in later years Elvis would be kept sequestered from the press
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Raw: Presley (right) with television host Steve Allen was 21 years old when his first album was released, starting him on a path to fame
A selection of those photos, along with original poster designs by Hatch Show Prints, appear in a book entitled Elvis and the Birth of Rock and Roll, set to be re-issued this month by Taschen.
In one photo, Wertheimer caught young Elvis touching tongues with a young woman in a stairwell in Richmond, Virginia, moments before a concert at a venue called The Mosque.
That shot embodied the mix of playfulness and sexuality that Presley’s music came to signify for a generation of young fans.
Still that photo, and many others the photographer shot, had ‘no value to speak of’ in Presley’s lifetime, Wertheimer said according to Vanity Fair.
When Presley passed away, slumped onto the floor of his bathroom, in 1977, there was renewed interest in the work.
‘Then the phone started ringing and it really hasn’t stopped in the 34 years since,’ Wertheimer said.
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Crooner: Wertheimer is responsible for some of the most famous – and only – photos of the King, as his zealous manager Colonel Tom Parker hid his talent from the press in later years
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Unrecognized: The face that sparked the screams of millions of fans was still rarely recognized when Presley (right) dined in a restaurant in Jefferson, Virginia, in 1956
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On their feet: After Elvis’s death in 1977, Wertheimer said the calls for his work came pouring in with renewed interest in the singer’s early life
Presley’s manager, Colonel Tom Parker, yanked the press away from the singer in 1958, making the photos Wertheimer had of young Elvis not only raw and intimate but some of the only material around.
Wertheimer passed away last year at the age of 84, having also worked as a cinematographer and film editor before turning his attention back to the collection of images of Presley.
‘He was the best director of his own life,’ Wertheimer described Presley in an interview at the Smithsonian Institute in 2010. ‘And I couldn’t have done better if I tried.
