Elvis Presley’s movie co-stars share memories of working with the King

“Love Me Tender.” “Hound Dog.” “Suspicious Minds.” Those are some of the songs tribute artists typically perform during Elvis Week.

But “Ito Eats”? The song from the 1961 movie “Blue Hawaii” that celebrates the rapacious appetite of a local “eating boy” who “never get enough… fish and poi”? Who “eat everything, he don’t care what/ He even eat the shell from the coconut”?

Described by host Tom Brown as Elvis’ “silliest” song (and remember, other candidates include “Yoga Is as Yoga Does” and “(There’s) No Room to Rhumba in a Sports Car”), “Ito Eats” likely only would appear on the set list of an event recognizing the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll’s movie career. In fact, that was the case Aug. 13, when professional Elvis tribute artist Dean Z and band performed “Ito Eats” for about 600 fans inside the Graceland Soundstage, the entertainment venue located across the street from the Elvis Presley mansion.

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Dubbed “A Night in Elvis’ Hollywood,” the event was a variety show-style mix of musical performances, interviews with Elvis’ friends and co-stars, and montages of clips from Elvis movies (shown on large video screens on both sides of the stage). It was one of several so-called “Spotlight Events” organized for Graceland’s annual Elvis Week tribute to the singer, which culminates in the Candelight Vigil commemoration of the King’s death at 42 on Aug. 16, 1977.

If “Ito Eats” was a surprise, even more unexpected and delightful was a recreation of the duet “Signs of the Zodiac” from Elvis’ penultimate feature film, 1969’s “The Trouble with Girls,” with the movie’s original star, Marlyn Mason — still vivacious at 85 — joined by Dean Z, in the Elvis role.

Lively and witty, hammy and even racy, Mason’s vampy performance and impish interview with Brown (a former Turner Classic Movies on-air personality) were the evening’s highlights.

A Broadway, movie and television star who was especially busy in the 1970s, Mason called the “Zodiac” song “the worst ever written,” but had nothing but praise for Presley as a friend and actor, even though she admitted that “I’ve never seen an Elvis movie, except my movie.”

She said the first thing she said to Elvis when they were introduced was: “I’m not a fan of yours — I don’t mean that unkindly.” She meant that she preferred show tunes to rock ‘n’ roll. But after watching Elvis in the 1968 so-called “Comeback Special,” which aired on NBC as she and Elvis were working together, she amended her remark. “I told you I was not a fan of yours,” she said to Elvis. “I am now.”

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Presley co-stars Robin and Gavin Koon also were not fans when they first met Elvis, but they had a different excuse: They had never heard of him. That’s because they were only 8 years old when they were hired to appear alongside Elvis in 1962’s “Follow That Dream,” the ninth of the singer’s 31 feature films.

Now 72, the Koon twins were cast as Elvis’ twin foster brothers, Eddy and Teddy. In fact, “He was like a big brother to us,” remembered Gavin Koon.

Robin Koon, meanwhile, commented on how amazed he was that more than 60 years after “Follow That Dream,” people from all over the world had gathered at Graceland to hear their Elvis stories. “All of us are sitting here today because of Elvis,” he said. “It blows my mind how one man’s influence is still circulating today.”

Also on Aug. 13’s program were Elvis’ longtime friend Jerry Schilling, who appeared in multiple Elvis films, and was Presley’s double on “Charro!” (1969); Sandy Kawelo of Hawaii, a dancer in “Paradise, Hawaiian Style” (1966), who was making her first visit to Graceland since she lived at the mansion when she was married to Schilling; gospel singer and Elvis backing vocalist Larry Strickland, who sang “Peace in the Valley”; country singer Jillian Cardarelli, who performed “Can’t Help Falling in Love”; and tribute artist Victor Trevino Jr., who sang “Mean Woman Blues.” The deejay known as Argo, a longtime host on Sirius XM’s “Elvis Radio” station, was a master of ceremonies, alongside Brown and Dean Z.

If the evening was a celebration of Elvis’ colorful and mostly fun-filled Hollywood career (the film-clip montages were loaded with quips and kisses, fisticuffs and fast cars), it was not without a twinge of melancholy for What Might Have Been: The less escapist-oriented movie career that Elvis — who idolized Brando and James Dean — never knew.

Mason said she remembered one Elvis remark “word for word” because it was “seared into my brain.” She called it “the saddest thing he ever said to me.”

Mason said Elvis told her: “I’d like to make one good film, because I know people in this town laugh at me.”

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Elvis Presley’s movie co-stars share memories of working with the King