Remember When Elvis Dueted With Frank Sinatra on a TV Special?
When Elvis Presley was discharged from the Army on March 5, 1960, the generational conflict seemed to have reached a fever pitch — a situation that many older people believed was Elvis’ fault. Before he arrived on the scene, the charts belonged to old-school crooners like Rosemary Clooney and Eddie Fisher. But after Elvis was introduced to the nation with “Heartbreak Hotel” in 1956, new artists like Chubby Checker and the Crickets began to reign. Teens embraced a new youth culture oriented around music, turning pop music into a major cultural industry; between 1950 and 1960, vinyl LP sales doubled. Along with those music sales came new ways of looking at the world. Teenagers weren’t upset about how Elvis danced the way their parents were; they were intrigued.
Meanwhile, many parents held rock ’n’ roll responsible for everything from juvenile delinquency to teen pregnancy. A Connecticut psychiatrist quoted in The New York Times in 1956 referred to rock ’n’ roll as a “communicable disease,” and teens were called upon to defend their interest in the music in nightly newscasts.
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Into all of this came The Frank Sinatra Timex Show: Welcome Home Elvis, Elvis’s post-Armed Forces return to television. Frank Sinatra hosted four specials for Timex in the 1959-60 TV season — High Hopes, An Afternoon With Frank Sinatra, Here’s to the Ladies and It’s Nice to Go Traveling, the official name for the Welcome Home Elvis special. Other episodes drew guests almost exclusively from the Rat Pack and its associates, including stars like Dean Martin, Peter Lawford, Lena Horne and Ella Fitzgerald.
Welcome Home Elvis showcased many of the same folks, including Rat Packers like Sammy Davis Jr. and Joey Bishop, but instead of hanging out with Bing Crosby, they were suddenly hanging out with Elvis. (The special also marked one of Nancy Sinatra’s first TV appearances; she and Elvis would later appear together in 1968’s Speedway.)
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It was an unlikely pairing — and not just because Sinatra and costars Bishop and Davis didn’t likely hold much appeal for Elvis’ youthful fanbase. Sinatra was not fond of rock music and had allegedly referred to rock musicians as “cretinous goons” in 1957. Elvis was paid $120,000 to appear on the show for a mere 10 minutes, which also allegedly irked Sinatra.
But in spite of it all, the show works, especially when Sinatra and Elvis, dressed in matching suits, duet: Sinatra sings “Love Me Tender,” while Presley warbles “Witchcraft.” It’s more than just charming (though it is charming, especially when Elvis apes Sinatra’s classic crooner dance moves). It seems to imply that reports of generational warfare between America’s young people and parents were overblown. After all, if the King and the Chairman of the Board could get along, couldn’t everyone else?
And despite reports of their supposed cultural clash, Sinatra and Presley developed a connection that went on long after the special was through. In 1967, Presley borrowed Sinatra’s private jet to fly himself and Priscilla to Vegas to get married.
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