Owning Elvis NYT op/ed

Fatback

March 7, 2006EditorialOwning Elvis There was never much doubt that Elvis was Elvis, even without his music. If Hollywood didn't quite make that clear to us, Andy Warhol did. Now comes Robert F. X. Sillerman, a media billionaire (and chancellor of the Southampton College of Long Island University) who has paid $100 million for the rights to Elvis's name and likeness ??? but not his music, which is owned by Sony BMG. Buying Elvis Presley Enterprises isn't like buying, say, a Graceland mansion cookie jar, something you do just to remember the King. Mr. Sillerman intends to expand the brand and turn a profit. And you thought there was already enough Elvis in the world.Mr. Sillerman argues that Elvis, though dead, is really in "a holding pattern." Revenues at Graceland ??? the epicenter of Elvis ??? have been steadily unspectacular. Mr. Sillerman hopes to change all that. He intends to renovate Graceland and create a sort of Elvis-plex, with hotels, spas, shops and a greatly expanded wedding chapel. He hopes to open a touring Elvis exhibition and give Elvis a colossal new presence in Las Vegas. But the question is this: Can Mr. Sillerman spend that kind of money and still preserve the essential tackiness that is Elvis's nonmusical legacy? We hope he can. Perhaps the only downside to all of this ??? except for so much more Elvis ??? is the usual one when someone sees potential profit in controlling a celebrity's name and likeness. Mr. Sillerman will have to decide how tightly he wants to control "Elvis" and whether, in fact, he can put a face and a swagger and a sneer and a jumpsuit that seems to belong to all of us back into a wholly owned bottle. If we were Elvis impersonators, we would be getting very worried right about now. After all, impersonating Elvis has never been about the music.