'Sunset' of Elvis' creative life in music

A new box set focuses on the work the King of Rock and Roll did in L.A. in the 1970s.

- MIKAEL WOOD MUSIC CRITIC

Two and a half years before he died, Elvis Presley sat on the floor of a walk-in closet at the Las Vegas Hilton and discussed a project that might have changed the course of his life.

The meeting, as recounted by Presley's longtime friend Jerry Schilling, put the King of Rock and Roll face to face with Barbra Streisand, who'd come to see Presley perform at the Hilton in March 1975, then sought an audience after the show to float an idea: Would Presley be interested in appearing opposite Streisand in her remake of “A Star Is Born”?

At the time of the duo’s conversation — Schilling says that he, Presley's pal Joe Esposito and Streisand’s boyfriend Jon Peters squeezed into the closet with the stars in a search for some quiet amid the commotion backstage — it had been six years since Presley had last played a dramatic role onscreen; Streisand’s pitch so tantalized him, according to Schilling, that they ended up talking for more than two hours about the movie.

JERRY Schilling was a longtime friend of Elvis Presley. The RCA Records building on Sunset Boulevard, right, is where Presley recorded.

Presley, of course, didn’t get the part famously played by Kris Kristofferson — a casualty, depending on who you ask, of Streisand’s insistence on top billing or of the unreasonable financial demands of Presley's manager, Colonel Tom Parker. (In her 2023 memoir, Streisand wonders whether the character of a self-destructive musician was in the end “a little too close to his own life” for Presley’s comfort.)

Whatever the case, Schilling believes that the disappointment over “A Star Is Born” set Presley ona path of poor decision-making that effectively tanked his career before his tragic death at age 42 on Aug. 16, 1977 — 48 years ago last weekend.