Rare, candid footage of Elvis Presley unearthed from FOX 5 archives
Exclusive: Never-before-seen footage of Elvis in NYC
In a FOX 5 exclusive, newly discovered video shows Elvis Presley during a 1956 trip to New York City—footage never seen until now. The video captures a rarely documented moment in the life of the King of Rock and Roll. Robert Moses has the story.
NEW YORK - Elvis Presley would have turned 90 on Jan 8, 2025. His birthday merited a mention on our newscast that night. So FOX 5 NY managing editor Peter Facini searched the recently digitized Fox Movietone archive for footage we could air.
"There was this one clip that came up," Facini said. "This looks different to me."
RAW: Unseen footage of Elvis Presley unearthed from FOX 5 archives
Take a look at rare, candid footage of Elvis Presley that was recently found deep within the FOX 5 archives. This video, which doesn't have sound, shows the King filming "Love Me Tender" in New York City and greeting fans outside the movie studios.
Facini scrutinized every frame. The silent clip lasts a little more than two minutes. It begins by showing Elvis in a film studio.
The slate immediately offers key clues: a date, Oct. 29, 1956, and a director's name: R. Webb, as in Robert Webb.
The backstory:
A quick internet search reveals that on that date, Elvis was in New York City shooting a new ending for Webb's movie, "Love Me Tender," Elvis's first film.
The new ending became necessary because Elvis's character dies, which distressed young women who saw the film in previews. Studio executives needed to cushion the blow of his character's death. They came up with a scene that shows the ghost of Elvis on screen singing "Love Me Tender."
This is the ending that Elvis was recording in that studio in New York City. But where precisely was that studio?
The clip that Facini found again offers important clues. When Elvis finished recording, he walked outside to greet fans gathered on the sidewalk. When Facini saw the details of the building, he recognized it immediately as an old carriage house on East 69th Street that had been largely unaltered for 70 years.
Facini has passed and admired the building dozens of times, he estimates. The building used to house Junco Studios.
Dig deeper:
So we had figured out what Elvis was doing and where, but we still needed to know the significance of this archival clip. How big of a deal was our find?
We posed that question to Angie Marchese, the vice president of archives and exhibitions at Elvis's Graceland in Memphis.
"All the casual behind-the-scenes and interacting with the director and meeting the fans outside the studio and him going to the car, all of that stuff was brand new to me," Marchese told us. "To find two minutes of unedited Elvis film from 1956 is pretty priceless."
What's next:
So priceless, in fact, that Marchese plans to license the footage for Graceland's permanent collection to help tell Elvis's story to the throngs who continue to visit his former home.
"It's a really unique piece of footage that's been found and that we're excited about displaying here at Graceland and sharing with the world," Marchese said.
Watch Robert Moses' special report, "Finding Elvis," tonight on the 5 O'Clock News. Click here to watch live.