Mark Woods: Fifty years after Elvis returned to Jacksonville, one fan hasn't left the building

Fifty years ago this weekend, Elvis Presley returned to Jacksonville.

On April 16, 1972, he did two shows at the Jacksonville Coliseum, one in the afternoon, one in the evening.

Tickets were sold by mail order for $5, $7.50 and $10. Both shows sold out far in advance.

It was his first appearance in Jacksonville in 16 years — unless you count when he was riding a train from Memphis to Miami in 1960 to do a TV special with Frank Sinatra. On the way to and from South Florida, the Missouri Pacific Eagle train stopped in Jacksonville and Elvis stood on the rear platform, waving to screaming fans.

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But beyond those whistle stops, he hadn’t been back here since his six shows in two days at the Florida Theatre in 1956 became part of pop culture lore — largely because a local judge warned Elvis that hip-gyrations “impairing the morals of minors” would not be tolerated in Jacksonville.

Sixteen years later and a few pounds heavier, Elvis returned.

He stayed in Room 1010 of the Hilton on the Southbank. A film crew followed him around, getting behind-the-scenes footage of him riding in the backseat of a car as it crossed over the Main Street bridge and laughing it up backstage before one of the shows at the Coliseum.

When the documentary “Elvis on Tour” came out that year (with some of the editing done by Martin Scorsese), the film ended with footage from Jacksonville. And when the album “Elvis: As Recorded at Madison Square Garden” was released near the end of the year, the audio was indeed recorded in New York — but the cover photo, of him in the white suit he wore that night, actually was from when he wore the same white suit in Jacksonville a few months earlier.

That photo was taken at the Sunday afternoon show.

For the evening show, Elvis wore a powder blue suit with a white belt.

Rick Marino remembers it like it was yesterday.

He was 17 years old. And he was in the crowd that night.

Not long after that, he started impersonating Elvis.

Easier to impersonate Elvis than to be him

Elvis returned to Jacksonville a few more times that decade, including one appearance shortly before he died Aug. 16, 1977.

I vaguely remember hearing the news. Mostly I remember it not affecting me the way it did some people. There was a religious-like devotion I couldn’t relate to then or, for that matter, now.

It’s tempting to say that it’s because I didn’t grow up in the South. But that’s not it. Even though I grew up mostly in the Midwest, I had quite the collection of Lynyrd Skynyrd albums and 8-tracks. I was devastated when, just two months after Elvis died, Ronnie Van Zant died in a plane crash in Mississippi — and still can’t help but wonder how some things would be different if he had lived.

But Elvis?

It obviously wasn’t just a Southern thing. He had fans all over the world. He still does.

That’s why, when I realized this year included the 50th anniversary of Elvis’ return to Jacksonville, I contacted someone who was profoundly affected by that visit and, beyond that, by Elvis’ life and death.

You can make a case for calling Rick Marino the King of the Elvis Impersonators.

When he started impersonating Elvis — when Elvis was still alive — he estimates there were about two dozen impersonators. A few decades later, long after Elvis was gone, it was estimated that more than 30,000 people had tried their hand, or hips, at it.

Marino became Elvis more than 5,000 times. There were years when he was doing six shows a week, 50 weeks a year. He figures he performed in 40 states and 17 countries. He sang at the 1988 Olympics, George H.W. Bush’s inaugural ball and the 1992 World’s Fair. He wrote a book (“Be Elvis! A Guide to Impersonating the King”). He was on the front page of USA Today. He became the first president of the Elvis Impersonators Association. He has a photo from the filming of “Honeymoon in Vegas,” posing with a kid he suggested play a part in the movie — a 6-year-old Bruno Mars.

“I got him the role,” he said. “They were going to cast a midget. I said, ‘Do you want any Elvis fans to come see this?’ I got this idea. Let’s change it to this little boy in Hawaii. I knew Bruno’s dad. So we brought him in.”

He has all kinds of stories that feel a bit like this, Forrest Gump meets Elvis, with time-warping intersections of fame and history. And when he tells them, the common denominator is this: For him, being Elvis isn’t some joke. It’s fun. It can have some funny moments. But it isn’t about making fun of the King. It’s about honoring him.

And it feels like he was meant to do it.

He describes something he wrote when he was in second grade. His mother saved it. It was his answer to the age-old, open-ended childhood statement: When I grow up, I want to be …

While other boys in his class said they wanted to be police officers or athletes or astronauts, he wrote: I want to be just like Elvis, and I want one of those belts.

“And I grew up and became what I wanted to be,” he said.

There was a time in his life when he had visions of stardom unrelated to Elvis. He went to Nashville and was in a band that had records on the country charts.

“We were doing pretty good and everything but I was a little young, a little green, and got my butt handed to me,” he said. “But I realized one thing: I didn't ever want to be a star. I don't want to lose my anonymity. I don't want everywhere you go people be pestering you. You don't really realize what that’s like until you see it firsthand.”

But impersonating Elvis? That, he realized, was perfect.

With his dark hair and sideburns just like Elvis, he could put on a costume, step onto a stage and get a taste of what it felt like to be Elvis. And then after the show, when he left the building, he could be himself.

“You could be Elvis and have everybody love you,” he said. “And then you could just hang it in the closet and be yourself.”

Elvis had 'it'

He remembers the day Elvis died.

But first, before recalling that day, he goes back a year. He was in Lakeland, a place that Elvis often made his Florida base. Marino was at a bar and bumped into a doctor who had a few too many drinks and, once they realized their common Elvis interest, said he gave Elvis a physical every year. The doctor said that Elvis would be lucky to live another year.

About a year later, he got a call from one of his mother’s friends, playing what she thought was a practical joke. She told him Elvis had died. When he got upset, she apologized. But just days after that, she called again and said she was very sorry, but Elvis was dead.

“I said, ‘I can’t believe you’re doing it again,’” he said. “She said, ‘No, I’m so sorry. He really died. Turn on the TV.”

He turned on the TV and saw the “breaking news” banner.

“I just went numb,” he said.

He was supposed to be impersonating Elvis that weekend. He said he couldn’t do it.

But he eventually resumed doing it. And that’s when not only did his career as an Elvis impersonator take off, so did many others.

He figures Elvis fans were searching for Elvis.

He remembers one time he was a part of a tribute show with about 40 impersonators. He happened to mention something about seeing Elvis and the response was, “You actually saw him?”

He realized that only two of them had even seen Elvis in person.

He saw him six times. He started telling them some of his memories — the memories he shares when I ask him to explain the appeal of Elvis to me. But even as he vividly describes those shows — the music, the lighting, everything — he eventually says it’s hard to explain.

“He had it,” he said. “Whatever it is, he had it more than anybody in our lifetime.”

He says he’s been in rooms with a lot of celebrities and nothing felt quite like being in one with Elvis. If Sinatra was a 12-volt battery, he says, Elvis was the entire JEA power grid.

He tells a story tied to those 1972 shows — one he says he hasn't been told publicly before. He says it’s the reason the photo from Jacksonville ended up on the cover of the Madison Square Garden live album.

It goes back to 1970, when Elvis went to the White House and President Nixon gave him a federal agent badge in the Oval Office. Aides later said the badge was “honorary,” not official. Whatever it was, Elvis believed it had official powers and so did others. Marino says he was told by some people close to Elvis that before the Madison Square Garden show, Elvis heard about a raid that was going to happen — and asked to be a part of it.

They said that Elvis helped out with the raid and then, just hours later, was on stage at Madison Square Garden, wearing his white suit but looking disheveled. So when RCA was putting together the album, someone decided to use a photo taken in Jacksonville.

Elvis came back to Jacksonville in 1975, 1976 and 1977.

When Marino and others camped out for days for tickets to the 1976 show, a picture of him sleeping on a lawn chair on the steps of the Coliseum ended up on the front page of the Jacksonville Journal. He remembers that Elvis wore his bicentennial costume for that show — and that even though he looked puffy and sick, people were thrilled to see him.

Elvis had to cut the show short. But when he returned in 1977, just months before his death, Marino thought he looked much healthier.

“He looked really good,” he said. “He really did. He had lost 25 pounds. He apologized to everybody. He did a great show. I’ll never forget one part of it.”

He describes Elvis talking about his connection to Jacksonville.

By Marino’s count, Elvis made eight appearances here, doing 17 shows, plus the two stops on the train. And it’s not just that those performances were memorable — after a 1955 show, teenage girls chased him into his dressing room, tearing off some of his clothes as souvenirs — it’s that Mae Boren Axton, a local teacher, was instrumental in two major pieces of his life. She introduced him to Colonel Tom Parker, his manager, and she co-wrote “Heartbreak Hotel,” his first No. 1 hit.

So at the end of this show, Marino recalls, Elvis, “Jacksonville has always been a special place for me in my career and my life. … As long as I’m breathing, Jacksonville will always be a stop on my tour.’”

50 years later, still in the building

At age 67, still feeling some lingering effects from COVID, Rick Marino hasn’t left the building — but this Elvis impersonator has moved mostly backstage.

He helps direct and produce the tribute acts that come to Alhambra Theatre & Dining. He and Gary Smith with the Alhambra are working on something special for this November — a 50th-anniversary tribute to Elvis at Madison Square Garden.

They’re planning to bring in another Elvis impersonator for the show.

“He’s big-time, I’m a has-been,” Marino said. “I don’t really do Elvis anymore. But here’s what happens: Once or twice a year someone will ask me to do it, and it will be for a good cause, so I’ll dust the cobwebs off.”

He’ll take the costume out of the closet and, for a few moments, he’ll be Elvis again.

He never was one of these Elvis impersonators who started to think he actually became Elvis. And he isn’t one of these people who thinks Elvis is alive, maybe hanging out somewhere in Florida.

But he is someone who believes that Elvis ain't dead — that he will live forever here and elsewhere.

mwoods@jacksonville.com, (904) 359-4212

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: 50 years after Elvis Presley return to Jacksonville, memories live on