Military service and mother's death
On December 20, 1957, Presley received his draft notice. In Germany, "a sergeant had introduced Presley to amphetamines when they were on maneuvers at ... it seemed like half the guys in the company were taking them." Friends around Presley also began taking them, "if only to keep up with Elvis, who was practically evangelical about their benefits." The army also introduced Presley to karate—something which he studied seriously, even including it in his later live performances. As Presley's fame grew, his mother continued to drink excessively and began to gain weight. She had wanted her son to succeed, "but... the hysteria of the crowd frightened her." Doctors had diagnosed hepatitis and her condition worsened. Presley was granted emergency leave to visit her in August 1958, but shortly afterwards his mother died, aged forty-six. Presley was distraught, "grieving almost constantly" for days.
Hollywood years
In 1956, Presley launched his career as a film actor, beginning with the musical western, Love Me Tender. It was panned by the critics but did well at the box office. The original title—The Reno Brothers—was changed because of the advanced sales of the song "Love Me Tender". The majority of Presley's films were musical comedies made to "sell records and produce high revenues." He also appeared in more dramatic films, like Jailhouse Rock and King Creole. To maintain box office success, he even "shifted into beefcake formula comedy mode for a few years." He also made one non-musical western, Charro!. Although Presley was praised by directors, like Michael Curtiz, as polite and hardworking "he was definitely not the most talented actor around." The Presley vehicles and the AIP beach movies were generally criticized as a "pantheon of bad taste." The scripts of his movies "were all the same, the songs progressively worse." Sight and Sound wrote that in his movies "Elvis Presley, aggressively bisexual in appeal, knowingly erotic, was acting like a crucified houri and singing with a kind of machine-made surrealism." Others noted that the songs seemed to be "written on order by men who never really understood Elvis or rock and roll." For Blue Hawaii, "fourteen songs were cut in just three days." Julie Parrish, who appeared in Paradise, Hawaiian Style, says that Presley hated such songs and that he "couldn't stop laughing while he was recording" one of them. Critics would later claim that "No major star suffered through more bad movies than Elvis Presley." Presley movies were nevertheless popular, and he "became a film genre of his own." Elvis on celluloid was the only chance to see him in the absence of live appearances, especially outside of the U.S. His Blue Hawaii even "boosted the new state's tourism. Some of his most enduring and popular songs came from those [kind of] movies," like "Can't Help Falling in Love," "Return to Sender" and "Viva Las Vegas." His 1960s films and soundtracks grossed some $280 million. Presley was one of the highest paid actors during the 1960s, but times were changing. " The Elvis Presley film was becoming popular. Young people were tuning in, dropping out and doing acid. Musical acts like Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead, The Doors, Janis Joplin and many others were dominating the airwaves. Elvis Presley was not considered cool as he once was." Priscilla Presley recalls: "He blamed his fading popularity on his humdrum movies" and "... loathed their stock plots and short shooting schedules." She also notes: "He could have demanded better, more substantial scripts, but he didn't." Presley's final movie role was in Change of Habit (1969). His last two films were concert documentaries in the early 1970s, though Presley was keen to consider dramatic movie roles.
Sex symbol
Presley's sexual attraction and photogenic looks have been acknowledged: Steve Binder recalled from the '68 Comeback Special: "I'm straight as an arrow and I got to tell you, you stop, whether you're male or female, to look at him. He was that good looking. And if you never knew he was a superstar, it wouldn't make any difference; if he'd walked in the room, you'd know somebody special was in your presence."