Original subtitles

A life that was the stuff of fables.

The world didn't notice his birth in a two-room shack.

But it noticed his death.

Elvis Presley, country boy...

...died in a mansion... on a street that was named for him.

Police estimated that as many as 80,000 mourners...

...gathered to pay their last respects to the dead singer.

On this side of the barricade, please. Move back.

Dozens of people fainted while waiting in the long line.

And some uncontrollably saddened.

How do you feel about seeing him for the last time?

I hate it.

I can't believe it.

It's just unreal right now.

I'm just numb.

I've been upset since I heard the news. I just wish he would come back.

Thank you very much.

There are plenty of people who think The King is still alive.

And every once in a while someone claims they've actually seen him.

In fact, if Elvis is alive, he wears a mask and goes by the name Orion.

Orion Eckley Darnell...

- ...is your full name? - Right.

- Where you come from? - I was born in Sun Records.

In the studio.

Do you ever take off your mask?

Only when I go through Customs.

The multi-million dollar question.

Are you Elvis, or are you not Elvis?

I am Orion.

Period.

He just had that magic about him.

Look at this guy.

Who is he?

Here's Orion on the Sun label...

...with "Ebony Eyes."

Listen to a wonderful voice and a superstar to be.

On a weekend past

I wouldn't have time

To get home and marry...

They always tell you...

...especially down here in Nashville...

...sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction.

Well, in Jimmy's case, that's exactly what it was.

My beautiful ebony eyes

Your real name is Jimmy Ellis?

- That's correct. - Where you from?

Little town called Orrville, Alabama.

Orrville, Alabama.

It's about 15 miles south of Selma, Alabama.

And I know you've heard of Selma, Alabama.

Jimmy was sort of famous around our community...

...for being the guy that could really sing.

He could never have any peace and quiet.

Folks would always want to, uh...

...get him to, "Sing us a song, Jimmy."

If he was in a good mood, he'd sing one.

If one of his girls had made him mad, he wouldn't sing.

We met when we were 18 years old.

One of Elvis' songs was playing.

One of the ball players said, "Do you know who that is singing?"

"Well, sure. It's Elvis Presley."

Then, all the guys kind of laughed. They said, "No. It's that guy."

That was just kind of a shock to hear a guy that sounded like he did.

Back then, Elvis was a big deal, you know, he was the thing.

What did Jimmy think of Elvis?

He loved the way he sang.

He said, "There's nothing Elvis can sing that I can't sing."

I think he knew he had a real talent.

It was just unreal that he sounded so much like Elvis.

When we graduated at the ceremony, he sang some of the most beautiful songs.

I knew the music was in him, you know? It was in his soul.

He'd entertain you with his singing, or he'd entertain you with his joking around.

If you were down...

...you'd be around Jimmy five minutes and be laughing...

...and cheerful and forget all your problems.

Then Jimmy had a meeting with Phil Walden with Capricorn Records.

He actually offered Jimmy a contract, a recording contract.

This part of the country, people worked hard on land.

You know, this is cattleman country and farming country and cotton country.

And when you talk about being a singer, they just frown on it.

No question about it.

Jimmy lived, breathed and ate walking horses...

...and actually trained three world champions.

Jimmy was a star, just like he was a star of the stage.

Jimmy's heart wasn't in it.

Mr. Ellis just constantly pushed Jimmy...

...more and more into the horses, and you could...

...see him sitting on a horse sometimes, and he'd just look like, "Oh, great."

Mr. Ellis groomed him to take over their business...

...so that, one day, when they weren't there, it would be his.

Daddy was so talented.

But his interest was music.

He would sing driving down the road.

I mean, it was....

Wherever you went. You'll either be sitting in a pond somewhere fishing...

...and he's just singing.

Just the way he was. I don't know, I can't explain it.

It's not like a lightning bolt struck him in the head...

...and, damn, you can sing now. I mean, he was always that way.

He took me to a little nightclub there in Selma.

And I didn't know he could sing.

I knew nothing about it.

And the guy that ran the nightclub knew him...

...and encouraged him to get up and sing.

And when he opened his mouth...

...I nearly hit the floor.

Growing up, Elvis was my idol.

I don't guess there's ever been anyone else that could even touch...

...the way I felt about Elvis.

But when Jimmy started singing...

...I was astonished.

And I think that was it right then.

I said, "This is meant to be."

This has to be the man I'm meant to be with the rest of my life.

His dad always thought...

...the music business was a bunch of foolishness.

And I'd heard him say many times, "I do not know why...

...Jimmy Ellis wants to run off around the world, singing...

...when he has the finest horse farm...

...and the most talents of anyone in the country."

That was so, when you raise three world champions...

...you obviously are pretty sharp at what you do.

It just got to the point where I had to...

...either go do it full time because that's where my heart was...

...or either I had to just forget about it.

And I couldn't forget about it.

The saddest thing to me, it didn't seem to bother him though...

...he laid out all of his saddles and bridles...

...and everything that belonged to his horses...

...on the ground and it was all for sale in his barn.

And to walk through there and see what I felt like was his entire life...

...laying before me...

...it was heart-breaking to me, but he was so excited...

...to sell everything he had and go to Los Angeles...

...and try his best to make a career.

His aim was to put together a show...

...that he could take on the road.

I thought once Hollywood saw him, that would be it.

The drawback was, they had one Elvis.

How were they gonna make him different?

They worked with him to try to make it about him.

The first thing for him to do was to learn to dance and have a stage presence.

But it was so hard because...

...one day at the end of practice, when they opened the doors...

...there was a line.

One of the girls had...

...called a girlfriend and told her, "You won't believe who's here.

Elvis is in the building. He's practicing."

And the girls had lined up outside the door to wait for him to come out.

They had him go around and meet with different stars...

...and put it in the newspaper to build up interest.

They would just have him go to different parties to introduce him to Hollywood.

The people in Hollywood...

...they're there for the money.

They're there for the bottom line.

They knew exactly how much he had.

They were gonna give him something for his money.

But they, in the end, they were gonna get...

...all the money he had.

And it didn't take them but about a year to do that.

He had to go back home. He had a child.

Little Jim and his mom and dad and the farm.

He felt like he had really maybe missed...

...the mark because he didn't start at 18.

He knew that it was a fight for a 30-something to actually...

...make his mark and to have a big career.

It was a very, very defeating time in his life...

...a very depressing time in his life.

All of us have had opportunities in life where we're...

...this close to success or something big happening in our lives, you know?

For that to fall apart was obviously...

...a very depressive time.

We ended up engaged and trying to have a normal life...

...but he couldn't let it go.

He had too much talent.

It was a dream that he could not let go.

That's when we went and stayed with friends of his in Georgia.

He and his girlfriend stayed with us for three months.

And then I got an appointment to see Bobby Smith.

Bobby had a little recording studio in Macon.

He had recorded Otis Redding at one time.

A person called me.

If he brought a tape down, would I listen to this singer?

I listened to it...

...and I said, "I've got an idea."

I was in the studio with my band Avalanche.

Bobby Smith was our producer,

"You need to come in here and listen to this guy."

So we walked into Bobby's office, and I see this tall drink of water.

He had that look. Even then, when I first walked in there,

"This guy's somebody. He has to be.

You just don't look like that and not be somebody."

Bobby got a big smile on his face and he said, "Now, listen to this.

Who you think that is?" He played this tape.

I said, "That sounds like Elvis.

You're gonna tell me that's this guy right there?"

Well, Jimmy started to sing right along with the tape.

And I just shook my head and I says, "I just cannot believe what I've just heard."

What a combination this would be. Here we are, a disco band.

And here comes this pop, country, rockabilly, Elvis sound-alike.

Bobby said, "What do you think?" I says, would be kind of interesting wouldn't it?"

I said, "Because people wouldn't know what to think.

Let's try it."

Before you know it, we had every screaming woman in the town...

...coming to see this big, tall drink of water that sounded like Elvis.

And those girls scream and holler,

"This guy is unreal on stage."

So I said, "I'll put two records out on him. Let's just see what'll happen."

I was pretty sure that he was playing around, I'll call it.

Nothing serious with anybody else.

As he put it to me, "You're in the driver's seat.

What more do you want?

You're the head of the line."

Now, to him, that was the best place to be.

To me, I didn't want a line.

And I said, "If you think that I'm gonna stay at home...

...and you're gonna travel on the road, and not gonna let me go with you...

...that's not gonna happen."

And I took the ring off and handed it back to him.

"I wonder how many times this is gonna go back and forth."

And I thought...

...once.

And I got a ticket to Los Angeles.

And I moved the next day.

And I never went back.

So I put the first record out on him.

We had disc jockeys say, "I'm not gonna play you.

You sound too much like Elvis."

In the United States, if you sound like Elvis, it's the kiss of death.

Because Elvis was more than just a voice.

He gave all of the people of my generation a freedom that we hadn't had before.

It was a blessing and a curse.

Everybody said he's an Elvis impersonator and that's...

That was the furthest thing.

He wanted to get so far away from that. It was....

It was crazy.

But it was just... God gave him that voice.

Jimmy tried all kind of things.

Great recordings, but it didn't really do a lot.

Bobby Smith, who was producing him...

...he brought him to Nashville.

"If you wanna be a model, you go to New York.

If you wanna make cars, go to Detroit.

If you wanna be a star, go to Hollywood.

If you wanna make records, go to Nashville."

I would say probably a thousand a week come through Nashville...

...looking for recording contracts

What percentage of them make it?

Uh, probably one one-hundredth of one percent.

Of course, the original Sun Studios were in Memphis.

We are standing in the birth place of rock 'n' roll.

Sun Studio, Memphis, Tennessee. It's where it all began.

Elvis Presley stood on that X and changed history.

Shelby bought Sun Records, the label, from Sam Phillips...

...then moved Sun Records to Nashville.

Jimmy Ellis says, "You know Shelby Singleton, don't you?"

He came to see me, and, uh....

I didn't have any idea of how to promote him...

...because of the way his voice sounded.

If there wasn't an Elvis at that time, he could have probably been a star.

Jimmy wanted to be a superstar, and he should have been.

There was no way that he could have failed...

...if Elvis had never lived.

Tonight, August 16th...

...reported from the NBC News Center in New York.

Good Evening.

Elvis Presley died today. He was 42.

Apparently, it was a heart attack.

When word of Presley's death came, there was a rush on his records.

You can't even buy one here now. They're all sold out.

We had people lined up outside the store this morning, waiting to come in...

...to buy Elvis records.

RCA Records is reportedly working day and night...

...to turn out as many new albums as it needs to meet the demand.

Charles Osgood, CBS News, New York.

Shelby had an idea.

He owned the masters on Jerry Lee Lewis...

...Charlie Rich, Carl Perkins...

...all the old entertainers at Sun Records.

I decided I could bring him in and overdub him on the tracks...

...and of course, everybody thought that I'd found an Elvis master...

...in the catalog after I'd bought Sun.

How was the label put out on that record?

Did not have my name on it.

It didn't have your name. It caused a bit of a stir?

Yeah, it was a controversial record.

Shelby was a promotion man. He knew that outrageous schemes...

...would draw attention.

"Is this Elvis or is it not" is sort of what he was trying to sell.

He started pairing him with Sun classics...

...Carl Perkins, Charlie Rich, Johnny Cash as if they were old recordings.

The timing was right...

...because all this happened within six months after Elvis died.

Elvis was getting the credit, that was the only problem.

And if someone else is getting the credit, then you don't make the money so....

I would rather be known for my own ability.

And then, we come along with this great idea...

...and it gives him something to do, something that's different.

ladies and gentlemen, if you will, please, big round of applause...

...Mr. Jimmy Ellis!

How's everybody tonight in Nashville South?

Everybody holler one time, real loud.

Play it.

All right.

Yeah.

There you go

We were in a little club called Nashville South...

...and I didn't know who was performing that night.

But when music is being played, the music comes right to me.

And I said, "My goodness, who is that?"

He was so magnetic.

The audience was just in his hand.

I met him when he came off the stage.

And I said, "I might have something that's gonna change your life."

I began Orion in 1977.

The concept of Orion came from what it'd be like to be a prisoner of your own fame...

...such as Elvis Presley.

- Did start Orion before Elvis died? - Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I got real serious about it the day he died...

...because I felt I needed to hurry and finish this...

...because people needed to understand what this poor man went through.

That's what this book is. It's exploring the tragedy of a superstar.

And how he had to escape that tragedy just to be able to walk down the street.

So Orion, in order to escape, he fakes his own death.

Gail is a great writer.

I was writing the songs to go with the book.

We were intending to have a movie.

And we had Hollywood interest.

And so when I met him, I knew there was more to this.

I mean, it was just incredible, that he sang like this...

...and that he looked like he did.

I told Gail, "I want you to go with me.

I'm gonna show you something you won't believe."

Jimmy had a beautiful voice.

We talked about him doing the songs for the movie, should there be a movie.

It just seemed meant to be.

That I would be in that club on that night, because he did one-nighters at that time.

And he was in his early 30s.

He had being trying to make it for years.

And he needed a vehicle.

He felt like it was the answer to his prayers.

And we actually thought that Jimmy would kind of walk out of that book.

The creation of Orion off of the book was really my idea

It was part accident and part madman genius.

I thought that I could create this mystique...

...of everybody thinking that he really was Elvis...

...and that he had faked his own death, like the book.

My character hoaxed his death.

Then all the rumors began... I didn't start them.

about is Elvis dead?

Timing is everything.

People were very, very emotional and receptive to anything Elvis.

Shelby Singleton came along at the right time in the right place...

...with nothing more than a gimmick.

A gimmick.

Despicable gimmick.

Shelby says, "Bobby I got an idea.

It's gonna be up to you to talk him into it."

It's gonna be something he's not gonna wanna do...

...because he was a nice-looking person.

He says, "Wear a mask." I said, "Wear a mask?"

And I said, "He's not gonna like that, I can tell you that right now."

He was very reluctant.

As a matter of fact, he didn't even like the idea.

But Shelby pretty much persuaded him...

...that, either you put on the mask and you do this...

...or go back to Alabama, get another deal somewhere else.

He didn't wanna do it, but we finally talked him into doing it.

Otherwise, he was just Jimmy Ellis, you know...

...and Jimmy Ellis didn't really mean nothing.

In order to be a successful entertainer...

...you have to want it more than you want to breathe.

You have to want it more than air.

And Jimmy desperately, desperately wanted it.

We had a guy who sounded like Elvis.

Maybe if he's photographed a certain way, he can sort of look like Elvis.

Let the fans, uh, kind of hope that it was Elvis behind that mask.

You have this real guy, they put a mask on him...

...and they brought this fictional character alive.

That's all he was, fiction.

Some people give birth to babies...

...I give birth to a 6'4" man with a mask.

Ha, ha. It was a hard delivery.

I didn't even know he was gonna go on stage, quite frankly.

I thought they were just up there, gonna cut the songs...

...so I could take them to the producer.

He's a cross between Elvis and the Lone Ranger.

Well, hello there.

He's called Orion but his true identity is a well-kept secret.

His character was born in the pages of the book Orion.

The book's here.

I'm here, which I'm glad of.

I wouldn't know of any other place I'd rather be right now than to be here...

...but I think that's the most important thing...

...and that we make a few people happy.

It's a mighty rough road I'm walking

It's a mighty dreary life

Loneliness can ruin a man Like the cutting of a knife

How long must I suffer Tell me when will I be free

Anybody out there Wanna be close to me

Well, the man can die of hunger He can die of thirst, I know

Loneliness can kill me once Ain't got far to go

How long must I suffer Tell me, when will I be free

Anybody out there Wanna make love to me

Anybody out there Wanna take my blues away

Hold me close and say the words I want to hear you say

I'm in pain and misery As long as can be

Anybody out there Wanna make love to me

Anybody out there Wanna make love to me

How about it? Put your hands together for the fantastic Orion?

That was when it all started, right there. That's 1979.

It was a phenomenon. I mean, I ain't never seen anything like it.

We had sell-out crowds.

I mean, you get a place that seats 1500 to 2500 people...

...and you're selling those out, that's a lot of people coming out to see you.

You wanna hear one more, let him hear you, Orion!

One more song, Orion!

Everyone loves a fairytale.

And everyone would like to think you can come back from the dead.

So let's face it, that's what they were after.

Sun said, "If you'd get a tenth of the Elvis fans...

...you'd have millions."

They were trying to live through Jimmy...

...what they would have lived through, through Elvis.

They'd have loved to meet Elvis. They could do that with Jimmy.

So you drew that same type fan and many of the same fans.

Elvis that you couldn't talk to.

All of sudden, here's sort of the stand-in Elvis...

...taking pictures with you with his arm around you.

Elvis hadn't been able to do that.

The fans who wanted that magical touch could go up and touch him.

He'd hang out afterwards and sign autographs. Fans loved him.

It was an experience, I'm telling you.

I have seen girls standing there crying, just shaking

He really affected people, he really did.

The ladies sitting beside us said, "Do you know that's Elvis?"

She said, "You know why he wears the mask?

To cover up all the scars that he's got."

Said, "He had plastic surgery to change his looks."

I remember some girl coming up to the stage with a bouquet of flowers...

...and comes up reverently and bows and genuflects...

...and puts it at his feet and I thought, this is strange.

This is just kind of weird.

She obviously thought he was Elvis.

To me, it always has been very obvious.

If you looked at the man even with the mask on...

...you could tell this was not Elvis Presley.

You know, his eyes were brown, his nose was different...

...he's built different.

He was much taller, he was much younger.

But there were so many people back in the early '80s...

...who so desperately wanted Elvis to still be alive...

...and they took it hook, line and sinker.

It's almost like the fans become part of the fantasy.

They're performing. Singer's performing, they're performing.

They're acting the way they think they're conditioned to act.

It's all just a myth.

We preyed on not only the fans but on the press itself.

You know you couldn't buy the publicity that we did.

The more lies we told, the more people believed them.

One of the things in playing out the mystery that this could be the dead Elvis...

...who was still alive is that his first album had this shiny coffin...

...much like the one that Elvis was buried in on the cover.

So it's as if he's risen from the dead or he's been born again or coffin is empty.

You could look at it in a lot of different ways.

They wanted to put the album on the racks...

...in Walmart and Kmart.

But they got objections from the buyers because of the casket that was on there...

...so I had to change the cover on it.

This one originally turned into that one.

I was, I guess, shocked when the album came out.

Everything from my book was on the back of the album.

This is the prologue of my book.

And he even had Orion Eckley Darnell as a song writer.

That's a character in my book.

Had him under the guidance of Mac Weiman, a character in my book.

Right to Orion care of Dixie-Land, that's my book.

Everything was my book.

Instead of Graceland, like down in Memphis, you know where Elvis lived...

...in the book Orion, it was called Dixie-Land.

And they always said, "Ribbonsville, Tennessee."

I knew there was no such place as Ribbonsville.

- Where do you call home? - Ribbonsville, Tennessee.

Well, home is Nashville. I live in Nashville.

- Ribbonsville? - But I was born in a town...

...called Ribbonsville, Tennessee. It's hard to find.

How many people? What's the population?

Well, it was three, and now it's two.

Where is it?

- It's... Heh. - Really, I've never heard of it

You're getting into the mysterious part of our lives.

He had just played like two weeks before as Jimmy Ellis.

All of a sudden, he's in mask, he's Orion.

And you're not supposed to know who he is.

They were charging everybody $25 if they called him Jimmy.

You couldn't call him Jimmy, or the secret would get out.

Taking our character...

...and creating the character in reality is what we did.

I didn't know they were gonna do this. They never licensed any right to do this.

How much were you paid for this?

Nothing.

Zip, zilch, zero, nothing. Nothing.

So Shelby said, um, "So sue me."

Well, I will say that we were naive a lot.

We didn't do a lot of things we should have done in contracts.

Back in the early '80s...

...Shelby Singleton was the most sued man in Tennessee...

...for failing to pay...

...and for doing things maybe not quite the way they should have been done.

Why didn't I sue? We thought about it.

We thought of even getting an injunction.

I didn't wanna hurt Jimmy. This was just starting up for him.

I didn't wanna hurt Carol Halupke, her songs were getting cut.

So that's basically what happened. They just ran with it...

...and I kind of was the victim.

The one I love forever is untrue

And if I could you know That I would fly away with you

Orion is being billed as the superstar of the '80s...

...by Shelby Singleton's Sun Record group here in Nashville.

Now, the response to his singing is almost unbelievable.

A few weeks ago, he put on a show at Nashville's Tennessee Theater...

...and was scheduled to go on stage at 10:00 in the evening.

At 4 that afternoon, fans starting lining up for seats.

What do I like about him? Everything.

This is our 15th time to see him.

How many times have you seen him?

Too many times to count.

Thought he was Elvis, and went all the way to Alabama to see who he was.

Followed him ever since.

One of the things I admire is you keep your head above it all.

You're getting to be...

...as they say in the business, a big star.

- How do you handle it? - It's not hard for me to handle.

I enjoy the fans, I enjoy the publicity.

I enjoy the business, I enjoy my work so, you know...

...it's really not hard for me to handle.

He was developing such a fanfare.

A promoter could take him at any club or any venue.

Almost guarantee that they'd sell the place out.

Our fan club now, in one year's time...

...is up to 20,000 members.

Almost to the point now where your club's nearing a cult following.

Well, we used to have about 500 fans that would follow him...

...every place that he went.

In fact, we had two ladies that lived in their car out in our parking lot...

...and just waited until he would leave town...

...so they could follow him wherever he was going.

When Jimmy would go out on tour...

...his fans would follow right along behind the bus.

And they'd travel, hundreds, thousands of miles.

It was just so stupid. You're following the bus.

Look through the back of the bus...

...see if they'll stop at the red light and hop out.

It's crazy.

How do you like the life on the road?

I think I'm just geared for entertainment life.

I like to be on the road.

If I'm on the road nine days a week, I like it.

Major can tell you that.

But if I'm home for three days, I'm ready to get back on the road the fourth day.

I remember Daddy flying in from Las Vegas just to watch me play ball.

I'd get home and he'd be gone. Had to fly back out.

So he always set aside time for me.

A couple weeks that there was nobody but me and him.

You know, we fished and so on.

The music business never been my thing.

You know, I was born and raised on a farm.

Of course, he was too, raised on a farm.

But, you know, he chased his dream.

When Jimmy would come into around Orrville...

...after he became Orion...

...people were critical.

They felt like Jimmy's trying to reach out for the stars or something.

But they would snub him.

I think it bothered Jimmy worse...

...that we all thought it was silly.

And many of his close friends would tell him it was silly.

His hometown folks never really accepted him as being any possibility...

...but Jimmy Ellis, he wanted to be like Elvis.

I didn't think I was anything except a guy trying to make a living, you know?

I was not for making people believe that I was somebody else.

I was not for that.

Orion insists he wants to be known for his own singing...

...and not because he sounds like Elvis, but that has not been easy.

Quite honestly, when Shelby put the mask on him...

...as far as Nashville went, he lost all credibility whatsoever.

"Yeah, he's really good, he's got a lovely voice...

...but he's got a mask on."

Country western singer, Orion, is our guest today.

And, Orion, before you sing, I want you to tell the audience...

...a little bit about the mask.

I'm not hiding anything. It's a trademark.

It's an idea that the promotional people in Nashville, Tennessee came up with.

Shelby Singleton, who is the president of Sun Records...

...is probably known in the music business...

...as one of the most flamboyant promoters in the business.

He'll do most anything to promote a product and...

- And you're a product? - He'll try to do it differently...

...than anyone else does it.

And so he wanted to make the thing a little different.

I'll grant you, it's different when you walk into a crowd...

...and you're wearing this mask.

Under his contract with Sun, he wasn't allowed to take his mask off...

...when he was in the public eye.

Every time we'd come out of a hotel, we'd look in the bushes...

...and there'd be camera crew set up, trying to catch Jimmy without the mask.

"Jimmy, National Enquirer is in the bushes."

He had to come out, we'd eat, he had to wear the mask.

He hated the mask the entire time he wore it, you know?

Well, Shelby had had a contract with Walmart...

...that if an album came on Orion...

...we'd have to go into Walmart at a certain time...

...and autograph records, you know?

You can imagine people in there shopping, buying some groceries...

...and look around and see a masked man?

Oh, he hated that more than anything, and I hated it too.

I think even from the start...

...Jimmy Ellis wasn't completely sure this was a great idea.

But it worked. It worked so well.

It was so successful. This is after years of not being successful.

All of a sudden, he has... Records are selling.

And he has people showing up, wanting to hear him.

Not just wanting to hear him but going crazy.

Running, rushing the stage and grabbing at him.

And staying after to talk to him. It had to be heady.

But at the same time, he knew he was selling something...

...that wasn't quite him.

As much as he hated being under the mask...

...he did have a weakness for women.

He was a complicated person.

He wasn't Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky.

I mean, he was... He had some issues about women.

He had a lot of women in his life.

A lot.

Elaine Thompson was in the audience...

...ended up being his girlfriend and he married her.

She was more like a groupie that was following him around...

...but he had a lot of other girls following him around at the same time.

And he seemed to stick with her more than the rest of them...

...although there was many women.

Jimmy was married to Elaine twice in the early '80s.

They divorced twice.

They had a very rocky on-again-off-again relationship.

Probably somewhat like Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.

Ha, ha. Quite stormy.

Elaine was a spitfire. She never trusted him.

And I guess she shouldn't have, but he never trusted her either.

They were both like tit for tat.

You know, what one did, the other one did just as much.

Jimmy was never, ever true to one woman.

It's just like he was a chauvinist pig at that point in time...

...because he could have it all.

It would never be a secret where he was staying at.

Every room would be booked by fans.

It was just a big party the whole time he was there.

He would call from room to room to room.

He didn't like to sleep alone.

He didn't want to be alone when he went to sleep.

I don't know why but he didn't.

And you'd think, "No, I'm not coming to your room.

I saw what just left your room."

I never did some of the things the others did.

I was asked to do some, but I never did that.

I know he did have a briefcase full of pictures.

He would be happy to show you that.

And I'd be like, "I don't want to see that, I work at those all day long.

I see those at where I work, I don't need to see that here." But he was into...

What do you mean? I don't understand.

I worked for a gynecologist. And he's got pictures of every...

Lucy is what I call mine.

- -every Lucy in town. - He'd be like... He did.

Oh, he was silly.

I don't know why.

It's like a trophy collector.

He had hundreds of Polaroids.

And how did he know whose was whose is what I wanna know.

He said, "Those women...

...they don't mean any more to me than smoking a cigarette."

And they didn't.

I always felt that he was sort of afraid to trust people wholeheartedly.

Afraid of being hurt.

To me, he acted like somebody who'd been hurt badly.

By who, I don't know.

Daddy had a rough childhood.

From birth to 5 years old.

Until my grandparents, his adopted parents, found him.

And, I mean, there are some stories that he told me that would...

They'd make you...

I don't really wanna talk about it.

But when he found them, it was just a whole different world.

And it took him a while to get used to that because he didn't know who to trust.

Trust is a bitch at 5 years old.

You ought to be able to trust everybody.

Keep that in mind.

He was pulled from foster home to foster home.

And he had a thing, even into his 30s and 40s...

...where he didn't put his things up...

...when he was gonna be in a hotel for a few days.

Because he was pulled from so many different foster homes...

...that if you put your things up, one of the other kids would get them...

...or you'd be moved, so he always kept everything packed up.

I've thought a lot about it.

How would you really feel if you really didn't even know...

...who your birth mother and father was?

You know, it would be a lonely... An emptiness.

I never saw Jimmy really happy.

I mean, he was having a good time.

Most of his days were involved in doing something, trying to be successful.

How many albums have you put down?

Seven.

- Seven already in two years... - Seven albums in two years.

You've been a busy man.

Orion, I believe one album will be the rockabilly-type album.

The other one Orion has planned...

...to be released soon is a gospel-type album.

"Texas Tea" is a little bit more on the country side...

...and comes from your album Country.

We've done a lot of experimenting with the middle of the road album...

...which was the second release and we did the Jerry Lee Lewis album.

- Yeah. - And the Trio Plus album...

...with Jerry Lee Lewis, Charlie Rich and Carl Perkins and myself.

We've just done a lot of experimenting and we're...

I think sooner or later, we're going to come into our own...

...and really do some nice things later.

Even if the disc jockeys in the early '80s...

...were willing to accept a man with a mask on...

...you can't market all that to the same station.

At least, you couldn't back in the 1980s.

Now, you could probably market everything he did now as just country...

...but at the time, you couldn't.

So, you know, he threw himself in so many different directions...

...I guess, hoping something would stick.

Seems like he was pretty fast in the studio...

...so they could probably get four songs in three hours.

It wasn't months and months on one track like some artists do.

This is... Was originally the Sun Studio where Jimmy Ellis "Orion" recorded...

...in the '70s and '80s.

We, a couple of years ago, turned it into our merchandise warehouse.

Not only was it a working studio, it was also a tour studio...

...and Shelby had a deal with one of the tour bus companies.

They'd bring in a busload, you know, a big, Greyhound bus full of tourists.

That's funny. I'd never been in that situation before.

Yeah, we'd be in the middle of a session.

All of a sudden, Paul would run in and say, "Bus!" We'd have to stop?

I'd be in the middle of a guitar solo.

It would get aggravating because a great solo...

...only comes along once in a lifetime.

And all of a sudden, somebody comes in and says, "Cut!"

You've lost it, you can't never get that back again.

We'd have to sit there for another hour or two to get the groove back.

And finally get into it again, here'd come another tour. Heh.

Shelby would release an album first through mail-order music...

...which meant he'd send these flyers out to all the fans and they'd all buy it.

Then, he would send it to the record store and it wouldn't sell. Why?

Because he's already sold thousands through the mail at retail.

He wanted that retail money first.

We should have stopped that and had them go into the record store.

But they looked like bad record sales when they didn't sell.

One of the worst things I think that happened to Jimmy...

...I don't think there's doubt...

...that "Save The Last Dance" sold a million copies.

Jimmy didn't get a gold record for that.

I think it's a shame that he's never gonna go down as a gold-selling artist...

...because the money was done in a way that it didn't show up or something.

But we know he sold a million copies.

And Reborn might have come close to that.

To my knowledge, he never got a royalty check...

...from Shelby Singleton...

...despite the fact that there are millions of those albums floating around.

And he should have made some money on that.

It might have only been $25,000 or $30,000.

But he should have gotten something.

If you got a lot of love And you don't know where to put it

You've been racking your brain And you don't know who might want it

If you need someone to hold on to And you don't know who it will be

Just look me up and lay it on me

Better look me up and lay it on me I swear I won't regret it

I love you so many ways Baby you won't ever forget it

And if you got that feeling And you don't know what to do

And you need somebody That you can cuddle up to

You can never tell, I just might be The very thing you need, honey

Look me up and lay it on me

Shelby had scheduled a tour for Orion in Germany...

...because he was a very popular artist in Germany.

And he just had crowds and crowds there.

But somewhere, while they were there, something happened.

Orion was standing on a table in a pub in Germany...

...doing tracks to Elvis songs which he hated to do...

...but he was doing them.

And they were walking down the street.

Shelby basically told him, "You're always gonna be an Elvis impersonator."

He would basically perform by lip-syncing...

...and he didn't think that that was fair to the fans.

Oh, we had a big argument, and he and I almost got into it...

...but we never got to fisticuffs.

Now, Orion, 6'3".

Shelby, 5'8".

Orion took his arm... Whap.

Hits Shelby in the face.

Shelby fell back in his little biddy jumpsuit...

...like a turtle that had been turned over on its back.

At that point in time...

...Shelby tried to distance himself from Orion.

He really didn't wanna be Orion.

He wanted to be Jimmy Ellis.

The frustration built.

It started off very small.

"All right, I have to wear the mask. Let me wear the mask, I'll get used to it."

That attitude.

As time went along, it would burn him, it would irk him.

Why do you wear the mask, Orion?

- Good question. - Heh.

He wore it because he was under contract.

Point blank. Simple.

For a while, he had been arguing with Shelby...

...about whether they should take off the mask to stop the charade.

Shelby kept telling him, "No. The only way this works is if you keep up the mystery."

It was a gimmick and he hated it, because it took his identity.

You can imagine walking around with a paper bag on your head all your life.

That's basically the way he summed it up.

You know, I guess everybody wants a mask to hide behind when you fail.

"If I do reach the pinnacle, who am I?"

Reality doesn't mean anything in show business.

It's all perception and that perception was set...

...and there's no way he could have changed it.

He said, "I'd be up there on that stage doing the show...

...and I'd see these people clapping, applauding, reaching up to grab me."

And he says, "It dawned on me.

They weren't clapping for me. They were clapping for a ghost."

And so, after years of that...

...he just got tired of it.

And this one day,

"I've had enough." In the middle of a show.

I can still see Bobby Smith's face to this day...

...when Jimmy took that mask off and threw it out in the audience.

Bobby come up off the stage. "No? No!"

You know, just like you see in the movies, "No! We're done! We're through!"

It basically was and pretty much after that, it was...

Shelby finally said, "No, that's it." And tore up the contract.

"You're either gonna do it my way or it's the highway."

Jimmy took the highway.

Fans were disappointed before I got back to Nashville.

Fans had already called into Sun Record company, complaining.

He was finished at that point.

What made him had been destroyed.

If he'd kept the mask on, he could have been a superstar.

Do you think it was a mistake, him taking the mask off?

Well...

...yes if he wanted to continue as Orion.

No for his own sanity.

But the fans liked the mask.

It's like the guy wearing a Santa Claus suit taking off his beard.

"Oh, no."

Same thing with the mask.

Don't take the mask off.

Let me be in this paradise fantasy that I love.

Let me close my eyes and just imagine what you might be without the mask.

Don't take it off.

I think when he took the mask off...

...it brought it all to reality.

It was a gamble.

He couldn't be happy with just the success.

He had to be known.

There was no way that you could sell him to a major label...

...like RCA and CBS, Capitol.

I think he went through all of them, trying to get, you know, deals with them.

They wanted nothing to do with it.

If he'd gone out to Las Vegas and gotten recognized...

...as the man with Elvis' voice...

...they would have kept calling him to do sound-alikes of Elvis.

Somebody wants a movie, there's your guy.

That's who you needed to call.

And he turned down those...

...because "I'm my own man and I'm not an Elvis impersonator."

Tony put this out, the "Who's the next superstar of the 80's?"

This was all rock and roll a la Rick Springfield.

And, you know, he was a teeny bopper idol.

You know, his target audience was probably 12 to 18.

But, you know, here you had a man who was in his 30s...

...and you were marketing him to the same audience.

I didn't ever quite understand that but Tony seemed to have the connections...

...to be able to make it work if anything was going to work.

Most of these people that put the money in, didn't have a background in music.

They didn't know anything about the industry...

...except what they saw on TV and movies, that type of thing.

And that was the other thing. He went by so many different names.

You had Jimmy Ellis, then you had Mr. E.

I think we also had Mr. Excitement.

There was another one they called Ellis James...

...which was kind of just his name backwards.

Followed by "the Cadillac Man."

And then later, he was Steven Silver.

You know Madonna constantly reinvented herself...

...through the '80s and '90s...

...but in a good way.

With Jimmy Ellis, he probably just needed to pick one and stick with it.

Who are you? You know, make up your mind.

The reason why he changed his name so many times...

...is because he wanted to get away from....

So nobody would know who he was.

But his voice was distinctive, it didn't matter what name he used, you know.

He could use Harvey Swartz and it just, you know, it was still that voice.

Didn't matter.

His vocal ability was God-given. He had a God-given talent.

He has no idea where he came from. He was adopted.

A lot of people have tried to say maybe he was related to Elvis.

He could have been. He didn't know.

There's no resemblance to Elvis, whatsoever.

But there is to Vernon.

Vernon Presley and Jimmy Ellis look like the same person.

He looked just like Vernon Presley.

I could see the same look, the same hairline, the same ears.

It was just....

Can that be a coincidence? Have this vocal? I don't know.

I saw his birth certificate.

And I remember it was from the state of Mississippi...

...and it said, Gladys Bale...

...Vernon" with no last name, and it was just blank.

And that was all he had ever known.

Vernon Presley...

...in his carousing days, could be Jimmy Ellis' father.

I just have a hard time believing...

...that two people could look so much alike...

...and then, where does that voice come from?

Pretty amazing, isn't it?

Pretty amazing.

Jimmy never really told us.

He never would divulge that part of his life.

Or it's almost like he had these secrets...

...and you knew he had a secret but he would never really...

He would give you hints.

Clues, you know? It was like a riddle to Jimmy.

And then in the late '80s, he went back to being Orion...

...and even put the mask back on.

So someone talked him into that...

...which really surprised me because he hated it so much.

Hey, everybody, I'm Jim Haley and I've got a real treat for you.

As a matter of fact, here's the tape we've been waiting for.

Here's Orion, in concert at Celina, Ohio.

Now, we appreciate anything that you folks can do...

...as far as applause.

We don't care if you get up and dance a little bit, do we, Bill?

No, we don't. This is one strange phenomenon about the show business.

One day...

...that man appears and all of a sudden...

...you've experienced a superstar.

And I truly believe, tonight, you will see a superstar.

And if y'all are ready to kind of just clap your hands...

...get your feet together...

...your minds and your bodies because you are gonna see...

...Orion!

All right, let me just find my way out of here.

Orion...

...an entertainer you'll be hearing and seeing...

...as his career continues to grow...

...and he becomes more and more the superstar he deserves to be.

I was gonna ask, after a few years of being without the mask...

...what made you decide to put the mask back on again?

He hated it.

But, you know, it's like everybody else. I mean, you're looking for a pay day.

You know, I gotta do this, I gotta do that. I gotta make ends meet.

Well, what do you do?

Do I turn this down because of pride?

I think the first eight to 10 years...

...were semi-big time, we traveled in a bus like this...

...there was more money backing him...

...and he was making records on a regular basis...

...and my time with him there, from like '88 to '98...

...we tended to travel in a van pulling a trailer.

There were always fun gigs, they paid okay.

But it didn't seem real big time.

It looks bad.

It looks real bad.

Unfortunately, Jimmy never made any money...

...except off the concerts.

Even some of those, didn't....

You know, he got paid X amount to go...

...but there were so many problems with the bus falling apart on the road.

Getting stranded. I mean, things happened...

...and so you weren't always turning a profit on every single concert.

There was other things he could've done, and that's what he did.

But he always went back to singing.

Always.

If that's something you love to do, you gotta find a way to do it.

You gotta feed the monkey.

At 48, most musical careers are over at that time.

Jimmy didn't understand that.

He thought he was gonna be 32 till the day he was gonna die.

If it had all worked out, it would have been extremely lucrative...

...and toward the end of his career, you know,

"To hell with the fame, give me the fortune," you know?

Because he'd never really....

Never saw that end of it.

I think talent is rampant in this town...

...and you can find talent on any street corner, literally.

So talent really wasn't the issue, it was talent with a hook.

Talent with....

What else? Because everybody's talented.

Oh, I found this great guy and he can sing.

So what? So can my brother.

So can his brother.

So can his dad. Everybody sings, everybody writes.

It's Nashville.

Is it a tough place?

Yeah, it's....

I think it's one of the toughest industries around.

Because it's built on emotions.

You don't get, really, interviewed for a job.

You have to be what somebody wants...

...before you get that interview.

Probably the toughest industry there is...

...because it plays with your emotions and your mind.

You have sleepless nights wondering if somebody's going to accept this...

...somebody's going to accept that and that's just the business end of it.

You gotta get through that before the fans hear you.

I would not advise anybody to waste their life...

...doing it.

It's a one in a million deal.

You hope to God you run across people you can trust.

I mean, they're like sharks.

It's all for them, not you.

And that's the problem. He trusted everybody.

It was so going downhill that he even lost interest.

"Well, okay, I'm going back to the farm, I'm gonna....

I'll do a show here and there."

He still wanted it...

...but didn't know what he had to do to go and get it.

Worth a living

Because he lives

I'll cross that river

I'll fight life's final war

With all the pain

And then, as death

Gives way to victory

I'll see the light, oh, yeah

I know he'll reign

Because he lives

I can face tomorrow

Because he lives

All fear is gone

Jimmy decided he would get in a business...

...to make a living.

The horse industry was out of the question.

He'd been out of it so many years.

So he decided to open up two businesses.

And one was a pawn shop.

I was out of money.

So I stopped by there because I lived right around the corner.

Jimmy offered me, you know, to work for him...

...and I said sure, you know.

That's where we hit it off. We became friends then.

He was just a fun person to be around with.

So did anybody else work in the store as well?

Elaine, his ex-wife.

- What was Elaine like? - Oh, Elaine.

She is crazy. Heh.

A sweet kind of crazy.

To be honest with you, they still loved each other.

I know Elaine did. She was crazy about him.

And he was still crazy about her.

They can't live together.

They'd fuss and fight all the time but they can't be without each other.

In the summer of 1998...

...we had a very sensational robbery at our store...

...and Jimmy came straight down

"Man, you know, I heard about the robbery."

And we talked about the dangers of being in business...

...dealing with a large number of people every day...

...in an area where the crime rate is high.

We both talked about dying or getting killed...

...in a robbery on December the 2nd...

...and Jimmy was killed December the 12th.

In an armed robbery.

The morning of December 12, 1998...

...we sat down and started joking about who was gonna go buy lunch today.

Elaine kept saying, "It's your turn, Helen," and I said, "No, it ain't. I went yesterday."

All of a sudden the door flew open, this guy came in and started firing.

He hit Elaine first because he blew Elaine's face open...

...then he turned around and shot Jimmy and then he shot me.

This is where he shot me and I also still got a pellet in my arm.

As soon as I hit the floor...

...I came to, but I held my breath, pretended I was dead...

...because if he had seen me move, he would have shot me again.

So I just stayed still holding my breath.

I said, "Lord, please, if he'll kill me, let him kill me quick."

I was saying that in my mind. He was trying to pull the register...

...and when he couldn't get the register off the counter, he ran out.

I heard Jimmy moaning...

...and I saw Jimmy on the floor, he was sitting on, holding his side...

...and he was practically barely breathing.

I didn't see no blood at first.

Until I looked down, then I saw it.

One of the sheriffs came.

I guess he was the first one that heard it on the radio.

He kept trying to revive him, you know, trying to wake him up...

...and it was already too late.

I don't know why would somebody do that, to somebody so nice as Jimmy.

He made you feel like you were family...

...you know, and I loved him for that.

He's a good person...

...and then that's all that happened.

Everybody started showing up, I don't know how they heard it...

...but all of a sudden the whole place was packed.

When I got here it was....

You couldn't even....

There were cars everywhere.

I mean, it was like a damn rock concert going on.

It's just your heart sinks, you know?

It was a day just like today...

...except it was cold...

...and there was nothing but blue lights.

And it....

And it'll just... It'll tear you up.

It tears you up.

All for nothing.

Walked out of here with nothing, right out that door right there.

It is what it is. I can't change it.

I wish to hell I could.

Wish I could.

Sometimes I wonder...

...if we had stayed together...

...and if we had been able to have the life on the farm and be normal...

...you know, if he'd still be here.

I wish he hadn't been there.

He shouldn't have been.

He should've been singing, he should have been performing.

He shouldn't have been in that town.

There were wreaths from most of the Nashville entertainers...

...and some of the big names and the big labels.

You don't realize how big of a star you are...

...till something like that happens.

I couldn't cry.

"Man, you need to get your ass up out of that box.

Come on, let's go play some music."

And right about then, some people put their arm around me, and, you know....

I couldn't face up to it.

That he was gone.