An intimate family portrait of Elvis
''Elvis by the Presleys" is a clip job, but what clips! The two-hour documentary, which airs tonight at 8 on Channel 4, is the final part of CBS's sweeps week of Elvis programming, following its biopic miniseries ''Elvis." And of the two products, it's the more intimate and affecting one, as it brings us abundant footage of Presley with his family, along with frank commentary from Priscilla Beaulieu Presley, her parents, Elvis's cousin Patsy, and daughter Lisa Marie. It's a sweet family album of a show, but with enough hard truth about the man who died at 42 to give it authenticity.
''For some reason, I fit his ideal woman," Priscilla says, as she narrates her courtship with Elvis. Now 59, she was only 14 when they met, and the photos and home movies from those days reveal an innocence and yet a game willingness in her face. She recalls being charmed by the singer -- ''He was like a little boy," she says -- and clearly she's still attached to his memory. ''I knew that I was loved, there was no question about that," she says fondly. She describes his relationship with manager Colonel Tom Parker as a blend of love and hate, observing that Parker's unwillingness to let Elvis grow artistically eroded the star's spirit.
Priscilla's life in the circus of Elvis's daily existence, which included an ever-present entourage of male friends known as his ''Memphis Mafia," wore on her. While Elvis expected his young bride to play the little woman back at Graceland, he was out having high times on the road and sleeping with other women. She got tired of living in the shadows, and submitting to his mood swings when he was home. She recalls that ''he had a temper" and that she was terrified when she decided to ask him for a divorce.
When they finally did part in 1973, though, and she was able to establish an independence she'd never known, their relationship improved. There's a photo of the couple holding hands on the day they finalized their divorce.
Naturally, Priscilla and the others interviewed for ''Elvis by the Presleys" have told their stories many times before. And the narratives, particularly those by the creative director of Elvis's estate, Jerry Schilling, tend to have a practiced feeling to them. As they chronicle the star's arc, way up and then way down into the depths of an addiction to prescription drugs, you sense they've talked about it many times before. But still the voices in the documentary aren't robotic, and they do muster some emotion for the man they lost. In one scene, Lisa Marie, who was 9 when her father died, recalls holding him up as he teetered on his feet from substance abuse.
The images of Elvis are at the center of ''Elvis by the Presleys," though, as they evolve through the show. Or perhaps the better word is devolve. In the early shots, he is handsome and mischievous at the beach or opening Christmas presents at Graceland. You can see his playfulness, and his charisma. Later, of course, he becomes a bloated spectacle, greased with sweat and uncomfortable in his own skin. His taste for glitzy clothes finds his closet filled with bedazzled jumpsuits. Tragically, he has grown from an American sensation into a haunted figure, an icon of faded glory and self-destruction.
Matthew Gilbert can be reached at gilbert@globe.com.
