As Hollywood lore goes, on March 28, 1975, singer and actor Barbra Streisand dipped backstage at a concert to ask singer Elvis Presley to come on board her movie project A Star Is Born (1976). As we all know now in future times, Presley didn't take the film role as John Norman Howard, the rock star whose career is sinking with alcohol and drug use. The role went to singer Kris Kristofferson.
So the backstage story goes, as outlined in the fan-run Barbra Archives: Elvis was performing at the Hilton Hotel in Las Vegas. Streisand flew in to see the show, meet with Presley and his manager, Colonel Parker, and offer Presley the role in the movie, for which she was not only writing music and acting in but also executive producing.
According to people around Presley at the time, there were a couple reasons Presley ultimately did not take on the role. There are reports that Presley (via his manager) demanded too much money. And there were also concerns that Streisand would overshadow the King of Rock or that the film about a freefalling musician might be bad for Presley's reputation.
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"Barbra had offered him the part," Elvis' ex-wife Priscilla Presley told People in a 2024 interview. "Colonel talked him out of that saying, 'Oh, it's not going to be good. She's going to be in charge, not you. Her movie, not yours.' Elvis regretted that because he felt he could have played that part."
Both Priscilla and songwriter Linda Thompson, Presley's girlfriend at the time of the film offer, publicly recalled that Presley wanted to take on more serious and meatier acting roles.
However, in her memoir, Thompson wrote, “The Colonel thought it was a bad idea for Elvis to play a character that might be viewed by some as a loser, saying that Elvis had an image to uphold.”
Photo by Steve Morley on Getty Images
At this time in his life, Presley was already in the throws of substance use, which was contributing to his deteriorating health, and aspects of his life and career were spiraling out of control.
Kris Kristofferson has shared that playing the role in A Star Is Born, particularly watching his own on-screen death scene, ultimately led to his personal decision to get sober. Kristofferson died on September 28, 2024, at age 88.
Presley died of a heart attack on August 16, 1977, at age 42.
The 1976 film A Star Is Born earned both Streisand and Kristofferson best actor Golden Globe awards and won the Academy Award for Best Original Song ("Evergreen")
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