Elvis Presley Family Facts

"The Ed Sullivan Show"

In the summer of 1956, Colonel Parker arranged a deal for Elvis to make three appearances on “The Ed Sullivan Show” for a then-whopping fee of $50,000. Although Sullivan previously had said he wouldn’t book the hip-swiveling, lip-curling singer on his family-oriented TV variety show, he relented after competitor Steve Allen featured Elvis on his show in July 1956 and clobbered Sullivan in the ratings. When Elvis made his first appearance on Sullivan’s program on September 9, 1956, 60 million people—more than 80 percent of the TV viewing audience—tuned in.
(As it happened, Sullivan, who had been injured in a car accident that August, was unable to host the show.) After the singer made his second appearance in October, crowds in Nashville and St. Louis, outraged by the singer’s sexy performance and concerned that rock music would corrupt America’s teens, burned and hanged Elvis in effigy.

The singer made his final appearance on Sullivan’s show in January 1957, and this time network censors demanded he be filmed from the waist up.
Despite this requirement, at the end of the program, Sullivan gave the entertainer a special nod, telling the audience Elvis was “a real decent, fine boy,” and letting him know that “we’ve never had a pleasanter experience on our show with a big name than we’ve had with you.”