This Day in Music History: Elvis and Love Me Tender

On this day in music history, November 3rd 1956, Elvis Presley had the #1 hit on the Billboard charts with Love Me Tender. It remained there for 5 weeks.
Before recording Heartbreak Hotel Elvis was flown to Hollywood for a screen test. He read a scene with actor Fran Faylen for producer Hal Wallis. Wallis signed him to a three picture deal.
His first movie was to be The Rainmaker with Burt Lancaster and Katharine Hepburn. This was to have been a major dramatic role for Elvis and could have given his movie career a different direction. This was not the direction that Col. Tom Parker wanted Elvis to take. Instead he got Elvis signed on to a movie called The Reno Brothers. Later it was called Love Me Tender. This set the standard for what Elvis' movies became known for. A simple plot with a lot of pretty girls and a few songs.
The song Love Me Tender is credited as being written by Elvis and Vera Watson. However, I have heard that it was really written by Vera Watson's husband Ken Darby. He just gave them the credit. Darby refused to work with the musicians that Elvis always worked with. He felt they couldn't do justice to his music so he used his own Ken Darby Trio. Mr. Darby scored all the music for the film.
David Weisbart produced Love Me Tender and also Rebel Without a Cause. During filming Elvis talked to him about starring in a film biography of the late James Dean that Weisbart was considering.
The story of the film Love Me Tender, which also starred Richard Egan, Debra Paget and Neville Brand, centers on three brothers who are Confederate Soliders in the Civil War. The war is over but none of them know it yet. Elvis is Cliff Reno and he has married his dead brothers wife. He is thought to have been killed in the war but it turns out that he is still alive. So sets the love triangle for the film. Elvis' character is killed before the end of the film but he gets to sing 4 songs before he dies. The ending seemed like a downer with Elvis the teen idol being killed so they re shot the ending and showed a spirit like Elvis singing the title song in the background. It made you feel like Cliff Reno was in Heaven and still singing.
RCA didn't want to release the song till the movie came out in mid November. However, after Elvis sang it on the Ed Sullivan Show the demand was so great they were forced to release it the first week of November.
In 1978 at WCBM a DJ name Ray Quinn edited Elvis' version and Linda Ronstadt's version of Love Me Tender together. The result was a duet that received a lot of radio play in the area but due to legal reasons over contracts it was never released to the record buying public.