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'Holiday On Ice Company' Visiting at Elvis Home March 12 and 13, 1960

Memphis Press Scimitar. March 14, 1960

Elvis Presley is playing host to the Holiday on Ice company today at his home. Buses were to leave the Hotel Claridge at 2:30, carrying the entire company to Graceland to spend the afternoon.

The singer visited the show again last night at Ellis Auditorium and spent most of the time backstage. He climbed up to the elevated bandstand where Conductor Ben Stabler let him wield his lighted baton for a moment over the 17-piece band. Later he hugged the matronly wardrobe women and told them they had all don 'a great job'. Elvis was kept busy signing autographs and posing for pictures for members of the company.

He wore a white open-neck shirt and dark suit.

Elvis Presley at the gates of Graceland - March 12, 1960

At the performance for negroes last night, which drew a capacity house, St. Jude Hospital received a check for $500 thru the Zeta Phi Beta sorority, a negro organization.

Elvis Presley at the gates of Graceland - March 12, 1960

Sarah Lewis, top student at LeMoyne College and 'Holiday Princess of the Ice for 1960' accepted the check from Mrs. Maggie Jordan, sponsor of the sorority campus chapter, who turned it over to Fred Gattas, representing the hospital. Remaining performances of the ice show will be tonight and tomorrow at 8:30.

Deaf Children Meet Elvis

Elvis Presley fans know no boundaries – recognize no handicaps. Saturday night Elvis made the world of four youngsters a brighter place when he left a houseful of guests to come and greet four youngsters, who are students at the Arkansas School for the Deaf.

Flecher Davis, 16, son of Mr. and Mrs. John K. Davis of West Memphis; Shirley Varner, 13, foster daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Wallace Lopez of Memphis; Philis Roberson, 15, of Stuttgart, Ark., and Betty Penington, also 15, of Benton, Ark., drove out to Graceland to have a look at the home of Elvis.

'The children had no idea of seeing Elvis', said Mrs. Davis', in fact, we warned them that they couldn't. We drove the children out about 9 p.m.. And then we saw one of Elvis' cousins, Wayne Presley, whom we met in West Memphis last summer. He recognized us and said he would go inside and explain the situation to Elvis'.

'When Elvis' uncle, Travis Smith, called us out of a line of some 30 cars and motioned us inside the gate you could have heard our children squealing and the other disappointed fans moaning a mile away.

Elvis Presley - March 1960

'Elvis is a warm hearted and thoughtful young man. He came bounding out of the front door of his home looking handsome in a dark suit and a white shirt. He kissed the girls on the cheeks and they stood like rag dolls vowing to never wash their faces again. He shook hands and thanked us for bringing the children to see him'.

Mrs. Davis says the children are deaf but not mute, and that some even have partial hearing. Contrary to popular notion, deaf children love music. They feel the vibrations and even dance in their stocking feet to feel the vibration of the music more keenly. Last year the Davis family donated a juke box and several albumsl.

Elvis And Friends

When Elvis Presley visited backstage at Holiday On Ice on December 26, 1958, he renewed several acquaintances he made the previous year when he saw the show in Frankfurt, Germany.

There are four different Holiday companies around the world, but five members of the troupe now in Memphis were in the company Elvis saw in Germany.

The photos below were taken backstage in Frankfurt, Germany on December 26, 1958.

From Elvis Presley Music ---- https://www.elvispresleymusic.com.au