From Tupelo To Memphis

It's not very far from Tupelo, where rock legend Elvis Presley was born in 1935, to Memphis, where he died 42 years later, but it was a journey that took "The King" through New York, Hollywood, Las Vegas and many of the capitals of Europe. This road sign on the border between the two states is dedicated to Presley.

Elvis Presley, left, with bass player Bill Black, guitarist Scotty Moore and Sun Records studio head Sam Phillips at an early recording session in Memphis in 1954. Presley cut his first records in the studio owned by Phillips and, with this backup band, played concerts at the Sheffield, Ala., Community Center.

Presley tries on clothes in 1956 at Lansky's Men's Store in Memphis, Tenn. Helping him is Bernard Lansky whose family ran the shop on Beale Street until a few years ago. Presley bought clothes at Lansky's throughout his career.

In a broadcast that brought him national attention, Elvis Presley performs on the "Ed Sullivan Show" Sept. 9, 1956, his first of several appearances on the CBS show.

Col. Tom Parker, left, of Madison, Tenn., beams on his protege, Elvis Presley, Jan. 7, 1957. Under Parker's management, the side-burned virtuoso of the mobile hips blossomed into a $20 million entertainment property.

Liberace, a piano virtuoso who became known as Mr. Showmanship, is shown with Presley at the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas in November 1956.

Rock 'n' Roll star Elvis Presley plays with his puppy, Sweet Pea, after a brief fistfight the evening of Oct. 18, 1956 with two filling station attendants, one of whom received a black eye. Presley said one of the men slapped him as he was signing autographs.

Presley is shown performing on the television program The Steve Allen Show at the Hudson Theatre in New York in July, 1956. At center is Steve Allen and to his right is Imogene Coca.

Now an actor as well as a singer, Presley and co-star and companion Anne Neyland read over the script of the musical movie "Jailhouse Rock" at MGM studios in Hollywood in 1957.

Presley gets a kiss from 8-year-old Mary Kosloski at his home in Memphis, Tenn., on his 23rd birthday, Jan. 8, 1958. Kosloski, the 1955 March of Dimes poster child, expresses her appreciation for the toy teddy bears Presley sent to the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis to be auctioned off to raise money for the March of Dimes.

Presley smiles after he is promoted to army sergeant at the U.S. Army Unit's maneuver headquarters in Grafenwoehr, Germany, Feb. 11, 1960. Drafted in 1958, Presley did most of his military service in West Germany.

Shooting the movie "G.I. Blues" Presley and co-star Juliet Prowse are shown with six babies on a set in Hollywood, Calif., on June 27, 1960. The babies are three sets of twins who double for one another in the movie.

Presley and Priscilla Ann Beaulieu are shown being married in Las Vegas, Nev., May 1, 1967, by Nevada Supreme Court Justice David Zenoff. It was the first marriage for both.

Presley is shown at the International Hotel where he made his first public stage appearance in 9 years in Las Vegas, Nev., in August 1969.

A handout photo of President Richard Nixon meeting with Presley on Dec. 21, 1970, in Washington. Former Nixon White House aide Egil "Bud" Krogh set up the meeting.

Now in the fringed jumpsuit phase of his career, Presley sings in New York's Madison Square Garden June 9, 1972.

Presley and wife, Priscilla, 26, leave Superior Court in Santa Monica, Calif. on Oct. 10, 1973, after he was granted a divorce on grounds of irreconciliable difference. The six-year marriage ended with a modified property settlement involving $1.5 million.

Presley performs in Providence, R.I., on May 23, 1977, in what was to be his last tour. He died Aug. 16, 1977.

A string of white vehicles follows the hearse carrying Presley's body along Elvis Presley Boulevard on the way to Forest Hills Cemetery in Memphis, Tenn., Thousands line the route for the city's final tribute to Elvis.

Fans look at the grave of Elvis Presley at Graceland, Presley's Memphis home, Friday, Aug. 14, 1987.