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Elvis Aaron Presley was born to Vernon and Gladys Presley in a two-room house in Tupelo, Mississippi on January 8, 1935.
His twin brother Jessie Garon was sadly stillborn. He and his parents moved to Memphis Tennessee when he was 13 years old. Elvis graduated from Humes High School in 1953.
Following graduation, he found work driving a truck for the Crown Electric Company for $1.25 an hour and started evening classes with the aim of becoming an electrical repairman. Elvis' career path, however, changed after a visit to the recording studios of Sun Records where he was paid $4 to cut a two-track disc containing covers of the Ink Spots' ballads My Happiness and That's When Your Heartaches Begin.
Ostensibly made as a birthday present for his doting mother, a copy of the record found its way into the hands of Sun Records president Sam Phillips - Elvis' singing career began when he signed up with the Sun Records, Memphis in 1954.
Elvis laid down his first two-track recording for Sun and Memphis area stores sold 6,000 copies in one week! A star had been born.
Under the management of Dutch illegal immigrant Andreas van Kuijk, who called himself 'Colonel' Thomas A Parker and was to have a long and arguably detrimental relationship on his protŽgŽ, the young Memphis sensation toured across the South as 'The Hillbilly Cat', and produced four more records.
A string of television appearances culminated in a performance of Heartbreak Hotel on The Milton Berle Show, which ignited a nationwide Elvis craze and by 1956 he was an international sensation.
In that year alone, he had five number one hits which spent a combined 36 weeks at the top of the chart.
His energetic singing combined with his brazenly rebellious gyrating, sold millions of records and his massive success helped establish rock and roll as a wildly lucrative musical genre and paved the way for an entire generation of music artists.
On August 16, 1977, at 2.30pm, Elvis Presley was discovered unconscious at his home - he was pronounced dead an hour later at the Baptist Memorial hospital, Memphis.
Elvis is beyond legend, beyond icon - a force in popular culture spanning two centuries and beyond.
To celebrate his life TCM is dedicating an afternoon to Elvis.
The programming kicks of with Viva Las Vegas at 3pm and is followed by Offset; Jerry Schilling - one of Elvis' best friends talking exclusively to TCM - before finishing with Jailhouse Rock at 4.40pm.
