Just a few hours earlier, the Times added, Elvis had held a press conference “in a hotel ballroom jammed with freaks, little skinny girls, fat men in hippie clothes, lots of leather jackets and inane questions.” Clad in a blue satin jumpsuit, the singer, with his mane of black hair and showbiz smile, received his audience with patience and grace. “hen he started to work with the mike, his right hand flailing air, his left leg moving as though it had a life of its own, time stopped, and everyone in the place was 17 again,” Chase wrote. The “prince” in question was Elvis Presley, performing live on June 9, the opening of his three-day, four-show engagement at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
“He looked like a prince from another planet, narrow‐eyed, with high Indian cheekbones and a smooth brown skin untouched by his 37 years,” reported the New York Times ’ Chris Chase in June 1972.
