Canadian actress Genevieve Bujold, who had a long and successful career in movies, was cast to star as Captain Elizabeth Janeway on the television series Star Trek: Voyager (though, at Bujold’s request, the character was renamed Nicole).
Bujold had done little work in episodic television, nor had she previously worked on a franchise like Star Trek, which tends to have substantial demands for interviews and press appearances. She wasn’t prepared for the production schedule of an episodic series, and wasn’t interested in participating in interviews – after two days of shooting for Voyager, she quit the role, and was replaced by Kate Mulgrew (and the character was renamed, again, to Kathryn).
I thought his movie interlude was brilliant and perfectly timed to avoid competition with the Beatles and other hipper, younger acts. While his contemporaries were forced into C&W or Easy Listening or even retirement, Elvis pulled down a heathy paycheck and kept his face in front of the public until nostalgia kicked in around 1969.
He wasn’t making Lawrence of Arabia or 8½ but his films weren’t any worse than the average output of Hollywood, and as an actor he was as good as any other silver screen heartthrob in the 1960s.
Elvis wanted a movie career. Also, virtually every singer crossed over to movies, or attempted to cross over. Elvis had some ability as an actor. He wasn’t great. They should have kept up the quality more, mixed it up more and less formula dreck. Do some live shows during that period as well. Instead of endless movies, followed by endless touring. The results were suboptimum, but Elvis going to the movies was the correct career move.
I seem to remember hearing that Elvis wanted to take acting classes and be a serious actor, and that he had the potential to be a very good actor. But the only thing Hollywood would put him into were those awful “musicals”. He quit trying to be an actor because he couldn’t get any part other than handsome singer, the lone exception being a John Wayne western that he did a decent job.
My understanding from watching many behind-the-scenes and outtakes from Seinfeld was that Michaels was by far the most professional of the performers, constantly rehearsing, improvising, and getting irritated when scenes had to be reshot when one of the other actors broke character/started laughing. Now, that doesn’t mean he didn’t luck out with his role on Seinfeld, necessarily, but the man seems to have worked hard and had a lot of talent.
Yeah, maybe Elvis had the talent for better movies than the stereotypical ones he starred in with usually five of the most inane songs he recorded in his career squeezed in, but the Colonel was only looking for the next big easy bucks. He was never concerned about Elvis Presley, the artist, whatsoever.
