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Alice Anthony poses with Elvis (sophomore Chad Parker) at her art show, “Gone, but Not Forgotten” at the Johnson City Art Council Gallery. |
-Photo by Jason Harville |
She ain’t a hound-dog, but Milligan’s Alice Anthony, assistant professor for the practice of art, has a nose for tracking down and photographing Elvis fans.
Most students know her as the photography teacher whose door is always open and whose candy bowl runneth over. But when she’s away from Milligan, this Memphis native straps on her blue suede shoes and returns to her hometown to capture the Elvis fan phenomenon on film.
Anthony’s family moved to the Graceland subdivision when she was about 13, shortly after Elvis bought the mansion in the late 1950s. He was in his prime at that time, Anthony said. She remembers seeing fans flocking around his gate, all hoping for a glimpse of the King.
“He would ride through our neighborhood on his motorcycle a lot, usually with some starlet on the back,” Anthony said.
Anthony got to meet the rock ‘n’ roll star on a few occasions. Once he stopped to talk to her, and she got his autograph on her church bulletin.
Another time when Anthony was outside eating an ice-cream cone, Elvis stopped and asked her what she was eating. In her typical no-nonsense fashion she replied, “What do you think it is?” Elvis laughed and drove off.
Looking back, Anthony regrets that she didn’t begin her Elvis photography project while he was still alive and she was still in the neighborhood.
“At the time, I wasn’t a big Elvis fan,” she said.
Her interest in photographing the Elvis craze began after she moved away from Memphis in the late 1960s. She and her husband, Steve, would return every August to visit her parents. Each visit, she saw people flocking to Graceland, especially after Elvis’ death.
In 1982, Graceland was opened to the public, and the fans came by the thousands. Anthony thought the fans “were nuts” and just avoided them for a while, but soon she became fascinated with their Elvis obsession.
Every August since 1996, Anthony has made the pilgrimage to Graceland to photograph the loyal fans who gather to remember Elvis on the anniversary of his death.
Although she’s met several people who were borderline crazy when it came to Elvis lore, Anthony has gotten to know some of the fans pretty well.
“Over the years I have come to realize that they are not just strange people who dress funny or act weird,” she said. “They are really ordinary people who are simply Elvis fans.”
Anthony has developed a relationship with “the pink and black ladies,” Jerri and Annie. These two women have been coming to Elvis week at Graceland faithfully for 12 years, and they dress in pink up until the eve of the anniversary of his death, when they switch over to black to show their respects.
“The pink and black ladies know me now,” Anthony said. “(Last time) they came up and hugged me. When that happened, I thought, ‘'I've arrived.’”
August 17, 2002 marked the 25th anniversary of Elvis' death. As usual, Anthony made her annual trek to Memphis to document the event. She's still amazed at the thousands of fans who continue to come to pay their respects.
Anthony's Elvis-fan photographs will be on display from Nov. 22 to Jan. 8 in an exhibit entitled “Gone, but Not Forgotten,” at the Johnson City Art Council on Main Street. The exhibit will move to the Millennium Center in Johnson City on Jan. 8, Elvis' birthday, and then on to Northeast State Technological Community College in Blountville. Next August, the exhibit will be on display at the Tennessee Arts Commission Gallery in Nashville.