It was a little painful for me to get involved in the 1968 Special. There were two choreographers already hired by NBC, Claude Thompson and Jaime Rogers and although I had danced for Elvis, I wasn't one of their dancers, nor they knew who I was. But either Elvis, director Steve Binder or Joe Esposito suggested I be allowed to dance, so they assigned me to Jaime's dancers. After an embarrasing start, after all, each choreographer prefers to use their own dancers, things were better for me. I was in a scene which Jaime directed but the NBC censors cut, the bordello scene. Now, on the side Lance Legault and I worked with Elvis on some the dancing sequences and we would sometimes give him advice. He was an amazing listener, and one of the best natural dance movers that I ever worked with. He could do everything, an ability to just feel it from the inside out. But the one thing that stood out in my mind on the set was when I was called over to where the guys all hung out, taking a break. And he was talking, seated while giving a donation to a group of nuns that were on the set. And I am thinking to myself, OK, this man makes a very good living, I would assume but he was taking his five minute break to talk to each one of these nuns, and find out where they were all from. And I was just standing there listening. And that meant so much to me. It was unbelievable experience to watch him give like that. To give money is one thing, but to give of his time, and to give of his soul and to care about where all of these nuns came from, that was just such a highlight and memory for me.
What It Means
This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "It was a little painful for me to get involved in the 1968 Special. There were two choreographers already hired by NBC, Claude Thompson and Jaime Rogers and although I had danced for Elvis, I wasn't one of their dancers, nor they knew who I was. But either Elvis, director Steve Binder or Joe Esposito suggested I be allowed to dance, so they assigned me to Jaime's dancers. After an embarrasing start, after all, each choreographer prefers to use their own dancers, things were better for me. I was in a scene which Jaime directed but the NBC censors cut, the bordello scene. Now, on the side Lance Legault and I worked with Elvis on some the dancing sequences and we would sometimes give him advice. He was an amazing listener, and one of the best natural dance movers that I ever worked with. He could do everything, an ability to just feel it from the inside out. But the one thing that stood out in my mind on the set was when I was called over to where the guys all hung out, taking a break. And he was talking, seated while giving a donation to a group of nuns that were on the set. And I am thinking to myself, OK, this man makes a very good living, I would assume but he was taking his five minute break to talk to each one of these nuns, and find out where they were all from. And I was just standing there listening. And that meant so much to me. It was unbelievable experience to watch him give like that. To give money is one thing, but to give of his time, and to give of his soul and to care about where all of these nuns came from, that was just such a highlight and memory for me." in the context of "Anita Mann Five time Emmy Award recipient, choreographer, dancer and actress, speaking for the Television Academy Foundation on her contribution to Elvis feeling more relaxed on the dancing sequences during the shooting of the 1968 TV special" to mean that wisdom is timeless.
About Elvis Presley