Because the sequins, rhinestones, and jumpsuits amassed at Central Station on Thursday morning for the annual Elvis Categorical to Parkes, the King himself might have been feeling a little bit shook up. The Priscilla Presleys, used to creating rather less dialog, are this 12 months taking a little bit extra motion.
Priscilla impersonators Gail Goulding from Albion Park and Deborah Petreski from Wollongong, who’ve been attending the competition for 13 years, have been amongst many eagerly awaiting Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla, due on Australian cinema screens subsequent week (January 18).
Priscilla fanatics Anne Pagano and Mary Carrolo at Central Station boarding the Elvis Categorical for the Parkes Elvis Competition. Credit score: Louise Kennerley
They are saying it’s time the 78-year-old former chair of Elvis Presley Enterprises is well known as a profitable businesswoman moderately than simply the spouse within the shadow of the singer, due to the movie primarily based on her 1985 memoir, Elvis and Me.
Priscilla fanatics Gail Goulding and Deborah Petreski with Sean Wright (Elvis) at Central Station earlier than boarding the Elvis Categorical Practice for the Parkes Elvis Competition.Credit score: Louise Kennerley
“She helps hold his reminiscence alive. If it wasn’t for her, Elvis would have pale away,” mentioned Goulding.
“As guardian of Elvis’s property she safeguards his legacy and approves the Elvis tribute artists,” mentioned Petreski. “She is the facility behind the throne.”
They have been amongst tons of of Presley followers on the station on Thursday morning, boarding the practice headed for the thirty first Parkes Elvis Competition.
Their Priscilla wig is their “signature look”, they defined, whereas every year they modify their outfits to suit the theme of every competition.
This 12 months’s theme is the 1957 basic Elvis movie Jailhouse Rock, so there have been a lot of black and white striped jail-themed outfits, together with sequined Elvi, hamming it up as they boarded the practice.
Aficionados of the singer and Parkes Elvis Competition, which attracts round 25,000 Elvis fanatics to this central-western NSW city yearly, have been welcomed at Central Station by Parkes’ new mayor Neil Westcott, a fifth-generation farmer, who sported a blue jumpsuit with rhinestones.
“The temper in the primary road is buzzing – we are able to’t wait to welcome guests to our city.
“Baz Luhrmann’s movie about Elvis has actually reignited curiosity in Elvis post-COVID,” he mentioned, including subsequent week’s Priscilla launch was eagerly awaited by Parkes’ folks.
The four-day competition is a chance to step out in Elvis-inspired vogue for 4 pals from Lismore and the Gold Coast who’ve been coming to the competition for a decade now.
Sporting home made black-and-white tailor-made outfits with matching baggage covers impressed by Presley’s Viva Las Vegas jumpsuit, twins Kim Condon and Kerry Elson say it is a likelihood to specific their lifelong love of Presley, who would have turned 89 this previous Monday.
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“Yearly they’d come into the shop the place I labored to purchase material for his or her costumes, so I requested to come back alongside,” mentioned one of many quartet, Wendy McIntosh, who waved the practice off at Central, earlier than heading to the airport to take the Rex “Hound canine” flight to Parkes, piloted by an Elvis impersonator.
For the second 12 months in a row, the Elvis Categorical was pushed by jumpsuit-wearing Parkes native, Peter White, a NSW practice driver for over 30 years.
“There’s nobody in Parkes who doesn’t have an Elvis go well with or a Priscilla wig,” mentioned White.
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