Elvis at home in Memphis in 1956 with a high school girlfriend.

Early next year, a new exhibit of photographs that capture Elvis in 1956, on the precipice of of becoming the King, opens at the Grammy Museum in LA. It’ll make its way to the Clinton Center in 2011.

“Elvis at 21” collects the photographs of Alfred Wertheimer, a German emigre who at the time didn’t know who Elvis was. But he caught on.

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An article in the latest Vanity Fair (no link available) offers a behind the scenes look at the photos in the exhibit.

Here’s Wertheimer’s memories of an early shoot:

“We go to his suite, and he flops out on a sofa. They brought him an envelope full of fan mail, and he starts reading six-page letters without saying anything. Elvis never explained anything… Then he gets tired and falls asleep on top of the fain mail. So I fall asleep in a chair. The next thing I know, I hear a buzzing. It turns out to be a Norelco electric shaver. he’s in the bathroom, shaving. He’s got his pants on, but he’s got his top bar. I say, “Elvis, can I come in? I’d like to continue my photographs.’ He says, ‘Sure, c’mon in.’ I think in the back of his mind he felt, One of these days I’m going to get famous. And if there’s no one here to record me, how is anyone going to know what I did?”

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