Elvis worked for MARL Metal Products, a furniture manufacturer – He worked the 3:00 PM – 11:00 PM shift as an assembler.
EIN: How strange that Elvis did that photo shoot for Hungerford Furniture yet there didn’t seem to be anything “Elvis-Style” about the furniture at all, i.e. no logos used. Whose idea would that have been?
Bob Pakes: The whole idea came from Hungerford. Apart from how impossible the combination of a rocking and rolling Elvis Presley and stiff solid mahogany furniture actually was, this ridiculous business plan also tells us how huge Elvis was by late 1956. He was so big, that just the mention of his name kept the cash registers ringing, so I guess you can hardly blame Hungerford for jumping on the extremely successful bandwagon of their hometown's most famous citizen in order to be able to advertise a special section of their furniture as "Endorsed by Elvis Presley". But their campaign was a huge failure and sort of erased from history. Until the publication of the Hungerford related newspaper articles and advertisements in the EPE book (that prove the actual production and existence of Elvis Presley furniture in early 1957), the general belief within the Elvis community had always been that Hungerford had abandoned their Elvis campaign right after the photo shoot had taken place. But as we now know, this is not true: Elvis Presley furniture is out there.
https://www.elvisinfonet.com/interview_ ... talog.html
December 12, 1956
A busy day: Elvis donated some toys to a Marine drive for underprivileged children.
RCA decided to have Elvis in advertising for RCA equipment and the Hungerford Furniture photo shoot was done. RCA realized teenagers don’t buy family furniture and the photos were unused.
