Hawaii always held a special place in Elvis’s heart. So it feels right that his very last real vacation took him back there, to the sun and the water and a little stretch of simple, happy days.
In early March 1977 he flew to Honolulu on his private jet, the one named for his daughter, the Lisa Marie. With him was his fiancee, Ginger Alden.
He’d actually wanted to bring Ginger’s whole family along, because she had never been to Hawaii and he wanted her to have the time of her life. In the end only her two sisters, Terry and Rosemary, could make it. They flew out on Terry’s birthday, with the jet lifting off from Memphis just after midnight.
Ginger remembered the ride out as pure joy. In the back of the plane, she said, “he joked, laughed and sang” the whole way.
Home movies from the trip
Someone saved footage from that Hawaii getaway, and it’s about as relaxed and happy as you’ll ever see him.
Once they landed, it was a proper vacation. They stayed at the Hilton Hawaiian Village, then moved to a beach house in Kailua. Elvis went out to a shopping mall like any regular tourist. He soaked up the sun. He spent time with the people he cared about, far from the stage and the schedule.
Ginger never forgot it. “I have never forgotten the thrill of that vacation!” she said, years later.
But the best part might be what the photos from that week captured. Because Elvis wasn’t just lying on a beach chair. He was up and moving, doing the thing he’d loved since he was a teenager back at Humes High in Memphis.
Here’s a hint. It’s a game. One he’d been playing with his buddies since long before any of them were famous. And seeing him out there, grinning, tossing it around with his friends in the Hawaiian sun, is the kind of image that stays with you.
It’s the real Elvis. Not the superstar. Just a man on holiday with his friends, doing something he’d loved his whole life.
Watch the footage above to see him loose and laughing on that last trip. For anyone who only pictures the lights and the jumpsuits, this is a warm, down-to-earth side worth seeing.
Some vacations you remember for where you went. This one his loved ones remembered for how happy he was.