ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS: Did Elvis Presley ever make a Western? (2024)

QUESTION Did Elvis Presley ever make a Western?

Elvis saddled up for his first feature film — the post-Civil War Western Love Me Tender (1956) — and one of his last screen appearances as an actor was as an outlaw trying to go straight in Charro!

In this 1969 Western, Elvis sported a stubbly beard — perhaps as a nod to Clint Eastwood's 'Man With No Name' character, which was well-established at the time.

In between those two films, he starred in Don Siegel's 1960 Western Flaming Star, in which he played a troubled character whose father was a rancher and mother was a member of the Kiowa tribe.

In Frankie And Johnny (1966) he played a Mississippi riverboat singer who liked to gamble.

Elvis often starred in two, sometimes three films a year — most of them formulaic, fun, lightweight vehicles, made to keep Elvis fans around the world happy.

They lacked the dramatic depth of his Westerns, and in Flaming Star, produced — like Love Me Tender — by 20th Century Fox, he gives a memorably powerful performance.

Alan Wightman, Newport, Gwent.

QUESTION What is the origin of the term 'fleapit' when speaking about a local cinema?

Fleapit, bug hutch, bug house and scratch hatch were all terms for second-rate, grubby cinemas that proliferated in the 1920s and 1930s. As author Anthony Burgess states in Inside Mr Enderby: 'Here was the authentic fleapit... epitome of every bughouse that Enderby had, as a child, queued outside.'

By the middle of the 1930s, 18 million people a week in Britain went to the cinema. Sheffield alone had 52 venues. There was a great contrast between the city centre 'picture palaces' and the local neighbourhood 'fleapits'. The venues varied widely in terms of price, programming, seating capacity, decoration, amenities, clientele and status.

The bugs were quite real. In Mark Aston's book The Cinemas Of Camden, local historian Des Whyman recalled visits to The Court where: 'The usherettes came down the auditorium's two aisles and sprayed pesticide to kill fleas, flies and bugs.' University College London film historian Professor Melvyn Stokes, director of the research project Remembering British Cinema-going Of The 1960s, tells a similar story. At an event in the Wirral discussing cinemas of that era, members of the audience recalled children's matinees, where a cinema employee would spray the auditorium with the insecticide DDT, to combat fleas or head lice.

Michael Frost, Sheffield.

QUESTION What's the origin of the insurance industry?

Insurance can be traced all the way back to the Ancient Babylonians. During the period 4000BC to 3000BC, it was known as bottomry. Bottomry contracts were known to Hindus as well, around 600BC, and were also recognised under Roman law.

These bottomry contracts were slightly different to what we know as insurance. Loans were made to merchants who traded by sea, but if their ship was lost at sea the loans did not have to be repaid. The interest on the loan covered the insurance risk.

In Ancient Rome, a form of life insurance existed with the formation of burial societies. When a member died, their funeral costs would be met by the society, which is not dissimilar to modern-day insurance policies that are sold on the premise of covering funeral costs.

Marine insurance, which emerged from bottomry, started to become highly developed during the 15th century, as merchants and ship owners started to trade further and further afield.

Fire insurance began in the UK following the Great Fire of London (1666). Companies not only provided financial protection, they also formed their own 'fire brigades' to fight fires and therefore limit the company's losses.

It is said that if adjacent buildings were on fire, two different fire brigades might turn up and neither would fight the fire in the property covered by the rival company.

Metal 'fire marks' installed on buildings indicated which companies insured them against fire. As they were metal, they were less likely to be destroyed in a fire and served as proof of a building's cover in the event of a claim.

The Hand In Hand is Britain's oldest surviving insurance company. It was founded in 1696. In 1905 it was acquired by Commercial Union.

In London, Lloyd's Coffee House (originally established in Tower Street, before moving to Lombard Street in the 1690s) was a meeting place for investors in marine insurance. It is the origin of Lloyd's of London, which is still one of the largest insurance brokers in the world.

Bob Cubitt, Northampton.