BIDS MADE FOR PRESLEY VIDEOTAPE

Five bidders have offered $500,000 for an unedited, four-hour videotape of Elvis Presley’s final concert tour, according to the agent handling the one-of-a-kind tape.

“We are in the process of negotiating and qualifying the five bidders,” agent Tyler Kjar said Tuesday when contacted by The Times, adding that there was also a prospect of a sixth bidder.

Wade Williams, 44, a former CBS sound engineer, put the tape up for sale in May to pay for mushrooming medical bills incurred during treatment of four heart attacks. He asked for $500,000.

Williams supplied the mobile recording truck that CBS used in June, 1977, to record the audio from Presley’s last tour for a television special.

During concerts in Omaha, Neb., and Rapid City, S.D., Williams used a videotape machine to record more than four hours of black-and-white footage before, during and after the shows. CBS taped a shorter, color version that shows only selected portions of the performances.

Presley died Aug. 16, 1977, of a heart attack.

Shortly after the existence of the tape and its availability for sale were announced, Kjar said he was swamped with calls from fans who wanted to buy a copy of the videotape. But the Presley estate has allowed that the tape could be sold only to a private party, so mass production or a television broadcast of the tape is impossible, he said.