Elvis Was There : Postage stamps: The Hollywood Post Office does brisk business with release of commemorative issue on the 58th anniversary of Presley’s birth. Other branches also are jammed.

With El Vez, the Mexican Elvis, and the mini-skirted Elvettes heaving to a Spanish version of “It’s All Right Mama,” Hollywood resurrected the The King on Friday.

The faithful had waited years for this day. They braved foul weather to secure a spot in line. They nervously prepared to lick stamps till they dropped.

At 12 noon (actually a few minutes after) the Hollywood Post Office began selling the long-awaited 29-cent Elvis Presley commemorative stamp to a hungry mob of fans and collectors intent on securing the first-day Hollywood postmark on what would have been the 58th birthday of The King.

“Happy Birthday!” a stiletto-mustached El Vez cried out to the masses.

“We love you!” he yelled.

So it went on the first day.

While the U.S. Postal Service is selling the Elvis stamp throughout the country, there are few places in the world that can lay claim to The King like Hollywood.

Yeah, Memphis was his home. Sure, he was a Las Vegas legend. Of course, he was born in Tupelo.

But as Hollywood resident Mark Bedrosian said: “This is where he became famous, this is where he made his movies, this is the place!”

In Hollywood fashion, they celebrated the arrival of The King’s stamp with television cameras, bilingual rock ‘n’ roll and lots of El Vez T-shirts.

“I stayed up all night to make sure I wouldn’t be late,” said Charity Carlson of Hollywood as she stood in line just before noon. “This is part of cultural history.”

The release of the Elvis stamp Friday is the culmination of years of work by loyal fans, long distraught over the fact that he had never been honored by his own country. Grenada had an Elvis stamp long before the United States.

Recently, opposition to the stamp, based largely on Presley’s drug use, began to wane. Last summer, more than 1 million people cast votes in a nationwide election to select the artwork for the stamp. By an overwhelming majority, the faithful chose a youthful 1950s Presley over a pudgy, jumpsuit-clad version from the Vegas days.

The Postal Service has printed 300 million of the stamps and is preparing to print another 200 million, the largest commemorative issue in history.

Unlike past commemorative issues, the Postal Service decided to release the stamp at noon throughout the country. The only exception was in Memphis, where the stamps went on sale just after midnight Friday morning.

As a concession to fans and collectors, the first-day Jan. 8 Memphis postmark will be available for the next 30 days to customers who send their stamped letters to an address in Tennessee.

The only disruption to the distribution plan was a mistaken sale of 60 stamps last week by a post office in Amarillo, Tex.

Sales were brisk on the first day of official release. The tiny Sierra Madre Post Office sold all of its 16,000 allotment in two hours. Brea postal officials figure they sold about 8,000 in half an hour.

The official release of the stamp Friday brought out Elvis impersonators by the truckload. The post office in Rancho Cucamonga had one, along with Irvine, Huntington Beach and Bellflower, to name a few.

El Vez, who doesn’t look much like Elvis but sings a fairly swinging rendition of “Esta Bien Mama,” was chosen to appear in Hollywood as an appropriate symbol of the city’s diversity, said Los Angeles Postmaster Jesse Durazo.

El Vez was allowed to buy the first two stamps, which he promptly affixed to a letter to President-elect Bill Clinton.

“You are the presidente, but he will always be The King,” El Vez wrote. “If enough people buy and collect the stamp, he could help you pay off the deficit in two shakes of a Chihuahua’s tail.”

Because the Hollywood first-day postmark was only available Friday, the post office drew a heavy crowd of collectors.

“Remember, you can get Graceland for a month, but you can only get Hollywood for a day,” said Israel Bick, who did a brisk business in selling embossed Elvis envelopes at the post office Friday.

Bedrosian said he believed the Hollywood postmark would ultimately become the most prized because of its relative rarity, although others scoffed, calling Hollywood nothing more than a curiosity postmark.

But for many of the faithful, the postmark was irrelevant. Just having the stamps was enough.

“I bought one sheet that I can keep forever, one sheet that my best friend can keep forever, one sheet that my boss can keep forever and one sheet I’m going to sleep with forever,” swooned a leather-clad Carmen Hillebrew of Hollywood.

Elvis Stamps: Day One Postmark

Customers have 30 days to obtain the first-day-of-issue postmark by mail. The easiest way is to purchase the stamps at the local post office, affix the stamps to envelopes of your choice, address the envelopes (to yourself or others), put a card of postcard thickness into each envelope, tuck in the flap, and place the envelopes in a larger envelope addressed to:

Customer Affixed Envelopes

Elvis Presley Commemorative Stamp

Postmaster

555 S. Third

Memphis, Tenn. 38101-9991

Once the first-day-of-issue postmark is applied, the envelopes will be returned through the mail. There is no charge for the postmark. Customers who want the Postal Service to affix stamps (to a maximum of 50 envelopes), should send self-addressed envelopes and 29 cents per envelope, in check or money order, to:

Elvis Presley Commemorative Stamp

Postmaster

555 S. Third

Memphis, Tenn. 38101-9992

All orders must be postmarked by Feb. 7.

Source: U.S. Postal Service