The ‘General Hospital’ Legend Who Almost Turned Down a Chance to Star With Elvis Presley

Jane Elliot has been wowing soap opera fans since Tracy Quartermaine made her way onto the General Hospital scene in 1978. Although she still appears as Tracy today, Elliot has multiple other soap stints under her belt, including roles on Guiding Light, All My Children, and Days of our Lives, per IMDb. However, before she ever spoke her first word as Tracy, Elliot took on another role — one that she nearly turned down.

Jane Elliot Said No to Elvis

Early in her career, Elliot was a stage actress and couldn’t see herself doing a movie with Elvis Presley. When she was offered the chance to play Sister Barbara in the 1969 flick Change of Habit, Elliot said no, something she saw as absurd years later.

“I was a snob raised on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, who went to private schools and only listened to real music,” Elliot said in a 2014 interview with TV Guide, claiming she felt doing a movie with Elvis was “beneath” her.

She eventually agreed to do the film because it was part of a multi-movie deal that she said never amounted to much, but her opinion about the king of rock and roll quickly changed.

“I was an idiot! And I now understand why those millions are still devoted to him, why their hearts broke for him, why they cried for him. It was my stupid blindness!” she said. “But on my first day on the set I did a complete 180. Elvis was a lovely, lovely man, a real gentleman and so sweet and fun and funny…I was just 21 at the time and learned so much from that experience. It was a real privilege, a thrill. I am so glad the universe saw fit to make me get over myself.”

It would be nearly a decade before Elliot became a household name as Tracy, the current Quartermaine matriarch who took home an Emmy for the role in 1981 and was inducted into the academy’s Gold Circle last year.