The Afternoon Tom Petty Waited Under a Pine Tree

A Nod and a Hello

Tom Petty was sitting under a pine tree with nothing to do when his aunt pulled into the yard and asked if he wanted to go see Elvis Presley. They were filming down in Ocala, she said¹. He had a vague memory of Elvis from years earlier, when there had been some commotion in the house about the singer's "wiggle," but he had never seen anyone famous and had nothing better to do that day, so he climbed into the car with his cousins¹.

It was an unremarkable errand, the kind of thing a kid says yes to because the alternative is boredom. Nothing about the drive to Ocala suggested it would still be the first thing people asked Petty about more than fifty years later.

The reason Petty had any access at all ran through his uncle, usually identified as Earl Jernigan, who ran Gainesville's film-developing business and got pulled onto local productions whenever a crew came through². He had worked on The Creature from the Black Lagoon when it shot nearby, and now Follow That Dream, an Elvis Presley picture, had come to Ocala, about thirty miles from the Petty home in Gainesville^2,3. Petty was born in Gainesville on October 20, 1950, one of two sons of a tax-office worker and a traveling salesman^4,3. Filming began in the first half of July 1961, in Citrus, Marion, and Levy counties^5,2.

At the set, the scale of the thing became obvious fast. "There was a huge crowd, the biggest crowd I've ever seen in the streets of Ocala," Petty said later, describing a line of white Cadillacs pulling in while a roar went up from onlookers standing on boxes to see over each other's heads². Other retellings describe a line of white limousines, or a single black Cadillac; no contemporary production record settles which it was^6,7. What is consistent is that Petty and his cousins ended up behind a chain-link fence near a row of trailers, waiting^1,7.

When Presley finally appeared, Petty's uncle introduced the children. "Elvis, these are my nieces and nephews," one account has him saying, with Presley answering, "Hi, how are you?" before heading into his trailer^1,8. Petty later told another interviewer there wasn't really a conversation at all, that Presley was introduced and "grunted my way and kept moving"⁹. He could not later recall what, exactly, was said³. What he did remember was the walk: "He stepped out radiant as an angel," Petty said, and elsewhere, "He seemed to glow and walk above the ground. It was like nothing I'd ever seen in my life"³.

That was the entire meeting. No guitar changed hands, no advice was given, no conversation took place that either of them would have called a conversation. A ten-year-old got a nod and a greeting from a movie star passing from his car to his trailer, and that was supposed to be the end of it.

It was not. Petty went home and, within days, traded his Wham-O slingshot to his friend Keith Harben for a stack of Elvis 45s, roughly twenty records Harben's older sister had left him^2,10. "That's what kicked off my love of music," Petty said². His father later worried that he wouldn't go outside anymore, that all he did was play those records². Harben remembered it the same way: "Tom just got totally immersed in everything Elvis," eventually saving for a better stereo, then an acoustic guitar, then teaching himself to play¹⁰.

From there the line runs fairly directly, if slowly, toward the rest of his life. He formed a band called the Sundowners at fourteen, joined the Epics at sixteen (the group that became Mudcrutch), and by 1974 had driven to California chasing a record deal^4,11. Mudcrutch's members Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench followed him into Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, whose self-titled debut came out in November 1976^4,8. Petty would go on to sell more than 80 million records and get inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002⁴. He died on October 2, 2017, in Santa Monica, at 66⁴.

He never saw Elvis again after that day in Ocala². The meeting had lasted the length of a greeting and a walk to a trailer door, but Petty kept telling the story for the rest of his life, usually ending it the same way: a nod, a hello, and then everything after that was rock and roll.

Who Was There

• Tom Petty: Ten-year-old Gainesville boy in 1961, later founder and frontman of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers⁴.
• Elvis Presley: Then 26, starring as Toby Kwimper in Follow That Dream, shot on location in Florida in 1961^5,9.
• Earl Jernigan: Petty's uncle, generally identified as running a Gainesville film-developing business and taking crew jobs on productions passing through, including this one^2,1.
• Keith Harben: Petty's childhood friend who traded him a stack of Elvis 45s for a Wham-O slingshot shortly after the set visit^2,10.
• Petty's aunt: Named in different accounts as Ellen or Evelyn/Evelyne, she drove Petty and his cousins to the Ocala set^2,1.

The Movie Being Filmed

Follow That Dream was a Mirisch Productions musical comedy starring Presley, based on Richard P. Powell's 1959 novel Pioneer, Go Home!, with the title changed, allegedly because the songwriters could not find a rhyme for "pioneer"⁵. Filming took place in Citrus, Marion, and Levy counties, including Inverness, Ocala, Inglis, and Yankeetown, starting in early-to-mid July 1961 (sources differ on the exact start date, giving either July 6 or July 11)^5,2. The film was released in 1962 and reached number 5 on Variety's weekly box office survey⁵.

Presley was coming off his return from Army service in Germany and a stretch of chart success with Elvis Is Back! and Something for Everybody, in what fans sometimes call his "movie years," the stretch between the rockabilly star of the 1950s and the Las Vegas-era Elvis of the 1970s⁷. Director Gordon Douglas later said of him, "Elvis was a damned good actor and played some damned good scenes. He could do more than sing"⁵.

What the Accounts Don't Agree On

Several details shift depending on which interview or retelling is consulted. Petty's age at the time is usually given as ten, matching his October 1950 birth date against the July 1961 shoot, but at least one of his own retellings has him saying he was "eleven, just about to be twelve"^4,1.

The vehicles Presley arrived in are described inconsistently: a line of white Cadillacs, a line of white limousines, or a single black Cadillac^2,6,7. His uncle's exact job on the production is also described differently, sometimes as film processing or developing, sometimes as general crew or stagehand work^2,1,9.

Accounts of the actual exchange with Presley vary too. One version has a polite "Hi, how are you?" followed by Presley heading to his trailer^1,8. Another, given directly to a journalist, has Petty saying there was no real conversation at all, that Presley simply "grunted my way and kept moving"⁹. These aren't necessarily contradictions so much as the same brief, wordless-feeling moment described with different emphasis by the same man over different decades.

Timeline

1. October 20, 1950Tom Petty is born in Gainesville, Florida^4,3.
2. July 1961Filming begins on Follow That Dream in Florida, with sources giving either July 6 or July 11^5,2.
3. Summer 1961Petty's aunt drives him and his cousins to the Ocala set, where his uncle is working on the production^2,1.
4. Summer 1961, shortly afterPetty trades his Wham-O slingshot to Keith Harben for a stack of Elvis 45s^2,10.
5. 1962Follow That Dream is released⁵.
6. 1974Petty and future Heartbreakers drive to California seeking a record deal^4,11.
7. November 1976Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers release their self-titled debut album^4,8.
8. 2002Petty and the Heartbreakers are inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame⁴.
9. October 2, 2017Tom Petty dies in Santa Monica, California, at age 66⁴.

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