Morris Bates--A Snapshot of His Life and Legacy

This movie documents the amazing career of a native boy from a poor reservation in the interior of British Columbia Canada who rose to become one of the most successful Elvis Impersonators in the entertainment industry.  The loving support of his adoptive parents, the discipline and stamina he developed working as a ranch hand with his father, his determination and hard work; the integrity and equity he showed in how he treated his people are what propelled Bates to the pinnacle of success and kept him there.  On the way he met with racism and discrimination in South Africa, experienced crazy adulation in Brazil, witnessed brutal tyrrany in Southeast Asia, and bulldogged his way through a grinding regimen of two 90-minute shows a night for 10 years in Vegas.

Eventually the excess of it all paled for Bates and, wishing to be of service to his community back home, he returned to Canada and took a job as Aboriginal Liaison with the Vancouver Police Department.  A more glaringly different career change cannot be imagined--from the glittering stages of Las Vegas to the mean streets of Vancouver's downtown east side.  Here, among other things, Bates ran his Reality Check program.  So many Aboriginal youth, seeking a better life than on the reserve, would end up on the skids in Vancouver, getting into drugs, prostitution and crime.  Determined to stop this flow, Bates would take groups of these youth and give them a tour of the drug haunts, hooker hangouts and stinking back alleys of his bailliwick, showing them just where they will end up should they make the mistake of moving there.  Some 8500 of these youth went through his program, no doubt saving many of them from a life of poverty, wretchedness and despair. 

In all, a remarkable, noteworthy story!