A comeback is a return to the spotlight after years of absence, decline or reinvention, ideally with a performance that makes everyone wonder why they ever looked away. Show business adores the format because it arrives with a ready-made plot: the doubters, the long wait and the moment the lights go up again.
The model for them all aired on NBC on 3 December 1968. Elvis Presley had not played a live concert in seven years, having spent the decade making films, and the special had first been conceived as a Christmas show. Instead viewers saw him lean, tanned and dressed head to toe in black leather. The programme was officially called simply Elvis; the public renamed it the ’68 Comeback Special, and the label has followed every returning star ever since.