Two and a half years before he died, Elvis Presley sat on the floor of a walk-in closet at the Las Vegas Hilton and discussed a project that might have changed the course of his life.

The meeting, as recounted by Presley’s longtime friend Jerry Schilling, put the King of Rock and Roll face to face with Barbra Streisand, who’d come to see Presley perform at the Hilton in March 1975 then sought an audience after the show to float an idea: Would Presley be interested in appearing opposite Streisand in her remake of “A Star Is Born”?

At the time of the duo’s conversation — Schilling says that he, Presley’s pal Joe Esposito and Streisand’s boyfriend Jon Peters squeezed into the closet with the stars in a search for some quiet amid the commotion backstage — it had been six years since Presley

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