Exclusive: Inside pic and story on Memphis location for Elvis Down Under

The location used to recreate Memphis for the movie production of Elvis is an old Gold Coast dump, renowned for its stink and being part of a murder mystery. FULL DETAILS >>>

• When Gold Coast will reach 1 million people
• Residents call for ‘jail time’ over damaged Coast tree

THE location used to recreate Memphis for the movie production of Elvis is an old Gold Coast dump, renowned for its stink and being part of a murder mystery.

As this exclusive picture shows, Mayor Tom Tate visited location filming at the Village Roadshow studios at Oxenford and at the old Suntown tip at the neighbouring central Coast suburb of Arundel.

“We went back to the dump, Suntown. We will rename it the Suntown Studio. Literally it’s a dump and now it’s a street of Memphis,” Cr Tate told councillors.

In the late 1990s the tip, apart from causing a stench for students attending the neighbouring Arundel State School, was a subject of mystery and gossip for them.

FULL DIGITAL ACCESS: JUST $1 FOR FIRST 28 DAYS

Staffers and children became aware that detectives were scouring through the rubbish to try and locate parts of the body of a former Japanese criminal.

Akiko Kitayama, 52, was later convicted and sentenced in Brisbane’s Supreme Court after being found guilty of cutting up her husband with a chainsaw in 1999.

The Crown had alleged Kitayama dumped the body of her murdered husband of 21 years at the tip between April 13 and 25.

Hamago Kitayama, who was reported missing by his wife from their Gold Coast apartment in 1999, which led to police searching the Suntown tip.

FLASHBACK: SHOCKING MURDER OF HAMAGO KITAYAMA

The body of Hamago Kitayama has never been found. He had been a crime lord surviving 30 years in one of Japan’s most violent Yakuza clans before arriving on the Coast to retire.

A millionaire who specialised in selling protection to shopkeepers, Hamago had a stroke in 1996.

Police search through rubbish for the body of Japanese millionaire Hamago Kitayama in May 1999. Picture: Troy Purdue.

UPDATE: Mega concert planned for Gold Coast postponed

The court was told his wife allegedly strangled him, cut him up with an electric saw, placed the dismembered body in plastic bags and then put them into a large bag that was left for garbage collection under their Surfers Paradise home unit.

Akiko Kitayama, the wife of Japanese businessman Hamago Kitayama, at the Southport Watchhouse. Picture: Geoff McLachlan.

Almost a decade later the tip was again in the news as many residents blamed their health issues on the dump.

Council agreed to install in-house monitors after residents complained about potential explosions due to methane gas leaking from the site.

The police search at the tip. Pic Troy Purdue.

The landfill which opened in 1979 was closed in 2012, and recently was subjected to high security as residents watched old vehicles being driven down Captain Cook Drive.

Area councillor Ryan Baydon-Lumsden in a Facebook update confirmed “the site has been converted to the streets of Memphis Tennessee” for the Elvis production.

Location of the Suntown tip - it is to the far left - the green space next to Arundel.

Residents told him they had heard a voice on a microphone through to the early hours of the morning shouting “lights, camera, action”.

Cr Bayldon-Lumsden told the Bulletin filming should be winding up at the tip this week.

“I think it has been great for the city. A lot of residents have had their restored vehicles used in the production,” he said.

“I believe nothing can happen with the tip’s future until all the methane has been leeched from the site. It would be nice if it had some broader community service like sporting fields or green space (in the next few decades).”

Mayor Tate recalled his visit later to the Village Roadshow studios where he spoke to Mr Luhrmann.

Security at the Suntown tip on the set of Elvis on the Gold Coast.

The top Australian director told the Mayor he could not recall, since turning 18, staying in a location longer than 12 months.

Post production will take his family’s stay on the Coast to possibly longer than 18 months. The Mayor said he hoped the crew could stay longer.

“The word is out we have the talent and location,” he said.

Moviegoers will have to wait longer than expected to see the film – which was subject to a six-month delay last year after star Tom Hanks tested positive to COVID-19 – with reports last week that its release has been pushed back from November to June next year.

Follow @PaulWestonGC