In a special Radio 4 Great Lives programme, to be broadcast at 4pm, listeners will hear how Lord Trimble first fell for the iconic singer's charms after the film King Creole.

"I think it was seeing King Creole really more than anything else that turned me more or less into an Elvis fan," he admitted.

Northern Ireland's former first minister also defended the King's acting when presenter Matthew Paris described his 31 movies as "mostly bad" .

"There's nothing wrong with a lightweight musical comedy," Lord Trimble said.

"You're not fair to them as mostly bad. I greatly enjoyed Follow That Dream and then you've got Viva Las Vegas, which was a superb film too."

Today's tribute programme - which coincides with the 30th anniversary of Presley's death - is the second show in the series which returned to the airwaves last week.

Lord Trimble - who also confesses that his favourite Elvis song is Good Rocking Tonight - joins Paris and the American music critic and Presley biographer Peter Guralnick to dissect Presley's life from the early recordings to the glamorous Las Vegas years.

Guralnick has written two critically acclaimed books on the icon - Last Train to Memphis in 1994, followed by Careless Love in 1999.

During the hour-long programme, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Lord Trimble talks about "the excitement" of first hearing Elvis' " controversial" music blaring out of jukeboxes on the Bangor seafront.

And, referring to the 'Elvis effect' in Co Down following his massive hit in 1957 with Heartbreak Hotel, Trimble said that, like his peers, he was All Shook Up in the spirit of "teenage rebellion".

"Elvis in his early years, in changes he made to the music scene, to pop culture and to many aspects of life... were really significant," he said.

"If he was just a good looking singer with a good voice, he wouldn't have had the tremendous impact that he had."

He also discusses Presley's comic timing, his films and his acting, as well as the King's lasting legacy to popular culture.