the Commercial Appeal the next day, "seemed to be honestly bereaved, but
the majority craned their necks and chattered. " Mr. Presley tried to comfort
Elvis, but every time he did, he would himself dissolve in a paroxysm
of grief. "She's gone, she's not coming back," he declared hopelessly over
and over again. Elvis himself maintained his composure a little better
until, toward the end, he burst into uncontrollable tears and, with the service
completed, leaned over the casket, crying out, "Good-bye, darling,
good-bye. I love you so much. You know how much I lived my whole life
just for you." Four friends half-dragged him into the limousine. "Oh
God," he declared, "everything I have is gone."
It was a mob scene back at Graceland, with friends and relatives milling
around in helpless confusion, Elvis inconsolable, and the Colonel at
his command post in the kitchen, when Dixie came out early that evening.
She had no intention of intruding on his grief. "I didn't mean to see
him that night, because he was already surrounded by people. I was wearing
shorts, and I had my hair in rollers, and I was just going to tell him I'd
see him the next night. I stopped at the gate, and none of the Presleys
were down there - it was like Grand Central Station, and all these little
girls were trying to get in, and I sat there for a minute and watched all the
commotion. And I went up to the guard - it was somebody I didn't
know - and said, 'Will you just call up to the house and tell Elvis that I'm
down here, and that I'll come out tomorrow night to visit with him, if
that's good: So the guy says, 'Okay, I'll tell him: but I was sure he wasn't
going to give him the message.
M A R C H - S E P T E M B E R 1 9 5 8 ", 479
"Then I went back to get in the car, and my car wouldn't start, and
while I was sitting there one of Elvis' cousins came up and said, 'Aren't
you Dixie?' And I said, 'Yes.' He said, 'Elvis is waiting on you at the
house.' I said, 'No, I don't want to see him tonight. I've got my hair rolled
up, and I'm not dressed. I was planning to see him tomorrow night.' He
said, 'No. You'd better come up. He's already called down to see if you're
here at the gate.' He took my keys to the car, and he took me up to the
house, and Elvis came out the front door and just enveloped me. We
went in the house, and the only person we saw was his grandmother. I
said, 'Where is everybody? I thought you had all these people.' Because, I
don't think this is an exaggeration, I think there were at least twenty or
thirty cars out front. He said, 'There were - but I told them to get lost.'
And I did not see or hear a soul the whole time we were there, except the
maid was in the kitchen and he went in and asked her to bring us some
lemonade, and we went in the wing where the piano was and we talked
and he sang 'I'm Walking Behind You on Your Wedding Day: and we sat
there and cried.
"We talked about his mother and rehashed from the time that I'd met
her and all the things that we'd done that were funny and silly. And he
expressed how special it was just to be with somebody you knew from
those many days back that loved you and accepted you for just what you
were back then. He said, 'I wonder how many of my friends that are here
now would be here if it were five years ago.' He said, 'Not very many,
because they are all looking for something from me.' And he told me
about one of the guys who was singing backup for him at the time who
had just given his heart to the Lord. He had been in the world for a long
time and was just really messed up, and he told Elvis that he was having
to walk away from the life that he was leading, and Elvis said, 'I wish I
could do that.' It was just so sad. I said, 'Why don't you? You've already
done what you wanted to do. You've been there, so let's just stop at the
top and go back. ' He said, 'It's too late for that. There are too many people.
There are too many people that depend on me. I'm too obligated. I'm
in too far to get out.'
"That was the last time I saw him. Well, not the last time, because I
went back the next night, all dressed up, but, you know, the next night
the house was all full of people. You know, it was like, this is the way it
will always be. That was his lifestyle. That was his life. It just reinforced to
me that what I was seeing that night was really it. We both realized that.
4 8 0 '" " P R E C I O U S M E M O R I E S "
He was in it, and there was no way out. He couldn't come back to my
lifestyle any more than I could have gone on to his. "
H e was grieving almost constantly, the papers wrote. "He'd cry all
day," said George, "and we'd get him calmed down, and the next day it
would start all over again." On Saturday he returned once again to the
Memphis Funeral Home, this time for the funeral of Red West's father.
Red, who was still in the Marine Corps and stationed in Norfolk, Virginia,
had requested emergency leave as soon as he heard of Gladys' death. It
was denied, but then he heard of his father's illness that same morning.
He was on his way home when he got word of his father's death. He was
forced to miss Gladys' funeral because he had to attend to the details of
his father's the next day, and he was flabbergasted when Elvis showed up
at the funeral home. "Man, he had gone through a trial the day before.
... He was out of it. But just before the service started Elvis appeared at
the doorway. He was with Alan Fortas and Gene Smith and Lamar Fike.
They were all very respectfully dressed. Elvis almost had to be carried
over to me.... He came over to me and sort of half fell into my arms.
'My mama was here yesterday just where your daddy is, Red,' Elvis told
me. He couldn't say too much more."
That afternoon they went out to the cemetery to visit Elvis' mother's
grave, which couldn't have seemed like much of an idea to any of his
friends but which none of them could talk him out of. "After a near emotional
breakdown," reported the Press-Scimitar, "Elvis had a fever of 'near
102,' his doctor reported. 'I went down and checked him over and gave
him some cold drugs,' the doctor said. 'I called again Sunday and he was
feeling better and eating a little, so I didn't go down.' "
His leave was extended by five days, and his friends tried to cheer him
up. He bought a new van, and the whole gang traveled with him around
the countryside - they went to the movies and the Rainbow Rollerdrome
- but it wasn't the same. Even the Tennessee Highway Patrol got
into the act, as they took him on morning helicopter rides over Memphis
and taught him how to operate the controls. All of Memphis, the whole
world, in fact, grieved with him, as more than a hundred thousand cards,
letters, and telegrams came into the Colonel's headquarters in Madison.
None of it made any difference. One day he ran into an old schoolmate
and neighbor from the Courts, George Blancet, driving down Bellevue.
"He rolled his window down, and his eyes were teary and he called me by
name. I told him I was sorry his mother had died. He just said, 'I don't
MARCH-S E P T E M B E R I 9 5 8 n.,. 4 8 I
know how I'm gonna make it.' Something like that. I t was a statement of
desperation. "
Toward the end of the week his dentist, Lester Hofman, came by with
his wife, Sterling, to pay their respects. "This was the first time we had
been there. I was racking my brain about what to do - should I send
flowers? I really didn't know - when I got a call saying, 'Dr. Hofman, can
you come out to the house? Elvis would like to see you.' When we got
there, the room was full of all his buddies. We looked around and we
didn't see a face we knew. I sat next to this young fellow, and he said,
'Who are you here to see?' I said, 'We're here to see Elvis.' He said, 'Well,
you're not going to see him. He hasn't been out of his room.' I said, 'Well,
that's his privilege. It's up to him whether he wants to see us.' Then we
were talking with Vernon, and Vernon said, Just a minute, I'll get Elvis.'
Five minutes later Elvis walked in, and he went like this and the room
cleared. We told him how sorry we were, and he said to Sterling, 'Mrs.
Hofman, I don't know if this is the right time, but the newspapers have
made my house so laughable' - that was the word. He said, 'They have
made it sound so laughable, I would love to have your opinion of my
home.' She said, 'Elvis, I really didn't come here to go through your
home. We came here to be with you.' He said, 'But I want your opinion.'
He took us all through the house, my taste is not so marvelous, but it was
very attractive, it all fit - there was a modern sculpture on the chimney
over the fireplace, and I had the same sculpture in my office, it was called
'Rhythm.' Anyway, when we got back to the living room, he said, 'What
do you think?' and Sterling said, 'If you give me the key, I'll swap you.
And I won't even move a dish!' Then Sterling said to him, 'Did you ever
think one day, you might have all of this, it's just so beautiful. ' He said,
'Mrs. Hofman, I never thought I'd get out of Humes High.' "
On Sunday he returned to Fort Hood. He left instructions that nothing
was to be changed, nothing was to be the least bit disturbed in his
mother's room, all was to be kept exactly as it had been. The simple inscription
on his mother's grave was to read: "She was the sunshine of our
home."
TH E L A S T F E W W E E KS at Fort Hood went by in a haze. Vernon,
Elvis' grandmother Minnie, Lamar, Junior, and Gene were all living
at the house in Killeen, and Red joined them when he got out of the Ma4
8 2 '" " P R E C I O U S M E M O RI E S "
rines in the first week of September. It was, as Red described it, a kind of
"open house" atmosphere in which everyone tried almost desperately to
cheer up Elvis. They'd stay up all night occasionally; "sometimes a whole
team of us would sit around with a guitar and sing ourselves hoarse."
Things were never again the same, wrote Rex Mansfield in his memoir of
army days. "We all suffered (his whole outfit) with and for Elvis' great
loss... and there remained a certain sadness with all of us throughout the
rest of our training."
The Colonel came down a couple of times to huddle with Elvis over
embarkation plans and future RCA releases. Anita, who was constantly
fending off rumors of impending marriage ("Heavenly days, I just can't
imagine it"), visited frequently in between performance dates and television
appearances. Elvis' grandmother, she noted, was doing her best to
take Gladys' place. She fixed all his favorite foods: sauerkraut and crowder
peas, sliced tomatoes and brown gravy, and bacon cooked till it was
burnt. Whatever he liked she would fix for him, and there was still an extraordinary
sense of closeness among Elvis, his father, and his grandmother,
but now it was a closeness tied to grief. Sometimes he and Anita
talked about her coming to see him when he was in Germany, but the
thought existed more in the realm of fantasy than reality.
Once in a while they would go to the drive-in in Waco with Eddie
Fadal, and Elvis and Eddie attended an r&b revue in Fort Worth ("I don't
remember who they all were, but we parked by the stage door, and they
all came out to the car and greeted him") and almost caused a riot at a
Johnny Horton show in Temple. "It was at the auditorium in downtown
Temple," said Shreveport native Jerry Kennedy, still in his teens but playing
guitar for Horton at the time. "I was sitting on those big doors that
used to come up at the back of auditoriums, where you can back a truck
into, and this car pulled up, and all these guys bailed out of it with Elvis in
uniform, and they said, 'Hey, can you let us in the back door?' I said, 'I
guess. Since it's you.' So I went down and opened the back door, and he
came in, and then we went onstage. Johnny did four or five songs, and
then he said, 'I want to extend a warm welcome to somebody who is visiting
me backstage.' He said something about his mother, and so forth, and
I remember, I was standing there thinking, 'Don't do this. Oh God, he's
not going to do that.' And he did, and then he said, T d like for him to step
out and take a bow. Elvis... ' And the people got up and just rushed the
stage, and I grabbed my guitar and got away!"
M A R C H-S E P T E M B E R 1 95 8 '" 4 8 3
The last weekend that h e was a t Fort Hood, Kitty Dolan, the young
singer whom he had met in Las Vegas the previous fall, came for a visit.
When she arrived, she found the living room full of girls. "I Was One Girl
Among Many" read the headline over her article in TV and Movie Screen.
She fully appreciated the sincerity of the others, though, and their genuine
desire to try to alleviate his grief. One fan told of visiting Graceland
and how Gladys had proudly shown her the home and the pink Cadillac
that her son had given her. "What other boy would love his parents so
much?" Gladys had said to her, the girl reported, as tears came to Elvis'
eyes. After dinner they sat around singing songs, ending with a gospel session
with a bunch of the guys. "At two A. M. we said good night," Kitty
told columnist May Mann. "When he kissed me, I said with a little laugh,
'What is this with you and Anita Wood? I've been reading all the stories.'
Elvis smiled and said, 'She has a good press agent.' And then he kissed me
again."
There is a group picture from Elvis' last night in Killeen taken with
Vernon, Lamar, Eddie, Junior, and Red, along with two or three of the fan
club presidents. Elvis has his arms around Eddie's and his father's shoulders.
He is wearing his marksman and sharpshooter medals, and he is surrounded
by friends, but he looks alone and lost, his eyes blank, his mouth
downturned, as if he were about to cry. After the picture was taken, he
asked Eddie if he would lead the group in prayer, and then they left to
take him to the troop train in the drizzling rain. "He shipped out that very
night," said Eddie. "I rode with Elvis and Anita in his new Lincoln Continental,
with Elvis driving. Then Anita and I drove home and we sat there
with Vernon for a while. We were really in mourning, he'd never been
out like that before, and we were [worrying]: how are they going to treat
him, are they going to resent or embrace him, you know, how is he going
to take it?"
TH E T R A I N R I D E to New York was uneventful for the most part. One
of four special troop trains moving approximately 1,360 soldiers to
the Brooklyn Army Terminal to ship out for Germany as replacements for
Third Armored Division troops, it was, ironically, routed through Memphis,
and word got out. When the train pulled in, there was a crowd of
fans already waiting, along with George Klein, Alan Fortas, and several
other of Elvis' friends. The train took about an hour to refuel, "and this
4 8 4 '" " P R E C I O U S M E M O R I E S "
gorgeous brunette came up to me," said Klein, "I don't know if she went to
Ole Miss at the time, but she was a typical Ole Miss beautiful girl, and she
said her name was Janie Wilbanks, and she asked if I would introduce her. I
did, and about two weeks later I get this call from Germany saying, 'Who
in the hell was that girl? Man, she was good-looking! Tell her to send me
some pictures and write to me.' That was when I first got the indication
that it might not be all that serious with Anita."
One of his fellow soldiers gave Elvis a book called Poems That Touch
the Heart, compiled by A. L. Alexander ("Creator of Radio's GOOD WILL
COURT"), and he leafed through it, reading several of the poems, including
"Mother" (Again your kindly, smiling face I see"), "Friendship," and
"One of Us Two" ("The day will dawn, when one of us shall harken / In
vain to hear a voice that has grown dumb"), but one in particular really
hit home. It was called "Should You Go First," and he stared at it for
some time, until he practically knew it by heart: 'Tll hear your voice, I'll
see your smile / Though blindly I may grope / The memory of your
helping hand / Will buoy me on with hope.... "
Mostly, though, he didn't like to be alone with his thoughts, and the
other boys wanted to hear about Hollywood and Hollywood starlets and
the movies. The train was delayed several times as it ran into commuter
traffic, and somewhere in Delaware or New Jersey a brash, pint-size
young soldier named Charlie Hodge, who had done everything he could
to get together with Elvis at Fort Hood but had never really gotten the
chance, showed up in the train car that Elvis and Rex and Nervous Norvell
were riding in. Charlie had sung with the Foggy River Boys on Red
Foley's Ozark Jubilee and had even met Elvis once backstage at Ellis Auditorium
in 1955. He was not at all shy about drawing on mutual show biz
connections, and before long they were talking about Wanda Jackson and
country comedian Uncle Cyp and the passion that they shared for quartet
music. Charlie was 'bound and determined to meet Elvis," observed Rex,
but he "really was one of the funniest guys you could meet; the type you
could not help but like and Elvis liked him instantly." They spent the rest
of the train ride trading stories and separated only when the train finally
got into the Brooklyn Army Terminal at Fifty-eighth and First Avenue, a
little after 9:00 A. M. There Elvis Presley, the public figure, became the
center of attention once again.
It was a scene worthy of P. T. Barnum, Cecil B. DeMille, or the Colonel
at his most extravagant. There were 125 newsmen waiting impaMARC
H -S E P T E M B E R 1 9 5 8 4 8 5
tiently, all of RCA's top brass, Elvis' father, his grandmother, Anita, Red
and Lamar, the Aberbachs and Freddy Bienstock, plus the Colonel with
his full entourage. Elvis would be out shortly, army spokesman Irving
Moss explained, but in the meantime he wanted to go over protocol: for
the first ten or fifteen minutes still photographers would be permitted to
take pictures; then there would be a press conference proper; following
that, the newsreel and TV cameras would have their chance; then Pfe.
Presley would board the ship's gangplank for photographers, with eight
buddies selected at random from off the train; finally, there would be a
small group of newsmen permitted on board. Would he be carrying a
duffel bag? someone asked. No, said Moss, his duffel bag had already been
loaded on board, but when that answer didn't satisfy the press, the army
spokesman proposed that a duffel bag could be borrowed. "I want to say
one more thing, ladies and gentlemen. Since this terminal has been established,
[during] World War I and through World War II and to date, there
have been millions of troops going through here and among them have
been thousands of celebrities in the various fields of the arts, sciences,
sports, and the entertainment field. It has not been, nor is it, the policy of
the army to single out any of these people for press conferences. However,
in this particular instance..." "What are we waiting for?" called out
one reporter as it became evident that Elvis Presley had arrived. "All
right, bring him out." "Let's go, for heaven's sake," came the "angered
squawks from photographers, desperately shoving each other to get a
clear shot at Presley."
Then, at last, Elvis emerged from behind the blue backing where he
had been chatting with the Colonel, stood for a moment for photographers,
smiled graciously for the cameras, signed autographs, kissed a
WAC named Mary Davies whom the army had produced for the occasion,
did his best to oblige every shouted request, and finally sat down at
the table with Information Officer Moss in front of a cluster of microphones.
He was carrying a shiny calfskin attache case and clutching the
book of poems he had had on the train. What was the train ride like? he
was asked. What were his medals for? What did the a in his name stand
for? "A-ron," he explained, pronouncing the a long. Yes, his father and his
grandmother and Lamar were going to accompany him to Germany.
Would he ever sell Graceland? "No, sir, because that was my mother's
home." The guys in his outfit had been great. "If it had been like everybody
thought, I mean everybody thought I wouldn't have to work, and I
4 8 6 ", " P R E C I O U S M E M O RI E S "
would be given special treatment and this and that, but when they looked
around and saw I was on KP and I was pulling guard and everything, just
like they were, well, they figured, he's just like us, so..."
He'd come in for a lot of criticism in his career. What did he think of
the charges that his music had contributed to juvenile delinquency? "I
don't see that. Because if there is anything I have tried to do, I've tried to
live a straight, clean life, not set any kind of a bad example." "Elvis -" "I
will say this, excuse me, sir, I will say there are people who are going to
like you and people who don't like you, regardless of what business you
are in or what you do. You cannot please everyone." What about his
great success? Did he feel that he'd been lucky, or that he had talent?
"Well, sir, I've been very lucky. I happened to come along at a time in the
music business when there was no trend. The people were looking for
something different, and I was lucky. I came along just in time." And did
he miss show business? "I miss my singing career very much. And at the
same time - the army is a pretty good deal, too." But surely he didn't
miss the fans grabbing at his clothes, invading his private life, threatening
his safety? He did, he said, he missed even that, "because that is my greatest
love - like I said, entertaining people. I really miss it."
And marriage? Did he think there was an ideal age to get married?
"Well, as you're growing up, a lot of times you think you're in love with
someone, and then later on in your life you find out that you're wrong.
Actually you didn't love them, you only thought you did. And I was no
different. Several times as I was growing up I would have probably married,
and my mother and dad talked to me and told me, 'you better wait
and find out that this is just what you want: and I'm glad that I did."
When was the last time he thought he was in love? "Oh, many times,
ma'am, I don't know, I suppose the closest that I ever came to getting
married was just before I started singing. In fact, my first record saved my
neck." There is general laughter, and then someone asks him ifhe'd like
to say something about his mother.
"Yes, sir, I certainly would. Ahhh, my mother... I suppose since I was
an only child we might have been a little closer than - I mean, everyone
loves their mother, but I was an only child, and Mother was always right
with me all my life. And it wasn't only like losing a mother, it was like
losing a friend, a companion, someone to talk to, I could wake her up any
hour of the night if I was worried or troubled about something, well,
she'd get up and try to help me. And I used to get very angry at her when I
M A R C H - S E P T E M B E R 1 9 5 8 ", 4 8 7
was growing up. It's a natural thing - a young person wants to go somewhere
or do something, and your mother won't let you, and you think,
'Why, what's wrong with you?' But then, later on in the years you find
out, you know, that she was right. That she was only doing it to protect ·
you and keep you from getting into trouble or getting hurt. And I'm very
happy that she was kind of strict on me, very happy that it worked out the
way it did."
The press conference went on for nearly an hour, and when it was
over, he posed for more pictures and signed more autographs as Information
Officer Moss tried to extricate him from the crowd. The people
would get mad if they were turned down, Elvis said in an aside to the
army information officer. "Come on," said the Colonel, urging the RCA
executives forward. "We all eat off him, let's get in the picture. The boy is
mighty sad." Then there were more photographs to be taken outside on
the dock and activities to be staged for the newsreel cameras. "I think I'm
talking for all the guys," said one of the eight army "buddies" picked at
random for the task, "when I say that we learned a lot about people in
general when we were lucky enough to have Elvis with us.... He gives
so much of himself to all the people around him that you just can't help
but improve a little through the association. He's a lonely guy in many
ways, and a little afraid of what tomorrow will bring for him and his loved
ones."
He marched up the gangplank with a borrowed duffel bag slung over
his shoulder as the army band, under the direction of Chief Warrant Officer
John R. Charlesworth, struck up "Tutti Frutti." He did it not once but
eight times for news crews and photographers, with the two thousand relatives
who were there for their own leave-takings waving and screaming
on cue. Once on board, he was closeted in the ship's library with the Colonel,
Steve Sholes, Bill Bullock, and various other members of the industry
entourage. He recorded a brief Christmas message for the fans, which,
together with an edited version of the press conference, to be entitled
"Elvis Sails!," would help keep him in touch with his public. He conferred
anxiously with the Colonel, Freddy, and the Aberbachs and promised
them that he would do his very best. "He was resigned," said Anne Fulchino,
the RCA publicity chief, who had scarcely seen him since launching
that first national publicity campaign for a bright-eyed youth in early
1956. "He was concerned about interrupting his career, he was worried
that his records would stop selling. I said there was no reason they should,
4 8 8 " P R E C I O U S M E M O RI E S "
but I know he was thinking about that." He took out one of the postcards
with which the Colonel had supplied him to present to fans and fellow
soldiers alike. "May God bless you," he wrote on it as he handed it to her.
He seemed trapped, cornered, she thought, his eyes frantically searched
the room. Why don't you come along, too? he said, suddenly, to Red,
who was just standing there with Lamar. Red could fly over with Vernon
and Grandma and Lamar. "Daddy will fix up the tickets," he said. They
would have themselves a ball.
Then there was a brief interview in the library. For the first time that
Дата добавления: 2015-09-29; просмотров: 30 | Нарушение авторских прав
| <== предыдущая лекция | | | следующая лекция ==> |