Elvis: Up Close & Personal with Sonny West

[Music] Elvis really made me mad a couple of times, but mostly he made me laugh. But there was always the music, and when I think of him—and I think of him every day—[Music] the thing I remember most about him was his humanity. [Music] [Music] I’m following you. [Music] Thank you, thank you. Well, [Applause] I want to thank all of you for coming here. And we got in with the good weather, so now when the bad weather comes, we’ll have to ask for it to go down while we go to lunch, and then it can—in your home—it can start back raining again, right? That’s what we’ve been asking for anyway. Thank you all for coming. I hope you enjoy it. I’m looking forward to sharing a lot of stories of my life with Elvis. I hope to give you an insight into him beyond what you already have from the books and the movies and documentaries. You’ve seen a lot of that was not done by some of us that were really personally close to him. And uh, so I want to tell you that—I want to—first thing I want to do is tell you about when I met him.

I met him in 1958, just before he was getting ready to go to Germany. And I was home from the Air Force; I’d gotten out and was home. And my cousin, Red, took me—my three sisters and my brother-in-law—out to the skating rink to—for Elvis’s private roller-skating party that he was having. Had a lot of them, which I was to find out much to my chagrin. But anyway, I’d like to first tell you—to kind of give you a theme of what he was beyond what you saw—that was when I first met him. I first saw him when I was in high school. He came to the campus, and he was promoting his record, “New One That’s All Right, Mama,” which was recorded on my birthday in 1954, July the 5th. And so that fall, I’m in school, go out at lunchtime, and there he is on the campus, and he’s singing these songs that he—that he had. And I thought at the time he moved around a lot, but he was good, you know. He even then he was jumping around all over the place. Girls were giggling and laughing. Oh, yeah, he was handsome, this and that.

So, uh, then the next time I saw him was I was in the Air Force, and he did a concert show out in Tucson, Arizona, where I was stationed at the base out there. And I went, saw him there. And dynamite, dynamite. She was in ‘56. And then the next time I saw him—probably will stick out; in fact, I know it will stick out in my life forever—Red’s father, my Uncle Tom, who was my favorite uncle, passed away. He actually passed away the same day that Elvis’s mother passed away. Just she passed away early in the morning, around 5:30 a.m. or so, and later that evening, going into that day in that evening, Red’s father died. So it made their funerals a day apart, but it’s kind of ironic because they were buried one day apart, but they were in the same funeral home, the services, and also the same exact stateroom. And I was sitting there with my dad in the family area, and Red’s up there on the front row, and we hear this noise behind us, and we turn around and look, and there’s a private entrance that comes in from the street, and here comes Elvis with a couple of guys with him, and he’s just kind of stumbling along, and he’s calling out to Red, “Red, Red, where—where are you, man? Red,” You gotta understand, he had just buried his mother the day before, and he came in, and Red stood up, and they embraced, and Elvis was crying very, very openly. They walked over to the casket, and he said, “All, Red, I know how much you love him. I know how much you miss him,” and he said, “Mama was just there yesterday, so I know what you’re going through.” And, uh, they hugged, and then Elvis did—you know what, Red? “I’ll be there for you, man. Come out to the house when you’re ready, but I got to get out of here.” A lot of people were crying watching that. That’s the most emotion I ever saw of Elvis in the rest of the years. I saw some other trying times for him, even when we went out to—to visit his mom’s gravesite there in the early 60s. We would drive out there quite often and go up there, and he just talked to his mom while we kind of stood off to the back, whoever was with him. But that was his humanity. That’s the Elvis that you won’t—you won’t see—you won’t ever see because he’s gone, but that’s the Elvis that was there that no one else saw except us guys. And, uh, his humanity really, really was something that stuck out in so many ways, and that’s one of them. He was—that’s when he showed how human he really was. You know, he was there for Red even though he just lost his mom.

So, uh, now after that, uh, he went back to the base, and he came back on leave before he went to Germany to spend 18 months over there. And, uh, Red invited myself and—and my three sisters and my brother-in-law to come out there to meet him—to a private party he was having. He had a lot of them at the roller-skating rink. We went out there, uh, Red brings Elvis over; they skate up and everything, and I’m—I’m not a very good skater. I didn’t spend much time skating when I was younger; you know, other things were more fun. But they come over and introduce, and I was very impressed with how nice Elvis was. I mean, this is a superstar, and he said, “Hey, Sonny, nice to meet you,” and everything, “Nice to meet you.” And I’m thinking, “Whoa,” you know. My brother-in-law is in the Air Force, and he’s home on leave, and he’s—so we’re standing there, and they said, uh, “Look, we play a game here called ‘war,’ and we’d like you all to play with us, but we want you to see how we play it first, and then you’ll know how we play it, and then you can join in after we take the first break.” We said, “Okay.” Well, they went out there, and I’ll tell you, “war” is a good word for it. It’s chaotic; bodies flying all over the place. It’s a combination of hockey, rugby, football, everything, wrestling, judo, karate. You just don’t hit in the face. And I’m seeing bodies fly through the air; I’m seeing them get body-blocked and flipping over and hitting on that floor. And, you know, my brother—my brother-in-law walks away; he says, “I’m not going out there,” and he went back up there and sat next to my sister. And so I—I had noticed a box—big cardboard box—over to the side where people were getting out elbow pads and putting on their elbows and putting on their knees. And I’d already done that because I knew I was going to fall out there when I tried to skate. So, reading them, they take the break, and they come over, and, uh, first thing, “Rich, where’s Bill?” My brother-in-law. I see he’s back up with Barbara—with my sister—up there sitting down. “Red, Holland, Bill, come on.” Bill said, “I can’t get out there, man. I got a family to raise,” you know. He was only 28 or 29; you’re about five or six years older than us at all, but he acted like he was an old man. So we looked at me, said, “What about you, Sonny?” I said, “Let’s go, but I’m gonna go over that box first.” I went over that box, boy, and I put pads on from up here; I look like a goalie in a hockey without the mask. And I asked them, “You got any chest protectors or anything around here?” And I loaded up from the top of my knees down to my ankles, all the way to my hands up, and I said, “I’m ready.” Well, I went out there—I, of course, new guy on the block—I’m on the other team, so I go down there, and I get over next to the rail because, like I said, I don’t skate good, and I need that rail if I start to fall, grab hold of. So I’m there, and I look up; there’s a girl on Elvis’s team, and she’s on the side of the rail that I am—up there on his side—and she was the only girl that he would let skate because she was tough. She looked more like a Chicago linebacker, you know. And I’m thinking, “Uh-oh.” Sure enough, they blow the whistle, and I start trying to get going, and the others just leave me. Then all of a sudden, here comes this freight train at me, “Whoa!” And I put my hands up just to try to absorb getting the blow; I’m getting ready to get, and it knocked me spinning, and I went down, man. You know what a hit. So I get up, don’t think anything about it, and I start looking for someone to do it again. All of a sudden, I just get going, and something grabs me by my shirt and jerks me backwards; my feet go out, and I hit that floor, and she goes skating by, you know. So I got up. Next time I started looking for her; I’m looking around because I think she was like a shark circling, you know, waiting for me. And I didn’t know why at the time; I didn’t know what it was. And so I didn’t see her, so I got up again, and I started moving on, and I see someone, and I start going, and all of a sudden, something hit me behind my knees, and my legs went up; I hit the floor, and she goes skating by again. I said, “Enough, enough!” I crawled over to the side, afraid to get up, afraid she’d get me before I got there. I crawled over and got against the rail and just leaned back against the rail that’s around the rink, and they just kept—I’m watching bodies flying; I’m ducking, and some of them go by, and then they blew the whistle, took a break. Here comes Red. “Noah, Red, what are you doing?” I said, “Man, I’m resting.” He’s arrested. And I said, “Yeah, all I’ve done is get up and down off that floor. That girl’s just beating the hell out of me over there.” Elvis is laughing. He said, “Melinda, come here.” So she skates over and says, “Why are you after him?” That’s Red’s cousin, and she liked Red because Red was as physical as she was, you know, boom, busting heads. So she—“I don’t care who he is,” she said, “If he’s gonna knock me down, I’m gonna knock—” I said, “I’m not trying to knock you down; I’m trying to get out of your way,” you know. And I said, “As a matter of fact, if you’ll leave me alone, and I happen to end up in front of you, just give me a minute to turn, and I’ll just go the other way.” So Elvis is dying laughing. So he said, “Melinda, leave him alone. You know, he’s—he’s okay.” So we went ahead and skated and everything, and, uh, end of the night there, I went up, and I had a split cheek. I almost even had a first-aid guy there; does the butterfly stitch in case you get a cut. So I had a cut; he put that—I had a cut on my head where skates almost knocked me out; hit me in the head and cut my head; my shoulder, I got knocked into the rail one time because I was hanging close to it, and I bruised it up real bad. So I go up to Elvis after it’s all over with, and I thank him for having me and my sisters out there and—and tell him, you know, that I really enjoyed meeting him and everything. He said, “Yeah, a lot of fun, right?” I said, “Uh, yeah, I had some fun,” you know. He said, “Well, I’ll see you tomorrow night, then.” I said, “Elvis, tomorrow night, I probably won’t even be able to walk, much less skate.” He said, “Well, maybe not, but you’ll be out here skating, won’t you?” I didn’t know it, folks, but at that time, that was the seed was planted, not only for a friendship that would endure and get bigger and everything and grow over the years, starting a year and a half when he got back in the army, but also I’d be doing his bidding; I’d be doing what he needed done when he asked me to go to work. He let me know that.

So he went to Germany, and then he comes home. Oh, one thing too, back then, I said “g—d” a lot; I mean, like every other word. Soon as I said—and, uh, Red told me, “Man, Sonny, Elvis really likes you, but you really say ‘g—d,’ and he doesn’t like that word.” I stopped saying it, you know, and I did. Later on, Elvis said it quite a bit, but later on through the years when he got mad. But, uh, so he came back, and I went out to see him, say hi to him, welcome him home, and the war started again, back out to the skating rink. But we had breaks where we went and watched movies all night too, and I hung out with him, and I was still doing my day job, working from eight to five over at this appliance store. I repaired washers, dryers, and at Ace Appliance. And so after about two or three weeks, and Elvis asked me if I’d ever heard of karate. Back when I walked in to see him there, he was—uh, in the—he was in the foyer right there doing karate with his friend that had studied with him in the army. And he asked me, “I’d ever heard of it?” And I said, “No, but I’ve seen those outfits,” because I’d seen judo, and they had on the—the “gis.” And he said, “Yeah,” he said, “This is the—uh, it’s called the ‘gi.’” So anyway, getting back to it, so when I—uh, started hanging out with him, he went ahead and—and, uh, “I’d like you to work for him.” I said, “No, I’m just kidding.” I said, “Uh, well, what would I do?” And he said, “Well, whatever I need—what I—whatever I need you to do. Drive, go get something, you know, run errands, or whatever.” I said, “Okay, I’ll have to give my notice—two weeks’ notice—from my boss.” He said, “That’s okay.” So we’re getting ready to go down to, uh, Florida where I’m doing the TV show with Frank Sinatra, which was that Timex special, “Welcome Back, Elvis” thing or whatever. And he said, “Then when we come back, we’re going to go to Nashville, record a couple of songs, then we’re going to head out and make a movie.” I said, “I’ll be ready to go.” So I was—he went on down, did the special, got $125,000 back in 1960 for singing two and a half songs. Not bad, huh? Unheard of, but that’s what Colonel could do; he could—he knew how to make those deals.

So, uh, we head out, go out on a train—actually, private train—we have a club car and a sleeper, and we’re sitting in the club car there on the ride. Took about two and a half, three days to get out there, and we’re visiting in there, and I always wore a flat top when I was younger. It was a very popular haircut back then; you either wore long hair with the “DA’s,” or you had a half and half, which was flat top on the back with the “DA’s” on the side. Well, I just kept—like I played baseball, football—I just kept my hair short. Guy was looking at me, said, “Sonny, that hair is not going to cut it out in Hollywood, man.” I said, “What do you mean?” He said, “You got to let that moss grow.” He said, “Get that Tony Curtis look, you know, sweep it over and everything.” I thought, “You do that.” That’s okay. I didn’t know—I was 21 years old; other than being in the Air Force, I hadn’t been anywhere big time. So I started doing it, and I’ve got a picture of—a matter of fact, taking one while in the country where my hair is starting to—it’s growing that way. So we got out there, and we went over to the Beverly Wilshire Hotel—same hotel where they shot “Pretty Woman,” if you remember that movie—and Lamar and Charlie and I are staying up in the penthouse, which—the word’s a big word, nice-sounding word, but it’s just a big room with two studio beds. We had to bring in a fold-away for—for Charlie, and Elvis had a two-room suite where Joe and his cousin Jean stayed in one bedroom, and Elvis had the back bedroom. So we’re gonna go over and to the set to Paramount to start filming “G.I. Blues.” They’d already shot some second-unit stuff in Germany while Elvis was actually over there. They did some tank shots with a double and everything. So we’re crazy; we’re young, and we’re going to have some fun. Well, we pull pranks on each other all the time, and we pulled one on Elvis because his co-star was Juliette Prowse, who was engaged to Frank Sinatra at the time—the Chairman of the Board, right? So Elvis warmed her up; she was kind of aloof when they first started, and he—but his charm—he had the charm—he warmed her up; pretty soon she was all over him, you know. But anyway, uh, Red—one—they were sitting there, and there they have a portable dressing room that they roll over to the sound stages because all the stars have a permanent dressing room there on the lot, but they use these ones on rollers that they take a tow—little tow truck—and they bring them to the different sound stages. All it is is it’s on wheels; it’s got the door; you step up to it, and it’s got a couch here; it’s got a closet there for hanging wardrobe, and it’s got the mirror here for the makeup and everything. So their door is closed; we’re out there, and Red knocked on that door, “Elvis, here comes Frank!” For about two minutes that door—where you know a bit—“I’m just kidding; you really don’t do that again; I’ll get you, man; don’t do that again.” So we did it again a couple more times; he ends up chasing us around the studio. Then one day, here comes Frank. Remember the old “cry wolf” story? Well, I wasn’t crying wolf. I knocked that door—because it was at lunchtime, and the sound stage doors are real big—the way they bring the equipment, and they just roll them open and let the stage air out for that morning shoot—what all was going on with the dust and everything—and there’s that silhouette with that little porkpie hat and that little suit and those little “dabs,” and I thought, “Oh, man, here comes Frank!” Elvis, him and Juliette are in there. “Get away from my door!” Yeah, what? “I’m not kidding you; I’m keeping my voice now because I don’t want him to hear me telling him that; here he comes; uh, I’m not—I was—I’m not kidding that, Sonny; open the door, man; you better get away from that door; here he comes.” He comes up, “Hey, fellas, how y’all doing?” “Hi, Miss Sinatra, how are you doing?” “Yes, sir, we’re doing good.” He’s—“We all seen—Juliette—that’s who—” “Yes, sir, she’s—they’re here going over their lines right there,” and Elvis and Juliette—probably Juliette said, “That’s Frank.” So pretty real quick that door open there was a, “Well, hello, Frank,” like you just now see him, you know, could I even get a chance to knock? And, uh, so he said, “See what happens, guys, with ‘cry wolf.’” And we looked—after—was anything going on? He said, “No, your damn business; just don’t cry wolf anymore,” you know. So that’s—that’s the way that—did. And then another thing we did—another thing was—was a water fight. We had—start off, we got these pistols—little water pistols—that you could buy back at the drugstore, toy store, and we’re shooting each other everywhere. The crew’s getting in on it; they’re stealing our guns when we set them down so they can shoot us, and it’s—it’s going long. But by the time we got back to the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, now we’ve graduated to buckets of water—the waste baskets, filling them up—sweet, got wet hallway, got wet. And then Red—we jumped Elvis and pinned him down; I grabbed his legs, and I was holding on to his legs; Joe Esposito was around his waist, having his arms pinned, and Red’s up there doing something—I didn’t know where—I wouldn’t have been in on it—taking his hand and rubbing it—was his nose—that was that extremely sensitive nose—and he’s rubbing that thing hard, was it cussing, girl, and I can feel that body; I think we’re getting ready—he’s going to get loose—about the time—“Let’s go!” Well, he jumped up, went that way, and I jumped up, let go of the legs.

And I got out. He caught Joe. Joe tried to get pull him down. Boy, pound, start pounding on Joe. Joe's trying to roll away from him. He's kicking him, you know, not not to really hurt him, but he's kicking, calling him names. You were part of it, this that. He gets a guitar; he hits Joe with it. He hits his elbow, and Joe, "Ow!" That gum, I heard it. I don't care. And he tried to hit him again. Then he comes looking for Red. Now we're smart; we're out in the hallway where we can move on if we need to. He comes out that door, and he sees this boy. He takes it, gets torn, swings it at us, and that thing comes seeing through. And about that time, they had permanent guests in that hotel, and this guy heard this ruckus, and he opened a little old guy opened that door in that guitar. He looked down there and he slammed that door and went back inside. And a few minutes later, the phone rang. Assistant manager: "What's going on up there?" You know what, what, what do you mean? Mr. So-and-so across the hallway said that y'all out there throwing guitars and everything else in the hallway. I said, "Not us." Well, we were asked to move, so he was kicked out, Knickerbocker too, in the 50s, so it wasn't nothing new. He didn't really trash him, but we did get the carpet wet and things like that, but uh, it was uh, I'd like to regress here if I could while we're talking about this movie that I was first with him on in 1956. He went out to make a movie called *Lummy Tinder*. It's a very sweet story about his mom. And in the movie, you know all know that have seen Elvis died up on that mountain. And so when they saw the preview of it, and his mom and dad were there with him, and they're watching at Fox at a studio they had there, and she started crying. "You shouldn't have died," he said. "Mom, I didn't. That's just the part." She said, "No, no, that boy in that picture shouldn't have died. He was such a sweet boy." Combat hell was his character, you know. So he said, "Well, Mom, that's just the way they make movies out here." So they laugh. Now the studio sends out sneak previews along with comment cards about what you think of the movie, what'd you like, what you didn't like, this and that. About 90% of them came back loved the movie. This Elvis shouldn't have died. Studio said, "We got a problem. Got this major star here that we're getting ready to break, got a good movie, and they don't like it, the ending." And you know how Hollywood is. That ending back then, you've got to have that great ending with the curtain blowing, music playing, and everything's just going to be wonderful. So they brought Elvis back, and they shot a new ending. Because see, at that time during that movie, he died on that mountain; that was it. That's the last thing you saw of him, his character. They brought him back, and they superimposed him big on the screen playing the guitar with that sweet smile on his face, and he's kind of looking over the ranch like he's up in heaven, and he's looking out for everyone he loves down there. That was great. Fans loved it; they accepted it. So it went out and got good reviews and everything. But that his mom was right on, you know, because a lot of people said he shouldn't have died because if you all remember he was such a an innocent young kid on that thing, the character he played. He's just someone that you you don't want someone like that to die. So he didn't, you know. Well, he did, but he didn't [Laughter].

But also out there on that movie before, oh, by the way, two movies that Elvis died in, both of them were at Fox, and both of them were westerns. He died in *Love Me Tinder*, and he died also in the movie *Flaming Star*, which I'll tell you about right now. Because before the movie started, we had to go out there for him to pick out the horse that he wanted to ride in the movie. He got about six or seven horses there for him to choose from, and the ring was two wranglers there. So Elvis goes over, and he picks out this big horse, big red. He's, yeah, "I like I like the looks of him. How about him?" So they tightened the saddle up, that was got up on him, and the head wrangler took off and went out this on 20th Century Fox, which is now Century City, but it used to be a huge back lot there with western towns and country homes and all kind of scary houses. They just, you know, where they shot these movies. So they take off, and we're us guys, three or four of us sitting there. We're thinking, "Boy, we'd like to get on that horse. Those other horses go out there and ride with them," you know. So we're just kind of sitting there. All of a sudden, we hear there's ruckus. "Whoa! You stand with whoa!" And we look; it comes out when that horse is running away with him, Elvis. His legs are flopping out; he's hanging on to that thing, man, that horn. And I'm thinking, "Oh, oh," and it's scary. It was funny later, like we're doing now, but at the time it was scary. And there's a little gate that comes in where they load the stock in, and I thought, "It's not going to make that gate, man. That was going to get thrown. I'm really I'm scared for him." And that horse comes to that gate because he wants to come back to where he was. And as he makes that turn, those back legs spread out, Elvis hangs on, goes way over here on this side, and the horse gets them together. He goes back on this side; it's almost like slow motion. And then he runs in, and he makes it through the gate. He comes in; there's a lean-to with a two-by-four over in front of the stalls, and he runs in there, and Elvis saw it, and he ducked his head. And I tell you, he could have been killed with a broken neck; it could have been very bad. So nobody was anything except upset at what we were seeing. That horse came to a dead stop when he got in there. Elvis jumped off that horse. You saw a boom hit that horse right in the jaw. The horse went in, and everything took a little step. And he said, "No!" And about that time, the rain will come up. And that was in one scene. He's a good horse; he good order stroke in his forehead. Well, that wrangler comes up, and now he he's upset; he's just white; he's scared because the picture hadn't even started, and Elvis could have got hurt badly. The movie put back for shooting; he would never get another wrangling job. So he comes up, "Mr. President," he jumps off, "Are you okay?" So, yeah, "I'm okay," petting that horse. He said, "Could I could I have those reins?" He takes the reins; he takes that horse, walks him out to the middle of the crowd. He gets up on top of him, and he spurs him good, and that horse lurches forward, and he jerks that rein; the horse stops. He did it again several times. Horse starts frothing at the mouth; here he's getting hot, you know, he's upset, she's being stressed out. All of a sudden, little speckles of blood appear. No, it's his mouth. And he explained to us, she said the horse hadn't been ridden for a while; his mouth hardened up; I had to tenderize it again. Well, boy, that guy could start to spur him even if that horse thought he was going to; he'd start, and he'd go with that or just stop; that's all it was. So he when he had that done, he's got off himself. He'll pick out another horse; we'll try this again. He said, "No, I want him. He's a crazy zombie; try something again." That's what Jesus did to it. So that's the horse he rode, and he didn't he didn't give him a problem the whole show, you know [Music].

You know, there was something else Elvis liked to do besides breaking horses, you know, and that was play football. I'm just kidding about the breaking horses, but that's what he just about had to do with that horse. But uh, and we there's a little park over there near where we lived at Bel Air. Now after we've been moved over, and uh, it's called Beverly Glen. It was right next to the the estates there in Bel Air, and we would go down and play football's on Saturday, and then we would watch, of course, the pro football games on Sunday. He was a big Johnny Unitas fan for the Colts and a big, big Jim Brown fan of the Cleveland Browns. So we went down there, and word got around uh, not only just in the Hollywood scene, but other people started coming up there wanting to play. Cheerleaders start gathering up there on the cheerlead. But anyway, uh, some celebrities that came out, one of them was Michael Parks, and he uh, he was along; he was in that series. Then came Bronson; he did a lot of movies and stuff too. You you'd know if you saw him, but if you remember that series he did that and and another guy there that did a series, his name was I'll tell you I'll tell you about him because he played football for UCLA, and that's a whole different story with Ricky Nelson and what he tried to pull. But Pat Boone came up there once [Laughter]. A little rough, Ty Hardin from *Bronco* came up there, tough guy; he played ball in college and everything too. So we had a lot of good times up there. Ricky Nelson heard about it. Well, Ricky idolized Elvis, but he also wanted to beat Elvis in football. So he goes to UCLA, and he's got some friends that play on the football team at UCLA that also worked on his series with his mom. Then he actually played a college friend of Ricky's. He brings about five or six of them over there, and you know what, we held our own. We didn't do extra points; we just scored a touchdown, and that was six points. Then we kicked or threw the ball to the other team, and they beat us 18 to 12. But I got to tell you something, there was a guy on that team called Kent McWhirter. He's about six two, about 240 pounds, and it was all muscle. Well, Alan Fortas, who worked for Elvis, had made all-state at Central High School there in Memphis when he played Bollywood, got a scholarship to Vanderbilt, and he went there, and then he dropped out after a year or two and quit playing. I think he even dropped out of college, but he was a good little ball player, but he was short and stocky, and he wasn't very fast. So Kent was doing spin-offs of him and coming right on in and getting in the backfield every play. So Elvis said, "Sonny, you and Alan switch places." I said, "Okay." I don't know what I'm in for now. I'd go over there, and I thought, "Oh, I'm about 190 pounds at that time." So we line up, and sure enough, boy, he comes exploding across that line, and our shoulders hit, and I thought a truck. So I kept him out a lot of the time, and he got in sometimes. But when I went to shower at the end of that game of the house, I could barely lift my arm up to wash my face and my hair, shampoo it. And over the next two or three days, I couldn't had to shave with my left hand. This was just nothing but a big black and blue, hurting, painful hurt. And uh, so all that week, I'm just at the end of the week starting to get a little bit better, and I'm thinking, "Man, I hope they don't come back over there. I don't want a rematch." And they didn't come back, but I ran into Kent over the years uh, and in fact, we studied acting together at an acting class out in the San Fernando Valley, and I got to know him real good then, and he's only 180 pounds without the weight lifting; his normal weight was about 180. And you wouldn't know him as Kent McWhorter; you would know him as Kent McCord of *One Adam-12*. That was Kent, and uh, we became really good friends over the years. But anyway, we had a place that we went down in Palm Springs that Elvis rented, home because Colonel Parker had a home down there, and he was always saying, "But you need to get a place there for you guys to get away on the weekends and come down there and relax," you know. And I was, "Okay." So we went down there. First time we stayed in a a hotel called the Spa that they had down there, and uh, Elvis did like it. So we got a room, we got a house that he wanted to rent, so he rented this house. And I've got about three stories that I want to tell you all about that, but they all took place at different times, of course. This first one took place in the early 60s, and it's about boxing and grass. Another word for grass is pot, so you don't misunderstand. Uh, Elvis got it; someone gave him these two or three joints. So they had these Friday night fights live from the Olympic Auditorium with downtown L.A., Eileen Eaton and Mickey, co-promoter; I can't think of his name right now. So we would go down, and we'd watch him. So I was told everyone to stay out, just Red and Sonny and I are gonna watch the fights because the rest of the guys didn't care that much for the fights or anything. So we got in there; we lit up, smoke those joints; we're watching that fight, and we're watching that fight, and it's the longest fight in the world. And I said, "Man, this is this is the longest fight I've ever seen." Rich said, "It's the longest round I've ever seen" [Laughter]. And I said, "How do you know what round it is?" He said, "Well, look at the TV right there; see the 12? It's the 12th round." He's pointing to the channel; it's lit up. Back then, they they had these knobs that you turned; they didn't have remotes. You turned the knobs, and it had a little lit-up window in whatever channel it was; that's what would lit up. So Red, Elvis said, "Red, that's not the round, man; that's the channel." It's, "Oh, God," didn't know that, fell back. So uh, a little bit later, we're back into watching that fight again, stoned out of our gourds, man. And Red gets up, takes a book of matches, and he goes over, gets in front of the television, lights a match, puts his hand over that 12. He starts going up and down the front of the television with that light. And they always say, "What are you doing?" He said, "I'm trying to find the round." Elvis is, "Red, it doesn't show you the round." He said, "But I I saw it." Well, he said, "No, it's the channel; move your hand." Oh, he fell out again; this time he hit his head and looked like a dead frog laying there, man. He always fell off the couch laughing. So we went ahead and watched the fights, and it got over with, and we uh, we're hungry. Red and I were hungry. I always went on back to his room. So we go into the kitchen, and Red makes himself a ham and cheese sandwich. I have a taste for BLT. I get the bacon out, tomato and lettuce and everything, the bread, and I start frying that bacon, and boy, that bacon just will not fry; it's just so slow. And I'm, "Come on, come on." Red finishes sandwich, talking about it's the best sandwich he's ever had. "Man, that sandwich is good; I'm gonna have another one." So he has another one; I'm still waiting my bacon to fry, you know. So finally it's done, and Red is getting ready; he's done with his two sandwiches, and he leaves and goes back to his bed. So I finally have my sandwich ready, and I'm just about ready to get into it, and Elvis comes around the corner. "What are you doing, Sonny?" I said, "Oh, I made a BLT." He said, "I know; I smell that bacon, man," and uh, "Could you make me one?" Well, Elvis did have an insomnia problem as long as I've known him, sleepwalking and insomnia, and he took medication to go to sleep at night. But if you took it on an empty stomach, it would hit you good, and you'd gone out. If you had just eaten something, it wouldn't work as good. So I looked at it, and I knew how long it took me to make that bacon. I said, "Have you taken your sleeping pill yet?" "Oh, yeah." "Over here, take this one; you'll never make it, man." So he took it. I get the stuff out, and I start making another sandwich; I'm starved, and I'm making it, and I get to thinking, Elvis is going to want this one too; he's never eaten one sandwich in his life. So I'm thinking, trying to get that bait, I'm throwing the grease on top of it, trying to make it cook quicker and everything, and I get it done, boy, and I just dive into it. I know if I've bitten into it, he won't want it. I'm just watching, and he didn't. So I just started enjoying my family; I put my stuff up, went to bed; I was happy warrior, you know. But uh, that stuff is true, man. Food tastes better, and things do last longer. But anyway, another story back then was with the Vice President Agnew, and this took place like before this was in the late 60s. He's down there staying at Frank Sinatra's or someone, some celebrity's home, and he uh, Elvis finds out about it from some police people we knew down there. So Elvis wants to give him a gift, so we go over there; it's in a cul-de-sac, Secret Service out there, and we drive up. Elvis gets out, and he's got this box; it's a gun in there that he wants to present to Vice President Agnew. It's a .357 Magnum with gold inlay in it, the ivory handle with black etching in it; it's just a beautiful gun. I think it cost him about three thousand dollars, custom-made. So the Secret Service takes it, takes it in. We go inside; we meet the Vice President, nice man; we're talking and everything. And after a while, I said, "Mr. Vice President, I wanted to give you a gift," and this is before the Nixon thing, okay. And he said, "I wanted to give you a gift," and uh, so I brought it over, and he said, "You're one of your Secret Service guys here has it." So he brought it out, and he opened it up and showed him a beautiful gun. He saw, "This is absolutely beautiful," he said, "But I can't take this, Elvis, while I'm in office," and uh, "But I'd certainly like to have it when I when I get out of office," and they'll say yesterday, "That's fine; I'll hold on to it for you." So went ahead and and held on to it for him. And I don't know how long after that that Vice President Agnew had to resign from office, and we told Elvis that was, "You can give him that gun now; he's not in office." "No, he don't get the gun; he's a damn crook; he got caught." So Agnew never got the gun, you know.

But now here's a favorite of Tim, my friend Tim Rochford. I got to tell this story; you don't know how much Elvis counted on us guys until you hear this story. It's regarding a taxi in Palm Springs, California. We get down there; everyone goes to their room. We get up the next morning; there's about four or five of us. The other guys, they take off in one of the cars, and they go shopping. I look and know that I've got to get some bacon and eggs, tomatoes and things like that, toast and things for Elvis' breakfast when he wakes up later in the afternoon. I don't know what Elvis already awake; none of us knew it, but he's already back there getting ready to come out, and that's unheard of. I leave; I guess he walked out right after me after I was gone, and he said he called out; nobody answered. He went all through the rooms, rooms he's never been in before; he didn't even know they were there and couldn't find anybody. So he decides to call a taxi because he wants to go shopping. So he picks up the phone. Well, Elvis never did this; he would just say, "Get Daddy on the phone, get Purcell on the phone, get the Colonel on," and we would dial it and give him the phone; he'd talk; when he was done, he'd hang up. So he picked up the phone and dialed. Oh, the operator told her he needed a taxi. She said, "I don't do that, sir." He said, "What do you do?" She said, "Well, I help with with person-to-person calls and and collect calls and things like that, but you need to get..."

A hold of information to to get the number for a taxi. He says, "Okay, how'd I do that?" She said, "Dial 411." He went and he's okay, and he hung up and he dialed. She answers. He said, "Yes, ma'am, I need the number of a taxi." And she said, "Which one?" He said, "Doesn't matter, any one of them." She said, "No, so which company? We got several here. We got Yellow Cab." Elvis knew that one; everyone knows Yellow Cab, so that'll be fine. That's good. So she gave him the number. He calls the number; dispatcher answers the phone. "May I help you?" "Yes, I'd like to have a taxi cab come pick me up, please." "Alright, so what's that address?" I don't—he didn't know that. I got to tell you, I didn't know the address. I knew where the house was, but I don't even remember the name of the street either. But she said, "You want a cab and you don't even know the address?" He said, "Well, no, I'm I'm just down here visiting. I'm just leasing a home and everything, and and I I don't live here." And she said, "Well, what street is it on?" He said, "I don't know that either, ma'am." She says, "Is this some kind of joke?" He said, "No, ma'am, it's not. My name's Elvis Presley." "Oh, you are [Laughter] I'm Elvis Presley, and I just leased this house from Jack L. Warner."

Well, everybody in Palm Springs knew who Jack L. Warner was. He owned one brother's studio; he was the head guy, had a huge home down there. We weren't—and actually in his home, we were in this guest house, which was a four-bedroom with a pool and everything. That was just the guest house on the estate. And uh, she said, "Well, oh, you're Elvis Presley and you're at the Jack L. Warner home? Well, I know where that is. I'm going to send the cab over there, and Elvis Presley better come out and get in it." He said, "Ma'am, why are you being that way? I'm just kidding you." "But I think you're kidding me." So anyway, almost in the cab over there, so she did. Well, the cab driver gets over there, buzzes the intercom, because you have to have a key to get in or out, or you can open it from inside in the box there. When they buzz you, you can talk to them and say, "Just a minute," or they can identify themselves, and then you hit a button and open. Elvis didn't know where this box was. He heard that cab driver's voice: "Taxi's here." "Okay, I'll be right out." "Taxi's here," and he knew then the guy wasn't hearing him; he didn't know how to talk back to the guy. He said, "I'm coming right out, don't leave." So he runs out there and he goes up to the gate—big seven and a half foot—so gate, solid, not one of the wrought irons you see, that it's solid for privacy and big stucco fence about seven and a half feet, can't see through. He comes out there; he can't open the gate; he doesn't have a key; there's no button there or anything to do. And he says, "Don't go, man." He said, "My name's Elvis." And he said, "I know; dispatcher told me it was Elvis Presley wanting the cab." He said, "Well, I'll be there if I crawl over this thing, just don't go." And I pull up; I see the cab driver there and I say, "Uh, can I help you?" And he said, "Uh, well, not maybe not me, but the guy on that fence said he's always pressing on the other side and he can't get his gate open." I called out, "Elvis, sonny, open this gate!" I went over and turned that key, and that gate opened up. He'd come storming out of there. "Where you been?" "I went to get some food for you for breakfast; I thought you were asleep." "Where's the rest of them?" I said, "They went shopping without me." "I want to go shopping." I said, "Well, we'll go; let me put the food up and everything and we'll go." He said, "Give that guy a hundred dollars." I walk over to that cab driver and I peel off a hundred-dollar bill; I give it to him and he, "Oh, thanks, Elvis. You ever need me again, man, just call me. Okay? [Laughter]" So that guy, five minutes, man, a hundred dollars, you know. But uh, that that's just that's just the thing to show how much Elvis was protected, how much was done for him, and it just started and it just grew and grew. The bigger he got, the more things that he did, the less he did that we do every day, just for, you know, just take for granted and everything. But I'd like to tell you some stories too. While we're up there in Bel Air, there's a story about a chimpanzee that Elvis—Scott—y'all heard about it. His name was Scatter, and Elvis asked this guy that he got him from, "Why'd you name him that?" He says, "Because when he gets mad, you better scatter." Very—they're very strong; they've been known to take cyclone fences and just pull them apart when they're mad, just open them up. So we said, "Well, what makes him that way?" He said, "Oh, you probably won't see him that way; he'll just bite you or something," you know. He had no fangs, but boy, he could sure pinch and draw blood with those teeth if he didn't like you doing what you were trying to make him to do. So kind of Allen—kind of got the responsibility for taking care of him, Alan Fortas. And Elvis had him dress him up because he got that it was from a show; he was chained; he was a training chimp from a guy that was retiring and he was closing down his show and always heard about it and he bought the chimp from him. So he had Allen dress him up in his little yacht hat with his ascot, his little suit and everything, in the pants, put him in the back of the limousine, and Alan get up there like a chauffeur and drive him around. That chimp's just sitting back here in that car back here like he—I guess he did it all the time because he was trained for the show or whatever, but it was funny to watch. And I really think probably a lot of people back then thought that probably was Cheetah, who was the the chimpanzee for Superman—I mean for Superman—for Tarzan, you know, uh, because who else would be what other chimp would be driving around like that, being chauffeur-driven. But then but Scatter liked to drink. He'd go—if you set your drink down and he was out and take off, he would—he just drink it down and he'd get drunk and cause a problem. He went ahead and swung on a curtain and knocked a hole right through a big TV—I mean a big movie screen there in the room at Bellagio there where we watched movies. He just knocked a hole right through it. That was just—died laughing, you know, didn't bother him. And uh, one time he got loose there and he took all—he swung on the phone lines in the basement down there where his room was, in his cage; he tore all the phone wires loose. It took them three days to get them sorted—which ones went to intercom, which one's for line one, which one was Elvis's private line, and it took him three days to sort out. But he swung on him and ripped him right off the ceiling. Then he got out one time, and that was his downfall. He chased the next-door neighbor's gardener into the pool—a little Japanese guy screaming and yelling, took off, jumped into that pool screaming and yelling. People come out of the house, and there's Scatter doing this on the side of the pool, just warning that guy, "Don't come out." Well, we got a letter from the Bel Air Homeowners Association: "No exotic pets." So little Scatter had to be shipped back to Graceland. And Elvis had a beautiful custom-made uh place, temperature control, air conditioning, heat and everything, you know, for him. And but let me tell you what happened: Wasn't long, Scatter died. He was young, about six or seven years old; they live to be 40 or 50. And he uh, one day they went out to feed him; he was dead. And we found out that chimpanzees can actually will themselves to death; they give up if they're lonely; they're like humans; they have to have comfort and they have to have, you know, communication with each other. And one by himself just gives up, and he did. He was so used to being drunk and crazy, and all of a sudden now he's just sitting out there and people come out and feed him; that's about it. That was really—we didn't go out there and visit with him that much. But uh, anyway, it uh, I always really loved that chimp and everything, but there's there's a lot of stories that uh that I I wish I could recall all of them; I really do, so that I could tell you because he was really upset when that chimp died. And then and then again, it just—he was able to move on; he's able to to get bad and move on. And when that cage stayed there, that was never—had it torn down, never put anything else in it, but he didn't have it torn down. I think a long time later that they might have—they might have removed that building; Vernon might have done it. I could—I can't remember in the latter years, but for years it just stayed out there. Some of the guys thought that maybe one of the maids had poisoned him because he bit them too when they fed him. There was one, Daisy, that just couldn't stand him, so we thought at bed—we we didn't think about that at the time, and later on when someone said that they think she might have done it, it was too late to check him out and see what kind of toxic level he had of arsenic or something in him, you know. But anyway, Scatter was Scatter, and Elvis had a lot of fun with him.

I like to tell y'all now a very moving story, one that still touches me today, almost like the one with my uncle in—with Elvis's first time I saw him like that. There was an appeal story written in the Commercial Appeal, there morning paper in Memphis, and it was an article regarding this little woman that had no legs from the hips down; she was born that way. She had had children; raised them; she would even raise their head in the story; she had raised some of her grandchildren. And this appeal story was that she—how she got around on some wood that was nailed together, and underneath they had these roller skates nailed to it, and they had these special handles with some like a leather thing, and she'd pull herself along like skiers do on snow skis and everything. And so Marty read it—Marty Lacker—and he brought it up to the house, and I was sitting there with Elvis, dining room table, and Marty said, "When you get a chance, I think you might want to read this." Now I said, "Okay." He finished eating, and he picked over the paper and he looked at it; he looked up after he read. He said, "Find out where she lives." So Marty did; called the paper; Alice went and bought the most expensive electric wheelchair made, and he and Priscilla, Allen, Richard, and I think Billy and myself went out there, and it was in the trunk of the car; we took it up to the house. Her husband, who was retired from the railroad, led us in, and he called her out. She came out; we heard her come around that corner. The house was spotless; boards bleached white, carpet—I mean the uh linoleum in the kitchen, just shiny—and comes out, and we heard her; she comes around the corner, face to face with that wheelchair. "Oh my, oh my," and tears started to come into her eyes. She knew what it was, and tears came to our eyes. See if she could sit in it; we lifted her up—that was on the one side and I on the other—put her there, and she's checking it out now. I said, "Man, I don't know how to tell you how to operate this thing," but he said uh, they demonstrated over there, and this year you can just go wherever you want to and get there fast and everything. So he said, "We just want you to have it." She starts crying; we start crying, and soon we're out of there; we have to—we have to get out of there. Walked outside, and Alan said, "Elvis, I don't think she knew who you were." He said, "It doesn't matter; she knows someone cares." You know, everyone knows through papers, articles, books and everything about Elvis's generosity; it was almost to a fault; he just gave and gave and gave. He loved to give, and he loved the reaction that—when you gave him—after he gave you something, he didn't want you to fall over him; he didn't want you to keep saying it; he didn't want you to come day after day, "Oh, I was—I can't—" He didn't want to hear it; he didn't have time for that. So you thanked him, and then you moved on.

One night we were coming back; he was getting a custom-made bus done by George Barris, who made all those monster cars and all those things for television, those shows, and he was doing Elvis's bus and customizing it. So Elvis, Marty Lacker, Billy Smith, Elvis's cousin, myself went out there to look at it one night; it was in May in California, and we're driving Elvis's Rolls-Royce limo; I'm driving. We get out there, see the bus, and we're talking about it, and George met us and he's saying, "This is coming along; it's starting to come together." And then we left; we came on back. It's a beautiful night; clear stars are up there and everything, and Elvis all of a sudden while we're driving up through Bel Air, getting close to home, he says, "You know what? This is baby blue convertible night." We said, "Yeah, it is." "Sonny, turn this car around; let's go to that Cadillac place." I turn it around; we go over to a place called Hillcrest Cadillac over there on Wilshire Boulevard. I parked the car; we go inside; salesman in there; it's somewhere around eight o'clock at night, I guess, and I always introduced himself as if he needed to, but that's just the way he was—high-mouth, especially. And uh, he said, "Do you have a baby blue Cadillac convertible here?" He said, "No, sir, we don't—we don't, but I'll find you one; I'm sure there's a dealer somewhere around." He wasn't going to lose that sale, you know, if he could—if he—if he could help it. And I said, "Oh, okay." And so he said, "Okay, well, as we had been driving over—" Elvis often had said how much he loved the colors black and white for a car; that he'd usually rather have a black or a white car because you get tired of colors. When we walked in that showroom and I had talked to him, I said, "Oh, you sure you want blue?" When we walked in there, it was a black Eldorado convertible right there on that showroom floor with the mahogany accent—beautiful car. I said, "Elvis, you sure meant about that blue one?" He said, "Man, that's pretty, yeah, but I want that blue one." We let it go. So when he said he could find one, he said, "Marty, you stand here with him; see what y'all can find." Billy, suddenly, "Let's go across the street." So we went over across the street to the uh used car lot, part of Hillcrest—all kinds of Cadillacs there, man, a few convertibles. We're walking through; no blue one. And I think that's what he's looking for—that if this guy can't find one, Elvis wants that blue convertible, whether he gives it away the next day; he wants it that night, you know. It's that—that's where he wanted things. So he said, "There's not—I'm not—it's not here, what I'm looking for." He said, "Where's that other Cadillac place?" I said, "Well, further down Wilshire, there's a Lou Eilers down near Fairfax or La Brea." He said, "Let's go." Billy, "Tell Mario we're going somewhere else." We're back in a few minutes. So we went down there and I pulled in; I let Elvis and Billy out up there at the at the door, and I packed—I backed the Rolls-Royce back over in the corner there and got it out of the way and I got out and I walked, and as I get to the door, Elvis and Billy and the salesman are coming out the door of the showroom, and uh, I stopped and everything, and Elvis said, "Like that one there, Sonny, like black on black." And I look; there's this beautiful 1963, couple years old, Eldorado convertible, black interior leather. I said, "There you go; that's what you're talking about, man." And that blue can't hold up to that. He said, "Well, maybe you're right," but he said, "That's not my car; it's your car." Put the keys out, and I looked at him; I said, "No, no, it's not either—no, it's not." I turned; I walked away; I went back and got into the Rolls-Royce, got behind that driver's seat. He always comes over, gets into the passenger seat. "What's wrong with you?" I said, "Nothing's wrong, Elvis; you don't need to buy a car for me, man." He just bought me a motorcycle a few months earlier; I drove his cars when I needed a car. I said, "You know, Elvis, you always seem to be giving, and we always seem to be taking, and I don't—I don't want you to think you have to do that." He said, "Sonny, you guys are giving when you don't know you're giving. I put a lot on you over the years, but you handle it, and this is just my way of showing you I appreciate that." And I said, "Well, that's nice, but just think that if you think it—that's okay with me." He said, "Son, you can't tell me when you were a little boy that you didn't sit on that curb and watch Cadillacs go by and think one day—because when you had a Cadillac back then, you had arrived, man; you were it," and he said, "And wish someday that you would have one." I said, "Well, Elvis, every—every kid does that; everyone." He said, "I know, and I did it," and he said, "You know what? Here, you've got yours now; let's go get mine." I hugged him; I said, "Okay, let's go." So we left; he drove the Rolls-Royce limo with Billy with him, and I put the top—top one down—I put that top down and we head back up to the other place. We get up there and we walk in, and I was walking in—the salesman, Marty, Elvis—they found one over in Long Beach; they're going to service it and and they're going to bring it on over. They always looked at that sale and said, "Sir, would it be a problem to cancel that order and me take this one?" He changed his mind; he wanted that black one, and he said, "No, sir." So he made the call and can say, "Never mind; he's going to buy one here; he's getting one here." So he said something about having it delivered, to be ready to pick up tomorrow. "We can deliver it." I was, "No, no, I'm taking that tonight." He said, "Mr. President," he said, "It's got to be serviced." I said, "It's got break-in oil in it; I know that new cars have break-in oil that you get changed real quick after you buy the car." And he said, "Well, yeah, but I don't know if it's got gas." I said, "Give me the key." I knew I was won that car. I went over and I put that key and I turned it; that needle moved just a hair; I just got enough to get us to the gas station over. So we drove out of there with it; we pulled that right off the showroom. We always got it behind it; Billy got in with him; Marty got—then the Rolls-Royce driving, and I was in my car. We went up to the service station, gassed up, and went on up to the house. We picked up the rest of the guys; they always got Priscilla. He's got his top down because it was on—down; it was down when it was on the showroom floor. So uh, "We're gonna go for a ride." So we come out of Bel Air and we head down Sunset Boulevard, going towards the beach. Well, as you get lower and lower towards the beach, it gets cooler and cooler. The guy in the back with me—in the back seat of my car—said, "Sonny, man, put that top up; it's cold back here." I said, "No way—no way; that top unless he puts his top up, this top stays down, guys." But I turned on the heater and I put the side windows up, and they're huddled up right up between the seats and letting those heaters blow on them, everything, and huddle like this here. So we get down there a little bit, and...

I think Elvis feels it's a little bit cool too, and I don't know whether anyone complained or not, but all of a sudden he makes a U-turn on Pacific Coast Highway because we're headed towards Malibu, and he turns around. As he turns, I watch him, and his side windows are up. I don't know if he's got the heater or not, but his side windows are up, so I make the turn. We get back up to the house, and everyone's talking about the car and everything, and then they'd go inside, but not me. I'm walking around, and I'm looking at that car. I just can't believe this is my car. It is absolutely beautiful. And uh, then I finally went in, and Elvis, uh, what do you think I said? Oh, I think I'm gonna go back out there for a little while, you know. He said, "No, no, it'll be there tomorrow. Come on, stay in here. Let's talk about it."

Next day, he goes out and starts buying more Cadillac convertibles for the rest of the guys. He bought a black one for Red, just like mine, except it had red leather interior. And we're the only two that got the black ones; the rest of them had white and gold. And no, nobody got a blue one though. He wouldn't—he didn't buy anyone a baby blue one, but there were all different colors: two or three whites, a couple of golds, a light gray, and a maroon. And it took us about a week to find them, but he found them all. And I think it was something like eight or nine Cadillacs that he bought in a week's time. And uh, it started looking like a caravan, you know, with all these different color convertibles driving around. Everybody wanted to take their car. When that was an all-day thing, I'll be taking the car, get in our car, you know. We're not going to have eight or nine Cadillacs going down the road. So uh, but that was—that was just his generosity, like the wheelchair, in one way, from his heart, with—with the need that this woman had. And we didn't have a need, but he just wanted us to be happy and—and—and sharing some of his wealth and what he had, and that was his way of doing it.

I used to joke about when I went to work for him; I was making $75 a week over at the appliance store, but when I went to work for him, my salary was $35 a week—over half cut—but let me tell you something, that $35 is like a thousand dollars a week. I drove Cadillac cars; I stayed in the best hotels; I ate the best food; my clothes were done, my dry cleaning. I had to do one thing: I had to pay for my cigarettes. They were 25 cents a pack. You know how many packs $35 will buy you a week? But anyway, that uh—that—that was part of it. But while we were up in that home uh, where he did this, there was uh, one night he asked me to go outside with him in the backyard of this home that—prove your way—the first home we had moved into, out of the hotel. But we left it after a couple of years, went to another home, and then they remodeled it, and they wanted him back, so they remodeled it the way that he said, "I need another bathroom off the master bedroom." They did it, and we came back to that home, and that's where we ended up meeting the Beatles. I know there's one Beatles fan in here; I know that for sure. We'll get to that in a second, Stanley. But uh, he said, "Let's go outside," so we went out there, and we're talking, everything, and he's just being quiet, and all of a sudden he says, "Son, you see that light over there?" And I look over and see a light off over into this, and I said, "Yeah," I said, "plane." He said, "Uh-uh." I said, "Oh, okay." But the light's coming closer and closer and closer. I'm waiting for the sound of a prop or a helicopter or a jet engine. I'm waiting for some sort of sound, and I say, "No, else it's a plane." There is no sound, and it's getting closer and closer, and there's a tree line there around the golf course, and it just kind of went and disappeared behind the trees there, and I still—not hearing a sound. He says, "Go in there and get Jerry." So I went in the house and got Jerry, and we come back—Elvis not there. We started calling for him; he's not answering. "Where'd he go?" I said, "I don't know." And I told you, I said, "There was a light; he wanted you to see that was coming from across the sky that went over in here and everything." I said, "You go up one side of the house, and I'll go up the other. We'll go out, see if he's out front." Went out there; he wasn't out there.

Now, folks, I'm—I got to tell you, I'm young at that time; I'm about 26 years old. I'm starting to think, "What is going on here?" Because Elvis is acting weird sometimes, you know, moving—making bushes quivering, move and clouds form and dissipate, you know. And so we're hollering out there, and all of a sudden I hear this voice, "I'm down here, guys," and we look down—he's about three houses down in the driveway. So we hurry down there to him, and "Things, what are you doing? How are you doing down here?" He said, "Oh, nothing," he said, "that light—they're gone." I said, "Who's gone?" He said, "They're gone, but they'll be back." [Laughter] "Okay, I'd like to meet them." "Elvis, you will," and he was serious as you will. We went back up to the house. I talked with Jerry; I said, "Yeah, I don't know what he's talking about." He said, "Well, Sonny, it was a plane." I said, "Gee, I got to tell you, there was no sound; there was no engine; there was no noise. I was in the Air Force; I know what airplane sounds like, and there was no sound. I don't know what it was. Could have been a dead-stick plane, you know, engine dead or something, but it came a long way with no engine." But that—we didn't talk about it anymore, and he didn't bring it up. I never asked him, "Did they come back yet?" Over the years, I never asked him that, but that's—that's the way it was. But that's the house where we met the Beatles, Stanley.

You know, a lot of people asked me about that, "What was that like?" Because they're Beatles fans and Elvis fans. Well, I love the music of the Beatles; I thought they were extremely talented. I love their movies; they're crazy. It's like a bunch of Elvises all in together. They were each crazy, you know, and a lot of fun. You could see it—that they had fun, and that reminded me of our—our group. We weren't singers or entertainers, but we still pulled jokes and just had crazy times with each other. And they came up there; they've been wanting to meet him since the last year in '64, but I was making movies and everything, and he just wasn't available. So this time, it's arranged for them to come up there to the house and say hi to him. When they come in, John Lennon has been quoted, you know, by saying the statement that uh, Elvis, and he said, "Before Elvis, there was nothing." And John, prolific songwriter, so he—I knew how he meant that, and I—yeah, most people did; it's pretty evident. And then they asked the group about, "Did Elvis have any impression on you? Did he influence you in any way?" And Ringo Starr went, "I don't know what you mean, man," and I went and started doing Elvis and shimming and stuff, you know. Right, this is on a press conference, so we died laughing at that.

But when they came in, Elvis stayed inside there, and he's watching television. Got a big couch; it goes like this here, chairs over to the side, and he's sitting there in his pajamas watching, and the Beatles come in. Elvis gets up and says, "Hey, guys." He reached out; he shakes their hand; he knows them by name, you know—Paul, John, George, Ringo—and they're just looking at him; they're not saying nothing. It's like frozen time, man, and it's—it's so obvious, and they'll say, "Look, guys, it's not like you're calling on the King or something," and he meant the King of England, you know, how you bow down there. And John says, "Yes, you are. You're the King. You're the King." And I was—"I don't mean that kind of King. Come on, guys, let's do something. Let's talk, sing, play, or something; otherwise, I'm gonna go back and watch television." "Oh, no, no, we're ready." And then that loosened it up, so they got some bass and guitars out, and they sang, and they were singing some of their songs; they sang harmony with each other, and it went on. And Ringo was kind of beating on the table a little bit for the rhythm; his hands got tired or sore or something, and he just kind of eased out. He asked Redney to go play a game of pool with him there in the game room, which was right next to the—the den there, so we went in and played a game of pool. But a lot of people—it's just—we just kind of accepted that they were the Beatles, and he was Elvis, and they were meeting, saying hi to each other. There were no tapes, recordings made; there were no photos taken inside; it was all kept like that. People said, "God, why didn't one of you guys tape it? Tape it." And I said, "I wished I had—I wished I had, boy, to have that tape of that meeting."

But some of the guys went over to—I went to the house uh, the next night, and we—the house they were leasing, and they had this big fence around it. You had to come crawl up a mountain if you didn't go up the driveway; there's a mountain around it. It's on top of this big wooden fence around it. Girls were climbing up that mountain; you could see them out there like Indians, boy, working their way up, trying to get up next—like that—up to that fence to try to get in. But when I told you about them being crazy and everything like uh, this should give you an idea of what I mean. We had some famous fireworks at Graceland. Christmas time is a special time for hours; we're always there for Christmas, and a lot of it had to do because of fireworks on New Year's Eve. He'd buy thousands and thousands. We had to go to West Memphis because you couldn't—you couldn't have them there; you couldn't buy them in the city where we lived, in the county at the time, so he wasn't going against any city ordinance by having those fireworks. And we'd get in the backyard, and these big cannons go off, and we're doing all that, and then it came time to the—to the wars with the Roman candles. We had gunfights with Roman candles, shooting each other, and they'd sting—and they would sting you, and they burned if they got your skin, not bad like someone threw a lighted match on you or something. But anyway, we uh—and then Elvis went to these things—the uh rockets, bottle rockets—supposed to put them there and let them go way up in the air because they go—and they're—they're fast; they go 5,000 miles an hour, man. He'd shoot those things at us, and you didn't know where it was going because it's doing this here, and I was running by the house. Point one of them hit in the house, knocked a hole in—I just kept on going. So we're hiding from him because it's funny to him; it's not funny when you think that thing's going to get you. A few minutes, someone opens the door and says, "Time out! Time out!" The house is filling up with smoke. I went over there, and I looked, boy, and there I looked inside where that Roman camp—I mean where that rocket had knocked a hole in that stucco wall, and I could see some embers in there, smoking and burning out. Whoa! I went and got the—the hose, and I brought over, and I stuck that hose—and I got to think about Elvis shooting at me again while I was doing it—and I took off and left the hose there. So we continue on. A few minutes later, they say, "House is flooding!" I turn the water off, and I go over there real quick and get that hose out, and Elvis is, "Daddy's gonna get mad at y'all for doing that, man—knocking a hole in the wall, smoking up the house, flooding it." I said, "Okay, all right, I'm gonna stay away from you." A little while later, we went into the house, and we were talking about it, and Mr. Presley had a habit—there were nuts and different things, especially at the holidays; he would grab a handful of peanuts, from throwing in his mouth and chew them. Well, we're sitting around the kitchen talking about what we've done, and Elvis had burnt my butt up with a flare. They had these little things like helicopters that you light; it takes off real fast; you put them underneath someone; it hits you. So I put one under Allen; I'm ready for it to go off, and I look—there's one under me, and I jump back and right into Elvis's flare. Ah! I snuck—that's phosphorus; it hits; it keeps burning, folks; it doesn't go out, and it's burning me, and I took off across that thing, hitting back there, trying to holler. He's laughing—funny to Elvis. I went and got that hose and put it on there, you know, trying to put it out, but we're in there later laughing and talking about this and—and Vernon comes into the room, and there on the kitchen counter there's a bowl there, and it's got these little red and white things in there. Apparently, he grabs a handful, throws them in my trunk—boom! They blow up. It's those poppers that you throw. Smoke billowed out of his mouth. "Oh, my God! If I got my teeth—" Elvis is dying; Elvis fell over his chair, went over backwards; he fell on the floor, and Vernon—"It ain't funny! It ain't funny!" And Elvis knew he wasn't hurt, but it stung; it numbed him up a little bit. He said, "Y'all know not to do that; people are going to think that." Now, I said, "Daddy, you're the first one all night." He said, "Well, you watch; there'll be some others come in and do it. You just watch." So he hung out there for a while, waiting—people walk in and out—no one went over there to it. Here comes Billy Smith, about 13, 14 years old, Elvis's nephew—I mean uh, Vernon's nephew. Vernon said, "Billy, you gonna have some of that candy there?" Billy said, "Yes, sir. Where is it?" He said, "Right there in that bowl right there." "No, sir, Uncle Vernon; that's those pop things you throw down again." Elvis starts laughing about it. He said, "Daddy, I told you, did you?" "Well, someone will do it, but I probably won't be here when they do," and he left. No one did—Vernon's the only one that did that—but it was uh—that was some of the crazy times. We—Richard—we started wearing mat goggles and things because Richard got hit near the eye, and it hurt him a little bit, but it didn't do any permanent damage to his eye, but everybody realized that, you know, an eye could be taken, especially that rocket. You don't dodge that rocket; it's—it comes, and if you're there, it's going to get you. There is no way—Bob Hayes—"Bullet Bob" Hayes—couldn't get out of the way of one of those things. When it got you, it got you. It never hit anyone, though. We were lucky because they were just crazy things. But uh, I got a story—we talk about charisma and things like that, and Elvis was loaded with charisma, magnetism—everything you can think of that you think you see on TV in his news conferences or whatever, and you see this, and you think, "God, he's gorgeous, man, is he?" Well, let me tell you something, folks, a lot of actors, a lot of entertainers thought the same thing about Elvis, and he found out from Jack Lord—it was my wife, Ivo—they became friends, and he told him, "Oh, you got a lot of fans up there in New York." He started naming—Paul Newman, Tony Franciosa, Steve McQueen, Ralph Meeker—they all worked together doing plays and stuff up there on Broadway, and they knew each other from acting—from actors to you—they all think you're—you're something, man. And because they were friends of Jack's because Jack was up there with him, and it was—it really moved Ella later on. He said, "Yeah, you believe that, man? They're fans of mine." I said, "Here we are; we can't wait to see the movies they come out with," so that really pleased him. You know, that charisma that Elvis had, in magnetism, it was very evident to these other celebrities and people that saw it also, and because they had their own, and they always admired it in them. And one of them was Muhammad Ali. He was in Vegas in 1973 to fight Joe Bugner from Europe—young, strong bull boy, 21 years old—and uh, I mean, Ali won the fight that night, but I'm telling you, he had all he could handle. It was a decision; the guy just kept coming, kept coming; took everything Ali had to give him. But before that, while he came in there and was training, he was staying in Caesar's Palace, and he came to the Elvis show, and we're huge fans of Ali. So when the show was over, instead of receiving him back in the dressing room, we immediately had them escorted up to the suite because Elvis wanted to spend some time with him. So we met him up there; they were up there actually waiting when we got there. We came in the back way, and now he stopped and looked at him; he said, "Man, I know why those women love you so much; you're almost as pretty as I am." [Laughter] That broke the ice—hell, which is—grinned and laughed, walked up, shook his hand and everything, and—and uh, so they started talking and everything, and Ali had mentioned about Elvis's jumpsuits, how much he liked them. So he had a guy with him uh, that came over to me, and he said, "Uh, Sonny, Ali's talking about getting a—a robe made out of like that jumpsuit of Elvis's. Can you tell me who makes those and everything?" And I said, "Well, I could uh, but let me—let me check with Elvis here in a little bit." So when the time presented itself, I told Gene, I said, "I'll get back to you; I'll call you and give you the information." He said, "Okay." His name was Gene Kilroy. So we visited everything, and they messed around, talking, Holly did a couple of butterflies, things and stuff, you know. They left, and I told Elvis—Elvis—Ali wants to get his guys to get a robe made up—I like your jumpsuit, and I thought maybe you might want to do that. He's, "Oh, yeah," he said, "call Bill and set it up." So I called Gene; I said, "Gene, we're going to take care of it; I'll call you when we've got it back here in town." He said, "Okay." So got in touch with Blue; told him it was for Ali; he's 6'3", about 225 pounds or so; want the sleeves big enough for the gloves to be able to be brought through them when he's in the ring with no hassle, so they need to be flared big, and they need to be still big all up in here too, so go down to mid-calf or a little bit lower, and make it sharp. And he did it; came in; I called Gene; Gene checked it out; said, "We're going to come over early on the way to the fight, and I leave—we're going to come there to the hotel," because they were fighting at the convention center, which was right next to the Hilton Hotel. So they came over the night of the fight. Well, I went over to get them, and I took a security guard and a security—a Hilton security station wagon, and I go to Caesar's—guard stays out there; I go in, go up to Ali's floor, tell the guards that I'm there to pick up Ali and his party. This guy says, "Sure you are. I don't know." "I am," I said, "Really? I should just check with Gene Kilroy." He said, "I will," but he still doubted it, so he went over there, and all of a sudden here comes Gene out the door. "Sonny, you ready?" Well, this guy's scared—scary guy's manner changed real quick. "Oh, okay, yeah, uh—" So Gene—they come out; Ali comes, "Hey, Sonny." So we get in the elevator; we go down; we start walking through the casino; he's like a panther, pacing; he's got this—that I'm walking next to him, and I'm—I'm just getting pumped. Damn, it's just raining off of him, you know. People are—"Ali! Ali!" The whole casino—

Is saying Ali, and he's walking. He's got this look on his face, and he's doing it, and you can see him. He's acknowledging him, but he's got, he's got things in his mind that we couldn't even think of. So we get out to the car. We, I said, "Over this way here." We start over towards the station wagon. He said, "Where are you sitting, Sonny?" I said, "I'm going to sit up front. I'm going to sit up front with Sonny." So he gets into the middle of the front seat and stretches those arms out, and they go on forever, you know. The driver, the security guards, like this here to drive, the rest of them, uh, the doctor and and Gene and his brother, the bodyguard, Ali's brother, and uh, Dundee Henslow, they get in the back of the station wagon there. So we're driving over to the hotel, the Hilton, and I can feel this energy, and it's on me. I'm just kind of moving around a lot. And now he says, "Sonny, what's wrong with you?" I said, "Ali," I said, "You got me so pumped up, I'll get up and whip his ass for you if you want me to," you know. "All right, Sonny." Yeah, okay. "Sonny's my second tonight," you know.

So we get over there, and and it really was, it was just contagious. So we get over there, and we go upstairs through the back way, up the elevator and everything, and Elvis is waiting. And they come in. Elvis has the robe brought out. Well, it's supposed to. He puts it on Eileen. Oh, man. He puts those arms through there, starts doing his shadow boxing, doing this stuff. There's a big mirror there, and as he turns around, Gene Kilroy sees what's written on the back. Supposed to say, "The People's Champion." I messed up. I had "The People's Choice." Sheen whispers to me, "Sonny," I suppose, saying, "The People's Champion." I said, "Oh, God." I'll eat around that big mirror, therefore he goes, "What does that say back there?" Five voices loudly, "The People's Choice." And I spoke up. I said, "I believe that's my fault. I, I thought that's what was supposed to go in America. I thought that's what you are or what you were," and you know, "and I'll, I'll get it fixed, or we'll give him another one." "Right, Elvis." "I can't afford that, several thousand dollars." And I said, "Yeah, we'll take it." Said, "No, wait a minute, wait a minute. Now, y'all just wait a minute. People's Champion, People's Choice. No, I like it. Anybody can say they're the People's Champion, but the People's Choice, you're hit right, you're it. God," and his guy, "Oh, yeah, yeah." So that's the class that he had. He took the heat off of me. So he left. Before he left, he said, "Elvis, I know you need Sonny, man. I need my guys. I know you need him, but I'd like to ask you if you'd let him come over and be your representative tonight and watch me whip that boy's ass from Europe." And he said, "Sonny's my second." We found that out in the car. I would say, "What I'll tell you later, boss." I'm just hoping he says, "Yeah." So he says, "Yeah, okay." So I did. I went over there, and I sit on the third row with Gene and watched it, and I, boys pulling for Ali. He could bugger. Was really tough, tough on him. He won the decision, and I left because I knew he'd have reporters and all kinds of people's dressing rooms. I just went back over to the show to do my job with Elvis, and we kept through with the engagement.

I don't know how long it was later, three, four weeks, or a month and a half or something, where the home I'm living with, I was there in L.A., at Holmby Hills, and buzzer, intercom buzzer rings. I answered, and uh, it's the maid downstairs. Said, "Muhammad Ali is on line one." I said, "Who?" She said, "Muhammad Ali." Yeah. So I think it's someone because I've been talking about telling people about this, and I think Alan, somebody's going to put me on. Like, "Hello, Sonny." I said, "Yeah, who's this?" "Holly," I said, "Well, hey, Ali." I'm thinking this does sound like him, you know, and he says, "Just call me man. See how you doing," you know. "I'm practicing, ready for my next fight. He better not be as tough as that Bugner was," you know. I brag about what I was going to do and I didn't barely just get it done, so I'm just letting him talk. I don't know what to say to him, you know, and all of a sudden I said, "You want to talk to Elvis, Sonny?" "If I want to talk to Elvis, I call Elvis," you know. "I called you. I talked to Elvis another time." I said, "Okay." So we talked for a few minutes, and then it was done. He called one more time. He talked two or three times, talked to Elvis and everything, but he really was loaded with charisma. I would say, next to Elvis, he had more charisma and magnetism and an aura about him more than anyone else besides Elvis. He ran a close second, but I loved him then, and I love him now, and I just feel so sorry, what's his disease, you know. It's just to have such a grand champion and uh, have him debilitated like he is, it just breaks your heart. But at the Olympics, with that, that wasn't that great? It was so good, but I sure would like to see him before anything happens, just to say hi to him again. I'm going to do it. I'll get a chance to do it, and I'm going to say hi to him.

One of the craziest times, once Ali left town, was when we had a gunfight, a red, it wasn't real one. Elvis had death threats, but he hadn't had any for a couple of years now. So we decided to pull this prank on the Stamps Quartet. We get, we're going to say there's a threat on Elvis's life, someone's trying to kill him, and then we're going to ask the Stamps if they'll help us walk with Elvis through the corridors back there from the dressing room to the suite to help protect him. So we get the guards in on it, two guards that do the escort with us from the hotel. We got them to empty their guns that night of bullets. We got blanks for mine and Red's guns. We're ready to set it up. We go to J.D., and we tell him we got a problem. We got another death threat. He said, "Man, we haven't had one of those in so long." I said, "I know it, but it's, it's here." I said, "I want to know if you and the guys would walk with," security is stretched out, they have no extra people to put around him, and we need help getting him from the dressing room up to the, to the suite, and we were just wondering if you guys would do it. He said, "Well, man, I'll do it because I love him, but he's, I got to talk to my guys. I got to make sure they understand that if they do it or don't do it, it's okay, because you know they're still going to be a member of the Stamps whether they do it or not." So he went on. I said, "Okay." So he went and talked to them, then he called us in. Ed Enoch, he was an air policeman in the Air Force, knows how to handle a gun. He carried one for almost four years, and he's, we call him the wild man for other reasons. He was crazy. He was really about that close to being insane, but I loved him to death. Today, still do. I see him, talk to him. He's talking kind of for the group. He said, "J.D. told us what it's about, so maybe you can give us some more details." I said, "Okay, yeah, what it is is this." I went on to it again about the death threat, and I said, "Just J.D. is going to do it." He said, "But he wanted you guys to know that you could do it as your choice." And he said, "Well, yeah, we're going to do it. We love him too, man." "Right, guys?" The guy says, "Yeah, yeah, yeah." I let that go for a second. I said, "That's, man, I appreciate it. I know Elvis will, because you know the more bodies around him, the less chance the bullet's going to get to him." Then it hit him. Bill Bailey started praying. He was a real religious one of the group. It says, "Well, yeah, we're still going to do that." "Right, guys?" Donnie, "Yeah, we're going to do it."

So we set it up. So I was the point man, as always. I was in front. Red brings up the rear. The two guards are on the side. A couple other guys in the group are there, and then the Stamps are around. So I don't see what's going on back there, but Red does. It's right in front of him. Elvis is looking down at the, at the, at the corridor. He cannot look up because he's, he can sense what's happening. These guys are looking at every nook and cranny in that Carter boy, straining those necks. Look is that down that hallway? They're doing this. Elvis is trying not to see this. So we get upstairs, go in the back way, and man, they, yeah, we made it, and they're happy. They're cheering. Okay, they settled down, and I said, right in front of them, I go up to Red. I said, "Red, I'm gonna go check with security, see if we've got any more information on this nut. I'll be back up." So I let them see me, the Stamps see me go out the front door. I go around through the club that's up there, back to that back elevator, and my room is back there, and I come in that door, and I go back to my room, and I put a black coat on, and I get my gun out. I go back up there where that car meets that foyer in the sunken living room out there, and you can see him out there all happy. I take that gun. Actually, "Presley, you're dead!" Elvis falls. Red grabs his gun, starts running in my direction, and he fires off a couple of shots, and I said, "Pow!" Red drops. "Oh, I've been hit!" And he hits and rolls. J.D. jumps down on Elvis, jumps down, Elvis and J.D. jumps down on top of him to cover him. Donnie Sumner just disappeared from my view. He just took off, and I found out later he had Boston over this big bar over it, like a gazelle. Never broke a glass, never broke a bottle or anything, and landed behind that and was crouching back there and hiding. Enig pulled over a big round table there as a shield and jumped down behind it. Oh, I forgot to tell you the guards are dead too. They pulled their guns, and I shot them. So four shots, four dead people. So, so it pulls that table over, and Bill jumps down behind him. Bill's the one that prays a lot. He started speaking in tongues, praying and everything. Ed told me, "Shut up, shut up, Bill. Somebody give me a gun." That's what he is asking for. Well, he crawls over and gets one of those guards' guns, but it was empty because we had it emptied. All of a sudden, as I'm making my way through the dining room over there on the other side, through the kitchen dining room to come out over there because that's where Elvis and J.D. are, I hear, I hear Enoch say, "Man, they don't even carry bullets in these things. Thank goodness. I could have got shot." So I get over there. This is when I find out where Donnie is, just over on the other side, that bar. Everything's quieting down now, and J.D.'s big old gray head starts rising up above that bar, and I see it. I went, "Pow!" And I shot the wad, hit him. "Oh, my God, I've been shot!" He went back down. He fell back over on Elvis. Donnie saw my hand when I shot. That's when I found out he's there. He comes out, grabs hold of my hand, my wrist here with the gun with his left hand, and in his right hand is a big two-quart can of tomato juice, and he's going to smash my face with it. He draws back and does that when I pull over to the side, and he went flying out of his hand over and took a gouge out of the wall, but the momentum, and I pulled my arm, and he's, his hand slipped off, and it's a sunken living room, so I'm up a couple of steps on the, on the dining room level, and he's there on his knees, and I've got that gun. I said, "Donnie, you're dead." He thought it was me. He said, "Sonny, oh, God, it's you," and he fainted. He really fainted. He fell over dead faint. He thought I had gone berserk and was killing everybody. So everyone's laughing. Elvis starts laughing. Everyone's glad it's over with now, and J.D.'s getting up. By God, he said, "When I was down there and I felt that was shaking, I thought it's a joke." He just, he's laughing. He's just shaking from lying here when that shot hit me. Ain't that, I thought, no, he's scared, that's why he's shaking. So we're all laughing about it and everything, and everyone's fine with it now except Ed Enoch. Ed Enoch is ranting and raving, very upset that we would do this to him, make him think that he was going to save someone's life, and it's just a big joke. "I can't believe you guys did this to us," and we're just looking at him. He's going on, and why, I mean it, you think, you think it's funny? "You know what we got to do this to Burton and those guys." That's how quick he got to thinking about it. Was funny, but uh, we had a crazy times with them, you know, over the years, and I love them to death, and I still see them. They're not all there. J.D. is gone. Uh, Ed is there. Ed Hill is now not with him because he had a, a stroke, but it's, uh, it's some really good memories, and I was, I could see that whole thing that night, and it really was funny.

Uh, there's another thing that was a very important meeting, like the Ali, and that was when Elvis decided he wanted a federal narcotics badge. He went, he was good at getting what he wanted. You're going to find out just how good. So he went up there to meet with John Finn later up in Washington, D.C., who was Deputy Director of the Bureau of Dangerous Drugs and Narcotics, and asking for a federal badge. He said, "I can't give you one, and give you an honorary or something, but I can't give you a real one." "Hour, I'll say, I don't want honorary. I want the real thing. I can help, I, you know, people don't think of me in that way, and and I can help." And he said, "Well, I'm sorry, but I can't." He said, "Only the man can give you that." Elvis said, "The man?" He said, "The President." So Miss Finn, "Yeah, I think it's nice meeting you." He's gone off to see the man. He drives, writes a note, drops it off at the White House gate. The guard takes it in, gives it to who he's supposed to give it to, a guy by the name of Dwight Chafin, who is responsible for that part of it. He reads the note, and he calls Bud Crow. He said, "Bud," is the one that makes the appointments. He said, "Bud, we got a problem." But I said, "What is it? What's the problem?" He says, "Well, the King is here, and he wants to meet with the President." But I said, "King? What king? Nobody told me there was a king coming today." He said, "No, not a king, the King." And Bud picked up and said, "You talking about Elvis?" "Elvis Presley." "That's right. He wants to meet with the President." "Yes, he does. I've got a letter right here from him that he's written, dropped off at the gate." And Bud said, "Well, can we do it? Do I say, I don't know. We're gonna have to run it by committees, and Holloman's gonna have to check off on it," who was the Chief of Staff, John Alderman. He said, "Well, let's do it. Let's see." So they had to see if it was beneficial to the President to meet with Elvis, if it was good or bad or whatever. They ran it by, and people went ahead and said, yeah, that he's a connection to some people that maybe are not related, not into President Nixon right now, but he, he's got a lot of input and everything. So they decided to have the meeting, and John Holloman laughed and checked. I said, "Okay, let it happen." Well, I didn't even know he was in Washington, D.C., that day. I was asleep in Grayson at my room, and that morning I get a call around eight o'clock in the morning. It's Jerry Schilling. "Sonny," I said, "Yeah, what?" He said, "Elvis wants you to get the next plane to Washington, D.C." I said, "Washington? Why?" He said, "He wants you up here." I said, "Is Elvis up there?" He said, "Yeah." I thought he's asleep. He's no, he's up. He flew all night, California and back. He left that night with just the American Express cards, all he had, and he got a flight to L.A. and back, got Jerry out there, and flew back to D.C. So I go out and catch a plane. I was that close to not being able to meet the President. I got up there, and as I pulled up in that taxi from the airport, Jerry is standing outside, and I get out of the cab. He said, "Hurry up, Sonny. He's going to take your luggage up to my room. We don't have time. We're going to see the President." Elvis coming around with the car, and here comes the limousine. This guy, Ben was his name, driving it, and there was sitting back there in the sea. "Hurry up, get in. We got to go." We get in the car. We drive over there. They take Elvis into one area. They take Jerry and I, a guy named Jeff Donfeld, who was an aide with Bud, he took us to another place. Elvis goes in. Well, now he's dressed really to the max. Got a purple fur suit on, cape, rose-colored glasses, 14-karat gold, big gold belt that the Hilton had given him, International Hotel actually gave him for breaking records, and a walking stick. Came, well, the President's there in his conservative thing, suit, tie. He looked at Elvis after they had said some greetings and everything. He said, "You dress kind of wild, aren't you, son?" He said, "Mr. President, you got your show to run, and I got mine." Nixon said, "That's right. That's very good. That's very good." So they hit it off. So then we went ahead and and uh, they talked and met, and then we're over there talking about how we can't believe we're going to meet the President. The guy tells us, "You're probably not. He only has so much time, and Elvis seems to be taking all of it. You don't know Elvis. We'll meet him." Phone ring. "Come on," he said, "Y'all, let's go. Y'all going to meet the President." So we go over there and step inside. Noah says, uh, "Come on in, guys." I couldn't just walk into the Oval Office, I just, to the side, Jerry, two, Elvis has taken over the room. "Come on in, Mr. President. Here's those guys I want you to meet." President gets up behind the desk, walks out there, shakes my hand, takes Eric, shakes your hand, hits me on the shoulder. Says, "You're a couple of big guys. Y'all take pretty good care of him." And Elvis spoke, "Yes," or they do, "Mr. President, they do." He said, "Well, that's good. That's good. Uh, don't you have something for them, Mr. President?" "Oh, yeah." The President goes over to his drawer, goes in there and comes back with these 14-karat gold keychains with the Presidential Seal hanging from him, gives me one, gives Jerry one. We thank him. Then all of a sudden he says, "Mr. President, they got wives too." [Laughter] He's calling the shots, isn't he? Back they go. Elvis follows him over there. He comes back with gifts for my wife, Judy, and for Red's wife, and I mean Jerry's wife, and it's got these gold bows with the Presidential Seal. He gives them to us. We thank him again. Elvis is over there going through his drawer. [Laughter] The President looks over and says, uh, "You see anything you like there?" Elvis, "Oh, yes, sir. You got some pretty good things here." He said, "Help yourself. I got plenty of them." At the start of the show, I said that the day that I met Elvis, my life would never be the same. Well, I'd like to tell you the end of that story is the day that he died, my life changed and will never be the same again. Thank you. [Applause] Y'all miss him too. I know you do. He's in your hearts, your minds, but we always have him. They can't take that away from any of us that loved him. [Music] Thank you all for coming. Hope.

You enjoyed [Applause] the last time that I saw Elvis, which was actually the last time I spoke with him. It was in Graceland, in the foyer, on July the 5th, my birthday of 1976. It's kind of ironic; he cut his first song, "That's All Right, Mama," on my birthday in 1954, on July the 5th. And here it is, all these years later—22 years later—that I spoke with him. As he went up the steps, we had just finished the tour. It ended in Memphis at the Mid-South Coliseum, and he was going up the stairs. He had this towel around his neck, and his glasses; he had a bottle of water. And I said, "Well, goodnight, E." I said, "Uh, I'll see you in a few days," because I knew he was always wanting to relax and just hang out up there and read and eat and didn't even come down for a few days. He said, "Yo," he said, "Yeah," he said, "By the way, happy birthday, Sonny." And I says, "Well, thanks." I said, "By the way, Judy baked the cake, and I wonder if you might want a piece of it." He's, "Oh, yeah, Linda's going to bring me up some." I said, "Okay, well, goodnight, boss. Goodnight." That was the last time I spoke with him or saw him. [Music]

I am what I am today because of Elvis. My philosophies, my thoughts on—from politics to humanitarianism—anything. I was 21 years old when I went to work for him. Watching him, being with him, and seeing what he did for people, the effect he had on people, his philosophy on things, the way that he quick-mined with that would work—I, I just learned from him, and and it became me. I was molded, really, by Elvis, just by being around him. It's not that he meant to; it's just that's the impact that he had on me. My biggest regret is that he's gone, and I do miss him terribly, and I wish he was here. Another regret is that what we tried to do, we failed. We, we didn't get him to stop doing what he was doing to himself. [Music] I regret that I didn't get to say goodbye to him, really say goodbye. So I've done it since then, in my heart, in my prayers. [Music] I've said goodbye, but uh, and he hears me. You know, there's a preacher one time told me that God lets those up there in heaven see everything that's wonderful and beautiful and warm and makes them feel good. And that if there's something down here that is disturbing or stresses them, if they don't see it, they don't know; they're not aware of it. He protects them to keep them in that worldly wonderful warm feeling of being in heaven. And I like to think that I get smiles—some—elf I said, every now and then I do something, it makes me smile. You know, I love you, and I miss you, man. I wish you were here. I'd like to be sharing life with you at this age, like we did when we were younger. And you see where we were today, what we were doing—making movies, doing tours, hanging out. Our children are grown, the grandchildren, everything. I just like to know I would be with you today. He was my friend. Goodnighty.

Okay, I have a question. All right, um, he got his big concerts, and you know, and Elvis is getting ready. What does he do before he goes on the stage to prep himself? Well, he uh, usually gets to the show very short time. He comes to intermission when we're on the road, and he comes down a little bit earlier when we're in the—because he can hang out in the dressing room when we're in Vegas. But we developed—he was so nervous when he would go on—that we developed—he and I started in '69 in Vegas—we started doing this Indian wrestle-stretch thing, where he would pull me towards him, and I would pull him with our feet side by side like this here, like Indian wrestling. And we'd switch and do that, and he would shake his hands like he was trying to get rid of the energy and everything. And he would, "Don't know, don't know," and he would do his voice and real lows, make something out of, and make sure he was ready. And that basically it. And he was nervous. Born when he hit that stage—bang—it was gone; he was dynamite. But he did—nervous there.

Okay, I know you weren't working for him at this time, but do you think he would have ever actually married Ginger? No, no. There's nothing against Ginger when I say that. I know a lot of fans don't like her, and for obvious reasons; they think she's partly responsible. But we know that Elvis is responsible when it comes down to it. It's just hard to accept that and say it, but I don't think that he would have—I just don't think Elvis would ever have gotten married again to anybody. I felt that if he would have, he probably would have married Linda Thompson after a couple, three years, because she took such great care of him, great personality, and uh, they had a really, really good thing. But Elvis should never really—and this is not a slam on Priscilla—she'd never even gotten married in the first place. He didn't belong to one woman; he couldn't belong to one woman. He belonged to the women of the world; they loved him. That's why all of them—you hear them say, "Oh, I felt like he was singing just to me." Well, he was—to you and to you. But he communicated; he was a great communicator. He made people—women especially—feel very good when he received—Yeah, thank you, Sonny.

What was the blue police light that Elvis had in his stats or in a car that he took—like to the Memphian or whatever—what was the idea behind that? He was a policeman? Thank you. No, he got—he got a badge—chief deputy badge. He got me a lieutenant badge. He got—a lieutenant badge on the Shelby County Sheriff's Department. We went through training—Red and I went through firearm training and everything like that. But he got this—this blue light that fit on the dash—or you've seen it—it used to be a red light on Kojak that they can stick up with the magnet on top of the roof in an unmarked car. But he would put it up on the dash, and he would use that mainly when—he wouldn't use to get somewhere. But we'd be driving to the movie, and some car would speed by. He'd put that blue light on, catch up, pull him over. And we weren't sure who was in that car that was speeding or why, so we had to go up there too. And I got to tell you, a little nervous going up to these cars—we didn't know—a drug dealer, we don't know—what—a guy just robbed a bank and trying to get away. So which—Elvis, you don't need to do this. But he said, "Oh, no, man, this speeder calls a wreck." I said, "Yeah, well, if they got a gun," he said, "We got guns; we'll kill him." Okay. So one night, though, is real funny. This guy comes by us, and we'll crew along, and Elvis is driving, and he's doing about the speed limit, maybe even a little bit more, when this car goes by—it's doing about just five or six miles over the speed limit. But he did—passes—"Uh-oh"—hit that blue light. That car pulls over and starts pulling on the side of the road, and we get—"Elvis, man, he wasn't really speeding. God, you're not even doing the speed limit." You know, yeah, he wasn't so bad. He unplugged; we kept going. That guy's sitting there wondering what's going on—you know, a police light, and it's a Lincoln; it's not a police car. So that was kind of surprising to him. Yeah, but that's mainly what it was—just same thing. He had a badge for—he wanted to be a cop. I think Elvis, if he hadn't been a singer, probably would have been an FBI, CIA, or a cop or something. You know, he's very pro-police.

Okay, Sonny, I know you worked uh, security for a lot of years there. Did you ever have any close calls—close calls or security breaches that was close? Yeah, we had—we did—that's a good question. We had uh, the main—the main problem with the security was people accidentally hurting him—women reaching for him, wanting a lock of his hair or reaching for his ring or reaching up to touch him and scratching him—without me too. This is what we really had to watch out for. But we had some really serious threats to—to kill him. We had bomb threats at some of the buildings we played. But uh, the worst one was when we had one from someone out there in Vegas with uh—"Someone's gonna kill Elvis for fifty thousand dollars." They—they would tell who it was; they knew who it was. And so the FBI was called in, and this was in nineteen—and we've been—we've done two or three engagements, and nothing had happened there. But this one—the FBI said they did a profile—said, "He doesn't care if he's caught; he wants to get caught. He's not going to shoot from the balcony; he's going to come right down front, or he's going to be seating down front, and he's going to just stand up and shoot." So after he explained this to us, they always took Red and myself and Jerry aside, and tears came to his eyes. He said, "Man, you guys know I have never done anything to anybody for someone to kill me. He says, 'I want your word that if it happens, you guys get to him first before anybody else.' He said, 'I want his eyeballs ripped out; I want him so torn up, I do not want to smirk on his face in some courtroom like Charles Manson—that his claim to fame was he killed Elvis Presley. You guys got to promise me.'" We promised him, and by golly, we would have—we would have got there, but it didn't—nothing happened from him. And then the—the thing ended. He wasn't even supposed to have to go on—that hotel to him, you know. He said, "No, these people come—some of them come to town—someone's going to be leaving—they came here; they want to see me; they're going to see a show." Oh, he did it. Thank you. But that's the worst serious one we had. But we—we had other ones where one woman said she'd kill him because he rejected her.

Did you enjoy working and stay away, Joe? And do you recall any bloopers—anything that happened on the set? Bloopers—every—every movie—many of them—and Elvis handled them really great. Yeah, I loved working on—on that. I played a—a guy named Jackson—he crow—I had a good part on it—like a featured role. I played an Indian that grew up with him; he was half-Indian, and we grew up together on the reservation. And there was a scene in there when he comes back from rodeos—he's got the Congress—he's conned them into letting them bring some cattle in—the Indian start making some money by raising cattle and selling them and everything. He's got—he comes riding in on that bull that's going to give him all these baby cows. Well, after we did that, he started—we started a little kind of a free-for-all fighting in—in fun, and we work our way down, and he knocks me over a log, and I go over backwards, and he—someone grabs him and tackles him and takes him down into the dirt. And I get up and come around, so I end up down there, and there's this water there—it's supposed to be a creek, but they just dammed it off and—and put some water in there—like there was a river, you know, running through there—little creek. And I'm supposed to go at him and throw a punch, and he takes me and does a throw and throws me into the water. I'm the first one to go in. Well, he slipped a little bit, and there were some rocks there, and my head—when we saw it—came that close to hitting that rock before I went in the water. I didn't realize it because if the rock was behind me, I didn't know it. But when we saw it—Elvis saw it when he was throwing me—it scared him. But he knew when I jumped up out of the water I was okay and everything—that I didn't hit it. But we had a lot of fun; we did that. I did a lot of fight scenes with Elvis. I doubled other actors; Red did it also. We fought with Elvis a lot. They even got where they cast actors that were big like us so that we would look like them.

Sonny, did the Colonel influence Elvis so much that uh, it changed things he really wanted to do? I mean, he couldn't do what he really wanted to do because of the Colonel, the way he set things up. But yeah, those things happen, but it wasn't because of an influence or anything like that where Colonel was putting his will out on him. Uh, Colonel's strong personality, but he's a strong businessman. And what he did was he signed Elvis to multiple picture deals. Everyone wanted to have that security. Elvis came back from Germany after leaving and not performing and doing anything for two years with the words ringing in his ears of all his critics saying, "Oh, he's a flash in the pan; he won't last; he'll be gone," this, that. Well, he kind of thought maybe in the army while he was there in that two years that that just might happen—that he might be a flash in the pan and the fans not be there. Well, when he came back, Colonel started getting these multiple movie contracts signed—all of a sudden—that was new—"Hey, they believe in me still." So he felt good about it. But Colonel made a bad decision with all that he had to make. I'm going to tell you something—I'll tell you this, and I mean in the bottom my heart—Colonel Parker, if I could go to my grave and make half of the right decisions that he made regarding Elvis, I would be very happy that I had really, really accomplished more than I ever thought I could. And along with that, I would take all of the bad decisions he's made, and I'd take all of them, and I'd still be way out balanced. But he—he was uh, his Elvis was his best interest. And there's been things that have come out against him—not—I was not doing the "Stars Born" because he told Streisand he wanted to do it. But after two or three days, Elvis realized what a challenge that was—he had to lose weight; he had to quit taking things that he was taking; he'd have to do it for months at a time while they filmed it—got to be too big a challenge for him. He told Colonel, "Get him out of it." So Colonel put the price up too high. Colonel said Elvis was to get top billing. You know, you're not going to get that—Streisand, especially if she's the producer, she's not going to let anyone have billing over her. So she said these things about the Colonel—put too much ass for too much for—the Elvis didn't want to do it. Colonel took the heat; never made an excuse; never defended it. And there was a story similar to that with Judy Garland and Elvis. They came to the Colonel in the '60s; they wanted Judy Garland and Elvis to do a children's album together. And uh, Colonel came to Elvis—"You want to do it? They're offering 25,000." I said, "No, I don't really want to." Colonel, he said, "Okay." So he went back, and he told the people—he said, "You know, Elvis, we'd have to have a hundred thousand dollars for Elvis to take the time to do that." And they said, "We don't have that in our budget; Judy's going to do it for 25." He said, "Well, I'm just telling you that we have to have that for Elvis for the time it'll take." And I said, "We don't have that." Well, they left; they came back about a week later and said, "Colonel, we got the money." Colonel, fast on his feet—"Oh, well, no, when you left here, you—you said you couldn't do it." So he said, "I've already booked that time; he's not available for about four years now." That's how you got out of that situation. But that's—that backs up the thing about Elvis didn't want to do it; Colonel didn't stop it—Elvis didn't want to do it. And the multiple picture contracts kept Elvis from doing other movies that they'd come—they offered—they want him to do the part of Tony in "West Side Story"; they want him to do "Splendor in the Grass"—Elia Kazan with—with Natalie Wood—who dated Elvis—told him about—he saw "King Creole"—he said, "Whoa, he can—he can act." So he wanted him—I was booked up on—already signed up to a movie—he was making three a year; he had no time open. So that's when Warren Beatty got it and made him a superstar. So these were things that just happened, but they weren't intentionally done like Colonel Parker being the bad guy, you know, because he wasn't—he cared about Elvis, and he did the best he could, and I think he did a hell of a job. I worked with him a lot on the tour, so I was with him constantly on tour out there, and I saw what he did for Elvis. Good question. Yeah.

All right, Sonny, lots of nice stories today and events that took place over 17 years. I'm curious, is there something that stands out, maybe more than others? I know there are special events along the way, but anything in particular that if you reflect back, maybe on a one-on-one basis with you and Elvis—I would say, Tim, that probably what really sticks out in my mind, if you kind of took everything together about Elvis—with his humility and his warmth and his compassion and his concern—and you take all of this, and you could probably wrap it up in one word—his humanity. His humanity was something like you just don't—you know, it's such a big word, but he covered that word very well. It really brings him to it, you know. Yeah, humanity. Thank you. [Music]

Yeah, I should—in my—in the blue zipper bag, it should be a fresh one. Yeah, would you mind? Yeah, you know what's that? So I got 45 seats. Yeah, I don't know how many other seats were there because it's a total 50. So we're taking three—we talked—lost two already—last five—three back there, I think—is that three? Yeah, I think so. So all right, well, I'll call Sonny and just tell them—I don't know—I got mine. Okay, good. So we're cool on—and see there's five that you're taking, right? All right. Yeah, there's four—there's 47 chairs in here right now—one, two, three—three, four, five, six. Oh, you're taking six? Yeah, well, there's three already right here, okay, and then that one there and that one there. He brings four to your—your goal. Yeah, it's down here. Okay, he's gonna piss off four of his cousins, but that'll be awesome. But you know, hang out somewhere a little bit. Well, anyways, maybe a 6:50 just to pick him up a little bit more and my friend. And then he did—how about this—I didn't see any way to hang anything to kind of down—right down light, but if you wanted to, we could maybe bring something from the side—just a couple of—just a little bit. Yeah, just yeah, we just—a little breakup pattern. Yeah, yeah. Okay, cool. Uh, you know, double bag that one. Um, don't do that—give me a longer being say than this—we're gonna—we're gonna have a place set up for you uh, uh, Irma says he's going to go to a private office and put you up there, and then Tim come—I'll bring him up. Okay, he should be here all 10 or 15 minutes. All right. Yeah, Judy be up, and Lana and Greg—my son—son—I'm—my daughter and son. Did you get the message from—from Pat? They lost two more seats in here. It's okay, we are—because I had a couple of people with emergency that can't come. So okay, we'll be all right. Okay, let me talk to Hyman. Okay. All right. Yeah, hello, how are you? Good to get you away. [Music] When he told me, I said, "You tell him, come on, get on over there." Okay, so I'm very—okay. Okay, hi, how are you? I'll be talking all afterwards and everything. Okay, thank you. Hope you enjoy it. Thank you for coming there. Oh, wow. Okay. All right. All right. Oh, this is perfect. Thank you so much. Great view of the city. Absolutely. Oh, man, what a view. Sometimes you want a flash. I could get you a chair; you could stand up there. You wanna flash the city? I might moon them. Yeah, he's actually gonna—

Do that on camera, my cousin. If he was here, red, we would be mooning each window. He's crazy, causing more traffic jams and making my job harder.

Yeah. Did you mark the trail? Because we're going to bring Tim back here.

No, I didn't see any bread. I will. I love breadcrumbs along the way.

Okay, all right. Make yourself comfy, man.

Yeah, this is going to be good. Oh, it's going to be fun. It's going to be a lot of fun. I'll bring him up soon again.

Yeah, Tim, come on in here. And wouldn't sit in the rap. All right, I'm going to tell his favorite story in Palm Springs about the taxi.

Oh, you told me. Yeah, there's two or three on here that I put on here that are just their standards. You know, it's like an artist that does have an album, you'll put two or three, and then there'll be other, the new. So there's the Nixon story; that's a very good one where I was in the President Nixon map, right? And that's a funny story, too. And uh, the uh, if I can't want to get that gun fight with the stamps where they thought Elvis was shot and killed, and then the hotel when we pulled that off, and the horror story. That's all right; he can have a horse on for. Yeah, those, but there's a lot of other stuff in there, you know, the wheelchair where he maybe is that blazing cap a saddle clip and cut that in while you're telling that story or just to steal of Alex Carrick's drawing back to hit that horse before he knocked him down. I don't know who if someone heard about that or whatever, but this anyway, Mel Brooks is crazy anyway, so he, you know what was that guy named? Yeah, loved, and Alex Karis was perfect for playing it, absolutely. He did a great job. Boy, it's going to uh, I think they're like, and I've got some stories uh that are going to be funny. I don't want to give us any one word would give you a clue what may have gone on, so I can't give you the one word including, right? I want to catch you off guard out there, favorite Michelle. Yeah, and I'll I'll be back in here uh to uh, there's just one thing I want to go over with you.

Yeah, before we roll tape out there and just make sure I mean we're all cool on anything and just one thing I want to go over with which I'll do.

Yeah, I did some extra stories there because I was trying to time and everything, and I've got them pretty much where anywhere from 20 to 23 or 24 minutes. I'll be able to cut off between. So uh, but I did some extra in case I leave out a little bit of description in one of them and it cuts it short, and you do that on three or four stories and you've lost your four minutes, so I may we may not get to them uh when I get my final time you know representing probably I'll I'll probably get that somewhere around an hour and 15, right? Hour and 20. Get like a five-minute notice, and I know to wrap it up, and I'll at that time I'll be able to pick the one that I want of the last I've got two or three left; I'll pick which one and I'll go for it.

Okay. Okay. I'm closing one, and if we get away break on the weather, it's a break right now. I know.

Oh, it's wonderful. When you finish the Q and A, it's going to take her out about 10 minutes to strap his guys up and get them out either in the foyer or on the terrace, right? The weather holes would just go straight to the terrace, right?

Okay. Wherever y'all just guide me, leave the breadcrumbs on the floor. All right, just relax.

Okay, I'm gonna take this off.

Yeah. Yeah, it's a little warm. I'm gonna walk out there 10. I'd like if you could send someone back here at like about a quarter of it.

Oh, yeah. Once Carl tells me like we're ready to see them, I'm going to put them in the theater and talk to them. Right now I'm going to talk to them, and then I'll send somebody to get you. Okay, and I had no introduction; I just walk out. You just walk out cold. I am going to tell you this; I'm going to prompt them to apply. Okay, but there's no introduction, right? In other words, I'll I'll brief them, tell them what's going to happen; I'm going to walk out and like, and Carl's going to roll. The car ain't going to be rolling while I'm out there.

Right. Right. So I want to brief them; I'm gonna walk out, and as I walk, Carl will know that once I walk out, roll on the empty stage and then pause it and then just come in there and all right.

Got you, man. Okay. All right, thanks, guys. So how's it going?

Yeah, well, it's the usual pre-show stuff, but everything's going smooth, you know, so we're going to get uh just some current concern about the temperature in the theater now, so got the maintenance guy going in there, make sure nobody pops a sweat; didn't look good on camera. The theater in here uh is it theater? Yeah, come on, you're way too high. That's the one that's going to be on the audience, and then I'll be in another room with monitors and you know as the storage goes along, depending what the content is, I might change those cameras, you know, and for you know, getting up here when it's real dramatic stuff and back here when he's laughing. You know, perfect. This is nice. Come on, I got to introduce you to the lady who put all this together.

Oh my god. Okay, I've heard so many great things. William F can't stop talking about how great you are and how you've been so well. That's so so we really we really appreciate it.

Not a problem; we try. Well, that's what we do. We appreciate it. Thank you. It's amazing. Nice to meet you. If you guys need anything, just let us know.

Okay, thanks. Thanks. [Music] Oh yeah, I'll take you out there, but uh, that's nice. I was you you may have picked up the humor that this is my office. Yeah, but come on, let me let oh okay. Tim explained to you. Yeah, he said you started our home and garage looks like a warehouse, does it? Another cardboard box is from the move. We have been so busy. I've been working on this thing with Jim and some people down in Houston, and we've been so busy that she just not been able to go because she's got to go through those boxes because we moved so quick before we came out to his birthday. Yeah, and we moved so quick that we had to be out of there because our time was up on that people wanted to move in, so we went ahead and started putting stuff in boxes at the end there and just put it, so we we tried to get them in the right room, but a lot of them didn't make it; they ended up in the garage, and we got to go through. We got furniture out there because it was not we didn't have enough room for all the furniture, the hutch, dining room table. Yeah, it was a real chore. Oh, I don't want to do it again until I move my final move and go upstairs. I don't she's just really got me.

Yeah. Oh yeah, she's she's got them; she's got a whole thing of recipes. There is Judy coming this morning.

Oh yeah, she'll be here. Good. Good. You remember Lester?

Yeah, brother. I probably I brought that brown paper bag.

You did. It's empty. That's what right now what's it gonna be about? Time shows over 80 hundred.

Oh man, so that's good. Yeah, I was going to say that. [Music] On those uh three or four that didn't wouldn't make it because of the sickness and everything, just do the back row and just leave that, you know what I mean? And hello. Hey, I just called, left a message. I'm in a meeting right now with Tim and William. I wanted to call you and make sure y'all were okay and let you know that okay is everyone made it okay.

All right. Well, come on, you'll have to are you getting your vis your event sticker now? Okay. Well, they'll take you on up here and come on up. I got I think they got coffee and donuts something like out there, so I'll see you all after the show at the meet and greet.

Okay. All right, thank you. Bye-bye. Those people up from New Orleans uh the guy I love the theater. Oh, I know, isn't it nice? Comfortable, too. Those chairs, they recline, and they you know they swivel. I mean, that's true. Of course, we're gonna break your eyes; we see them reclining and napping. Hopefully we don't do that. Hopefully I don't put them to sleep. I will definitely be keeping them up. Do you have a do you have a little area that you're spending your time here the pre-show? Yeah, I've got all this thing back here; we can come on back there. I just going to say that uh if you can or you uh I know you got people on the front row, would you hold the third row? The third row, not all of it, just for Judy to put Judy; I don't want to take the second row up with my family, but put them like on the third row of it, be my wife, my son-in-law, my daughter and a guy our next-door neighbor, so be four of them; we need four seats right in the middle of the third row.

Okay, that's no problem. Thank you. All right. All right. Okay. Do you meet everyone? You meet James Lewis from the he's from Channel 4 also; I see him all the time. Thank you. [Music] Y'all kind of leave your breadcrumbs so you know you're back out of here. Yeah, that's what we had to do. Are big big nuggets you see who's here? William Earl Haggard gets here.

Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But that's just a lot of publicity just came out on it, and what it is, they want you to it's mysterious like the way they said secret room, no fan has been into in this now. Well, that's because it's a new building that they built out there and added; it's tornado-proof, fireproof uh everything proof, you know, bomb proof, and uh that's where they've got a lot of things that cannot be replaced, and they've got them out there. I heard that's in Graceland. Oh, they call it the secret room that no fan has ever been into; they made it a big mysterious thing, and it's a brand, and people thinking there's a secret room in Grayson, you know, so they asked where's Sonny? Where is? I said out in the back; they built one out there; it was never part of Graceland, so this has been an extension in the last decade or so.

Oh yeah. Yeah, I would say I would say probably they did that in the last 10 years because it could have been there long, but I doubt it; I think it would have leaked out, you know, that there was they would have known more about the room people, right? Ex-employees saying, oh yeah, they've got a room out there. Well, as you know as you know apparently thank you. They pulled up. Thank you. That's good. Thanks. They pulled out some files and a paperwork; they pulled out a check. It was I know that. Yeah, you know what the odds are for that? [Laughter] The odds of pulling out a check with my name or any one of us guy's name because you know we had payroll checks; that wasn't a payroll check; that was expense checks. You know how many checks they write from Elvis Presley Enterprises; Vernon wrote every month, and they go to that box and that one box they pull out and they pull up that check and there there's a check to Sunny West and another one. The other one they pulled up was for the band at 900 something dollars for the New Year's Eve party, but the odds of fully and I that blew me away; it just really I thought God lead. I got more emails, Sonny, Sonny, did you see they pulled up a check with your name on it? Yeah, that's a good question for me to ask. Hey, Carl, how are you ready to go? Are you all right?

All right. Yeah, got your voice ready? Oh, I'm ready; everything I'm ready; I'm cranked.

Got it. All right, you know I got it. Tim's going to have some idea about those checks. This shows up. [Applause] I know not to wear white, much white. Yeah, no, that's perfect, bouncing off everything. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I wear black; I'm the behind Johnny Cash. Yeah, he knows it. Look what you're doing. Yeah, they got the memo, huh? That's right. I'll uh I'll put this with the rest of the paperwork that squirrels. Yeah, that's director of photography. Yeah. Yeah, you know, as a matter of fact, you know who was in town just a few weeks ago was uh was the Gatling Larry brothers, Larry Larry, they were from McCullum Palm Desert, Steven Rudy, and uh he was uh he was dressed in black, and he explained to the audience he you know at some point he said you know about maybe a couple of months before June passed away, I was playing golf, and I get a phone call on the golf course; I get a phone call; it was with Johnny, and Johnny said I'm sitting here with June and you know Larry that she's her health is really failing and she just asked if you'd be kind enough to just sing a particular song for her, and he said I'd be happy to, of course, and uh so uh I guess it wasn't but just six eight weeks later that she passed away, and then of course, as you know, Johnny absolutely went three months later. Yeah, when she passed away, she actually Johnny won't last long; he's she's the only one helping keep him alive; she took such care of him, and sure enough, three or four months after she he let go; he let go; he didn't want to stay here; he uh she was his life. Well, she wanted the song, Help me, help me.

Oh man, you know Elvis said that Larry Gatlin had the voice of an angel; he said he's got such a unique voice, and he does; he's it's like a bell, whatever he's clear. You know, I got to tell you a quick story; a number of years ago um I was doing a couple projects, and it was a guy that was from Nashville that was involved in this little company; it's called Sports News Network, and we were in Caesars doing a kind of a promotional thing, and his wife, I forgot her maiden name, but it was Dolly something other than she was pretty well connected within the Nashville scene anyway, so we were up there doing this promo, and we come out of the this room that we've rented and we're in Caesar's, and Larry Gatlin walks by, and I look, I said, gee, that looks like Larry Gatlin. She turns around; she says she says Gatlin at the la I mean, oh my gosh, you know this crazy fan, and he turns around and says Dolly, and they embrace and hug and everything, and so later that afternoon we're over the sports book, and that's her husband and I Floyd and I said Floyd, I said, you know that's Larry Gatlin over there, seeing him over there; I said Dolly seems to really know him. She goes, he's of course we used to do this this and that, and he says, do you are you a fan of Larry's? And I said, well, you know what, I think his music is great; I love his show and everything else, but I hear he's a real, and he says, come on over here, hey Floyd, they hug and embrace; it meet Tim Rochford said, by the way, he's a fan of yours, but he hears that he's a real. So you get back into your conversation and never interrupt a hug, but I'm gonna give you an announcement; we are wanting everybody if you've got a question that we may not get to uh or Sonny may not answer; we want you to be able to ask it because we really want some audience participation, so we're going to pass out a little 355 cards and let you write down your question, and here's why because although you've got a question question on your brain now when you're in there and you know cameras are rolling and you might forget it, so take a card, and even there is no silly question; there is no stupid question, so if it is something you have always wanted to know, feel free to write it down and ask it. Got some pins up here, obviously not enough for everybody to have one, but just share, and we can't wait to hear what you have, and Wendy has the cards; Wendy has some note cards. Thank you, and help yourself to the to the snacks and we should be able to go in here. [Applause] I a-l-e-x s-w-i-n-d-l-e. So where did this start? Was interesting Elvis; I was in a play, and he called for a little Elvis booth, and somebody saw me doing that, invited me to an Elvis contest, and I won that contest, and I shot off from there. Right now are you looking good? Thank you so much. How are you doing? What's going on here today? Oh, Sonny West is doing a great DVD telling some of his Elvis stories. How excited to be here? Oh, very excited for the world. How about you? Great, first time meeting, never met him before, so I'm excited about meeting you. Thank you. Thanks to my wife; she has good taste. And then if you leave during that tape change, you're going to have to wait 30 minutes to come back into the theater; there'll be a young lady at the door or someone who will escort you know make sure you come in and out, so thank you very much for your patience. We'd be ready to go in about five or ten minutes. Thanks. Let's go to control track on your camera, so we just keep an eye on our times, and we'll roll the same amount, and then Tammy's going to start the stopwatch the same time we do, so she can kind of cue all right. So bars are on all cameras; we'll go look at the monitor. Nice to meet you. It's my son-in-law, Greg. Greg, he's going to take a picture there. All right, come on in here, honey, on this side. Judy, come on in, come over here. Here we go. One, two, three. There we go. All right, got our camera. Great. I've got you guys. Oh, you did. We got we're going to see now as you go in this gentleman here if you'll hand him your releases as you go into the theater. When you look in there, you'll see that there are some reserved seats; those are people who paid a lot, so just like work around the reserve seats and make yourselves comfortable. We'll be ready in oh maybe five or ten minutes.

Okay, thank you. Thank you. Sure. Now I don't have a mirror, so you have to tell me when I've got that up there and it's centered. I don't want it too tight, but I don't want it right. Pull the tabs up. Looking good. All right, stick this inside there. We go. There you go. First one he gave out; I was with him when he picked him up; he ordered 12 of them after he designed them with the Priscilla and with the jeweler, and we went over there when they were ready to pick them up, and I was the only one with him; he put this on my neck right there in the jewelry store and then put one on his neck and we left, took the other ten up and he started handing them out up the house, taking care of business lightning fast; that was the motto. All right, let's rock and roll. Okay, I'll wait on you. We're ready to go. I'm gonna let you if you will when you go out if you'll set that on that table for me. I'll do it and just be ready and while you've got it, let me know when you're done. Come on, but I'm animated when I tell stories; see if it pulls out; I don't sit back; I'm taking your skills; didn't come out of the belt. Oh, okay, thanks. You just see me sitting down. Whoo uh-huh. Welcome to take a picture as long as you don't flash, just please make sure your flash is off; you should because of the lighting be in good shape, but that could mess up our shooting. Okay, what's going on here, son? What happened with this mic? What are we what are we doing here? You're doing a there was a problem with the color of it; the the black on the white tie and everything was standing out quite a bit, and so they went in and got one of the guys that I give a kudo to, got one of the he told him about the the beige mic in there.

Okay. Yeah, I knew I knew we had one. Yeah, so

He went in there and got it, so that's what he's pinning on me now. And it's not as obtrusive; it doesn't stick out as much on the tie as the black mic did.

Oh yeah, yeah. When I leave shortly thereafter, Sonny will come in. So Sonny would appreciate it if you'd welcome him with a big round of applause. I don't care; he's a friend of mine, but but but he will be pleased if you do that.

And I think I said, unless does anybody have any questions? Okay. Uh, assuming that we are all technically ready, I'm gonna leave now. When you see Sonny come in, big round of applause, and enjoy yourselves. [Music]