CHAPTER 49
LAMAR FIKE: Two days after that experience on the airplane, Elvis opened in Vegas. Halfway through, he got tired, and he had to sit down a lot and let the Stamps and the Sweet Inspirations take over. He was heavy again, and Variety pointed it out:
Presley may be suffering from a continuing physical disability. His overweight condition, lack of stamina, and poor vocal projection may spring from such a malady. It is difficult for him to maintain any credible vocal lines . . . In addition, he lumbers around in travesties of his earlier karate moves.
That’s pretty devastating. It also talks about him spending more time diddling with the women in the front rows than anything else.
But on the second night, boy, he shocked everybody. He stayed out onstage after the show and told everybody that he didn’t do drugs. He said, “Last night, I had a real bad case of the flu, and somebody started the rumor that I was strung out on drugs. If I ever find out who did that, I’ll knock his goddamn head off. Because I’ve never been strung out on drugs in my life.”
Well, Colonel flipped out. He told Elvis to get the hell out of Vegas if he was sick and just cancel the rest of the gig. So he did. He canceled after about five shows.
Colonel would check Elvis out before the shows, but I never remember him telling Elvis he was too screwed up to go onstage. Colonel was kind of like Elvis. He hoped it would go away. As long as Elvis got there and did the show, and we got the money, everything was okay.
MARTY LACKER: Henri Lewin, who was a Hilton executive vice president overseeing the Nevada operations, wrote an article for Las Vegas Style in 1994. He said, “I was there when Colonel Parker pleaded with Vernon Presley, and then they both pleaded with Elvis to understand the importance of taking care of his personal life.”
Well, it seems highly unlikely that Colonel would do something like that in front of a Hilton official. I don’t buy it.
LAMAR FIKE: A couple of days after Elvis ranted and raved onstage in Vegas, he started having breathing problems again, and Joe called an ambulance for him.
BILLY SMITH: They brought him back to Memphis and put him in Baptist [Hospital] for two weeks. Dr. Nick told everybody he was suffering from severe fatigue.
You’d think he was doing so good, and then you’d walk in and see him out of it on the bed. You’d realize, “Uh-oh. He’s done had more than a required amount of sleeping medication.”
Anytime he went into the hospital like that, the guys would come visit. But this time, Dr. Nick let him go home to Graceland for four or five hours each day. Which was just an opportunity for him to get into his secret stash.
MARTY LACKER: Dr. Nick released Elvis from the hospital the first week in September. When he got out, Elvis hired this nurse, Marian Cocke, at the urging of Dr. Nick. She was nice enough, but she looked like an army sergeant. Elvis gave her a car and a mink.
She was only there from September until January, and yet she had the gall to write a book, I Called Him Babe: Elvis Presley’s Nurse Remembers. She may have called him “Babe,” but that’s not what Elvis called her when she wasn’t around.
BILLY SMITH: After he got out of the hospital, Elvis didn’t work for almost three months. So he put the Jet Commander and one of the Lockheed airplanes up for sale. He just wanted to rest and play. He bought some of these supercycles, the three-wheeled jobs, and him and Linda rode around the neighborhood a little bit. And he was having the racquetball building built. Dr. Nick was a real enthusiast, and he got Elvis interested because he thought it might help him take off some weight.
Before the racquetball building was finished, we used to go to Memphis State [University] to play. There for a time, we were playing almost every night for three or four hours, and then we’d go on to the movies for maybe another four hours. That kind of stuff was exactly what he needed. He started getting like his old self again, sort of silly, just having a good time.
Since he had all that time off, we had a lot of talks. I was still getting adjusted to being back with him, and I had some things to work out. Especially about the way people thought of me around there. And that included the Colonel.
In the early days, I admired Colonel. I really did. He had a very strong look and piercing blue eyes. You knew he was in control. Hell, for a fourteen- or fifteen-year-old, anybody like that would have impressed you. But he was likable, and he seemed to take an interest in the family.
Then in the mid-sixties, I was getting older, and I started seeing things that weren’t really gee-hawing between Colonel and Elvis. And Colonel started that stuff of picking the guys, including me, for information.
After I went back to work for Elvis, Colonel tried that again. He called one time and demanded this and that, and I told him, “Look, I’m not that kid coming up that I used to be. I don’t quack like a goddamn duck no more.”
Elvis got a little mad, but he understood. At the time, I was very, very independent. So I thought about Colonel, “You’ve got millions, you old son of a bitch. But I’m as good as you are. And I don’t quack, and I don’t bark for you no more. If you’ve got a question, you ask me like a man, or you don’t get an answer.”
Now, as for Joe, Elvis still cared about him, but he thought Joe was licking Colonel’s rear end and telling Colonel every move he made. Which I’m sure he was. And a lot of times, Joe wouldn’t stay in Memphis with Elvis. After a tour, he went back to California. And Elvis got kind of upset about that a few times.
So we talked about that. And I wanted to get a couple of things out in the open. Like, when we went on tour, Joe was road manager. But I was supposed to have the same authority. So why was he and his girlfriend—Joanie had divorced him by that time—getting to ride in the limousine with Elvis, and Jo and me not? Boy, that pissed me off. I knew that not everybody could ride in the limousine. But I damn sure intended to ride in the limousine, and I did. I wouldn’t take second seat to nobody—not anymore.
When we landed the plane someplace, Joe would say, “We’ve got to get the luggage off.” Well, one day, he come back to where I was with Elvis, and he said, “We’re unloading the plane. Do you want to come out here and help us?”
I said, “No, I’m helping Elvis.” And Elvis said, “Tell you what, Joe. You go help them. Billy’s with me right now.”
Just because Joe was in a position of authority didn’t mean he could just bark an order. We didn’t mind taking it from Elvis. But we didn’t have to take it from anybody else.
There was a lot of dissatisfaction. A lot of the guys were losing their enthusiasm. They felt like “Hey, I’m going nowhere. All I do is run and get this and get that.” So I had a talk with Elvis, and he give David, Ricky, and Dean Nichopoulos a raise. Because all of it had to work.
MARTY LACKER: There seemed to be a lot more concern about somebody maybe getting a little bit more than the next guy.
In August of ’75, Patsy left me and took the kids. She went up to her brother’s [house] in Ohio. Mostly because of my drug use. She hated Dr. Nick, and she blamed him for a lot of it because he’d write prescriptions for whatever I wanted. At one point, Patsy went over to Graceland to confront him and to tell him he was ruining our lives. She ended up threatening him. She told him if he didn’t stop giving me drugs, she was going to report everybody to the authorities. Dr. Nick didn’t say a word. He just turned and walked away. I think he pretty much laughed at her.
After Elvis died, we got certified copies of the prescriptions Dr. Nick wrote for me through Kessler’s Pharmacy in Memphis. This was over a forty-six-month period, from January 24, 1973, through October 28, 1976. And, of course, I took every pill: 6,464 Placidyl, 3,204 Darvon, 1,508 Hycomine, 708 Empirin with codeine number 3, 500 Dalmane, 400 Valium, 216 Darvocet, 200 Valmid, and 91 other assorted pills, which aren’t very important. That’s 13,291 pills right there. In 1,300 days. We showed that list to Sonny, and he was just amazed. But, of course, Elvis was taking a lot more than that.
When Patsy left, I was really upset and depressed. I went over to Graceland one day, and Lamar went upstairs and told Elvis. Lamar came back down and said, “Elvis wants to see you.” I went up to his room, and Elvis asked me what was wrong, and I told him.
He said, “Well, let’s see if we can’t make this better.” And then he said he was going to give me $10,000, buy me a new car, and send me and Patsy and the kids to Hawaii. Which was incredible, of course. This time I didn’t argue with him. I thought the trip would help our marriage, and it did.
But when Elvis gave stuff to people, he’d get in the mood, and he’d just keep on giving. What happened next was typical. He looked at me and he said, “Is there anybody else down there who’s got a problem?” And he did the same thing for Richard Davis.
Well, when Esposito and Schilling heard about this, Joe called Elvis and typically said, “Where’s mine and Jerry’s?” And Elvis ended up giving both of them $10,000 to keep peace.
BILLY SMITH: Believe it or not, when I went back to work for Elvis, for about the first few months, I fell right back into that same situation of taking pills. I’d take a Dexedrine and a sleeping pill. Because Elvis would say, “Look, man, we’re going to do this and that all night. And you look tired already.” It was his way of getting you high with him.
Sometimes there would be days when I wouldn’t take anything at all, but he’d always try to give me something. He would put it under my tongue, and he’d get pissed if I didn’t take it. Elvis would say, “It’s not going to hurt you. I’ve got my own doctor.”
When I resisted, sometimes he’d get angry. But a lot of times, I’d get dog-sick. So when he’d walk out—Pooh!—I’d spit it out in the commode. I even got good at pushing a pill under my tongue. I could talk pretty good like that, and even drink, and make him think I swallowed it. Then I’d spit it out later.
In the seventies, a lot of us come to our wits. Some of us thought, “Hey, I’m on a slow road to death here. Why can’t Elvis slow down some?” But we couldn’t end that road for him.
MARTY LACKER: When Elvis went back out to Vegas in early December, he looked and sounded a whole lot better. And he only had to do one show a night during the week and two on Saturdays. The group, Voice, had disbanded, but Sherrill Nielsen stayed on.
BILLY SMITH: While he was at the Hilton, Elvis had Lisa Marie come out for about a week. Usually, she was just there for opening night or so. But this year, she wasn’t coming to Memphis for Christmas. And it was just as well that he visited with her out there because when she’d come to Graceland, Elvis didn’t give her all that much time. Funny, she was real blond as a kid, like he was. And now she’s got real, real dark hair. I guess she works at it like Elvis did.
Once, Lisa was visiting in Memphis, and her golf cart had a flat tire. We were sitting on the patio off to the side of the house, talking. And Lisa come running up. She said, “Daddy, my golf cart’s got a flat on it, and I can’t ride it anymore.” And Elvis said, “Okay, Lisa, Daddy’s talking right now.”
She said, “But, Daddy, won’t you fix it for me so I can ride?” And she just kept on and on. And finally, Elvis said, “Goddamnit, Lisa! Go get Earl.” She said, “But, Daddy, I want you to fix it.” And he said, “Daddy don’t fix flats, Lisa. Daddy’s rich. He has people to do that for him.”
Lisa could be an irritating little girl, but I think she was just starved for his attention, really. She was up early in the morning, and we were up late at night. And Elvis slept most of the day.
So the only time he was with her much at all was when he’d first get up. Which was just before she’d have to go to bed. And a lot of times he had things planned that she couldn’t do. We couldn’t take her to the movie, for example. And he wouldn’t want to do a lot of the things she wanted to do. If it was riding the golf cart, Elvis might ride the kids around once and then say, “Y’all take the golf cart. Daddy’s going to go in and talk.” She would have loved it a whole lot more if Daddy hadda rode her on the cart himself.
The sad thing was that to Lisa, her daddy was it. Sometimes she’d even go wake him up. It would make him mad, but she would. And every chance she got, she’d get up in his lap and put her arm around his neck, especially if she wanted something. She was a whole lot like him. She knew how to work him, boy.
And she would do things to get his attention. Some of ’em are funny, but they’re kind of naughty, too. Like, she’d go down to the gates and sign autographs for the fans. This was when she was about eight. She’d write, “Fuck you, Lisa Marie Presley.” Then she’d get on the golf cart and take off.
She was a pistol. Lamar called her “The Little Führer.”
MARTY LACKER: That Christmas ’75 is one I’ll always remember. Because of Elvis’s Aunt Delta.
Elvis was still having trouble with all the relatives congregating at Graceland, looking for a handout. Before he’d come downstairs, he’d look at the TV monitors to see who was sitting there. He’d say to us, Tell them I’m not here,” or, “Tell them I’m not feeling well.” But it got to a point where they just kept sitting there. They figured, “I’m going to outsmart him.”
Well, the longer they sat, the madder he got. Sometimes, he’d sneak out the front door because they’d be in the den. He’d call down and say, “Bring the car around the front. I’ll meet you there in fifteen minutes.” If there were three or four of us, we’d all go in different directions, so the relatives wouldn’t catch on.
I think Elvis saw it as being kicked out of his own house. And that’s the sort of thing that started taking a toll on him.
LAMAR FIKE: When Elvis would cocoon like that, Billy would go up, and he’d talk to Billy. But that was about it. One time, Elvis had been up there for ten or fifteen days. In that womb situation. Some of it, I think, was self-consciousness over the way he looked, his size. Although he’d get up there and eat like crazy. And some of the withdrawal was just his drug use.
Anyway, I came up to the house. And since he had the [closed-circuit] TV cameras that scanned the rooms, I knew he was up there punching buttons and watching what we were doing.
I was fuckin’ mad because we couldn’t get any answers out of him. So I made a bunch of signs, like “The weather today is hazy. But it’s clear in Denver . . . ” And I put them in front of the camera, like a newscast. And then I held up a newspaper.
All of a sudden, the phone buzzed, and Elvis told whoever answered, “Get Lamar on the goddamn phone!” I got on, and he said, “What the fuck are you doing?” I said, “Well, I figured you’d want to know what’s going on outside, so I thought I’d televise it.”
He said, “I can read a fucking paper. I get it every day.” I said, “Well, I didn’t know. You stay up there, and nobody sees you.”
MARTY LACKER: One time, Elvis’s Aunt Clettes came up to the house with her husband, Vester. We were all in the den, and she was drunk. It was sometime around Christmas, so all the relatives were thinking about the cash Elvis always gave them.
With absolutely no conversation leading up to it, she looked at Elvis and said, “I want mine now.” Elvis said, “What?” And she repeated it.
Then she pointed over at Vester, and she said, “Don’t give that old son of a bitch nothing! But I want what’s coming to me now.”
Elvis knew what she was saying, but he was trying to feign bewilderment because he was so damn hurt. He said, “Aunt Clettes, what in the world are you talking about?” She said, “You know what I’m talking about. I want what’s mine now. But don’t give that son of a bitch nothing because he don’t deserve nothing. He’s worthless.”
Elvis looked at her, and I could see tears coming to his eyes. And he got up and he went upstairs. And he wouldn’t come down.
When Elvis first got the Lisa Marie, he used to take people up for little trips. He’d show ’em the plane and just fly around Memphis a little. On Christmas Eve—this was ’75 now—country singer T. G. Sheppard and his wife, Diana, showed up. We knew him as Bill Browder, which was his real name. He used to work for RCA records as a promotion man. And he was always trying to get around Elvis.
Browder had four singles out by this time, and two of them, “Devil in the Bottle” and “Tryin’ to Beat the Morning Home,” had gone to number one on the country chart. I didn’t like him. I thought he was a phony, so I continued to call him Browder, which used to piss him off.
We went for a ride, and we landed back down at the Memphis airport. But we didn’t get off the plane right away. We had to wait for some reason. And we were all up in the front lounge.
Elvis had Lowell Hays, the jeweler, come on this trip. And Lowell had brought his case full of jewelry. Elvis gave stuff out for Christmas on the flight. He’d call everybody back to his compartment one at a time. I was sitting on the floor in the compartment, and he looked at me, and he said, “I ain’t giving you shit.” And I said, “Good, ’cause I don’t want nothing.” And we both laughed.
Elvis’s aunt Delta was on the plane. And she was drunk. Either she had a bottle in her purse or she’d gotten loaded before she got on there.
As you looked towards the rear of the plane and Elvis’s compartment back there, the first sitting room had two groups of four seats in it and a couch. Linda was sitting by the window, and at this point, Elvis was sitting next to her, by the aisle. And Delta was sitting on the floor, right next to Elvis’s seat. I was facing her. And Browder and his wife were right behind me.
I got up from the floor, and I was stretching my knees, and we were talking about something.
All of a sudden, Delta looked at me, and she said, “You’re a son of a bitch. I don’t like you.” Well, this came totally out of the blue, and I was just flabbergasted. It took me a minute, and then I said, “Why, Delta, I’ve never done anything to you.”
I looked over at Elvis, and Elvis was shaking his head, “No,” at her. But she turned back to me, and she said, “You ain’t no damn friend of his. And I got a good mind to take this .38 I got in my purse and just shoot you dead.”
Well, this was basically the same thing that happened with me and Clettes a few years earlier in the basement at Graceland. Except Clettes had a butcher knife.
I couldn’t fuckin’ believe this was happening again. And I got a little spooked because I knew Delta was capable of using that gun. Just about then she looked over at Browder, and she said, “And you ain’t worth a shit, either, you walleyed son of a bitch.” And she just kept on. She said, “All you sons of bitches are here for the same thing. You just want his damn money. Here’s this goddamn jeweler, and Elvis has to buy you some of his crap.”
She reached her hand in her bag, and I could see she was serious. I was standing over her, and her head was right in front of me. Elvis was looking down at her, and I saw he was getting mad because his jaw tightened up. Meanwhile, I was trying to decide what to do because if she came out of her purse with a .38, I was going to kick her square in the face.
I said, “Delta, I really don’t understand why you’re talking this way.” And she just snapped. She screamed, “You shut up ’cause I’m gettin’ ready to blow a hole in your damn head!”
With that, Elvis jumped up real quick and said, “You ain’t going to do no such goddamn thing!” A lot of people were up in the very front of the plane, where the conference room was. And he yelled, “Some of you guys, get up here! Get this drunken bitch off this plane and take her home!”
He looked over at me and he said, “Man, I’m sorry.” And he looked at Browder and said the same thing. I said, “That’s all right, Elvis. You know I understand. Don’t worry about it.”
We got off the plane, and they took Delta home. Some of the other people were going back to Graceland. But I’d had enough. It was one o’clock in the morning. I got in my car and went home.
BILLY SMITH: About two o’clock in the morning, I heard the damnedest racket there ever was. I jumped up and grabbed my gun, and I run to the door. Well, it was Elvis. He had his cane, and he was beating the door on my trailer. His hair was messed up, and he was wild-eyed and red-faced. I said, “What in God’s name is wrong?” He was just sputtering. I got him to come in, and I said, “Just settle down, man. You look like you’re ready to explode.”
He sat down for a second, and he started beating the floor with his cane. Then he went after the couch—just damn near beat the stuffing out of it. He was out of his mind, he was so mad.
He said, “Goddamnit! I’ll kill that bitch! I’ll sew her cunt up and throw her over that damn wall!” He was just ranting and raving, and when he did that, he always said all kinds of embarrassing things.
I said, “Who?” He said, “That goddamn Aunt Delta. That old whore has got to go!” He said, “She’s cussed and abused my friends with her language, and I’m sick of her!” He was just screaming. “How dare she do something like that? Goddamnit! I took her in out of the goodness of my heart, and I’ll kick her fat ass out. She would do that to a friend of mine for no reason at all? She embarrassed the shit out of me!”
Well, he kept on ranting and raving, and then he said, “Go out there and tell the bitch she’s got to leave.” I said, “You don’t mean that.” He said, “Yes, I do. Because if you don’t, I’m going to wind up doing something I don’t want to do.”
I said, “Elvis, let’s sit down and talk this thing out. This is an old woman you’re talking about. You know how she is when she gets to drinking.” He said, “That ain’t no reason for that bitch to insult my friends and ruin my Christmas.”
We talked for a few more minutes, and he settled down some. I said, “Look, what you need to do is go out there and tell her, ‘Don’t ever do that again.’ But you don’t want to kick her out. She’s got nowhere to go.” And he said, “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” But then he broke down and started crying. He said, “She had no right to do that. Those are my friends. I love her, too, but she’s got no right to make me look like that.”
I hugged him, and I said, “Just go out and tell her. And mean what you say. If nothing else, you can always rent her a damn apartment, if that’s what you want to do. But just think of the things she does around Graceland that’s good for you. Weigh the good and the bad, and realize what you’re saying.”
Well, he cussed a few more times, and then said, “Okay, I guess I will. Come with me.” I said, “You don’t need me.” He said, “Yeah, you and Jo come on with me. I might blow a fuse out there and wind up beating that old woman to death.”
So we went along. Delta was in Grandma’s room, and Elvis went in to where they were. They started yelling, and that went on for a few minutes, and then I heard him saying something along the lines of “That was my friends! Don’t you love me enough not to pull that?” Well, she was all emotional, and she said, “Oh, my God, son, did I do that?” He said, “Yeah, goddamnit, Aunt Delta, you know you did!” She said, “No, I don’t remember doin’ that at all.”
I think they put on an Academy Award-winning performance for each other. ’Cause he broke down with the crying, and he said, “Aunt Delta, I would never have done that to you.” And she broke down, too. She said, “I can’t believe I did that, son.” And Elvis sort of pulled himself together. He said, “Yeah, you did it. And now I’ll tell you something else you’re going to do. You’re going to get the phone numbers, and you’re going to call every one of these people and apologize. Either that, Aunt Delta, or you’ve got to go.”
So she called everybody and said she was sorry. It was funny, but he had real intentions of kicking her ass out. He’d gotten that mad.
MARTY LACKER: About T. G. Sheppard and Elvis. He didn’t really know Elvis. They were acquaintances. He told Merv Griffin on his TV show once that he went to Graceland for sixteen Christmases. I was at Graceland every Christmas until ’76. And I never saw him there. And he told him that when Elvis was on tour, we’d put Elvis in the back of a semitruck trailer and back it up to the stage door of the arena. Then he said we’d open the back doors of the trailer truck, and Elvis would run out, do the show, and then run back into the truck, and we’d ride away to the plane and the next city.
That’s bullshit. He wouldn’t know what we did. When he went on the Jet Commander that time, if he mentioned it once, he mentioned six times that he needed a bus. He was hoping Elvis would give him one. Where he got the nerve, I don’t know.
About the third time he brought up the bus, Elvis looked over at me, like “Oh, fuck, here we go again.” Actually, I would have bet money that no way in hell was Browder going to get one because Elvis recognized what he was doing. But when we got off the plane, I saw Elvis was walking a little slower, and he hung back so I could catch up with him because I was the last off.
I got up next to him, and he said out of the side of his mouth, “I’m going to get the motherfucker a bus.” He had me arrange it through J. D. Sumner.
BILLY SMITH: In the early days, Elvis made a statement to everybody: “Don’t mess with my women, and I won’t mess with your girlfriend or your wife.” And then he said, “But I’m going to look, just like every one of you all.”
LAMAR FIKE: He also said, “Let me tell you, Lamar. Never think I won’t try anything.” I got mad at him one day, and I said, “You lust after every one of our wives.” And he said, “Do you find anything wrong with that?” It was funny. So I said, “No, not really. But I don’t know how to follow this up!” We had to watch him like a hawk.
BILLY SMITH: One time in the sixties, we’d been out in California a long time, and I said, “I’ve got to get home to Jo.” Elvis said, “She’s that good, huh?” I said, “Yeah, you ought to try it.” And he said, “I would if you’d let me.” I said, “Well, we’ll switch wives.” I was just teasing. I had no intention of doin’ that. And he said, “Wait a minute, now . . . ”
MARTY LACKER: When Priscilla first came over in the sixties, we went to Treasure Island, on McKellar Lake, outside of Memphis. We had the boat, and Elvis pulled it up on the beach. George Klein and I had gotten out, and just Elvis and Priscilla were left in the boat. Well, Priscilla was worried about how she was going to get out without tripping and falling. So she put her hand out to George.
Klein looked at me and he said, “I’m not touching her.” I said, “What are you going to do, George, just let the girl fall on her butt?” That’s how freaked we were about this rule about the girlfriends.
BILLY SMITH: There are all sorts of funny stories about that. In about ’67, after Elvis and Priscilla were married, we were in Palm Springs, and we were going up on the mountain to ride horses. Well, Priscilla borrowed a pair of my jeans to wear. I said, “Oh, that’s nice!” I carried on with Elvis about it, you know. And Elvis said, “The sons of bitches will be washed when you get ’em back!”
LAMAR FIKE: We went on a submarine in Hawaii one time in the sixties, when Alan was still with us. Alan jumped down the hole first, and he said, “It’s okay, let Priscilla come on.” She started to step down, and Alan was looking right up her dress. Elvis realized what was happening, and he said, “You low-life son of a bitch!”
BILLY SMITH: As the years went on, a lot of that propriety went by the wayside. In Vegas, or on tour, hell, there’s no telling how many times Elvis come to my room and crawled right in the dang bed with Jo and me. I don’t know that he thought anything of it.
This one time, though, he stepped clear over the line where Billy Stanley was concerned. It was the early seventies. Billy was married to this eighteen-year-old girl, Angie. She was pretty well making passes at Elvis, or at least that’s what Elvis said. To hear him tell it, she went after him like he was the last piece of cake on the platter. And Billy had this thing for another girl who went to the movies with us. So Elvis set Billy up with her so he could be with Angie.
Now, Billy wrote this book [Elvis, My Brother, with George Erikson]. And he says in there that Ricky told him that Elvis and Angie did have a short affair—about a month—and that Elvis felt bad about it. I don’t know if he had sex with her or not. At the time—which would have been about ’72, when I wasn’t there—he led everybody to believe he did. I didn’t talk to him about it until maybe ’75. I flat-out asked him.
Elvis told me they didn’t do anything. He said they just talked, and he preached to her a little bit. He had intentions, but they never did go through with it. He was quite capable of it, though.
MARTY LACKER: Shortly after this supposed affair, Elvis and I were walking down the steps into the den from the kitchen. And Billy Stanley walked past us. I was thinking about Elvis and Angie, and somehow Elvis knew that. He kind of glanced over at Billy, and then he looked at me, and he said, “Well, it ain’t like he’s my brother.”
BILLY SMITH: On New Year’s Eve that year, Elvis got a big boost. He did a special concert at the Silverdome in Pontiac, Michigan, that set a world’s attendance record for a single performance. They had nearly eighty thousand people there, and Colonel scaled some of those tickets up to $15 for a change. The gate receipts were something like $816,000.
MARTY LACKER: The Colonel didn’t want any empty seats, so he only took Elvis into the really big places twice—the Astrodome in Houston, for a rodeo, and the Pontiac Silverdome. And both of them were sellouts. It just shows you what Elvis could have done.
BILLY SMITH: I don’t know that Colonel didn’t play that right. I don’t remember a concert that wasn’t sold out. But if he had routinely gone to coliseums that seated sixty thousand instead of twenty thousand, I’m not sure he would have sold out.
A lot of times, I saw sections closed off behind him. I don’t know whether it was Elvis’s suggestion not to sell those seats, or if they just didn’t sell out and the Colonel said, “Let’s close that section. It’ll look sold out.”
Elvis didn’t really like those big outdoor places. He liked the sound you got inside a building. But on this Silverdome concert, Elvis put a little bit more into the show than usual. And just as he was ending one song, he heard the sound of cloth ripping. They had a real high stage there, and he said later he could feel a slight draft in the seat of his pants. He backed up to the singers, and he said, “Y’all sing ‘Sweet, Sweet Spirit.’ I’ve done tore the hell out of the seat of my suit!”
LAMAR FIKE: Around ’75, Miss Miller, Loanne Miller, went to work for the Colonel. She’d been Alex Shoofey’s secretary there in Vegas. She’d go to Colonel and tell him everything he had to know. And she’d carry back his story to Shoofey, and pretty soon she knew it all. And Colonel took a shine to her. His wife had such bad Alzheimer’s that she didn’t know who Colonel was the last ten years of her life. And he and Loanne became friends.
MARTY LACKER: They finally got married after Mrs. Parker died, which I believe was after Elvis’s death. Today, you see Colonel, you see Miss Miller. And he just brags on her.
BILLY SMITH: You know what else happened in ’75? Priscilla broke up with Mike Stone. He moved to Vegas and went to work as a dealer in one of the casinos. And after that, Priscilla was just as wild as Elvis had always been. She was dating everybody.
MARTY LACKER: Mike Edwards, her first long-term boyfriend after Stone, claimed in his book [Priscilla, Elvis and Me] that Priscilla disappeared one time and came back two days later. He said he point-blank asked her, “Where’ve you been?” And she told him she’d been down in Miami with Julio Iglesias. It must be true because she told Vanity Fair she and Julio had a fling, but they never consummated it. Whatever that means.
I’m sure that being with Elvis all those years affected her thinking. I guess she figured, “What’s good for the gander is great for the goose.” I think anything’s possible with her. The front she puts up for people—demure little Priscilla—is bullshit.
BILLY SMITH: Until she had a son with Marco Garibaldi, Priscilla changed men all the time. That’s another pattern she got from Elvis. Did you know she’s made Garibaldi sign a statement that he won’t write a book about her if they break up?
MARTY LACKER: When Priscilla and Mike Stone called it quits, Elvis made no attempt to date her again. But he wasn’t paying that much attention to Linda, either. In late ’75 and early ’76, Linda started seeing David Briggs, who’d been Elvis’s keyboard player. She used to flirt with him. I don’t think Elvis knew it.
BILLY SMITH: Oh, yes, it got back to Elvis. She said they were just friends. And I choose to believe her. I know after Elvis died, they dated. But when she was going with Elvis, I think her and David pretty much kept it to just talking and playing cards. She needed somebody to talk to because it would almost stifle you to be around Elvis, he demanded so much.
But Linda was aware that Elvis was seeing other women. So the whole situation was getting to the point of blowing up. He bought her a house and got her away from Graceland, which was one of the first signs. He had that pattern. He was never completely true to any woman for any length of time. If he went a year, hell, he was doin’ good. Which almost makes him sound like a monster. And at times, I guess he was. He’s like that nursery rhyme. When he was good, he was very, very good. And when he was bad, he was horrid.