‘A good soldier has his heart and soul in it. When he receives an order, he gets a hard-on.’
The Caucasian Chalk Circle, Bertolt Brecht, 1945
Why on earth did Elvis Presley join the army?
Conscription is compulsory military service, most often in the army, and its origins can be traced back to ancient Egypt. It is rare for a country to demand universal conscription, that is, recruiting all males who are physically fit and within given ages, even in wartime. It is sometimes selective, perhaps by a national lottery, a sweepstake nobody wants to win.
There are exemptions, possibly for the medical profession, farmers, fishermen, clergy and government workers, which can mean that the army depends on the lower classes. There can be deferments for students and those looking after a family.
Russia on the other hand had a policy of ‘you, you and you’ and those they chose might be away from home for decades. The numbers came and went but around 1920, there were 5.5m in the Russian army. The Soviets also introduced military training in schools with two years’ service at 18 and refresher courses.
The treatment of conscientious objectors is controversial and it may be difficult to determine how deep-rooted their beliefs are: is it draft-dodging under another name? Few would disagree with exemptions for the Amish and the Quakers, although they might be given some non-combatant work.
Until the late 1940s, conscription only applied to males. Israel and then China widened it for both sexes. China discovered that enforcing a strict national service was financially draining.
The armed forces may not be large enough without conscripts but a volunteer force is likely to have more esprit de corps as the soldiers are there willingly. They will be more disciplined, as short term conscripts come and go. Invariably, the senior officer ranks, and hence the training of recruits, will be undertaken by professional soldiers.
There have been many instances of bullying, which senior officers should control. The 1950s ITV series, The Army Game, made light of this and certainly this series could not be remade today. Many servicemen have left the forces mentally scarred from treatment by sadistic officers.
By way of contrast, the US series, The Phil Silvers Show, showed how incompetent the US army was, with their officers upstaged by the scheming Sgt. Bilko. Did the Soviets view this comedy series as a documentary? A significant part of the Russian arsenal was propaganda and the Soviet authorities would never have permitted a similar series about their forces.
Besides being a fighting force, there are social benefits attached to conscription. The conscripts get fit, eat healthily, learn a trade and are submitted to discipline and regimentation, which are useful attributes for civilian life. Arguably though, it is better for a civilian to learn a trade – that way you don’t risk losing your life. The forces do not encourage free thinking as you’re told what to do.
Both the Union and the Confederates used conscription in the American Civil War (1861–5). The war was fought over slavery and many thought that ordering civilians to join an army was tantamount to slavery itself. For the next 50 years, the USA only had one minor war against Spain, and most action was seen in conflicts with the Native Americans.
After that, the USA did not reintroduce conscription until World War I. Both Britain and America legislated for conscription and then withdrew it when the war was over.
After World War I, Germany was forbidden to have an army greater than 100,000, but Hitler ignored that by introducing two years of compulsory military training from the age of 18. By not stopping Hitler early on, he was able to march on Poland and in 1939, the world was again at war. The USA were very concerned when Germany conquered France and did not favour a Europe controlled by Germany and Italy. Conscription was reintroduced and it was even favoured in polls amongst American students, who were amongst the most likely to serve.
Under the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, all males between 18 and 45 had to put themselves forward and those chosen would serve for the remainder of the war plus six months. The Act was administered under Major Lewis Hershey, who remained in his post until 1969.
The singers Frank Sinatra and Dick Haymes both avoided national service: Frank through a hearing problem (!) and a phobia about crowds (!!) and Dick Haymes by being born in Argentina. Many thought Frank was displaying cowardice and had duped and/or bribed the medical examiner, and everybody thought Haymes was being absurd. Sinatra’s career recovered but Haymes’ never did.
By 1945, the nature of warfare was changing as America discharged two nuclear bombs in Japan to bring about the end of the conflict. Around 200,000 Japanese civilians were killed, and there has been much debate as to whether this was the right action or not.
It was hoped that peace would prevail after such a devastating war as no one envisaged anything like that happening again. Everybody expected peace, and conscription in the US was dropped, although it remained in the UK.
There had been an uneasy but vital alliance between the USA and Britain with the Soviet Union during the war, and it soon fell apart. The Soviets introduced Communist governments in the eastern European countries it had ‘liberated’. Both Britain and America were wary and knew that the Soviets wanted to spread their ideology to the western world.
Even if the countries were not fighting physically or with nuclear weapons, they could be using propaganda to gain the upper hand. Look at the fear that gripped Hollywood in the early 1950s as Senator Joe McCarthy held witch hunts for Communists in the entertainment industry.
The author George Orwell was superb at coining phrases (‘Big Brother’, ‘Room 101’) and he devised the ‘Cold War’ in 1945. Not to be outdone, Churchill supplied the phrase, the ‘Iron Curtain’. Orwell saw the world becoming a nuclear stalemate, with just a few superpowers possessing weapons which could obliterate mankind in seconds.
The Cold War led to the formation of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) which resisted any advancements of the Soviets in Europe. It had the concept that an attack on one country was an attack on all.
President Eisenhower proposed a nuclear test ban treaty but as America was in the lead, Russia was hardly likely to accept. At that time, only America had exploded nuclear bombs, but in 1949 Russia undertook a nuclear test, indicating that both sides had effective weapons. Under the terms of the peace treaty, Germany was not allowed to develop nuclear weapons which holds good to this day.
Japan had previously governed Korea but in 1945, the country was split, with the North under Russian rule and the South under American rule, but then becoming a republic in its own right. Both sides wanted a united Korea and tensions were high.
In 1950 the communist North attacked the South with Soviet support and captured their capital Seoul. With the backing of the United Nations, the US sent troops to help the South, often using conscripts, and they were assisted by British troops based in Hong Kong. For the first time, America allowed student deferment when recruiting forces.
The United Nations Assembly called it ‘a police action’ rather than war, but General MacArthur pushed forward and over a million Chinese troops were put on alert.
The death of Stalin, some say authorised by the Politburo, in 1953 eased the situation and for a short time, Russia was less dictatorial. An armistice was declared in 1955 and the two countries have been separate ever since.
Nikita Khrushchev came to power and denounced Stalin, but he was just as keen for Russia to be a major world player and he felt that his country would be humiliated if it could not match America’s fire power. By way of consolation, in 1961 Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space.
There were some benefits to the west when the two main Communist blocs, the Soviet Union and China, fell out with each other around 1960.
Eisenhower tried to make friends with Khrushchev and invited him to the US. Unfortunately, the schedule was not well chosen. Khrushchev visited Frank Sinatra on the set of Can-Can, who told him, ‘The movie is about a bunch of pretty girls and the fellows who like pretty girls.’ Caught in a rare smiling moment with the dancers, Khrushchev said, ‘This is what you call freedom but it’s only freedom for the girls to show their backsides. It’s capitalism that makes the girls that way.’
The next day Khrushchev called the film ‘lascivious, disgusting and immoral’, but it should be noted that he hadn’t rushed away. Back home, Khrushchev told his associates that Russia didn’t need to lift a finger as America would bury itself. He disliked their ostentation and their flashy cars: Why did these people always have to be on the move? Weren’t they content?
Khrushchev hadn’t appreciated that many Soviet citizens were envious of American culture. They liked what they heard clandestinely about the TV shows, the comic books and above all the music. If you were caught with an Elvis record, you would be punished, so it was all the more exciting to hear them.
The TV producer Leslie Woodhead, who wrote a fascinating book, How the Beatles Rocked the Kremlin (Bloomsbury, 2013), was a soldier in Berlin at the same time as Elvis Presley was conscripted. One night they met two young Russian soldiers who wanted to defect. Leslie could speak a little Russian and when he asked them why, he was told, ‘Our officers won’t let us listen to Elvis Presley.’ Leslie adds, ‘The Russians could hear our music and our culture on Radio Luxembourg, the BBC World Service and the Voice of America, on short-wave radio in the middle of the night. What came out of those crackling radios obviously grabbed their attention and there was something about the sound that contained the sound of freedom. Although he didn’t say so, I think Khrushchev was seduced by what he saw in America and he recognised that it was a threat.’
In later years, President Eisenhower was to criticise the development of nuclear weapons, saying that many companies were profiteering from the arms race which he described as ‘mutually assured destruction’. It’s unfortunate that he hadn’t come to these views while he was in office.
The armed peace was expensive, paid for in taxes and creating panic. Neither the Soviets nor the Americans wanted to give way over anything and their countrymen supported these aims.
Hungary had been liberated from Nazi rule by the Soviets in 1945 but the country tired of its new rulers. In 1956 there were student demonstrations demanding the withdrawal of Soviet troops, which turned into a major uprising. Russian tanks were sent to the capital Budapest and over 2,500 protesters were killed.
Elvis Presley supported the uprising when he was on The Ed Sullivan Show and he performed a benefit concert for relief, a highly unusual move for Presley and even more so for Colonel Parker, who generally nixed charity concerts (unless his boy was getting his standard fee.) It’s possible that Parker was thinking that Presley could escape national service by showing how useful he could be as a civilian.
Being a celebrity did not necessarily protect you, as the baseball star, Willie Mays, was called up, and many black vocal groups had constantly changing line-ups as their members came in and out of the forces including The Drifters and The Coasters.
Even though there was a nuclear threat, Major Hershey argued for conscription to remain. He encouraged recruitment as those who volunteered had some say in where they were posted and so could keep out of the firing line.
At first the idea of doing a few special shows for the troops appealed to Colonel Parker, but then he realised the enormous PR potential if Elvis did regular service. He would be in the forces for two years: the media would be fed regular stories about him. He would come out of the forces as a hero, the All-American Boy made good, and he could clean up. He could see it now; he could rub it in through Elvis appearing on a Frank Sinatra TV special – Elvis wouldn’t have to say anything but the older generation would know that Frank was being humiliated.
Parker knew that there would be no trouble with Presley. He was a good, able-bodied, clean-living American boy. Although he was often called a rebel, he had none of the argumentative, anti-establishment characteristics of Marlon Brando or James Dean.
If the USA had been at war when Elvis joined in 1958, Colonel Parker (and indeed, Elvis) might have been less keen to serve, but Parker was fairly sure he would arrive back in one piece. He would never have allowed him to serve if it had been a few years later and there was the chance of him being posted to Vietnam. On the other hand, with what we know now about Elvis’ posthumous earning capacity, Colonel Parker might not have been too grief-stricken if anything had happened to him.
Parker must have had the G.I. blues with Elvis’ posting to Germany: this hadn’t been in the script. For a start, he would be close to the Russian border and secondly, as he had no intention of leaving the US himself, Elvis would be out of his control.
Germany was partitioned into four allied zones after the war, with the zones being policed by the Soviets, the Americans, the British and the French. Around 1960, 80,000 troops from the UK were in Germany, which was a third of its total force. Russia by comparison had a military force of over five million.
To counter-balance NATO, Khrushchev signed a treaty with East Germany to allow Russia to use its sites for missile installation. In August 1960, after a riot in Karl-Marx-Stadt – now Chemnitz – Elvis Presley himself was declared an enemy of the people by the East German government.
Berlin, which had been devastated during World War II, became a divided city with its two parts, East and West, being divided at first by barbed wire and then a wall. This was partly to stop citizens in East Germany escaping to the West.
There the troops from the East and the troops from the West faced each other and it was potentially lethal. It would only take a rebel panzer attack to spark another war.
The crooner Eddie Fisher had made records while he was in the forces but Parker did not like this concept and he seemed neither in nor out. Similarly, Clyde McPhatter would cut records and even appear on stage in military uniform.
As it happens, Buddy Knox was called up before Elvis Presley. He had had his first hit in 1957 with ‘Party Doll’ and he was managed by Norman Petty. Petty encouraged him to make records during his leave and issued the singles as Lieutenant Buddy Knox, the label billing being a surprise to Knox. He still had hit records and maybe Petty should have thought this through by giving regular updates on his boy’s progress.
Buddy Knox said, ‘The week `Party Doll’ hit No.1, the army decided that they needed me real bad, and it meant that we couldn’t come to England where ‘Party Doll’ was a hit. We had the London Palladium and European dates lined up. The contracts went into the garbage can and I got drunk for the first time in my life. It broke the band up.’
From November 1961, Don and Phil Everly trained for the Marine Corps and graduated in March 1962. Contrary to the standard arrangements, they were allowed to serve together, an odd move considering the tensions between them. That was it: they were then on stand-by.
The Four Preps mocked the rival groups joining Uncle Sam in ‘The Big Draft’ (1961). The Barron Knights revamped this for the UK as ‘Call Up the Groups’ (1964) a plea for the draft to be reinstated to eliminate their competition.
In the 1950s, conscription continued in the UK where every fit male aged between 18 and 26 did national service, with two years of active duty and four years in the reserves. The test cricketer, Colin Cowdrey, was turned down because of flat feet, causing the MP Gerald Nabarro to say in Parliament, ‘There is no excuse for evading national service.’ He had to apologise to Cowdrey, who had been willing to participate.
Thinking of doing its own Elvis, the UK planned a recruitment campaign with the singer, Terry Dene, but he had mental problems and should never have been enlisted. It was the flipside of Elvis, a national disaster. Terry Dene: ‘I knew before I went in the forces that there was an element of risk. I’d had a long record of being medically unfit, but because I was a big success, a lot of that was pushed under the surface. I had to go out and be this star, but underneath I was very shy and nervous. When I was confronted with the army, my call-up was delayed. I decided that I wanted to go in because I was getting letters saying I was a coward – I was sent white feathers in envelopes. When things did go wrong, they went wrong in a very short space of time. I came under medical supervision and they put me in a military hospital. In the end I was told, ‘We’re terribly sorry about this, there’s been a mistake’, meaning ‘You shouldn’t have been here in the first place.’ What a cock-up.’
Terry Dene’s time in the army became a major news story. Terry Dene: ‘It was brought up in Parliament and everyone was wondering why they had taken ‘Screwball’ in the first place. It was very nasty publicity. I came up before the army board and they asked me if I would get my job back. I said, ‘You tell me.’ They knew they had handled the whole thing very badly and that I had to face the vultures, as it were, by being exposed to the press. They offered me an army pension as compensation but I turned it down.’
Dene became a laughing stock and it ruined his career. Marty Wilde escaped national service because of fallen arches and, wait for it, severe corns. Marty Wilde: ‘I went for my medical and had my interviews but they didn’t take me in the end. I was discharged on medical grounds, which was partially true. They said I had a malfunction in my foot and so I couldn’t march, but they just needed a good excuse not to have me there. They didn’t want to catch another cold. It wouldn’t have been so bad for me because my father was ex-Sandhurst and he put me in the picture and I could have made a go of it. I’m glad it didn’t happen though as it would have held back my career.’
The main reason for wanting to boost recruitment was because conscription was about to be abolished. That happened in 1960, so we will never know how John Lennon would have fared in the army, which would be a perfect subject for a West End play. On the other hand, national service proved to be very beneficial for the Kray twins – it turned them into gangsters.
In 1962, the Soviets were spotted making military installations in Cuba and for a few tense months, it looked like the world was on the brink of war. Khrushchev backed down, probably because of the threat of retaliation as nobody could predict what would happen when nuclear bombs were released. In 1963 there was a Test Ban treaty, which banned testing above ground, but who knew what was happening below ground. The Soviet Union was still building its arsenal and it was an open secret that America was carrying out nuclear tests only 100 miles from Las Vegas.
Vietnam was a French colony but after the battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954, it was divided in two and by the 1960s the Communist North wanted to control the South, who asked America for assistance. At first they sent military advisers but in 1964 Congress approved war and conscripted soldiers were sent to Vietnam.
Many in America opposed this war and hence, draft-dodging and the pubic burning of draft cards was not seen as cowardice. This split the country. Young eligible males moved to Canada including the singer/songwriter Jesse Winchester. Canada, like the UK, had abolished the draft in 1960. The film, Alice’s Restaurant (1969), offers a good picture of the counterculture. As Country Joe sang, ‘What are we fighting for?’
Who knows what the US government was thinking when they served draft papers on Muhammad Ali, possibly the greatest of all boxers. Maybe an Elvis rerun, only in this case Ali would show support for an unpopular war. However, Ali opposed the war in Vietnam and refused to be inducted. This led to a protracted court case which led to Ali being vindicated in 1971. By then the war was over and he was too old and had been out of the ring too long to be the champion he once was.
The Vietnam War ended in 1973 and the US turned to an all-volunteer military force. As a contingency plan, males between 18 and 25 were required to register; that has now been extended to females.
As the years went by, Mikhail Gorbachev made strong moves to end the Cold War and his actions also led to the break-up of the Soviet Union, with democracies being introduced. Russia is no longer a Communist country but it is strongly led by Vladimir Putin, and at the time of writing (May 2017), it appears that Russia’s cyber-crimes could have influenced the US elections.
Putin himself enjoys western culture and is a fan of Abba. Without a doubt, western culture has drawn the East and the West together and they are not two completely different entities anymore. Russia even takes part in the Eurovision Song Contest, although not in 2017 because of the host nation.
I can see the links between the East and the West every day in Liverpool where fans from Russia and other former Communist countries long to know everything about the Beatles. They must visit Memphis and feel the same way about Elvis. So well done, Elvis. He may have done more than any other serviceman to make the world a safer place. Maybe that was his greatest role.
But there is still the nuclear threat, which at present seems insurmountable. To think that this stand-off can go on forever without some accident or deliberate action is nonsensical.
Having secured his deferment from the army, Elvis started shooting his fourth film, King Creole, on 20 January 1958. The film was based on a best-selling novel by the pulp fiction writer, Harold Robbins, A Stone for Danny Fisher, written in 1952. It was currently an off-Broadway success. In 1961, Robbins would publish his most famous book, The Carpetbaggers.
King Creole was directed by Michael Curtiz, who made the Oscar-winning Casablanca and he gave A Stone for Danny Fisher plenty of style. Shot in black and white, the end result is close to film noir.
Many changes were made to the book – Danny Fisher is not a boxer but a singer and the location has been switched from New York to New Orleans. Most of the film was shot amongst the clubs on Bourbon Street and in keeping with the surroundings, Elvis has a Dixieland jazz accompaniment crossed with rock’n’roll. The bluesy ‘New Orleans’ was written by Sid Tepper and Roy Bennett, who had converted Elvis’ slightly stuttering speech into a vocal performance.
The film is packed with dramatic weight and Elvis called this ‘the best part I’ve ever had’. He was right. A few years earlier, the book had been considered for James Dean and, like Dean in Rebel without a Cause, Elvis played a moody delinquent. He didn’t always win and fans cried when he was beaten up and shot, although he pulled through in the end. It was the last film in which Elvis played a rebel and he deserved an Oscar nomination. Elvis would grow up for his future roles but he was so vain that he never played a character older than himself.
It is a strong cast too with Walter Matthau (real name Walter Matuschanskayasky) as a nightclub owner, Vic Morrow (who was in The Blackboard Jungle, 1955) and Carolyn Jones, later Morticia Addams from The Addams Family, as a gangster’s spooky moll, looking like the singer Keely Smith. Elvis’ girlfriend, a waitress Nellie, is played by Dolores Hart, who became a Benedictine nun in 1970. The girls in Elvis’ films are not unattractive but they are often unlikely choices. Put it this way: the girls went to the movies to swoon at Elvis and, in theory, the fellas should have fancied his girlfriends. I don’t think this happened.
Maybe Sophia Loren should have made a guest appearance. She met him on the set in February 1958 and though they had never met before, they were soon snogging happily in front of a photographer.
Nobody liked the title A Stone for Danny Fisher and at different times, the film was going to be Sing, You Sinners and Danny. Indeed, a title song, Danny, was written and recorded for the film, but it was not released at the time. There’s a moment where Elvis is about to yodel but then thinks better of it. This is when he would have sung ‘Danny’.
Instead, in 1959 the song appeared on Cliff Richard’s live album, Cliff!, and was the B-side of Marty Wilde’s UK hit, ‘A Teenager in Love’. In 1960, it was given a new title, ‘Lonely Blue Boy’, and when it became a US Top 10 hit for Conway Twitty, it was filled with his characteristic groans. Considering that the soundtrack album of King Creole only contains 11 tracks, none of them longer than 2 minutes 17 seconds, surely Elvis’ version, which is excellent, could have been a bonus track. Not to worry, the album was No .2 in the US and No.1 in the UK.
There is the menacing ‘Trouble’ (Leiber / Stoller) but Presley is usually miming rather than performing the songs live, and it shows. He’s all over the place on ‘Dixieland Rock’ and his poor miming ruins an excellent performance. There are the rock-a-ballads (a 1958 term) ‘As Long As I Have You’ and ‘Don’t Ask Me Why’ (US No.23 as a B-side). While Elvis serenades the girls in a department store and distracts them ‘Lover Doll’, his cronies (including Vic Morrow) are shoplifting, certainly a novel way of stealing. There is the romance of ‘Young Dreams’ and the school hymn, ‘Steadfast, Loyal and True’, later revived by Aaron Neville.
Elvis wasn’t confident about the title song, another Leiber / Stoller, which was, I think, the first song to liken a guitar to a gun. It had a rapid-fire guitar solo from Scotty Moore. Elvis sang the tongue-twisting lyric quickly and exited with a Dixieland flourish. A great track in my opinion but Elvis preferred the frantic ‘Hard Headed Woman’ as a single, which was another US No.1 and yet hardly heard in the film. Both songs were A-sides in the UK with both singles making No.2.
But Elvis was lucky. The Head of Religious Broadcasting at the BBC considered placing ‘Hard Headed Woman’ on the banned list as it made fun of biblical tales. The BBC did not want an outright ban on an Elvis Presley single and so the single could be played with special permission from the Assistant Head (Light Entertainment).
In 2011 Suzi Quatro released a cover version of ‘Hard Headed Woman’: ‘I had been working with some young musicians, say, between 18 and 25. The tracks had come out really well and then I said, ‘Let’s do ‘Hard Headed Woman’ because we’ll really see how your chops are. Nobody can teach you how to feel this one properly.’ – and boy, did they! I was very impressed.’
Paul McCartney criticised Elvis’ version of ‘Hard Headed Woman’ for ‘that dreadful great big trombone in the middle of it.’ Derek Johnson of the NME was unimpressed with the whole song. ‘I am frankly amazed at how he gets away with it. Except for a big-band accompaniment instead of a small group, this record sounds exactly the same as a dozen others he has made.’
This is unfair and the score suggests that Elvis could have made some imaginative and experimental records if he’d wished. Take the bayou song, ‘Crawfish’, an evocative duet with street vendor Kitty White. The song was later revived by Marianne Faithfull and it would be great to hear it by Tony Joe White. Joe Strummer called it his favourite Elvis song.
When Jack Good was producing Billy Fury for Decca, he recorded the eerie, almost ghostly ‘Wondrous Place’, written by Bill Giant. It was as sexy as hell, particularly when Billy had a sharp intake of breath just before the title line. It is now regarded as a classic track but back in 1960, it was too weird for a high chart placing. Jack Good recalled, ‘I had a demo of Bill Giant’s ‘Wondrous Place’ and it struck me immediately that it had to be done by Billy, though a lot of his good records were his own compositions. We both agreed that we wanted a steamy bayou thing: shades of Elvis Presley’s ‘Crawfish’. It was a wonderful stage number and Billy was terrific on stage. He was so quiet but when he put on the gold lamé suit, it was as though there was somebody else inside.’
Billy Fury was the closest the Brits had to an Elvis. Alvin Stardust: ‘Billy wrote all the songs on The Sound of Fury but, more to the point, all those songs were classics. Then he did ‘Wondrous Place’ which to me had everything that ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ had.’
When King Creole was shown at the Odeon in Marble Arch, London, plaster fell from the ceiling and eight people were slightly injured, so Elvis did genuinely bring the house down.
While Elvis had been making King Creole, ‘Don’t’ / ‘I Beg Of You’ had been issued as a single with both sides making the Top 10, and ‘Don’t’, although a rather candid song, being on top for five weeks, and also a UK No.2.
A Brill Building lyricist, Russell Moody, wrote ‘Wear My Ring around Your Neck’ and took it to his friend, the Broadway composer, Bert Carroll. Bert was working on a ballet and said he hadn’t got time. ‘It’ll only take you ten minutes,’ said Russell. ‘This will be an ideal song to pitch to Elvis. The girls will be wearing Elvis rings around the neck while he’s away.’ Okay, said Bert, and wrote his ten-minute melody. Russell then learnt that Elvis wasn’t recording any more new songs before he went in the army, so Russell took it to Pat Boone. If Pat Boone didn’t like it, then perhaps it could be a novelty song for Perry Como. Before any of this happened, there had been a change of heart and Elvis would do it after all.
‘Wear My Ring around Your Neck’ was a US No.2 and a UK No.3, but UK audiences didn’t get the song – teenage boys didn’t give their girlfriends friendship rings. It had connotations for Elvis himself – would Anita wear my ring while I’m in the forces?
The B-side, ‘Dontcha Think It’s Time’, was popular, making the US Top 20 in its own right. Ben Hewitt: ‘Clyde Otis asked me to do a demo for Elvis. We kept playing ‘Dontcha Think It’s Time’ in different keys until we found one where I sounded like Elvis, the band sounded like Elvis’ recording band, and the vocal group sounded like the Jordanaires. That way, when Elvis heard it, he would more or less hear himself doing it, and it worked: Elvis recorded the song.’ The song had a similar raunchiness to ‘One Night’ and the author Michael Gray has written, ‘Elvis was saying, ‘Let’s fuck’ years before John and Paul were wanting to hold your hand.’
Elvis Presley returned to Memphis in March and gave two shows at Russwood Park, home of the Memphis Chicks baseball team. As he left the stage on the second show, he threw a diamond ring into the audience. They were his only concert performances of the year. The stadium burned down two years later and Elvis didn’t appear on stage again until 1961.
The last thing the fans wanted was Elvis to join the army. Millyon Bowers, who headed the Memphis draft board, said, ‘A crackpot called me out of bed last night and complained that we didn’t put Beethoven in the army.’ Well, Beethoven wasn’t American, Beethoven wasn’t alive and Beethoven with his hearing loss wouldn’t have passed the medical.
As Elvis had a few days until he had to enlist, he rented out the Rainbow Rollerdome for late-night partying with his buddies. Elvis knew that the rollercoaster car stopped at the top of the ride. He got off and climbed down the perilous structure. When the car reached the bottom, the operator wondered where Elvis had gone and feared for his safely, but Elvis was right behind him. Elvis had the recklessness of James Dean.
‘Elvis died the day he went into the army,’ said John Lennon. Perhaps 24 March 1958 rather than 3 February 1959 was the day the music died.
At 6am on 24 March 1958, Elvis reported for duty at the Memphis Draft Board, along with 12 other recruits. Elvis had brought along his mum and dad, his girlfriend (Anita Wood), his manager (Colonel Parker) and a couple of his chums, as you do. Not to mention all the fans and reporters.
The recruits were taken on an army bus to the Kennedy Veterans Hospital to be prodded, poked and evaluated by their medical team. They were returned in the afternoon for the induction ceremony. Sgt Walter Alden was one of the officers: his daughter, Ginger, was three and will play a part in the story, but not yet.
Private Elvis Presley was to be paid $78 a month, the only money he would earn between now and his death that wasn’t reduced by Colonel Parker’s commission. It wasn’t so big a drop in earnings as he still received record royalties.
Presley was put in charge of the other recruits and at 5pm, they set off to Fort Chaffee, Arkansas, some 260 miles away. They arrived six hours later. No time to sleep in though. ‘Where’s your teddy bear?’ asked one soldier.
5.30am – Your morning call, Private Presley. Five hours of aptitude tests and then a regulation haircut. Well, not quite a regulation one – Elvis always looked great. Presumably the aptitude tests went well as Presley was scheduled to drive tanks, which delighted him. In a highly symbolic act, a star is shorn by the camp’s barber, James Peterson – he still looked a star.
At a press conference, Colonel Parker, not missing a trick, held red balloons advertising King Creole. Elvis put on a brave face but he felt the way his mother looked – very much under the weather. ‘I don’t think rock’n’roll will die out before I get back and if it does, I’ll sing ballads,’ he surmised.
On 28 March 1958, Elvis went by army bus to Fort Hood, Texas to receive eight weeks basic training. Elvis was now off limits to the media. He was assigned to A Company, Second Medium Tank Battalion, Second Armoured Division, once under the control of General Patton: now that would have been an intriguing confrontation.
Fort Hood housed 23,000 soldiers and it must have been difficult for Elvis – think how many men, filled with envy, would like to provoke the King. Maybe Sgt. Bilko gave them ideas, as that night’s episode of The Phil Silvers Show was called Rock And Roll Rookie.
The so-called ‘basic training’ went well with Elvis being concerned that the gunfire might affect his hearing. He was commended for his marksmanship but his written tests were not good enough for officer material. He said, ‘I never was any good at arithmetic. That’s Colonel Parker’s department’, little realising that he was commenting on the costliest mistake of his life.
Elvis finished his basic training with twenty-mile long marches in the Texas sun. The first was an ordinary route march, the second combined walking with running, and the third was with an 85-pound combat-pack on his back, so congratulations were in order. It rained continuously during the bivouac week – the platoon was kept on the move, deprived of regular sleep, to simulate the feeling of warfare. Many recruits collapsed but Elvis kept on going. There could have been a drama when Elvis encountered a poisonous snake in his tent, but then he was used to Colonel Parker.
Rex Mansfield had joined the army in Memphis on the same day as Elvis. They became close friends in Fort Hood and on a day off, he, Elvis and Lamar Fike went to an air hostess training centre and selected the girls they wanted.
Elvis had two week’s holiday at the end of his basic training and he would then receive a posting. Colonel Parker had wanted to book some concerts, but Elvis told him to forget it. He planned to relax, but agreed to two days of recording sessions with his friends.
Elvis Presley’s only studio recordings during his army service were made at RCA in Nashville. He turned up in service dress but then Elvis always liked uniforms. The dream team was Hank Garland and Chet Atkins (guitars), Bob Moore (bass), Floyd Cramer (piano), Buddy Harman and D.J. Fontana (drums) and the Jordanaires. Hank Garland was up there with Chet Atkins, a wonderful guitarist who had played the solo on Red Foley’s ‘Sugarfoot Rag’ (1950).
Five songs were recorded and three were new, ‘I Need Your Love Tonight’, ‘I Got Stung’ and ‘A Big Hunk o’ Love’, which sounded as though it had been written for King Creole. Then there was ‘Ain’t That Loving You Baby’ (written by Clyde Otis and Ivory Joe Hunter in 20 minutes) and Hank Snow’s ‘(Now and Then There’s) A Fool Such As I’ (an excellent revival). Ray Walker of the Jordanaires: ‘Elvis could adapt to whatever he had to do. I know he didn’t like ‘I Got Stung’ as he joked about it, but he sang it in the right way.’
All five tracks would become hit singles, but for the moment the King Creole soundtrack was receiving media attention. The film itself opened in America to great commercial success. Other top films of the year were No Time for Sergeants and A Farewell to Arms.
Not many of the ticket sales were in Mexico – there was an anti-Elvis backlash because he was supposed to have said, ‘I’d rather kiss three black girls than a Mexican.’ This seems offensive to almost everyone and although Elvis was unlikely to have said it, it was reported that he had. There were protests outside cinemas and public burnings of his records. By way of contrast, The Times in December 1958 reported that 500 schoolchildren had been asked about hero worship and whom they most admired. Sir Winston Churchill was top, Elvis was third but as ‘your own mother’ was second, it was a curiously flawed survey.
Elvis Presley bought Graceland in 1957, but Vernon and Gladys, not to mention his paternal grandmother Minnie Mae, wanted to be with Elvis, and so they left Graceland and flew 600 miles to Killeen, some three miles from Fort Hood, and into rented accommodation, thereby enabling Elvis to sleep outside the base.
There is a home recording of Elvis playing ‘I Understand (Just How You Feel)’, a doo-wop song from the Four Tunes based around ‘Auld Lang Syne’. He accompanied himself on piano and ended with that big voice which he was to use so powerfully in Vegas. Quite a bit of background noise – I don’t think anyone was paying much attention.
Gladys, who was drinking heavily and swallowing diet pills, became ill and returned to Memphis for hospital treatment. She had chronic hepatitis. The army was reluctant to let Elvis visit her and he threatened to go AWOL, but when they realised she was gravely ill, they let him go.
Elvis was at his mother’s bedside for 36 continuous hours. On 14 August, his father told him to take some rest so he went to the movies with three girls (this is Elvis-world). While he was there, his mother died, just 46 years old, and Elvis became inconsolable. It is possible that Elvis blamed Vernon as he had not been at her bedside when she died.
It was a personal tragedy and possibly a commercial and artistic one, as Gladys was the only one who saw through Colonel Parker. Now Colonel Parker took control and, in what can be seen as a dry run for 1977, he allowed hundreds of mourners to file past the coffin and all but turned the funeral into a circus.
Only a day later, Elvis was overcome with grief at Gladys’ funeral. He threw himself on the coffin, his cries alternating between ‘Everything I have is gone’ and ‘She’s not dead’. Vernon Presley expressed his grief rather differently. Within a week, he bedded the first of several women.
Elvis loved his parents and was devastated by Gladys’ early death, but I don’t think it was an unnatural relationship. If he had been so devoted to his mother, would he have gone on tour: wouldn’t he have stayed home and sacrificed everything for her? Mind you, I can’t think of a single performer who has sacrificed everything for his mother. It’s a contradiction in terms. You can’t become famous unless you leave the house.
According to Jerry Hopkins’ biography, ‘Elvis’ world collapsed like a sandcastle in the burning sea’. Maybe it did for a short time, but, come on, he was in the army and had to return to the job in hand.
Elvis was posted to West Germany as part of a NATO exercise. The Cold War was on but I don’t think that anyone at the time thought it could escalate into a real war. If the Americans considered this a threat, why did they allow servicemen to bring their families? Even stranger, Elvis took his dad and his granny as well as his Memphis buddies, Red West and Lamar Fike. The entourage did not include his current girlfriend, Anita Wood, nor Colonel Parker, who had his own reasons for not leaving America. Elvis was the only private in the US army to employ a Colonel.
Elvis took the train from Fort Hood to Brooklyn and before setting sail to Germany on 22 September 1958, talked to the media. The best-selling spoken word EP, Elvis Sails, consisted of three interviews on board USS General Randall: one for the press, one for a newsreel and one with Pat Hernon. The EP reached No.2 on the US EP charts. Examples of Elvis’ wit: ‘What is your ideal girl?’ ‘Female, sir.’ (Laughter and applause: note too that the Beatles would never call reporters ‘sir’.). Some of the newsreel footage was shown in a curious British feature film, Climb Up the Wall (1960), starring the British disc-jockey Jack Jackson and directed by Michael Winner.
For the rest of September, Elvis and 800 recruits crossed the Atlantic. Elvis shared a cabin with another recruit, Charlie Hodge. Together they sang ‘I Will Be Home Again’, and they sang country songs at a ship’s concert. Charlie became a lifelong friend, the only Memphis Mafioso who was one of his musicians.
Elvis saw the White Cliffs of Dover, but the USS Randall set anchor at Bremerhaven, West Germany. The troops were taken to barracks built by Hitler for his SS troops at Friedberg, 20 miles north of Frankfurt. Elvis would be based there for the rest of his army service, some 17 months. His first job was driving a jeep for Captain Russell of D Company of the 1st Medical Tank Battalion of the 3rd Armoured Division. Their motto: ‘Victory or Death’, playfully shortened to VD.
Almost straight away, Elvis was given a ‘sleeping-out pass’ which meant that, unless he was on night duty, he could return to his family some 15 miles away at a hotel in Bad Neuheim at 5pm. Some days he snuck out for lunch. If anything was going to alienate him from his fellow soldiers, it would be that. Just as well that he was sleeping off the base as he had brought his mother’s nightgown with him, though what he did with it is a mystery.
Captain Russell found that the attention that Elvis was getting was unbearable and so Elvis was switched to the scouting platoon. He was to be a reconnaissance Jeep driver, which meant that he led the way for the convoys.
But did Elvis want the attention? Elvis couldn’t tolerate the fact that the King of Saudi Arabia and his 32 wives were getting more consideration than him at the Hilberts Parkhotel in Bad Neuheim. Elvis’ entourage moved to another hotel in the same area but after complaints about noise from other residents, they looked for a luxury home or apartment to rent.
Largely because of Elvis, Bill Haley and his Comets had become passé in Britain and America but not in Germany. There were riots in Berlin, Hamburg and Essen, and Haley considered cancelling the dates because of poor protection from the police. Elvis in army uniform went backstage to see them in Wiesbaden (October 23) and Mannheim (October 29). He told Haley that he was bored with army life and he considered joining them on stage for ‘Shake, Rattle and Roll’. The police forbade it, fearing a full-scale riot. That would have been as nothing compared to Colonel Parker’s reaction.
Meanwhile Colonel Parker, spinning from a distance, wanted a positive story about Elvis helping the disabled. The magazine wanted a pretty girl in the photoshoot, somebody the fans could identify with, and 16-year-old typist Margit Bürgin, is chosen. As Elvis’ gutsiest single, ‘One Night’ was being issued, Elvis followed its lyric by having a fling with Margit. Unbeknown to Elvis and according to later reports, she had an abortion.
There were no more home comforts of any variety, as Elvis left his friends and family for an army tent close to the border with Czechoslovakia, so he was surprisingly close to the Soviets. One of the officers gave Elvis Dexedrine to stay awake on guard duty – it may have been his first exposure to drugs, although some say he tried his mother’s slimming pills. Always favouring excess, he soon has a quart pot of Dexy’s midnight runners.
On 27 November 1958, Elvis was promoted to Private First Class. He was up to his knees in mud at the Grafenwöhr training camp and he remarked to a fellow soldier, ‘Boy, do I hate this shit.’ Nevertheless, Elvis looked immaculate in all his army photographs: thank Lamar and Red, who cleaned his boots and pressed his uniforms throughout his stay in Germany.
In December the Elvis entourage moved into a three-storey house surrounded by a picket fence at Goethestrasse 14, Wiesbaden. Another of Elvis’ girlfriends, Elisabeth Stefaniak, who spoke both English and German, was invited to live there – but as a secretary being paid $35 a week. She handled the 10,000 fan letters arriving every week and Elvis called her ‘Miss Postage Stamp’. Plagued by fans, Elvis agreed to sign autographs between 7.30 and 8.00pm, and a notice to this effect was put outside the house.
Following his colonel’s orders, Elvis Presley had turned down an invitation to entertain the troops over Christmas with Bob Hope. Instead, he had a blue Christmas – all he wanted to do was talk about Gladys.
Elvis wrote to Anita Wood and sent her a poodle for Christmas. He said he would marry her on his return. He told her to play Tommy Edwards’ ‘Soldier Boy’, which was written in Korea in 1951, and make it their record. Elvis didn’t mean a word of it.
Country singer Bobby Bare, about to be drafted, wrote and recorded a parody of Elvis’ induction, ‘All American Boy’. Because Bobby was unavailable for promotion, it was released under a friend’s name, Bill Parsons. ‘I got drafted six months after Elvis and I wrote ‘All American Boy’ the same week that I went into the army. It was a combination of myself and Elvis, any rock’n’roller who gets drafted, you know. They take away his guitar, cut his hair off and make him a GI. I cut a demo but it was given to the radio stations with my buddy’s name, Bill Parsons, on the record. He was at the same session cutting a different song. He called me up and said, ‘What am I going to do? They’ve put my name on your record and I’ve been asked to do American Bandstand.’ I said, ‘I can’t do anything, I’m in the army. You take the money and run. It’ll be forgotten in six weeks’. He did the show, lip-syncing to my record which was impossible to do, being a talking blues. I hoped he’d buy me a new car when I got out, but neither of us made any money on it.’ The single entered the US chart, climbing to No.2, but was only a minor UK hit, being covered on LP by Marty Wilde.
On 8 January 1959, Elvis’ 24th birthday, Dick Clark had a live telephone link with Elvis on American Bandstand. He told Elvis, ‘The folks at home certainly haven’t forgotten you.’
In January 1959, Vernon and Elisabeth were injured in an accident on an autobahn. With no evidence but fuelled by paranoia, Elvis believed the accident had been caused by sexual favours being granted in the car. Elvis had an unusual relationship with Elisabeth because she was both his secretary and his girlfriend. Priscilla’s book refers to a girl who was paid to have sex with Elvis and if this is Elisabeth it is plainly wrong. She had a full-time job dealing with his fan mail.
Elisabeth had been born in Germany and her stepfather was stationed at the same base as Elvis. According to her account, she was both Elvis’ secretary and lover. Scores of girls would be coming and going to Elvis’ bedroom and when they had left, he would knock three times on the wall and she would spend the night in his arms. She said that Elvis didn’t want full sex as he feared paternity suits, but she did want to marry him. (The inspiration for ‘Crawfish’ has to be Porgy and Bess and Elvis was living a life of Orgy and Bess.)
Elvis’ friend Rex Mansfield, who was with him in Germany, wanted to date Elisabeth but felt he could not ask her while she was in this strange relationship. Eventually it petered out and Rex dated Elisabeth and married her in June 1960. Elvis never spoke to them again.
The British army’s ill-fated decision to recruit a rock’n’roll singer, Terry Dene, had been a disaster. He broke down after two days in January 1959, his former fans derided him as a wimp and questions were asked in Parliament. Perhaps seeing the UK fiasco, Colonel Parker issued a ridiculous press release, allegedly written by Elvis and entitled My Army Life Is Fine. The press release praised Colonel Parker.
Elvis was singing ‘I Need Your Love Tonight’ and Vernon was feeling the same way. In March 1959, Devada (Dee) Stanley, ten years older than Elvis, was divorcing her husband, a hard-drinking army sergeant. She fancied a relationship with Elvis but settled for Vernon. Elvis was not amused: Gladys was being betrayed.
By April, Dee and Vernon were making love in Vernon’s bedroom every night. As Dee shrieked with pleasure, Elvis pounded the piano as hard as he could. Unable to take anymore, he ordered Vernon to return to Memphis on the pretext of taking care of business (TCB, his favourite phrase), though Vernon soon returned.
In May 1959, Anthony Newley starred in a mickey-take of a pop star in the British army, Idle on Parade. Ironically, the film and the ballad, ‘I’ve Waited So Long’, turned him into one. Newley became a master songwriter and entertainer, based in Vegas, although Presley never recorded any of his songs.
Also in May, Anita Wood wrote to Elvis while on tour with Robert Goulet. Goulet added a P.S. – ‘Hey, Elvis, don’t worry! I’m taking good care of Anita!’ Elvis was furious and years later, when he saw Goulet on TV, he put a bullet through the screen.
This could be fake news but an actress, Kim Tracy, long after his death, revealed that Elvis’ idea of foreplay was to say, ‘The snake is coming to get you.’ It did as, according to her testimony, she became pregnant but later had a miscarriage. Lamar Fike said that he never saw her all the time he was in Germany.
On 1 June 1959, Elvis achieved Specialist Fourth Class. Pretty obvious what his speciality was. Elvis was picking up girls and discarding them – maybe he wasn’t the great lover that some assume. People in love with themselves are rarely good at loving others.
During night manoeuvres, Elvis tried to heat his tank (for once, I’m not writing in sexual metaphors.) He failed miserably and nearly killed himself with carbon monoxide fumes. He was taken to Frankfurt Military Hospital and the NME had a front page headline, Presley Statement from Sick Bed. But not really, ‘He was too ill to speak to us.’
Elvis had tonsillitis. Milking this for all it was worth, the NME then had the front page headline, Presley Vanishes. ‘Where is Elvis?’ was the question fans were asking. ‘We don’t know,’ said the NME. He was officially on sick leave but he had gone to Paris in a chartered plane with Charlie Hodge and some friends.
Elvis went to the Lido night club where he befriended George and Bert Bernard, a comedy mime act who had made the film, Gobs and Gals in 1952. Their set piece was a parody of Yul Brynner and Deborah Kerr in The King and I. One night at the Lido after closing time and to everyone’s surprise, Elvis sat at the piano and performed ‘Willow Weep for Me’ and some favourites for the staff.
During their ten-day visit, the gang went to the Folies-Bergère, the Café de Paris, the Carousel, the Moulin Rouge and the Four O’Clock Club. At the Four O’Clock Club, the good ol’ boys took an entire chorus line back to the Hotel Prince de Galles for a jolly roger. It was not all sex though – Elvis started his karate lessons in Paris but declined an invitation to visit the Louvre with his Memphis boys. Maybe he stayed home and played ‘Mona Lisa’ instead. Neither Elvis nor the French Elvis, Johnny Hallyday, made any attempt to contact each other. Elvis was enjoying himself so much that he almost missed his deadline to return to base. He hired a Cadillac to get back on time which costs him $800.
Elvis had a Frankfurt special with a contortionist. He spent several hours in a bedroom with her and according to Lamar, he came out wringing wet. Elvis had arranged a girl for Lamar but she turned out to be a transvestite.
The impresario Bill Kenwright maintains that Elvis made a day trip to the UK and was shown the sights by Tommy Steele, but how this could be done without anybody else knowing defies belief. I suspect that Tommy had been winding Bill up but to what purpose? It also would be out of character for Elvis to go sight-seeing: if Tommy had lined up some girls, it might have been another matter.
Elvis had another hit single with ‘A Big Hunk o’ Love’ but it was not his finest moment. During his time in Germany, Elvis only had one Top 20 entry on the German charts. This was when ‘I Need Your Love Tonight’ climbed to No.15. Elvis didn’t have a No.l in Germany until 1969, which was ‘In the Ghetto’, a record that missed the top in both England and America.
In July 1959, some old recordings were marketed for an album, A Date with Elvis. Although not making new recordings, Elvis agreed to photo-shoots, as the front cover showed him in army uniform in a sports car. However, this wasn’t the real ‘date with Elvis’. On the back sleeve was a calendar for 1960 with his proposed release date from the army – March 24 – circled.
There was only one previously unissued recording on the album: ‘Is It So Strange’, cut in 1957 and delayed because Parker wanted Faron Young to relinquish some of his songwriting royalties, which he did. Elvis had plenty of time on his hands and could easily have made records if asked. However, Colonel Parker was adamant that Elvis shouldn’t sing as he wanted to negotiate a good deal with RCA for his return.
Elvis had a Grundig tape recorder and from time to time recorded himself on piano; he was working on gospel songs with a view to a religious album. Some of his home recordings have now been issued: ‘Danny Boy’, ‘Soldier Boy’, ‘The Fool’, ‘Earth Angel’ and ‘He’s Only a Prayer Away’. Elvis comes across as a competent pianist but often the balance isn’t right as there is too much piano. Still, Elvis never anticipated that these tracks would be offered for purchase. There is a particularly good version of ‘I’m Beginning to Forget You’, a Jim Reeves B-side, with Elvis playing guitar.
In August 1959, Captain Joseph Paul Beaulieu arrived in West Germany and was stationed at Wiesbaden, living off the base with his wife, Ann, and his step-daughter, Priscilla (born 25 May 1945). A 28-year-old airman under his control, Currie Grant, moonlighted as a compère at the Eagle Club. His wife, Carole, was Tony Bennett’s sister. Currie often visited Elvis and, as part of his friendship, he procured teenage lovers for Elvis. He soon discovered that he could only have his way with them before they met Elvis. Once they had sampled the King, they lost all interest in him.
Although she was only 14, Currie was delighted when the beautiful Priscilla asked if she could meet Elvis and he wanted to try his luck first. The Beaulieus exercised little parental control in allowing her out at night with a married man. Priscilla maintains in her book, Elvis And Me, that Currie tried to rape her but, if so, why did she continue to see him?
Elvis’ current girlfriend was a 15-year-old beauty, Heli Priemel. Once again, it looks like under-age sex and hence, statutory rape. Then he had a brief fling with a 22-year-old film actress Vera Tschechowa, who invited him to spend time in Munich with her and her mother, Olga. Olga was a noted film actress and friend of the Führer, still speaking fondly of him. Fascinated, Elvis intended to visit them during his next vacation.
Why did the Beaulieus allow their 14-year-old daughter to visit a 24-year-old sex symbol? Elvis had been topping the charts with the lascivious ‘One Night’ and his name had been linked to beautiful models and actresses. Maybe Ann Beaulieu was living her own dreams by letting her daughter have a blind date with Elvis. Whatever the reasons, their only constraint was a midnight curfew. Well, there was school the next day.
On their first meeting in September 1959, Elvis was playing Brenda Lee’s ‘Sweet Nuthin’s’. He sang ‘Rags to Riches’ and ‘Are You Lonesome Tonight’ to her and asked what she thought about the new boys on the block, Fabian and Ricky Nelson. He was struck by her facial resemblance to Gladys and himself and the fact that her hairstyle (deliberately) replicated Debra Paget’s in Love Me Tender.
Not wasting a moment, Elvis took her to his bedroom, but even Elvis appreciated that she was only 14. I’ll wait until next time, he thought, just fondling her instead. Priscilla wrote, ‘His kisses set me on fire but he would never take advantage.’ Priscilla returned home at 2am, and her mother was thrilled that she has kept Elvis’s interest up (if that’s what you call it) for so long. He had also eaten five bacon and mustard sandwiches. He called her Cilla or Little One and he liked her answering back.
By October, Elvis and Priscilla were seeing each other three or four times a week – and the bedroom door was firmly closed behind them. He told Priscilla that he hated his father dating someone new but he used Vernon to tell Captain Beaulieu of his good intentions – they bought the good Captain a car, so make what you will of that. When Priscilla’s school work started to suffer, Elvis had the solution: take some Benzedrine.
The film producer, Hal Wallis, visited Elvis to talk through his first post-army film, G.I. Blues. It would be loosely based on his army life, including location shots in Germany but they would be filmed with an Elvis stand-in: it wouldn’t look good for Elvis to be filming while still in service. Elvis, a docile creature in front of authority, agreed. Wallis had no idea that Elvis’ real life was far more dramatic and comedic than anything he could propose.
Hal Wallis had plans to make a western, Rodeo, with him and to loan him to 20th Century-Fox for a film about a Mississippi gambler who won a showboat in a card game.
Meanwhile, 1,000 Yorkshire fans petitioned Elvis for a UK concert. Rumours abounded that Elvis might star in the Royal Variety Performance, but again, Colonel Parker would never agree to a charity show.
In November 1959, Dr. Laurenz Landau, an unqualified doctor, told Elvis that he could rejuvenate his skin with aromatherapy – Elvis, remember, was only 24-years-old. Presley thought that the German weather might be damaging his skin and was impressed with Landau’s proposed treatment. The con-man wrote, ‘It is my cherished ambition to give you a complete new skin and I swear to achieve this within the quickest possible time. Please don’t worry about the small wrinkles on your forehead – you will not age.’
A complete sucker, Elvis began treatment. The so-called doctor washed Elvis’ face with his mixture of leaves and herbs. He snooped around, taking photographs and recordings whenever he could.
Elvis and his guardians went to the Moulin Rouge nightclub in Munich, with Elvis staying with Vera Tschechowa and her mother. Elvis sang an impromptu ‘O Sole Mio’ with the bandleader, but added that he was not supposed to sing while in the army. Surely, the army would have preferred him singing to his other indiscretions. Elvis was photographed with cooks, lavatory attendants, strippers, prostitutes and possibly transvestites. Elvis even French kissed a stripper – now and then, there’s a fool such as I. Rudolf Paulini, showing amazing integrity for a photographer, didn’t sell his pictures at the time, but the seedy collection can be found in Private Elvis (Fey Books, Germany, 1978). Elvis looked like a guy who’d been having non-stop sex, which of course he had.
On 22 December, Elvis sacked Dr. Landau for trying to feel his manhood and threw him out. He returned two days later and told Elvis that he had compromising photographs and tape recordings and he would tell the world about Elvis and Priscilla, although Landau thought she was 16. In short, blackmail.
Presley agreed to pay Landau $200 for the treatment received and a further $300 for him to fly to London. He did not leave and he demanded a further $250 and after that, $2,000. At this point, Presley contacted the FBI and told them of the blackmail. According to their file, ‘Presley assures us that this is impossible as he was never involved in any compromising positions.’ No one at the FBI thought to check up on Priscilla’s age.
The FBI decided to do nothing that would ‘involve Elvis Presley in an unfavourable light since Presley had been a first-rate soldier and had caused the Army no trouble during his term of service.’ Come to think of it, does anybody ever see Dr. Landau again?
Elvis gave Priscilla a gold and diamond watch and a ring inlaid with pearls and diamonds. Priscilla gave Elvis some bongo drums. He was delighted – or said he was. Years later, Priscilla found several sets of bongos in Graceland.
It was freezing cold in January. Elvis faked a high temperature to get out of manoeuvres, so he was a decent actor after all.
Elvis never became a five star general, but he was made a buck sergeant, commanding a three-man reconnaissance team. As the prospects weren’t that good, he decided against enlisting for a further term.
In February 1960, Elvis and Priscilla were getting serious. According to Elvis and Me, ‘I begged him to consummate our love. He quietly said, ‘No, someday we will, but not now. You’re just too young’.’
In March 1960, Elvis left many of his papers and possessions in Germany and planned to send for them at a later date. They include a gospel LP on which Elvis had scrawled, ‘Lamar, keep your fucking hands off this LP!’ and a letter to the music publisher, Freddy Bienstock: ‘At the moment, I am at the top of my profession. If I record shit like this, I’ll be at the bottom.’
There was a press conference before he left Germany. Quite out of the blue, Elvis told the press about his ‘16-year-old girlfriend’, Priscilla, and said he had only ever seen her at her parents’ house, an indication that he knew he was doing wrong. Every newspaper wanted a photograph, but no-one checked the details or her age. There is something to be said for today’s intrusive press, as nowadays this story would not have been under wraps. When questioned by the press, Paul Beaulieu backed up Elvis’s story and told Elvis that he didn’t want to say anything to embarrass him.
According to her autobiography, Elvis and Me, Priscilla again begged Elvis to have penetrative sex but he wanted to wait, giving her one of his army uniforms as a keepsake. Priscilla maintained that she was a virgin bride on their wedding day seven years later. It does appear that Elvis divided his female friends into nice girls and playthings as this seems the only way to describe his behaviour. The concept of the virgin bride ran very deep with Elvis, though only if the virgin bride was his.
Sgt. Elvis Aron Presley left Germany and Priscilla waved him off. The plane stopped for refuelling at Prestwick Airport, outside of Glasgow. For a few minutes, Elvis walked on British soil – or at least on Scottish tarmac. He shook cold hands with sturdy fans and there were photographs in the NCO’s office. There is a Harp Rock Plaque on the site today.
At 7.40am on 3 March 1960, Elvis arrived at McGuire Air Force Base, near Fort Dix, New Jersey in a snowstorm. The army held a press conference and he was surprised to meet Marion Keisker again. She had left Sun Records and was a captain in the air force. The welcoming party included Colonel Parker, Nancy Sinatra (whom he was about to work with), Jean Aberbach and representatives from RCA.
On returning home, he showed the press his final pay packet of $109.54. He weighed 13 stone and was much more muscular than when he enlisted. Elvis wore an extra stripe on his discharge, thus promoting himself to staff sergeant, no doubt a trick learned from Colonel Parker.
On 5 March 1960, nearly three weeks early, Elvis Presley was discharged from the US army at 9.15am. He spent the day talking to Colonel Parker and then he was joined by Lamar Fike and Rex Mansfield for a train to Washington, travelling in a private carriage. The next morning they took the Tennessean which left Memphis at 8am. Elvis waved to the crowds at every station. Because of the snow, the journey took all day and he was to return to Graceland on the morning of 7 March. He held a press conference and then went to see for the first time the stone angels on his mother’s grave.
Then he went to see the Holiday on Ice show at the Ellis Auditorium in Memphis. He liked it so much that he went the following night to a ‘negroes only’ performance. Being Elvis, he was allowed to conduct the orchestra with a special lighted baton. He invited the whole cast to Graceland.
All in all, I am surprised at the lax discipline of the US armed forces in West Germany. At times, it seems more like Dad’s Army than the world’s supreme fighting force. I am sure that Elvis would have been better behaved had Colonel Parker or his mother been around. Elvis is lucky to have escaped Germany without several court martials, paternity suits, criminal charges and a hefty prison sentence. Had the journalists then been as inquisitive and as investigative as today, his career would have been ruined.