March 24, 1958
Elvis Presley reports to his chosen branch of service, the Army. Elvis does an amazing job of brave face, while Gladys looks the 4 months from her death that she is. The stress of Elvis fame and sudden fortune, the social isolation from her former friends, her constant fears for Elvis safety caused her depression drinking. The climate in Texas could not have helped and Elvis would resist suggests to send her home to Memphis until it was critical liver failure causing heart attack.
It is dubious to suggest that the army routine helped Elvis normalize, and he may well have been better doing his musical and movie work – certainly the military normalized the drug using for sleep, waking and energy – and combined with painkillers.
Some Americans thought Elvis was trying to ruins social morals, and Russians considered him an American plot to corrupt other societies with American morals.
Gladys did not want her son in the air or on the ocean.
Too controversial to go into the Army Recruitment/Entertainer branch of service, as many screen stars had done before – while some went to actual war; some never to return – Glenn Miller.
Elvis Presley did serve on the Germany-Russia border during the beginning of the Cold War, which lasted until the 1980s, when the Berlin Wall came down.
It was a major tax revenue loss for the American government to try to tame the Hillbilly Cat into a Private; the loss of what career development Elvis would have had, but also the cost of security and postal mail for a private.
The chain of command subverted by Private Presley having better army gear than the officers giving him orders, even as he obeyed and played it as straight as he could. Private by workweek and Celeb on weekends, doing daily autograph sessions within posted hours.
Whatever Elvis learned by his time in Europe, especially the trips to Paris and his brief stay-over in Scotland; sadly, it was not Move to Europe and be treated as an artist, rather than as a cash machine – the golden boy who laid the golden records.
Elvis was born at the bottom of white America
He literally lived in the last white house on the block, the next house was black
but they were all the same wood box 2 room unpainted shotgun shacks
there seems something ironic or symbolic
that on the day Elvis Presley got a medical exam in front of a 55 throng press corp
the government of the day, admits, that they don’t want Americans to have health care
From the Elvis Information Net site:
Elvis World’s Bill Burk has finally tracked down the November issue of Playboy and read the full set of claims made by Byron Raphael in his article with Alanna Nash, In Bed With Elvis.
This is Bill’s review:
In summary, Raphael claims he worked for Elvis in 1956-57 and he procured countless girls to climb into bed with Elvis, including some rather well-known movie stars.
First off, Raphael worked first in the mail room for the William Morris Agency. From there, Tom Parker hired him to become a Parker assistant. This much we know to be true from reading Alanna Nash’s Tom Parker biography, which will forever rank as the bio on that old carny as will ever be written.
But that was Parker. This is Raphael. And Elvis.
In checking with those closest to Elvis during his career, EW could find no one who could even hint that Raphael ever worked for Elvis, in any capacity, be it gofer or pimp. The nicest thing any of them said about his claims in Playboy was “BS” … and that did not stand for “Before Stardom.”
Raphael’s claims (as written by Nash):
1. Elvis unzipped his pants and dry-humped RCA’s Nipper on stage before thousands in a October 28, 1957 show in Los Angeles. WHY — with all the thousands of cameras that followed Elvis everywhere he stepped — have there never been ONE photo of this event seen by anyone? And WHY, with Los Angeles police in attendance, was Elvis not arrested for public indecency on the spot?
2. Raphael claims he noted a “huge hard-on through his pants” during the Nipper humping performance. Alanna seems to be obsessed with Elvis’ erections. In one of her books she wrote 4-year-old Elvis got an erection from seeing up Mother Gladys’ dress. In proof-reading that book, I challenged such a thing could happen to a 4-year-old … but she claimed she checked it out with medical people and were told it “could” have happened, so the erection stayed “up” and “in” the book.
3. In brief, Raphael wrote, on seeing Elvis scantily clad so … so often, that “he was well-endowed” … and “he always had a hard-on.” (There we go again.)
Well, two things: (A) Obviously Raphael never saw the Army induction photos of Elvis, clad only in his jockey shorts; and (B) even Elvis referred to that region of his body as “little Elvis” … and rightfully so!
I used to threaten Elvis that if he angered me, I would print those jockey shorts pix and ruin his sex appeal with girls forever !!!
4. Raphael claims “Elvis seldom went all the way,” and further claimed this was because “he always remembered his mother teaching him that “sex before marriage was a sin.”
This ain’t the Elvis that performed some 200 gigs on the road (away from Moma) during his days at Sun; and this ain’t the Elvis so many females have told EW stories about.
5. He further claims he introduced Natalie Wood to Elvis and she went straight into E’s bedroom and 20 minutes later she came out, huffing and puffing that Elvis did not want to consumate the act; at which point she challenged Raphael, right there in Elvis’ suite, and they both got naked and Raphael took care of Wood’s burning needs. That near the end of that sexcapade, Elvis came out of his bedroom, saw them in the act, and said, “Heaven help us.”
HAD THAT SCENE actually happened, and had Raphael actually been working as Elvis’ full-time Hollywood pimp, Elvis probably would have broken his neck right then and there. And he would have been fired on the spot!
Later, he says, Elvis dated Natalie Wood. I mean, c’mon, after E saw the two of them humping right there in his suite and he would even think of seeing her again? Hey, Byron, you got any mountains in the Sahara Desert you want to sell me?
6. Next, the obligatory innuendo that “tongues wagged that Elvis and (Nick) Adams were getting it on.” E’s attitude toward homosexuals was strongly opposed. And again, an inuendo. Writers should either come up with solid proof — or keep their damned fingers off the keyboards !!!
7. He detailed how Juliet Prowse liked to position herself during sexcapades with Elvis during the filming of “G. I. Blues.” And while that may or may not be true, this position is not the same as the one so vividly described by karate king Kang Rhee when he spoke to our EW Breakfast one morning in the only XXX-rated talks we ever had (though we didn’t know it would be XXX-rated when we booked Master Rhee to speak).
8. That he set up a meeting between Marilyn Monroe and Elvis, and that he believes MM was interested in having a romp in the hay with Elvis, but got totally turned off by E’s cousin, Gene Smith, and Cliff Gleaves. Not sure of MM’s interest here, but can well understand how this twosome could turn any woman off wanting to be around Elvis!
9. Much of the end of this Playboy story comes straight out of the pages of the Memphis Mafia book, which Alanna also wrote with Lamar Fike, Marty Lacker and real cousin Billy Smith.
BOTTOM LINE OPINION: That Raphael’s claims rank right down there with “cousin” Earl Greenwood’s; that he has read of certain things; and heard of certain things; and then inserted himself into an active roll in all that happened — or did not happen. Not sure whether Raphael’s stories rank just above, or just below, Greenwood’s.
Addendum: At times, in reading the language in the Playboy story about Elvis, I had to flip back to the magazine’s cover to make sure I wasn’t reading Penthouse by mistake. Much of the verbage sounded like it was straight out of the pages of Penthouse Forum. (For those of you who don’t know the Forum, I’ll spare you the embarrassment.)
Bill Burke worked for the Memphis press and was one of the first to uncover Elvis for the public.
I recommend if you ever see them – snap them up
•Elvis: A 30-Year Chronicle (1985) …
•DOT…DOT…DOT: The Best of Bill E. Burk (1987)
•Elvis: Through My Eyes (1987)
•Elvis: Tidernas Story (Swedish translation of preceding listing)
•Early Elvis The Humes Years ( 1990)
•Elvis (Rare) Images Of A Legend (1990)
•Elvis Memories: Press Between The Pages (1992)
•Soldier Boy Elvis (written with Sgt. Ira Jones) (1992)
• Early Elvis The Tupelo Years (1994)
• Elvis In Canada (1996)
•Early Elvis The Sun Years (1997)
•Elvis Aaron Presley: A Candle In The Wind (2005)
This is not the America that Elvis did a 2 year hitch in the Military and was basically the main engine driver of the entertainment industry.
Elvis Presley had a sense of duty to the factory workers in the record plants and the drivers who took records to the store, to the people involved in movie production and distribution, all the way to the users in the movies houses
a job that Elvis had once done and lost over a girl who worked the candy counter.
it bothers me that Elvis was not included on this gold disc of Earth
however, the Aloha Hawaii broadcast
that is out there as a frequency in the universe
Our Daily Elvis 
You must be logged in to post a comment.