| | | I knew a mob guy who was a bodyguard for an owner of a Las Vegas hotel at the time Presley was also there doing shows.
Apparently the bodyguards for various clients talk to each other.
This guy told me that Elvis' bodyguards and people told him
---Elvis died his hair black every new day. The guy told me to look at any photo or movie scene where Elvis is together with someone else who has black hair. and you will see Elvis' hair is twice as black.
They would spend lots of time trying out one strand or another of hair coming down on his forehead, deciding which was best. Everything was calculated.
They had Elvis continually watch films of football player Jim Brown walking back to the huddle after the play was over and work to duplicate his way of walking in order to have a manly way of walking.
(Years earlier Clark Gable's acting coach had him imitate heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey's way of walking for the same reason).
Elvis couldn't stand the position he was in and continually talked about quitting.
He didn't like much of the music he sang and wanted to do other, more complicated songs, but he was forced to stick to a certain repertoire.
The guy I knew said he believed that Elvis was not dead. When I said that Elvis had gotten real fat and also took lots of drugs, the guy answered, "Yeah, a lot of people get fat and lots of people take too much drugs, but they don't all drop dead right away."
He said the coffin was closed---and to notice that Elvis' wife never remarried.
The pull that Presley had was amazing. I never understood why.
Once I was caught in the worst traffic jam I was ever caught in in my life. I finally got out of my car and walked over to a policeman who told me an Elvis Presley concert was taking place at the nearby university.
I was on my way to a karate class run by a crazy guy who allowed full contact. He was known in the area for that and had a real group of nasty types coming to his classes. Every class someone had a broken wrist, ankle, cheekbone, etc. I thought it was great fun.
I got there just as it was over. I said that they had had a concert at the local university and that was why I was late.
The guy said, "What--you went to a concert?"
He told to stay for his next class--just starting--and put me over at one side of the room and had everyone in the class spar with me for several minutes, one after another, for the whole hour. He told them to go all out to try to hurt me.
It was the best workout I ever had. By the end of the hour I was REALLY tired.
I made the mistake of asking him if I could do that every class. He didn't like me, so when he saw I wanted to do that he immediately said no.
I should have said, "Please don't ever make me do that again" and he would have been more likely to agree. |
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