Elvis in Las Vegas Page #5

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Over 10,000 square feet.

We had four bedrooms up there, a kitchen, dining room,

a beautiful area with TV and it was gorgeous. It was red, beautiful colours.

We had a great time, all our parties were up there,

we even had a slot machine up there.

The press guys sent it up there cos Elvis couldn't be in the casino.

We invited a lot of beautiful ladies up there,

a lot of other celebrities that came to see the show,

we invited them after for a party. A lot of singing up there.

# Lord, just open my eyes

# That I may see... #

We'd be up all night

and he'd bring the vocal group up with the electric piano.

We'd be singing all night, gospel music.

So he did live by night, but then again, so did I.

Still do, actually.

But Elvis liked his own world.

It was great, we'd be there till 6, 7am.

Sun was coming up... OK, guys, time to go to bed!

We were like vampires.

It was a lot of fun. Every night was a party.

Every night.

Between these months of nocturnal hibernation,

the King was trapped on a treadmill of 150 shows a year,

escaping the increasing hysteria of the crowds,

and shielded from reality by his Memphis Mafia.

We were out playing medium-sized markets all over the US.

Over and over and over again.

I just don't think that was wise planning

from an artistic standpoint.

With all the Colonel's strength,

I don't think he really understood the artistic temperament

that Elvis did have underneath all the other facets of his personality.

Some of the guys were concerned about Elvis's health and wellbeing.

When I would ask the Colonel, "We need to take Elvis to Europe,

"they're crying for him in England." He would sell out, crazy like.

He said, "George, the venues are not big enough over there."

So that was the cockamamie reason he gave everybody.

The other reason came out

and it came out in later years was that Colonel Parker was not an American citizen.

Unknown to Elvis,

his manager's real name wasn't Parker.

Nor was he a colonel.

He was Dries Van Kuijk, an illegal immigrant from Holland,

who therefore couldn't leave America.

There's so many places that I haven't been yet.

I'd like to go to Europe, I'd like to go to Japan.

I've never been out this country except in the Service.

Yeah, I'd love to go there.

I think Elvis was becoming a little bit bored.

Doing the shows in Vegas, going on the road,

same cities, criss-crossing America,

because the Colonel didn't want Elvis getting out of his control.

# Are you lonesome... #

Elvis and his entourage staved off boredom with a flotilla

of one-night-stands.

We were a bunch of bad boys, for all those years, while we were all married.

Our wives were married and we were single.

The Vegas bachelors were living high.

But their marriages were heading for the rocks.

Temptation sometimes overrides loyalty to a spouse.

Elvis probably should never have married.

He belonged to women.

Not woman.

But there's no doubt in my mind that he loved Priscilla very, very much

and she adored him.

He travelled a lot. I had other needs. I was with my daughter,

every day and... I did, I grew apart.

I couldn't live like that anymore.

There were things I wasn't going to put up with,

with one-night-stands...

Even though I knew, I didn't say a lot.

When Priscilla finally realised that she had to have her own life

and she told Elvis about it in Vegas,

he was devastated.

He was furious.

One of the times where we all went through hell.

It definitely hurt him very much.

He couldn't believe his wife was divorcing him.

She was going to be on her own with his daughter.

That bothered him tremendously. It was tough

but he kept all that inside himself.

To give some structure to these bottled-up emotions and the chaos of his life,

Elvis had been searching for control mechanisms.

Guns and badges offered one answer.

In 1970, he'd gone to Washington to collect the Federal Agent's badge

from a bewildered President Nixon.

It would allow Elvis to carry a gun anywhere he desired.

Elvis loved guns.

The first time that I actually saw

the gun with Elvis is when he came into my dressing room

backstage and he was singing to me in the shower.

I was washing my hair and I heard Elvis Presley's voice and I thought,

I'm going nuts, I can hear Elvis in the shower.

But when I opened my eyes, he was actually over the shower door

singing this song to me.

When I came out of the shower and he'd left,

I noticed that he'd used the toilet.

Because he had left his gun on the back of the toilet.

You know, it was a silver-plated Colt 45.

One night at the Las Vegas Hilton, the 30th floor,

Robert Goulet came on television and I really don't know what it was about Robert Goulet,

I don't think it was him, maybe Elvis was just in a bad mood,

but he came on television and Elvis was sitting there...

# I am what I am

# I am my own special creation. #

And he picked up a 45 and pulled a round into it and shot the television.

Elvis had a fascination for law enforcement,

guns, badges, authority,

power, you know.

It was like a carry-over from the time he was a little boy, maybe,

and played cops and robbers.

Not long after separating from Priscilla,

Elvis met the former Miss Tennessee, who would spend the next four years with him, on and off.

He needed a lot of attention,

he needed a lot of care...

physically and emotionally and he was, at times, he was like my baby,

at other times he was like my brother, other times he was my lover

and sometimes he was my friend.

He would be watching television and say, "Honey, would you turn it up, please?"

OK, I guess your legs are broken!

He had a raucous, irreverent sense of humour.

He loved his movies and Monty Python, we were both huge fans of Monty Python.

God, if they don't stop, I'll kill myself.

I swear I will.

All right, that's it.

GUNSHO:

His sense of humour and fun had not deserted him.

Nor had his generosity, as he bought gifts of cars and houses

for friends and strangers alike.

Elvis was so incredibly generous that we called him everything from crazy

to Santa Claus to a fallen angel, I mean, he was astonishingly generous.

He could come in on a Tuesday and say, "Honey, look what I found for you",

and it would be a five carat blue diamond.

"What is this for?"

"Well, it's Tuesday, here. It's beautiful and you're beautiful and you should have it."

He was really like having a Prince Charming in your life.

He was always a big kid.

He always bought things for people and friends and bought whatever he wanted.

He bought it for himself cos he could never do that when he was a kid.

He made up for it on his own, later on.

Elvis's childhood needs, his love of his mother,

memories of his stillborn brother,

haunted his downtime.

The very first night I was with Elvis, he said to me,

"If we had the money, I wouldn't have been born at home.

"Maybe my twin brother would have been born alive and not dead.

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