{"id":836116,"date":"2026-06-01T05:10:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T05:10:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/836116\/"},"modified":"2026-06-01T05:10:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T05:10:14","slug":"a-quick-chaotic-tour-of-elviss-graceland-in-1958","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/836116\/","title":{"rendered":"A quick, chaotic tour of Elvis’s Graceland in 1958"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Credit: Far Out \/ Alamy<\/p>\n

Just one year after purchasing his Memphis mansion for a little over $100,000 (about $1.1million after inflation), the world\u2019s most famous goddamn rock and roller found himself nearly 5,000 miles away, resigned to a new, temporary reality inside a US army base in Germany\u2026 The year was 1958, and Elvis Presley<\/a> was only 23 years old.<\/p>\n

Despite putting his career on hold at the arguable apex of his popularity, Presley was still very much in the media eye in the summer of \u201858, as his new movie King Creole, filmed before he was drafted into military service at the end of 1957, was about to hit cinemas\u2026 Reporters eagerly relayed questions to Elvis, and Private Presley usually got around to replying, even to the most innocuous queries, like how he felt about having to shave off his famous sideburns.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan\u2019t say I miss \u2018em much,\u201d he said. \u201cAt any rate, they\u2019re gone now. And they won\u2019t grow back until March 24th, 1960, my gettin\u2019 out date.\u201d <\/p>\n

Not that Elvis was counting down the days or anything. After all, he still had an attentive audience in the form of his fellow soldiers. \u201cSome of the guys asked me to sing in the barracks one night,\u201d he said sheepishly. \u201cI gave \u2018em \u2018Hound Dog\u2019, and they haven\u2019t asked me since. I hope they\u2019re just being polite.\u201d<\/p>\n

Presley wasn\u2019t expected to be back in America any time soon, but later that summer, on August 14th, he was informed that his mother, Gladys, who was only 46, had died of a heart attack\u2026 Devastated, he flew back to Memphis for the funeral and was consoled by his father, Vernon and grandmother, Minnie Mae, both of whom agreed to accompany him back to Germany \u2013 Elvis\u2019s barracks days were over, as he spent the rest of his two-year service living with his dad in off-base accommodations, something the US military agreed to as a means of avoiding any further unwelcome media distractions.<\/p>\n

During this period, Presley\u2019s Graceland mansion was left<\/a> in the hands of a rag-tag group of security workers, upkeep staff, and various uncles and cousins, all caught up in the wave of Elvis\u2019s improbable rise to superstardom. It was up to them not just to protect the house, but to handle the constant influx of curious, snooping visitors and giant bagfuls of fan mail. <\/p>\n

Toward the end of 1958, a rumour began swirling that Elvis was too stressed about the whole situation, and that he was going to sell the entire Graceland estate to one of his rocker pals, Jerry Lee Lewis, but Vernon Presley shot those reports down. \u201cThere have never been any discussions,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s all a mistake, and I don\u2019t think Mr Lewis could buy it anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n

In hopes of getting a better sense of just what the hell was going on at Graceland in the absence of most of the Presleys, syndicated columnist Earl Wilson headed to Memphis in December of 1958, pre-arranging an official visit through Elvis\u2019s manager, Col Tom Parker.<\/p>\n

\"Graceland<\/a>Credit: Graceland<\/p>\n

Upon arrival, Wilson was greeted at the gates of Graceland by two men in full, powder blue uniforms with the letters \u201cEP\u201d embroidered on their jackets. One of them, as Wilson soon learned, was Elvis\u2019s uncle, Travis Smith, who led the reporter on a whirlwind tour of the \u201cmusician\u2019s Fort Knox.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cElvis has got his gold records in this playroom,\u201d Smith informed Wilson. \u201c23 gold records, and two more that ain\u2019t up yet. And some more comin\u2019.\u201d In between the gold record room and another room filled with plaques from Cash Box magazine, there was a small bar. But wasn\u2019t Elvis famously a teetotaler?<\/p>\n

\u201cHe don\u2019t use hard liquor and he don\u2019t keep none in his house,\u201d Elvis\u2019s uncle explained. \u201cThis is a soda fountain bar. You can get about any kind of ice cream soda you want at this bar.\u201d<\/p>\n

Strolling around the rest of the sprawling colonial house, Wilson noted the absence of music, replaced with the sounds of \u201ca constantly chattering mynah bird, a jangling telephone answered by a woman housekeeper, and the barks of Elvis\u2019s white poodle Duke,\u201d the latter of whom apparently hadn\u2019t been deemed tough enough to handle the flight across the Atlantic. By contrast, one of the Presley family\u2019s prized Cadillacs was already en route to Germany, per Elvis\u2019s request. Even a lowly army private ought to travel in style.<\/p>\n

There were at least five pianos of varying sizes scattered across the Graceland property, several piles of teddy bears sent by fans, and a few choice framed pictures on the walls, mostly of close family. The only one of Elvis\u2019s various rumoured girlfriends honoured with a picture was the singer\/actress Anita Wood.<\/p>\n

At the end of the tour, Wilson was met outside by a cab driver named Roy Harper, who drew his attention to a car parked conspicuously in front of the house. \u201cYou see that Cadillac in front?\u201d Harper said. \u201cThat\u2019s where Elvis\u2019s mother, Mizz Presley, stepped outta the car the last time she was out of the house before she died. That car\u2019s not been moved since, and it never will be, either, so Elvis says.\u201d<\/p>\n

The car in question, presumably, was the very same 1955 pink Cadillac Fleetwood that Elvis bought for his mother shortly after the success of his early Sun recordings\u2026 Gladys Presley didn\u2019t have a driver\u2019s license, so she never drove, but it\u2019s certainly possible she was a passenger in the famous car for her last ride outside Graceland<\/a> \u2013 the \u201855 Cadi is currently part of the Graceland Museum collection\u2026 It is, sadly, no longer parked in front of the house.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

ADD AS A PREFERRED SOURCE ON GOOGLE \"\"\/ <\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Credit: Far Out \/ Alamy Just one year after purchasing his Memphis mansion for a little over $100,000…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":836117,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[29],"tags":[132401,16920,171,83873,975,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-836116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-1950s","tag-elvis-presley","tag-entertainment","tag-graceland","tag-music","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116673135776602322","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=836116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836116\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/836117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=836116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=836116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=836116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}