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This Is Elvis

when he seduced the ladies with swooning renditions of “You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling” and “Fever.” The stage would darken for those songs, except for a warm, reddish spotlight that followed him as he stalked the edge of the stage, gazing directly into the faces of euphoric, screaming women. Then Elvis turned to stroll casually to the piano. Glen would move over on the bench while Elvis played and sang Roy Hamilton’s hit, “Unchained Melody.” The he sang his closing number, “can’t Help Falling in Love,” and that was it. Elvis would thank the by-now hysterical audience and exit the stage as they screamed their protest. “I like to leave them wanting more,” he told me. The shows were always simple. That red spotlight for “Fever” was one of only six lights we used for Elvis’s show. And there were no special effects. Elvis didn’t need much of a production: supported by the band and background singers, he was the real show. * Our first booking was at the Houston Astrodome, where Elvis was event number eight in the Houston Rodeo for two sold-out performances a day from February 27 to March 1. “Hey, Elvis, you’re on right after the cows!” we kidded him. We had to lighten him up. The venue had a capacity of almost 60,000, the largest audience Elvis had ever played to, and he was nervous. Kirk Kerkorian, the owner of the International Hotel, lent Elvis his private DC-9 jet to take us to Houston. The band flew by commerical airline. Red, Sonny, Jerry, Lamar, Charlie, Elvis, and I left Las Vegas on the afternoon of February 25 for a fun-filled three-hour flight. This was just before private planes became almost commonplace. Kerkorians’s plane was divided into three rooms: a game room, a dining/conference room, and a bedroom. Elvis had never seen anything like it. When we landed, the Colonel was waiting at the airport, along with some of his Texan friends and a few thousand screaming fans held back by a tall fence. Elvis strolled over to sign autographs for twenty minutes or so, while the Memphis Mafia formed a protective barricade. Then we jumped into the limousines and headed to the Astroworld Hotel, accompanied by a police escort. We had police escorts everywhere we went for that date because Elvis was truly loved in Texas, going back to the early days when he played many small clubs throughout the state. During that first time in Houston, we set the pattern for a routine we followed throughout Elvis’s touring years. The limos pulled up to the rear of the hotel. We walked through the kitchen and went up to the suite via the service elevators. That became our usual mode of entry. Elvis never did get to see the lobbies of the many swank hotels where he stayed. His luxurious western-style suite overlooked the Astrodome. We sat around the dining room table and poured ourselves glasses of Mountain Valley water, which we always had waiting when he arrived. The windows were outfitted with blackout drapes so he could sleep during the day. If, for some reason, the drapes weren’t installed, we covered the windows with some opaque material. Sonny disconnected the bell to the phone in Elvis’s bedroom. I had rented a spare room for his ten four feet by three feet by two feet custom-made wardrobe cases. The hotel operators were instructed to route all calls for Elvis to that room. The fans would hear it ringing and think they’d reached Elvis. Sonny and Red set up security at the elevator on Elvis’s floor with a list of people permitted entry. All this became standard procedure. A Lear jet brought Priscilla; Judy West, Sonny’s wife; and my wife, Joan, to Houston. Then Red, Sonny, Jerry, and I rode over to the arena to look over the backstage setup and check it’s security. This was all new to us, and we were learning as we went along. After a few tours, everything fell into place and we ran things like a fine-tuned machine. Everyone knew his job and did it automatically. I simply told them when we were leaving for the show, and everything was taken care of. Elvis usually ate about two hours before the show. That first night in Houston, our wives joined us for dinner. Talk at the table focused on the immense size of the Astrodome. Elvis began dressing thirty minutes before we had to leave for the arena. Then Red and Sonny led the way, with Elvis and me following,  NEXT