Me and a Guy Named Elvis

by Jerry Schilling

  The acting job that meant the most to me in this period didn’t offer me any lines, or any chance to showcase my dramatic skills. In fact, it was a film that gave me only about a second and a half of screen time. It was called Stay Away, Joe—the first film Elvis did after I set out on my own. He called me up to offer some work on the location shoot in Arizona, and said he’d take care of everything. So I became one of the few struggling actors to have a limo and chartered plane at my disposal, and before long I was palling around with Elvis and Joe and Red and Sonny West. It meant a lot to have him reach out to me so that we could spend some time together out in the Arizona desert. As far as my friendship with these guys was concerned, it didn’t feel like I’d lost a thing.

  In fact, I even found a way to push my new hoped-for film-editing career forward. I’d had a hard time getting in the door at ABC Television, where I’d tried to sign on as an apprentice editor but didn’t have enough background in the field to justify their taking me on. So I decided to build up that background as much as I could. After a day’s shoot on Stay Away, Joe, I’d hang out with the director, Peter Tewks-bury, and his editor, George Brooks, a couple of talented guys who were happy to let me watch their work process and to offer me a free tutorial on the tricks of their trade. The more I watched, the more I was hooked, and the more I felt that, despite ABC’s resistance, and despite the success I’d had earning a SAG day rate to menace Captain Kirk or tackle Don Rickles, editing was the right line of work for me.

  It seemed that stepping away as an employee of Elvis only brought us closer as friends. By December of 1967, Priscilla was seven months pregnant (if you do the math, you can see how happy those honeymoon ranch times were). When she and Elvis decided to take a drive up the coast to visit her parents at Fort Ord, Sandy and I were invited along for the ride. Elvis wanted to tend to his expectant wife as much as possible, so I became the wheel man, driving a Caddy limousine so that the four of us could ride in maximum comfort. The plan was to drive up around Monterey, spend the night in a motel, and then make it over to the nearby military base.

  On that drive, we took a very interesting side trip together. Elvis had decided to take advantage of an invitation that had been offered to him by George Stoll, the longtime genius conductor over at the MGM soundstage. He and his wife owned the Crocker Marble Palace on 17-Mile Drive near Pebble Beach, and were very eager to have Elvis come by for a visit. We found the place just around the bend from the drive’s famous landmark—the Witch Tree. That tree apparently set the tone for the palace—it was a damned spooky mansion. Spooky enough that the Stolls were having a hard time getting gardeners and housekeepers to work there—the woman doing the weeding out front turned out to be Mrs. Stoll. We were all a little creeped out by the place, but the Stolls were completely at home—they’d fully embraced the spookiness and filled the place with macabre collectibles, such as three actual shrunken heads, which included what they proudly claimed was the only white shrunken head in North America. They also had an elaborate electric train set that ran between bedrooms, and a special stretching machine that George believed would counteract a loss of height due to nighttime shrinkage.

  Apart from the strange collectibles, the Stolls were wonderful hosts—George was a crazy, endearing mix of Toscanini, Einstein, and hepcat, and nothing meant more to him than showing his guests a wonderful time. And part of that wonderful time included some energetic sampling of his extensive collection of aged bourbons. Elvis was not a drinker, and neither was I. But when you’ve got a bourbon enthusiast leading you through a tasting, pointing out the hints of wood and smoke and honey in the various blends, it’s very difficult not to get excited about the stuff. I was hyperconscious of the fact that I was the driver for a very pregnant woman, so I declined to partake of most of what was offered to me. But Elvis sampled just about everything he was offered, and enjoyed it, too. After a while we went out to have our dinner over at the posh, exclusive Pebble Beach club restaurant, The 19th Hole.

  As we got to our table, all that bourbon tasting seemed to suddenly catch up with Elvis: He got groggy, and very sleepy. He wanted to lie down on the restaurant floor for a quick rest, but after we discouraged that idea, he instead reclined on a couch against the wall. That turned out to be not such a great idea, either—the restaurant management informed us that our behavior was unacceptable and that our business was no longer appreciated. I can say that I’m the guy who helped Elvis leave the fanciest joint he was ever thrown out of.

  The next day we finished our drive up the coast and made it over to the base to visit Colonel and Mrs. Beaulieu, and Priscilla’s four brothers and her sister, Michelle. The Beaulieus were friendly, generous people who clearly loved both Priscilla and Elvis a great deal. And it was interesting to see Elvis as a son-in-law—he was polite, charming, respectful, and seemed to be Colonel Beaulieu’s favorite audience for his ready supply of Air Force stories. Elvis also enjoyed getting into some esoteric conversations with Michelle, a fourteen-year-old free-spirited thinker who sported bright green nail polish.

  Elvis had become close with Speedway costar Nancy Sinatra, and wanted all of us to watch her NBC television special, Movin’ with Nancy, which was airing that weekend. But he wanted to see the show in color, and the Beaulieus’ TV set was a black-and-white model, so when we went off to check into a nearby motel, he made some calls and ordered up a big color TV to be delivered as soon as possible to the Beaulieus’ address on the base. We headed back to their house just in time to see Colonel Beaulieu—having no idea why a pair of deliverymen were trying to wheel a new television into his home—emphatically turning them away, insisting that there was some kind of mistake. Elvis straightened it all out, and we had a fine time together watching Nancy’s special that night on the new set.

  The next day, Elvis had an idea for a road trip we could take with the Beaulieus—he had me drive the limo back down to the Stolls’ place, so the Colonel and Mrs. could get a look at some of the collected oddities there. On second look, the castle was just as creepy, but the Stolls were again fun to be with and it was a great day for everybody.

  At the end of our trip up and down the California coast, Elvis extended a further invitation to Sandy and me—he wanted us to spend Christmas with Priscilla and him in Memphis. The Schillings had a choice between spending the holidays in a one-bedroom apartment in Culver City, or spending the holidays at Graceland. It was an easy call to make. Again, our time together was warm, easy, and wonderful. And after New Year’s, when we got ready to leave as scheduled, Elvis extended his invitation.

  “How can you leave now? It’s my birthday in a couple of days—you’re gonna stay for that, aren’t you?”

  We stayed for his birthday—a beautiful dinner at Graceland followed by a night of movies at the Memphian. A week later, Sandy and I got ready to leave again, but Elvis had other plans.

  “I got a session to do, Jerry. Nashville. You better come along for that.”

  So I joined Elvis and some of the guys again for a drive to Nashville, where he was supposed to record some tracks for the Stay Away, Joe soundtrack, and to try to get some material done for another RCA album. This time in the studio, it was sad to watch Elvis wrestle his way through the less-than-impressive movie material that needed to be done. Things didn’t pick up much when he turned to the material that had been pulled together for possible album tracks, and I could see that Elvis was getting more and more frustrated—he was willing to work, he was in the studio, and he couldn’t get a decent song to sing.

  One element of the session that had kept him hopeful was the upbeat energy supplied by guitarist Jerry Reed. A couple months earlier, Elvis had been thrilled to bring Reed into a session so that a cover of Reed’s song “Guitar Man” could be properly recorded. Reed’s song-writing had guts and smarts, and his guitar sound was gritty and dirty, and Elvis had responded well to that shot of musical adrenaline in the studio. He knocked out a killer version of “Guitar Man,” but then the whole de
al was almost squelched when Hill and Range came down hard on Reed, pressuring him to give up a huge chunk of his publishing rights. The Colonel had set up a system that had made Elvis one of the richest entertainers in the world, but now that system was turning Elvis into an artistically starving artist in the name of adding a few more dollars to his bank accounts. Jerry Reed was in no mood to give up his song, though, and he was tough enough and smart enough to say “screw you,” to Hill and Range, who consequently couldn’t quite figure out a way to tell Elvis that they wouldn’t go forward with a song he had gotten so excited about because it wasn’t cheap enough.

  At this Nashville session, Jerry Reed had been called in not as a songwriter but simply as a session guitarist—Elvis wanted to keep some of that dirt and grit in the band sound. But when he cut short a take of one uninspired number and yelled, “Doesn’t anyone have some goddamn material worth recording?” Jerry came forward, a little reluctantly, with another tune, titled “U.S. Male.” He handed Elvis a demo, which Elvis took back to the studio’s listening room. Felton Jarvis, Freddy Bienstock, Joe Esposito, Lamar, Charlie, Red, and I were there, listening along with Elvis. He had to hear only about twenty seconds of the song before his energy shot right back up. “Let’s cut it,” he said. He was finally hearing something he could grab ahold of and get excited about. Freddy and Lamar, who was now working for Hill and Range, left the room, while Elvis and Felton worked out some details of the arrangement.

  The song should have been good news for everyone at the session, but apparently Freddy was not happy about doing business with Jerry Reed again. As I left the listening room and headed down a hall toward the studio, I saw Reed just about pinned to the wall by Freddy and Lamar. From the bits of growled threats I picked up, the message was clear: Don’t you ever, ever pitch a song again at an Elvis session. The guitarist wasn’t going to back down, but he didn’t have much of a chance to respond, because just then Elvis came around the corner, still looking up and energized. Freddy and Lamar backed off quickly, trying to make it look like they were shaking Reed’s hand.

  “Great tune, man,” Elvis said to Reed as he passed by. “We need more of that around here.”

  A few months later “U.S. Male” came out, and was a big enough hit to make plenty of money for everybody.

  Back at Graceland, Sandy and I again prepared to head to L.A., but again, Elvis had other plans.

  “Jerry—you’re not going to stay for the birth of our child?”

  We stayed. And Elvis let me know that I would serve a very important role in the baby proceedings. Perhaps because he liked the way I handled the big old limo on 17-Mile Drive, Elvis gave me the daunting responsibility of driving him and his wife to the hospital. As Priscilla’s due date approached, Elvis and I went over the plan again and again, reviewing just how things would unfold, and which entrance I should drive to at Methodist Hospital. I even took Elvis and Priscilla on a couple of practice runs to the hospital, so that our trip there would be as quick and smooth as possible.

  On the morning of February 1, Sandy and I were just barely awake out in the Graceland annex when the intercom buzzed. It was Elvis.

  “Hey, don’t get yourself all excited, but meet me in the kitchen. Priscilla’s ready to go to the hospital.”

  I got there as fast as I could, meeting the father-to-be and Charlie Hodge. Grandma and a lot of the staff were up as well, and were buzzing about from room to room in excited anticipation. I felt nervous, and Charlie looked nervous. Everybody looked nervous except for Elvis. As excitement built around him, he looked as cool and as calm as could be. So damn cool and calm that I knew he’d never been more nervous in his life—his response to this kind of anxiety was to slow himself down and act as if there were absolutely nothing in the world to worry about. Slowly, almost casually, Elvis went over the plans once more. Then we heard the yell.

  “Elvis—HURRY UP!!!”

  Priscilla was out in the front drive, trying to get herself into the car. I saw Elvis go a little pale—there was no way to slow-talk through this. He and Charlie Hodge and I snapped into action and got Priscilla comfortable in the backseat. Elvis sat with her, holding her hand and trying to keep her calm. I got behind the wheel and Charlie jumped in to ride shotgun. I got us quickly and safely to the right entrance of Methodist Hospital, just as we had planned.

  “It’s the wrong hospital,” said Charlie.

  I didn’t know what he was talking about and ignored him. I was about to spring out of the car and get help for the mother-to-be when I heard Elvis’s voice from the backseat.

  “It’s the wrong hospital, Jerry. I forgot to tell you—we switched it over to Baptist.”

  “Oh no,” said Priscilla quietly, in a strained low voice. “Hurry.”

  After all those careful plans for birth-day transportation, I hadn’t been told of the change in destination: Baptist Hospital rather than Methodist Hospital. Luckily the two weren’t far apart, although I did break a hell of a sweat trying to get over to Baptist before the backseat of the Lincoln became the delivery room.

  Priscilla was whisked away by nurses, and Elvis, Charlie, and I were led to a special waiting room that the hospital had set aside for Elvis. We weren’t there long before we were joined by Vernon and then Joe Esposito, who’d flown in from L.A. for the occasion. Throughout the day, we were joined by a few more of the boys. At first, Elvis was still keeping things calm, keeping himself cool and collected. But the more he got status reports from the doctors, the more he started to give in to the emotions of the day. You could see in his eyes how excited he was, and by the middle of the afternoon, when the rest of us were trying to stay as comfortable as we could in our chairs, Elvis couldn’t keep still. He paced and bounced around the little room, hot-wired with nervous energy.

  At 5:00 P.M., he got the word—he was the father of a beautiful and healthy daughter, whom he and Priscilla named Lisa Marie. Elvis left us to spend time with mother and child, but a while later he came back grinning and led us to the hospital’s nursery window so that he could proudly point out his baby to us.

  Priscilla and Lisa Marie were going to stay over at the hospital, and by the time Elvis was ready to go home that first day, word had gotten out about the birth and a huge corps of press had gathered around the hospital. So another special transportation plan was put into effect: Elvis, Joe, Charlie, and I slid down laundry chutes into the hospital basement, and then rode home in an anonymous-looking panel truck that Elvis thought would be right for the purposes of an undetected getaway.

  I drove Elvis, Priscilla, and Lisa Marie home from the hospital a couple days later, where we were greeted by Vernon, Grandma, and the Beaulieus. In the house, I had the chance to watch Elvis hold his tiny daughter. I got the feeling that whatever he’d been searching for in his spiritual explorations, he had finally found a piece of right there in his arms. Whatever emptiness he’d been feeling inside him was suddenly filled up by his own small family. Standing beside his beautiful wife, holding his baby, he looked like a proud husband and a natural-born dad. At some point, down there in that little kitchen, Elvis caught me looking at the baby and decided he’d share some of his happiness.

  “Here,” he said, holding out little Lisa Marie, “You want to hold her?”

  I think I did say no, but it was too late—he’d already put the hand-off into motion. Lisa was the first infant I’d ever held, and I stood there awkwardly cradling this little creature, hoping like hell I didn’t drop her or damage her in any other way. My heart was pounding like a jackhammer, and though I tried to smile, I couldn’t wait for the moment to be over (I’m much more comfortable around Lisa these days). I handed this incredible little package back to Elvis, who scooped her into his arms and stood there beaming down at her.

  He looked about as contented as a man could be.

  9

  A LITTLE MORE ACTION

  1968 was a year of extremes, a year of turmoil, and a year of enormous—often violent—change. Police
were beating student demonstrators on American streets. Racial clashes were erupting into riots. And the war in Vietnam was starting to look unwinnable. The chaos of the headlines was reflected in the culture around us: Jimi Hendrix played his Stratocaster louder and wilder than any guitarist before him, and the Beatles, who had achieved an artistic triumph with Sgt. Pepper, were now at work on their White Album—and with beards, mustaches, and shoulder-length hair, they bore almost no resemblance to the guys that had hung out at Elvis’s Perugia Way house. Muhammad Ali had been stripped of his heavyweight title and brought up on federal charges for refusing his draft induction. Down on Sunset Boulevard, the hipsters in suits had been replaced by hippies in tie-dye. In Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey the future looked to be even more confusing than the present.

  Old rules were being challenged, and new answers were being sought out. Thousands of people were turning to Eastern religions and philosophies, embracing some of the very same works that Elvis had read so fervently. And the enlightment-through-chemistry experiment we’d quietly attempted in the Graceland conference room had been embraced by a much wider population—“psychedelia” was turning up in music, in fashion, and even on Broadway (Hair).

  We had a personal connection to the war effort through Priscilla’s father, Colonel Beaulieu, who headed over to Vietnam shortly after the birth of Lisa. Elvis had recently seen the national TV news reports of the attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Saigon during the Tet Offensive, and had learned that a military attaché at the embassy had found himself out on a balcony unarmed during the assault—military personnel below had to toss a weapon up to him so he had some means of protection. Before Colonel Beaulieu shipped out, Elvis told him, “I don’t want that to ever happen to you,” and gave him a snub-nosed Colt Python revolver to carry with him. In photos that Priscilla and her sister, Michelle, later showed us of their father overseas, it looked like he always had Elvis’s gun at his side.