by Craig Brown
‘The President nodded in agreement and expressed some surprise,’ reads Bud Krogh’s official memo of the meeting. ‘The President then indicated that those who use drugs are also in the vanguard of anti-American protest ... Presley indicated to the President in a very emotional manner that he was “on your side”. Presley kept repeating that he wanted to be helpful, that he wanted to restore some respect for the flag.’
‘I’m just a poor boy from Tennessee. I’ve gotten a lot from my country. And I’d like to do something to repay for what I’ve gotten,’ says Elvis.
‘That will be very helpful,’ replies Nixon, cautiously.
Elvis senses the moment is right to ask the President for a Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs special agent badge.69 The President looks a little uncertain, turns to Krogh and says, ‘Bud, can we get him a badge?’ Krogh is unsure of the correct response. Does the President want him to bluff it out? ‘Well, sir,’ he answers, ‘if you want to give him a badge, I think we can get him one.’
The President nods. ‘I’d like to do that. See that he gets one.’
Presley is overcome. ‘This means a lot to me,’ he says. He pulls Nixon to him and hugs this least tactile of presidents to his chest. Nixon pats Presley briskly on the shoulder. ‘Well, I appreciate your willingness to help, Mr Presley.’
Managing to extricate himself from Elvis Presley’s embrace, he takes a step back.
‘You dress kind of strange, don’t you?’ he says.
‘You have your show and I have mine,’ explains Elvis.
Elvis Presley returns home, badge in hand, in such a state of triumph that he buys a further four Mercedeses as Christmas presents. His wife later claims he only wanted the badge so he could transport all his prescription drugs and guns without being arrested. But he will use it for other purposes, too: as a fully-fledged FBI special agent, he sometimes flashes the blue light on his car to pull motorists over for speeding, or to offer assistance at road accidents.
ELVIS PRESLEY
RECEIVES
PAUL McCARTNEY
Perugia Way, Beverly Hills, Los Angeles
August 27th 1965
The negotiations have been fraught. The Beatles idolise Elvis, and long to meet him.70 In turn, Elvis resents the Beatles, and blames them for stealing his thunder.
Over the past year, Elvis’s manager, Colonel Tom Parker, has been trying to orchestrate a meeting, but his client has been dragging his heels. Until last April, Elvis had not achieved a Top 10 single since 1963, the very same year the Beatles took off. The Beatles’ only two movies, A Hard Day’s Night and Help!, have been huge successes, while Elvis’s movie career is in the doldrums: his last, Tickle Me, set in a beauty parlour, made no impact at all.
Beatlemania, on the other hand, seems to know no bounds. On their last American tour, tins of Beatles’ breath sold like hot cakes in New York. After the Beatles have passed through Denver, dirty linen from their hotel beds is cut into three-inch squares, each square mounted on parchment, to be sold for $10 a square inch. The Beatles are the talk of the country, even the world. ‘I like your advance guard,’ President Johnson greets the British Prime Minister Sir Alec Douglas-Home on his arrival at the White House on February 12th 1964. ‘But don’t you think they need haircuts?’
In the spring of 1965 things begin to perk up for Elvis. His old recording of ‘Crying in the Chapel’ climbs to No. 3 in the charts in America and No. 1 in Britain. With the playing field levelled, negotiations can recommence.71 In early August, Colonel Parker and Brian Epstein sit in the Colonel’s office in New York on chairs made from elephants’ feet, and, over pastrami sandwiches and root beer, they reach an agreement: Elvis will meet the Beatles, but only on condition that they come to him.
Elvis is staying in a Frank Lloyd Wright house he rents from the Shah of Iran. On their way there in a Cadillac, the Beatles quell their nerves by smoking a couple of joints. They arrive giggling. ‘We all fell out of the car like a Beatle cartoon, in hysterics, trying to pretend we weren’t silly,’ says George. They are led into the presence of Elvis, who is sitting on a sofa, playing a Fender bass, watching the television with the sound turned down. He is dressed in tight grey trousers and a bright red shirt, surrounded by bodyguards and hangers-on. On the jukebox is ‘Mohair Sam’ by Charlie Rich. ‘He just played it endlessly. It was the record of the moment for him,’ says Paul. On the mantelpiece there is a sign saying ‘All the Way with LBJ’.
The wives and girlfriends in his entourage have taken care to hide their excitement at the prospect of meeting the Beatles. They have no wish to upset Elvis. After a while, the two managers peel off: the Colonel has uncovered a roulette wheel inside a cocktail table, and Brian Epstein is a keen gambler.
The Beatles can’t think of a word to say. They just look straight ahead, finding it hard to adjust to being in the same room as the King. ‘Wow! That’s Elvis!’ is all Paul can think. They are impressed, however, by the way Elvis can change channels on his television without moving from his seat. They have never seen a television remote control before.
‘Look, if you guys are gonna sit here and stare at me all night, Ah’m gonna go to bed!’ says Elvis. ‘Ah didn’t mean for this to be like the subjects calling on the King. Ah jist thought we’d sit and talk about music and maybe jam a little.’
John Lennon asks if he is preparing for his next film. ‘Ah sure am,’ says Elvis. ‘Ah play a country boy with a guitar who meets a few gals along the way, and ah sing a few songs.’ The Beatles are not sure how to respond, but Elvis breaks the ice by laughing. This is, after all, the plot of all his films.72
Ringo goes off to play pool with Elvis’s friends. Later, he describes them as sycophants. ‘Elvis would say, “I’m going to the loo now,” and they’d say, “We’ll all go to the loo with you.”’
George shares a joint with Elvis’s spiritual adviser and hairdresser; the same man combines both roles. They discuss Eastern philosophy. Some members of the entourage find it hard to distinguish one Beatle from another. One of them solves the problem by addressing each of them as ‘Hey, Beatle!’
Meanwhile, guitars are produced for John and Paul, who strum their way through some of the Elvis numbers they used to play in their Cavern days. Elvis continues to lounge on the sofa, playing his bass. ‘Coming along quite promising on the bass, Elvis,’ jokes Paul. In a break from the music, John performs a medley of Peter Sellers voices, which Elvis appears to enjoy. But he seems to bristle when John asks him why he no longer plays rock-and-roll. ‘I loved those Sun records,’ John adds.
After a couple of hours, the meeting draws to a close. Elvis sees them to the door. They invite him over to their house in Benedict Canyon, and he appears to accept. The Colonel gives the four Beatles souvenirs of their meeting, little covered wagons that light up when you push a button. As the Beatles leave, John shouts, ‘Long live the King!’73
The following evening, Elvis’s security guards come over to Benedict Canyon to check out the house. John Lennon asks one of them to tell Elvis, ‘If it hadn’t been for you, I would have been nothing.’ He tells another, ‘Last night was the greatest night of my life.’ Perhaps he senses that they have failed to make a good impression, and Elvis will not be making a return visit. Sure enough, he never arrives, and none of the Beatles ever meets Elvis again.74
‘It was great, one of the great meetings of my life,’ recalls Paul, forty years on.
PAUL McCARTNEY
IS CONGRATULATED BY
NOËL COWARD
The Adriana Hotel, Rome
June 27th 1965
John Lennon and Paul McCartney enjoy the parties thrown by Alma Cogan75 in her flat at 44 Stafford Court, Kensington High Street. This flat has become something of a refuge since they first struck up a friendship with the archetypal 1950s singer when they appeared with her at the London Palladium eighteen months ago.
‘They needed to relax and get away from crowds,’ Alma’s sister Sandra remembers. ‘Our flat g
ave them refuge for many months to come, with Mum – Mrs Macogie, as they called her – making pots of tea and sandwiches, and playing charades.’ Fellow contestants in these games might include actors like Stanley Baker (whose new film Zulu has been such a huge hit) and all-round family entertainers like Lionel Blair and Bruce Forsyth.
For McCartney, the parties at Stafford Court become part of the experience of growing up. ‘One of the things that it’s hard for people to realise is that we were on the cusp of the change-over between showbiz styles ... They were all a little older than us, probably ten, twelve years older than us, but they were great fun, very confident showbiz people who welcomed us into their circle. It was exciting for us, we could hear all the showbizzy gossip and meet people that we hadn’t met before. We’d known Alma as the big singing star ... She was old-school showbiz. She invited us round to her mum’s place in Kensington, she and her sister lived with her mum, and her mum was an old Jewish lady. They were very nice, Alma and her sister Sandra ... I saw a documentary about John Betjeman, who said that when he got out of college there was a country house to which he was invited. And he said, “There I learned to be a guest,” and that’s what was happening to us at Alma’s flat. There we learned to play charades, and we started to do it at our own parties. it was just a little learning curve.’
Alma Cogan is to become part of John Lennon’s growing up, too: over this summer, they conduct an affair.76 Nor is Brian Epstein immune to her charms, taking her to meet his parents in Liverpool, and even talking of marrying her.
Alma Cogan’s other guests are drawn largely from mainstream, old-fashioned showbiz: Danny Kaye, Ethel Merman, Cary Grant, Sammy Davis Junior, Frankie Vaughan, Tommy Steele. And it is here that John Lennon and Paul McCartney are first introduced to Noël Coward. Now in his sixties, for Coward the pair represent everything he detests about the modern age, with its emphasis on the working class, and its seemingly inexorable drift away from his own particular area of interest, the upper class. ‘Duchesses are quite capable of suffering too,’ he complains after seeing Look Back in Anger in 1956. ‘I wonder how long this trend of dreariness for dreariness’ sake will last?’ But he does not voice these qualms to the two young Liverpudlians; instead, he is charm itself.
Afterwards, in an offhand moment, Coward mentions their meeting to David Lewin of the Daily Mail. ‘The Beatles, those two I met, seemed nice, pleasant young men, quite well behaved and with an amusing way of speaking,’ he begins. But he does not stop there. He cannot resist adding, ‘Of course, they are totally devoid of talent. There is a great deal of noise. In my day, the young were taught to be seen but not heard – which is no bad thing.’ Lewin prints his comments in full.
Coward is greatly upset when, on June 12th, the Queen’s Birthday Honours list includes MBEs for the Beatles. ‘A tactless and major blunder on the part of the Prime Minister,’ he writes in his diary, ‘and also I don’t think the Queen should have agreed. Some other decoration should have been selected to reward them for their talentless but considerable contributions to the Exchequer.’
On June 27th, Coward goes to see them in concert in Rome. ‘I had never seen them play in the flesh before. The noise was deafening throughout and I couldn’t hear a word they sang or a note they played, just one long, ear-splitting din. It was like a mass masturbation orgy, although apparently mild compared with what it usually is. The whole thing is to me an unpleasant phenomenon. Mob hysteria when commercially promoted, or in whatever way promoted, always sickens me. To realise that the majority of the modern adolescent world goes ritualistically mad over those four innocuous, rather silly-looking young men is a disturbing thought. Perhaps we are whirling more swiftly into extinction than we know. Personally I should have liked to take some of those squealing young maniacs and cracked their heads together. I am all for audiences going mad with enthusiasm after a performance, but not incessantly during the performance so that there ceases to be a performance.’ Nevertheless, he concedes that though ‘it is still impossible to judge from their public performance whether they have talent or not ... They were professional, had a certain guileless charm, and stayed on mercifully for not too long.’
After the concert, Coward goes backstage, where he is greeted by Brian Epstein, who gives him a drink. An embarrassed Epstein is obliged to inform him that the Beatles were not amused by the unflattering remarks he made about them to the Daily Mail, and so do not wish to see him.
Coward bridles, but stands firm. ‘I thought this graceless in the extreme but decided to play it with firmness and dignity.’ He asks Epstein’s personal assistant to go and fetch one of the Beatles. ‘She finally reappeared with Paul McCartney and I explained gently but firmly that one did NOT pay much attention to the statements of newspaper reporters.’77
This seems to break the ice somewhat. ‘The poor boy was quite amiable and I sent messages of congratulations to his colleagues,’ Coward continues, ‘although the message I would have liked to send them was that they were bad-mannered little shits.’
NOËL COWARD
IS SERENADED BY
PRINCE FELIX YOUSSOUPOFF
Biarritz
July 29th 1946
Noël Coward and his friend Graham Payn are enjoying a summer holiday in post-war France. Their few weeks in Paris pass ‘in a whirl of pleasure and Alka-Seltzer’ as they spend time in the company of Sir Duff and Lady Diana Cooper. Coward pops into the British Embassy and finds ‘nobody about but Winston Churchill. He was very amiable and we talked for about forty minutes and I played him some of the operette tunes.’ From Paris, they motor down to Biarritz in Noël’s MG to stay with his old friend, the fashion designer Edward Molyneux.
On their first sunny day in Biarritz, they spend the morning sunbathing on the beach, followed by a light lunch and then back to the beach. In the early evening, Coward catches up on his correspondence and then dresses for dinner; he is a little excited, because one of Molyneux’s guests is none other than Prince Felix Youssoupoff, famous, or infamous, for the murder of Rasputin.
The gothic demise of Rasputin continues to hold an almost mesmeric appeal for high society. As with Lord Lucan’s murder of his children’s nanny some sixty years later, everyone likes to claim inside knowledge. A few days after the death of Rasputin, Duff Cooper writes in his diary, ‘We have had at the Foreign Office such thrilling telegrams about the murder of Rasputin. It appears to have been done by Felix Elston78 [Youssoupoff] whom I used to know intimately at Oxford. It took place at a supper party in his palace. The telegrams read like pages from Italian renaissance history.’ Later the same year, on December 6th 1917, Cooper records being driven home from a dinner party in Upper Berkeley Street by Bertie Stopford. Perhaps inevitably, they gossip about Rasputin. ‘[Stopford] is a notorious bugger and was very attentive to me, saying I looked younger than when he last saw me which was in Venice before the war. He has been in Russia for some time and talked to me about the murder of Rasputin. After Rasputin was dead, Felix Elston fell on the body and beat it. Felix told Stopford this himself. He suspects there had been some relationship between Felix and Rasputin. The great charm of the latter for women was that when he had them he never came and so could go on forever. Also he had three large warts on his cock.’
Until his death at the age of eighty in 1967, Youssoupoff knows full well that his murder of Rasputin is the signature tune that accompanies his entrance into any gathering. He embraces his notoriety. In his Knightsbridge home in the 1920s, he regularly entertains guests with increasingly melodramatic renditions of that fateful night in 1916. He even submits paintings of bearded men with evil grimaces to an art exhibition. So identified are he and his wife Irina with the death of Rasputin that a New York hostess mistakenly introduces them as the Prince and Princess Rasputin. Around the same time, Helen Izvolsky, the daughter of the Tsar’s former ambassador to France, visits Youssoupoff and notices ‘something Satanic about his twisted smile. He talked for several hours about the assassination, an
d seemed quite pleased to reminisce, going over all the horrifying details. In conclusion, he showed me a ring he was wearing, with a bullet mounted in silver. He explained that this was the bullet that had killed Rasputin.’
The murder not only defines Youssoupoff’s life, but finances it too: in 1932, he gains between $2 million and $2.5 million, in today’s terms, in compensation from MGM, who in their movie Rasputin and the Empress suggested that Princess Irina was hypnotised and raped by the Mad Monk. This windfall allows the couple to live the high life.
By the time they enter the Molyneux house, ready to meet Noël Coward, the Youssoupoffs are resident in France, and mixing in a curious circle of the wealthy and the exiled that includes J. Paul Getty, Philippe de Rothschild, Sir Oswald and Lady Diana Mosley and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. Felix, born in 1887, is now in late middle age. His youthful lustre has long gone, but he does his best to counterfeit it. Every morning, he prepares for the day ahead by spending hours at his dressing table, applying eyeliner, mascara and rouge to his face, and combing his thinning hair into a latticework that very nearly covers his scalp.
The dinner party goes as planned. ‘Dinner very chic,’ Coward writes in his diary. ‘Felix Youssoupoff sang really quite sweetly with a guitar. He is made up to the teeth. I looked at him: a face that must, when young, have been very beautiful but now it is cracking with effort and age. I imagined him luring Rasputin to his doom with that guitar and “dem rollin’ eyes”. It was all a little macabre. I sang but not very well. Graham was really wonderful. He was not only socially vital and attractive, but he suddenly proceeded to sing in Russian so much better than Youssoupoff and his friend that the whole party was astonished. It went on far too long. Home about three o’clock.’