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Sidney Fields of the New York Daily Mirror had interviewed Galdys and Vernon a few weeks earlier and today, the second of five daily articles appeared.
The interview was syndicated and appeared in other publications later on, one of which was the Canadian newspaper the Winnipeg Free Press, a copy of the page is available in small format on the respective pubication day of 24th November 1956, Friday
Sidney Fields wrote:The Real Story Of Elvis Presley
Even When A Tiny Boy Elvis Acted Out Songs
Chapter 2
By SIDNEY FIELDS
There is an astonishing contrast between his poor and often lonely beginnings and the frenzied hip swinging and singing which brought sudden, undreamed of wealth and hotly disputed fame to 21-year-old Elvis Aron Presley.
No evaluation of this controversial phenomenon can be separated from his parents and how they see him. So I went down to visit them in the roomy ranch house their son bought in one of the most fashionable sections of Memphis. Tenn. Gladys Love Presley, 39, and her husband, Vernon Elvis Presley, 40, are handsome, kindly, unpretentious and devout people who see nothing wrong in their son's twitching and twisting.
“Even when he was a tiny kid and we sang at church and camp meetin’s, Elvis moved around and acted out his songs,” Mrs. Presley said. “He’s always had a lot of energy, and he’s big now and gets rid of it in his music. When he sings he’s bein’ himself and that’s not bad or wrong.”
LIKE ANY parents, they gave their son all the love and affection they had, and it was much. Unlike many parents, they over-protected him: perhaps because Jesse Garon, Elvis' twin brother, died at birth. "Elvis is all we live for," his father said. When Mrs. Presley was working as a nurse's aide almost all the S23 she earned weekly went to Elvis so he could have the same kind of toys and clothes and attend the same school parties as the other kids.
When he was 15 and fell in love with football, his parents thought it was too dangerous and tried to stop him. "After school the white boys would team up against the colored boys," Presley recalled, "and they'd come home with their clothes torn and their hides, too. Elvis being all we had, we didn't want him to get hurt. But he wouldn't stop. Gladys was workin' in the hospital then and one day a boy was brought in from a football game, and he died of a blood clot. That scared both of us and we made Elvis quit." "Know what he told me?" Mrs. Presley asked. "He said: 'I'll stop because I don't want to worry you.'"
AND I REMEMBERED when I first interviewed Elvis in New York he admitted: "I was never out of my mother's sight until I was 16. All the kids would go swimming in the creek and my mother wouldn't let me go. And I never really dated until I was 16." "He didn't have real dates till then, but he had girl friends since he was 11," Vernon Presley said. "Once, when he was 16, I seen him sittin' real clsoe to a little girl and I spoke to him about what he should know. He listened. He always does. We've been lucky. All the girls he's known have been nice kids."
Father and son went to carnivals together, and played baseball though Elvis wasn't much interested in the game. He preferred skill pool and as soon as Elvis began making some money he bought a skill pool table and outfitted a skill pool room in their home. During Elvis' childhood the Presleys struggled hard to earn their rent, both working in factories and Mr. Presley driving a truck. Once they lived in a housing project with a income limit, but had to leave when all three worked and exceeded the limit. They rented a home until Elvis spent $40,000 for their new house. "That's why all this seems like a dream," said Mrs. Presley. "To go out and spend a little and not be so savin' and tight."
"WE NEVER HAD much until three years ago," her husband added, "but Elvis never wanted for anything even when we were troubled. And we always taught him right from wrong as far as we knew, though we didn't have hardly any education." "He was raised well," Presley said. "He never lies. He doesn't swear. I never heard him call anyone except 'Mister' and 'Sir.' And we taught him if he can't help a man out of a ditch the least he can do is say a prayer for him, and the Lord will never let him fall."
Elvis was a gregarious child at times, and his father often waded through a sea of kids when he came home from work. At other times, Elvis preferred his own brooding company. To this day he can be alone in a crowd. His parents never petted him or gave him his way, and his mother never hesitated to spank him when necessary. His father only hit him once. "He was 5 then," Mrs. Presley said, "and he took two empty Coke bottles from a neighbor's porch. He told me the neighbor let him take 'em, but that was stealin' and he had to be corrected. I got Vernon to take the switch to him and give him one or two licks." "It hurt me more'n it did him," his father said with a wince.
IT WAS A CLOSE, happy home, with laughter in it, always with singing. When Elvis was 3 his parents would carry him to church (First Assembly of God) and he would run down the aisle, stand in front of the choir and sing with them. "At 9 he was picked to sing alone in church," said Presley, "and at home we sang as a trio, when Gladys wasn't playin' the harmonica. Elvis always had a natural talent. He can't read a note even now. But you don't have to teach a fish to swim." In the fifth grade the teacher asked one child to say a prayer. When the child wouldn't, Elvis volunteered and amazed the teacher by singing a hymn afterwards: it was a family custom. From then on Elvis said the class prayer and sang the hymn.
At 12 he wanted a bicycle, but his mother wasn't working and the bicycle cost too much. She got him a $13 guitar instead, and the following Christmas got him the bike. At a fair in their native Tupelo, Elvis heard a guitarist sing a song, nudged his parents and said: "I can sing better than that." "And he just walked right up on that platform, his legs shakin' a little, and sang that song without any accompaniment," his father said, all aglow. "With a real powerful voice," Mrs. Presley said, "and he did sing it better than that guitarist."
The Presleys moved to Memphis when Elvis was 13 and the boy was sent to L C Humes High School and was so scared, the first day he didn't go in. He made it the next day, and thereafter was always fearful of being laughed at. He had a desperate need to be liked. “And when he isn’t, he worries about it,” said Mr. Presley. "When they picked him to sing an encore for the senior variety show," his mother said, "he asked the teacher: 'Do they really like me that much?'"
His teachers report he was a good student, rather quiet, but did well in most of his grades, and managed to get by in the others. "There were times when we never had more'n 25 cents to give him for lunch," his father said. "But he never fussed about it. And he got me to buy a lawn mower after a while and made himself $8 a week, but he stopped when the girls watched him."
WHILE IN HIGH SCHOOL, Elvis ushered at a movie house and later worked midnight hour shift at a tool company making artillery shells. But they found out he was under 18 and laid him off. After he graduated he went back to work for them. "He was always tryin' to help," Mr. Presley said. "Way back when he was a kid he was always tellin' us what he's going to do for us " "And when he got 19 and started making money," Mrs. Presley said, "he told us, 'You've taken care of me for 19 years. Now it's my turn.'"
