Sidney Fields of the New York Daily Mirror had interviewed Galdys and Vernon a few weeks earlier and today, the third 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 26th November 1956, Monday
Sidney Fields wrote:The Real Story Of Elvis Presley
He's All Right' Declare Home Town Folks
Chapter 3
By SIDNEY FIELDS
ASK the man or woman on the street in Memphis, Tenn.: "What do you think of Elvis and they say: "Any boy who's as good to his folks as Elvis is has got to be all right."
I put the question to a dozen people, including the cab driver, on my way to the home of Elvis Presley's parents in an exclusive area of Memphis. and they all had variations of that same answer.
I HAD COME TO Memphis to talk to his mother and father and try to find out WHAT is "Elvis Presley," and they had invited me to dinner one evening. They apologized for not serving it in the dining room of their ample nine room ranch house. It was littered with mail sent to the parents from all over America; which a full-time secretary is kept busy answering. Besides, they felt more at home in the dining area of their spotless kitchen.
After they said a prayer, Alberta, their colored maid, the first help they've ever had, served fried chicken, chicken gravy, huge slices of cucumbers and tomatoes, hot rolls, and later milk, pie, fruit and coffee. It was all delicious. We ate the chicken with our fingers, and Gladys Love Presley and Vernon Elvis Presley, unfettered and warm, talked of their famous, hard laboring and often sorely belabored son, away in Hollywood making his first movie, "Love Me Tender," for a reported $150,000 fee.
"HE MANAGES to call us every other night no matter where he's been," said Mr. Presley, who, three years ago, earned S54 a week in a paint factory and is now employed' by Elvis to handle Elvis' personal affairs. "He's been away a month now," sighed his mother, a portly, handsome woman. "That's the longest he's ever been away from us. He always gets home every two or three weeks. But he's due in Tupelo. Miss., at a fair on Sept. 26 and we'll see him before he goes back to finish his movie."
She put more chicken on my plate and Mrs. Presley chuckled. "When Elvis was nine he won fifth prize in a singin' contest at that same fair. A war stamp. The man who gave him the prize had a rough time gettin' him back this time for and a percentage of the gate."
AND THEY remembered their son's dreams for them. He started dreaming out loud quite early. Mrs. Presley dug back for her earliest recollection: "When he was hardly four he'd tell me: 'Don't worry, baby, when I'm grown up I'll buy you a big home and two cars. One for you and Daddy, and one for me.' All his life he'd say out loud what he was going to do for us, and he'd say it in front of other people. And you know. I believed him."
She passed the rolls and the cucumbers and the tomatoes and Mr. Presley offered me more chicken, and they both called up the memory of seven-year-old Elvis, sitting on the stoop of their house in their native Tupelo, watching the cars drive by and telling all those friends who would listen: "Some day I'm goin' to have two Cadillacs sittin' in my driveway."
HE HAS a Cadillac and Continental sitting in the driveway in Memphis for his parents and two other Cadillacs travel with him: one for his trio and one for himself. Over milk and fruit and pie and coffee they recalled his childhood feelings about them. Elvis was 5 when his father and a number of other men were helping put out a fire in a neighbor's house. Elvis screamed in fear when he saw his father join the men running into the house to salvage some of the neighbor's belongings.
"He was afraid his father wouldn't ever come out," Mrs. Presley said. "I just told him, 'Daddy will be all right, now, you stop that. And he did." Elvis was always afraid to see me dive into the water for fear I wouldn't ever come up," his father, Vernon Presley, said. "Thats why I think he never did learn to swim well. But he's a good water skier. Faster he goes, the better he likes it."
WHEN THEY WERE first married they struggled bitterly to keep their home together and give him everything the other boys had. "We always talked to him about getting an education," his mother said, "so it wouldn't be so hard for him as it was for us. He never did quit high school." Elvis' childhood recollections of his parents and his own drive made him look for full-time work while still in high school, and his pay went into the family kitty. He ushered in a movie house, made shells in a factory, was a shipping clerk for a furniture company, and when he was graduated drove a truck for an electrical equipment firm.
"AND HE STUDIED electricity at night school while working on the truck," Mr. Presley said. "He delivered the stuff and worked with the men on houses going up so's he could learn the trade." "And even when he was in school," Mrs. Presley said, he'd go around and pay the grocery bill, $30. We didn't ask him to. He'd just do it himself."
I searched their faces, and across my mind flashed the picture of their 21-year-old son six feet tall, 185 pounds, with the long side-burns and pegged pants, with the passion for clothes and Cadillacs, who sends millions of teen-agers into frenzied adoration and is damned with equal fervor by other millions. What words would these people, who readily admit they can barely read or write, what words could they find to "characterize" him?
"He’s a sympathetic boy, and tender-hearted," his father said. "It hurts him when someone thinks bad of him." He paused and added: "Maybe this will tell you what he’s like. He was usherin’ at the movies this time, and on his night off he was downtown with his friends and he sees this Salvation Army lady takin’ up the Christmas collection. But the box was empty. Elvis put his last $5 bill in it, and started drummin’ up a noise to get that box filled. It was filled."
"HE DOESN'T drink or swear," his mother said, pouring more coffee. "He's never sassed us, and he's never been uppity. Big people are still the same as little people to him and he's considerate of both the same way. We're country folk. He's a country boy, and always will be." Eagerly they went on to praise his abiding loyalty: He still buys his clothes in the same shop he patronized when he was driving a truck. "Know what that means to the shop?" Presley demanded. "He's just had to push his walls out and double his store."
The bass fiddler, Bill Black and guitarist Scotty Moore, who played the music when Elvis made his first record in 1953, are still with him. One of his earliest dates in Memphis was a girl named Barbara Hearn. She's still his date when he gets home. "No, he's not serious with Barbara," Mr. Presley said. "They're good friends and she's a nice kid. But Elvis has other dates, too."
HAS ELVIS any faults his parents can see? "To be plain with you, he's the easiest goin' guy you ever saw until he gets pushed or his mother said. "Then he gets mad, and he's a little too high tempered. But lots of people are." "We've always been able to calm him, to talk to him about his father said. "Except maybe his dates, and then we could talk to him if they were "the wrong girls," and he'd listen. He'll say something about a car he'd like to buy and I'll say, I wouldn't son, and he'll listen. Even now he obeys."
We left the table and walked through the rumpus room into the living room. Both parents looked around with a quiet happiness. "This is Elvis' home," Mr. Presley said. "He's never had no other home except with us." "And even when he gets married," his mother said, "part of him will always be here."