Elvis Presley exhibited contradictory personality traits. He was once a sex icon before becoming an obese parody of himself. He spent the next ten years making forgettable movies after a fundamental and important change in the course of popular music.
According to Smithsonian, he publicly offered his assistance as a volunteer in Richard Nixon’s War on Drugs despite being addicted to prescription drugs.
You could compare that to the King’s relationships with people. He was well-known for being fiercely devoted to the people he loved, but he was also known for having a short fuse and little patience for people he didn’t get along with.
He frequently got into argumentative public debates with other famous people who managed to irritate him. Political differences, as well as perceived slights against specific people and narrow-minded envy, were some of the causes of these arguments.
Here are the biographies of three well-known individuals who Elvis hated.
Because they were among the most well-known figures in music and popular culture around the same time, John Lennon and Elvis Presley’s careers took similar paths. During the Vietnam War, both men had been fairly large.
It would be an understatement to say that the conflict contributed to social division. Beyond the widely covered demonstrations in public and the anti-war musical genre, there were many different perspectives on the conflict. Public figures were also eager to contribute their opinions to the discussion. Mohammed Ali was one well-known person who openly opposed the war, whereas John Wayne supported it.
Lennon made it known that he was adamantly opposed to the Vietnam War. According to The Express, Presley supported the war and was a huge Johnson supporter at the time, whereas Lennon despised Johnson for going all-in on the conflict.
When the two men finally met in 1965 at Graceland, it was clear right away that they had very different perspectives on the Vietnam War.
The Express quotes author Chris Hutchins as saying that it was clear when the Beatles entered Elvis Presley’s house that there was tension between the parties. Elvis’ “disdain of the pacifist Beatle was formed” the night I brought the Fab Four to his house for their first-ever meeting, according to him.
In addition, Lennon made a subtly ironic remark about the state of his host’s profession. John questioned what had become of the vintage rock ‘n’ roll Elvis, who back then was best known for singing the soundtracks to movies. He was only half serious, but he still meant it. ”.
Elvis laughed at the jab, but the atmosphere in the room quickly turned chilly. The tension in the house was briefly relieved that evening when all of the boys picked up their guitars and began playing together.
The abusive relationship between the two was largely unaffected by the meeting. According to legend, Lennon compared his happiness at seeing Elvis to his delight at meeting Englebert Humperdink.
Thinking about John Lennon, the Beatles’ opposition to the Vietnam War, and the slight he had endured at home didn’t make Elvis feel good. Lennon should go, he wanted. For any business while he was away from the US, he specifically went to the US President.
In order to frame the situation, keep in mind that Presley wasn’t the only person who wished to silence Lennon. NPR News asserts that the federal government made a valiant (yet unsuccessful) attempt to deport Lennon because of his anti-war beliefs.
Elvis also wished for the Beatles to depart. The King allegedly met President Nixon on December 21, 1970, according to Vox. While the Beatles and he were there, Lennon begged the American president to take whatever steps were necessary to get them out.
Elvis asserted that “The Beatles had been a real force for anti-American mentality” at the time.
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They left this country once they had enough money and went back to England, where they spread propaganda against Americans.
Elvis attempted to expel the Fab Four once more in 1971 by speaking with a higher-up. He informed the director J. Neill claimed that the Beatles’ “filthy unkempt appearances and provocative music laid the foundation for many of the difficulties we are having with young people.”. A tour of the FBI’s offices was given to Edgar Hoover.
Two of his contemporaries, Robert Goulet and Elvis Presley, couldn’t have been more dissimilar from one another. The former was an antagonistic, boundary-pushing Rock and Roll pioneer. The former was an uninteresting ballad singer who would not be out of the ordinary to appear on “The Lawrence Welk Show.”.
According to legend, the impatient Elvis could not stand to watch Goulet on television and once shot one of his televisions when the performer appeared on screen.
According to The Express, Elvis’ estate is happy about the incident, or at the very least, his guardians believe it is a part of his past that should be acknowledged rather than kept a secret. At Graceland, a fully functional TV is currently on display.
It’s possible that rumors of a fight between Goulet and Elvis were exaggerated. As an illustration, according to Lisa Rogers’ blog post, Goulet later referred to Presley as a “personal buddy. ”. What about shooting the TV whenever Goulet was on?
Presley allegedly broke a number of TVs, though Goulet wasn’t as much to blame as the King’s ferocious temper. Additionally, he had a history of shooting the TV during performances by famous singers like Frank Sinatra or Mel Torme. According to The Vintage News, Elvis’ assistants kept a lot of extra TVs on hand in case their boss accidently shot one.
By the middle of the 1950s, teenagers were listening to Rock and Roll thanks to innovators like Elvis Presley, Bill Haley, and Chuck Berry who made a brand-new musical genre famous.
Several well-known performers, including Bing Crosby and Perry Como, struggled with this. Careers were in danger. The potential impact of the new musical fad on the morals of American youth has been a source of concern. Frank Sinatra, on the other hand, generally derided rock and roll.
It almost always elicits negative and harmful reactions in young people. It gives off an extremely fake vibe. He asserted that most of it was performed, composed, and sung by cretinous goons via The Express.
Elvis was not amused when Old Blue Eyes referred to him as a “cretinous goon.”. He also adopted a trend, if my memory serves me correctly. Elvis said, “I don’t know how he can say today’s youth are morally bankrupt and irresponsible.
Since sharing a stage with Elvis in 1960 for a segment of Frank’s TV program, Sinatra and Elvis had finally put their professional differences behind them.
