18/12/2022
The rock 'n' roll troubadour altered the course of music history—despite never performing outside the U.S. or Canada. He also starred in 31 films, served in the Army (after he was already famous) and once bought a presidential yacht. Check out more facts about Elvis that might surprise you.
1. Elvis had a twin.
On January 8, 1935, Elvis Aron (later spelled Aaron) Presley was born at his parents’ two-room house in East Tupelo, Mississippi, about 35 minutes after his identical twin brother, Jesse Garon, who was stillborn. The next day, Jesse was buried in an unmarked grave in nearby Priceville Cemetery.
Elvis, who spoke of his twin throughout his life, grew up an only child in a poor family. His father, Vernon, worked a series of odd jobs, and in 1938 was sentenced to three years in prison for forging a $4 check (he spent less than a year behind bars). In 1948, the Presleys moved from Tupelo to Memphis in search of better opportunities. There, Elvis attended Humes High School, where he failed a music class and was considered quiet and an outsider. He graduated in 1953, becoming the first member of his immediate family to earn a high school diploma. After graduation, he worked at a machinist shop and drove a truck before launching his music career with the July 1954 recording of “That’s All Right.”
2. Elvis bought Graceland when he was 22.
In 1957, Elvis shelled out $102,500 for Graceland, the Memphis mansion that served as his home base for two decades. Situated on nearly 14 acres, it was built in 1939 by Dr. Thomas Moore and his wife Ruth on land that once was part of a 500-acre farm dubbed Graceland in honor of the original owner’s daughter, Grace, who was Ruth Moore’s great-aunt. The Moores’ white-columned home also came to be known as Graceland, and when Elvis purchased the place he kept the name.
The entertainer made a number of updates to the property over the years, including the addition of music-themed iron entrance gates, a “jungle room” with an indoor waterfall and a racquetball building. After finding out President Lyndon Johnson enjoyed watching all three network news programs simultaneously, Elvis was inspired to have a wall of built-in TVs installed in his home. In 1982, five years after Elvis was found dead in a bathroom at Graceland, his ex-wife Priscilla Presley opened the estate to the public for tours. Some 600,000 fans now flock there each year. Elvis’ only child, Lisa Marie Presley, inherited Graceland when she turned 25 in 1993 and continues to operate it today.
In 2006, George W. Bush became the first sitting U.S. president to visit Graceland, when he traveled there with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, a die-hard Elvis fan.
elvis and tom parker
Elvis and Colonel Tom Parker (Credit: GAB Archive/Redferns)
3. Elvis’ controversial manager, Colonel Tom Parker, was a former carnival barker.
Born Andreas Cornelis van Kuijk in the Netherlands in 1909, Elvis’s future manager immigrated illegally to America as a young man, where he reinvented himself as Tom Parker and claimed to be from West Virginia (his true origins weren’t known publicly until the 1980s). He worked as a pitchman for traveling carnivals, followed by stints as dog catcher and pet cemetery founder, among other occupations, then managed the careers of several country music singers. In 1948, Parker finagled the honorary title of colonel from the governor of Louisiana and henceforth insisted on being referred to as the Colonel.
After learning about the up-and-coming Elvis in 1955, Parker negotiated the sale of the singer’s contract with tiny Sun Records to RCA, a major label, and officially took over as his manager in 1956. Under the Colonel’s guidance, Elvis shot to stardom: His first single for RCA, “Heartbreak Hotel,” released in 1956, became the first of his career to sell more than 1 million copies; his debut album, “Elvis Presley,” topped Billboard’s pop album chart; and he made his big-screen debut in 1956’s “Love Me Tender.”
