Elvis Presley was a contradictory individual. He began his professional life as a sex icon and concluded it as an obese parody of himself. He spent the next ten years churning out forgettable movies after fundamentally and profoundly altering the course of popular music.
According to Smithsonian, he publicly offered his services as a volunteer in Richard Nixon’s War on Drugs despite having a prescription drug addiction.
The same may be stated about The King’s interpersonal connections. He was renowned for being intensely dedicated to the people he loved, but he also had a short fuse and limited tolerance for people he didn’t get along with.
Additionally, he engaged in public disputes with other celebrities who managed to offend him in some way. Political disagreements, perceived personal slights, and petty envy all contributed to some of these disputes.
Here are the biographies of three famous people Elvis detested.
Elvis Presley and John Lennon’s careers followed similar paths because they were both among the most well-known figures in music and popular culture at around the same time. Additionally, both men were large in size during the Vietnam War.
To suggest the war divided people would be an understatement. Beyond the well-reported public protests and the entire genre of music that opposed the war, attitudes toward the conflict were widespread. Public figures were also too eager to take sides in the argument. While some famous people, like John Wayne, supported the war, others, like Mohammed Ali, openly opposed it.
Lennon was outspoken about his unwavering opposition to the Vietnam War. Although Lennon despised Johnson for going all-in on the war, Presley reportedly backed it and was a major fan of the president at the time, Lyndon Johnson, according to The Express.
Their divergent views on the Vietnam war were immediately evident when the two men eventually met in 1965 at Graceland.
According to author Chris Hutchins through The Express, the hostility between the two parties was evident as soon as the Beatles entered Elvis’ home. The night I brought the Fab Four to his house for their first — and final — meeting, “[Elvis’] disdain of the pacifist Beatle was formed,” he claimed.
Lennon also tossed in a subtle dig at the current standing of his host’s profession. “John, who at the time was mostly singing the soundtracks to his films, inquired as to what had become of the old rock ‘n’ roll Elvis. Despite his half-joking, he meant it “said, Hutchins.
Elvis, for his part, laughed off the jab, but the atmosphere in the room quickly became chilly. That evening, the guys also grabbed up their guitars and began playing together, which temporarily reduced the tension in the home.
Even still, the encounter didn’t do much to improve the two’s tense relationship. According to reports, Lennon expressed his excitement about seeing Elvis in a manner similar to that of meeting Englebert Humperdink.
Elvis wasn’t content to merely brood on John Lennon, the Beatle’s opposition to the Vietnam War, and the personal slight he had experienced at home. He desired that Lennon go. I.e., outside of the USA In order to get action, he actually went to the President of the United States.
To establish the stage, let’s note that Presley wasn’t the only one who wanted to silence Lennon. According to NPR News, the federal government fought heroically (but unsuccessfully) to have Lennon deported because of his anti-war views. Elvis wanted the Beatles to leave as well. According to Vox, the King also met President Richard Nixon on December 21, 1970. He urged the President of the United States to do anything to get rid of Lennon and the Beatles there.
During that time, Elvis claimed that “The Beatles had been a real force for anti-American mentality. [They] came to this country, earned their money, and then went back to England where they preached an anti-American theme.”
Elvis attempted to remove the Fab Four once more in 1971 by contacting someone in authority. The Beatles “laid the foundation for many of the difficulties we are having with young people by their filthy unkempt appearances and provocative music,” he told then-director J. Edgar Hoover while giving him a tour of the FBI’s offices.
Elvis Presley and vocalist Robert Goulet, who was his contemporaries, couldn’t have been more dissimilar. The former was a boundary-pushing, contentious Rock & Roll pioneer, while the latter was a bland, ballad-singing talent whose appearance on “The Lawrence Welk Show” wouldn’t be out of the ordinary.
According to legend, the irritable Elvis had no patience for watching Goulet on television and once shot one of his televisions when he saw the singer perform.
Elvis’ estate is pleased with the episode, according to The Express, or at least his guardians think it is a part of his past that should be acknowledged rather than kept secret. The TV is currently on exhibit at Graceland and is fully operational.
However, it’s possible that the rumored conflict between Goulet and Elvis was exaggerated. For instance, Goulet later referred to Presley as a “personal buddy,” according to Lisa Rogers’ blog post. And what about firing a gun at a TV anytime Goulet was on? Numerous TVs are said to have been damaged by Presley, and it wasn’t really Goulet’s fault as much as it was the King’s volatile temper. When other well-known singers, such as Frank Sinatra or Mel Torme, were on TV, he was also known to shoot at it. According to The Vintage News, Elvis’ aides kept a large number of extra TVs on ready in case their boss accidentally shot one.
Teenagers were consuming Rock & Roll by the middle of the 1950s, thanks to pioneers like Elvis Presley, Bill Haley, and Chuck Berry who popularized a brand-new kind of music. For established artists like Bing Crosby, Perry Como, and others, this posed a challenge. Careers were in jeopardy. There have been questions concerning the impact of the new musical genre on young people’s morals in America. For his part, Frank Sinatra essentially referred to rock and roll as crap.
“It almost exclusively encourages young people to have negative and harmful reactions. It has a fake and artificial vibe to it. Most of it is performed, composed, and sung by cretinous thugs “through The Express, he stated.
Elvis wasn’t about to put up with Old Blue Eyes calling him a “cretinous goon.” “He also followed a trend, if my memory serves me well. I don’t understand how he can characterize today’s youngsters as immoral and delinquent “Elvis stated.
When Sinatra and Elvis shared the stage in 1960 for an episode of Frank’s TV show, it appears that the two eventually put their differences aside, at least professionally.
