Elvis Broke Into June Carter Cash’s House and Accidentally Destroyed Valuable Antiques
The future June Carter Cash was one of Elvis Presley’s early friends in the music industry. She was very welcoming to Elvis as he worked his way to success, even telling him to look her up whenever he was in Nashville. He took this invitation a bit too far when he arrived at her house and discovered nobody was home. Elvis and his friend broke into the home and wrecked some of her expensive belongings.
Elvis snuck into June Carter Cash’s house
In the mid-1950s, Elvis met a number of big names in country music, including the future June Carter Cash. At the time, she was married to Carl Smith and invited Elvis to stay with her and her husband whenever he was in Nashville.
“Well, we took her at her word,” Elvis’ friend and bodyguard, Red West, said in the book Elvis: What Happened? by Steve Dunleavy. “When we got to Nashville, somehow we had lost her address. Anyway, we found out where she lived and hitchhiked out to the place. Well, June wasn’t home. It sounds terrible today, but in those days things were different. We forced a window and broke into the house. We didn’t give a damn. It was a beautiful place. Anyway, we made ourselves at home.”
West immediately got to work making them eggs and bacon on the antique copper pans he found in the kitchen. He didn’t realize that the pans couldn’t take high heat, and they began to melt.
“All around the place were these beautiful copper pans and skillets,” West said. “Me, being a dumb a**, thought they were regular pots and pans. What I didn’t know was they were specially purchased antiques worth a goddamn fortune.”
West and Elvis were oblivious that they had ruined the pans “completely” and collapsed into the first bed they found after they finished their food.
“We were dog tired and dirty. Anyway, we go up the staircase of this beautiful house and look for a bed,” West said. “Well, fully dressed and dirty, we just plop into this big double bed in the master bedroom and go to sleep. We slept like babies all night.”
June Carter Cash’s husband, Carl Smith, found Elvis and Red West in the home
They didn’t stir until the next morning when Smith arrived home.
“Now about nine the next morning I hear a voice and some movement. June’s husband Carl had come home. First he sees the forced window, then he sees the ruined pots and pans and the dirty kitchen. It was like Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” West said, adding, “Who has been breaking into my house? Who has been eating my food? Who has been ruining my kitchen? And now who has been sleeping in my bed? I’m amazed he didn’t arm himself with a shotgun.”
Elvis and West reacted slowly to the situation. When West realized Smith might think Elvis was sharing the bed with Carter, though, he hurried to clear things up.
“Elvis wakes up and says, ‘Oh, hi Carl.’ Now he sees Elvis, but he only sees a big lump under the blankets next to Elvis and it was me,” West said. “You couldn’t blame a guy if he thought Elvis was in bed with his wife, although June wasn’t that kind of gal. But I have a suspicious mind, and I’m thinking, Jesus, maybe he thinks I’m June and maybe he is going to blow my a** off.”
Smith didn’t even scold them for breaking in or ruining the pans. He just laughed and welcomed them to the home, though they had clearly already made themselves comfortable.
They remained friendly with the Carter family
That night, Carter returned home from her show and greeted Elvis and West.
“We had a big get-together, ate a great big Southern dinner and stayed up that night singing and harmonizing with them all,” West said. “I mean, that’s the kind of real decent folks they were. They welcomed us like long-lost brothers.”
Elvis continued to see the Carters at shows over the years. He even began a flirtation with Carter’s younger sister, Anita.
