Elvis Could Fill a Room With ‘Sunshine’ or ‘Black Violence,’ Said His Bodyguard
Elvis Presley’s bodyguards spent so much time with the singer that they saw all sides of his personality. The Elvis they initially befriended and wanted to protect was kind, generous, and charismatic. He drew people in with an ease that had nothing to do with his fame. Elvis was not always this person, though. According to the people close to him, he could be incredibly manipulative, swinging rapidly from one emotional extreme to the next.
Elvis’ emotions changed quickly, according to his bodyguard
When Dave Hebler met Elvis, he could hardly believe how charming he was. He gifted Hebler a car shortly after meeting him and welcomed him into his entourage.
“Perhaps, now, I see it clearer, but there is no getting away from it. I had never met — before or since — never read of, nor heard of, any man who could so totally disarm you with charm, generosity and what appeared to be spontaneous love, as could Elvis Presley,” Hebler said in the book Elvis: What Happened? by Steve Dunleavy. “Today they use the word charisma. Well, Presley had it to spare in truckloads. He can walk into a room without saying a word and fill it with sunshine.”
As Hebler got to know Elvis better, he realized that Elvis also had the power to change the temperature of a room when he was in a bad mood. If Elvis wasn’t happy, no one was.
“I later learned that he could walk into that same room and fill it with black violence that got to be very hard on the nerves,” he said. “He can manipulate your emotions like no human being I have ever seen. Suddenly you feel you’re living your own life in a series of highs and lows dependent on his highs and lows.”
Priscilla Presley said Elvis could be manipulative
Priscilla Presley agreed with Hebler. While she loved Elvis, she admitted it could be exhausting to deal with him.
“When he was angry, it was like the roar of thunder,” she wrote in her book Elvis and Me. “No one could challenge his biting words; we could only wait until the storm passed. When he calmed down, he made excuses — he hadn’t had enough sleep, he had too much sleep, or he hadn’t had his morning coffee yet.”
She said being around Elvis could be both draining and rewarding.
“Sometimes he lashed out just to drive home a point,” Priscilla wrote. “If he thought it would teach us a lesson, he’d blow some minor grievance out of all proportion, and even as he was yelling he might wink at someone nearby. Then, ten minutes later, he’d be fine, leaving us bewildered and emotionally depleted. There were also times when he would leave us emotionally uplifted. He was truly a master at manipulating people.”
Another one of Elvis’ bodyguards said it was sad to watch him change
Red West, who met Elvis when he was in high school, said the singer was not always this way. Elvis was not quick to anger in his early years of fame and greeted people, like Red’s cousin Sonny, with kindness and respect.
“He was, despite who he was, a very ordinary kind of guy,” Sonny said. “He was as good-looking as hell, but he seemed to take all the girls falling all over him as a bit of a joke. It hadn’t gone to his head. You just couldn’t meet a nicer guy.”
Red West got choked up whenever he hears Sonny’s first impression of Elvis, because it reminded him of how much his friend had changed.
