Elvis Held a Gun to Jimmy Dean’s Head Within Seconds of Greeting Him After He Commented on Elvis’ Rude Lateness, Said His Bodyguard
In the 1970s, Elvis Presley often flew into rages that he threatened to settle with his gun. The singer always had a weapon nearby, just as he always seemed close to anger. Once, Jimmy Dean visited him after a show. When he commented on the fact that Elvis kept him waiting for an hour, Elvis pulled a gun on him.
Elvis pulled a gun on musician Jimmy Dean
By the 1970s, Elvis’ bodyguards noticed that he seemed to resent other performers.
“He wasn’t interested in other performers,” his bodyguard, Red West, said in the book Elvis: What Happened? by Steve Dunleavy. “In fact, he didn’t like other performers. He would always have something catty to say about them. If they came to his dressing room to see him, he would keep them waiting for an hour on end before he would make his entrance.”
When Dean visited him, Elvis kept him waiting outside his room for an hour. Dean jokingly commented on this when he greeted Elvis.
“I remember Jimmy Dean, a nice guy, was waiting for him one night,” West recalled. “Elvis came out of his bedroom after keeping Jimmy out there for an hour, Jimmy greeted Elvis with a big hullo and said jokingly, ‘I’m out to rip a yard from your a**, keeping me waiting.’”
Elvis did not take kindly to the comment, which he immediately made clear.
“And Elvis whipped out his .22 revolver and stuck it under Jimmy’s chin and said, ‘And I ought to blow your head off for talking to me like that.’ Jimmy smiled and laughed it off, but he was embarrassed by Elvis doing that.”
His bodyguards believed his ego got in the way of his manners
Elvis’ bodyguards said he had not always been this way. For most of his career, he was gracious and polite to those around him. They believed that as the years went by, however, his ego grew to unmanageable levels.
“Unless he is the center of attention, he just isn’t interested,” bodyguard Sonny West said. “His ego is just out of control . . . and it’s a pity because he wasn’t like that way back. … It hurts to see someone you love change so very much.”
Elvis threatened to deal with a lot of problems with a gun
This was far from the only time Elvis pulled a gun on someone in his life. When he wanted his fiancée Ginger Alden’s attention, he would fire a gun in her general direction. After he embarrassed a backup singer onstage and she walked off, he leveled a weapon at her. His bodyguards and members of his entourage were shockingly used to death threats from him.
Elvis also shot up inanimate objects when he grew frustrated. Graceland maid Nancy Rooks recalled walking into the house’s flooding foyer after he, for an unknown reason, blew his toilet to pieces. Whenever he saw Robert Goulet on the TV, he shot it until the image went away. Priscilla Presley said that while Elvis had always liked guns, they became an obsession in his later years.
