Elvis Was Irritatingly Like His ‘Jailhouse Rock’ Character, Said His Friend

In 1957, Elvis Presley starred in Jailhouse Rock, one of his earliest films. At this point in his career, his character, Vince Everett, bore little resemblance to Elvis himself. According to his friends, this changed over time. As Elvis’ fame grew, he became increasingly similar to his onscreen counterpart. This was extremely frustrating for the people who knew him.

Elvis’ friend said the singer became like his ‘Jailhouse Rock’ character

In Jailhouse Rock, Elvis played Vince Everett, a man who becomes a star after his release from prison. Stardom makes him arrogant, but he realizes the error of his ways by the end of the film. According to Elvis’ longtime bodyguard, Red West, Elvis’ personality began to mirror Vince’s.

“Now, I don’t mean he was selfish and big-headed all the time,” West said in the book Elvis: What Happened? by Steve Dunleavy. “But he took to fits of anger that none of us had ever seen before. He wanted to be treated as something special.”

Elvis expected his entourage to anticipate his demands and blew up at them when they didn’t. He wasn’t always like this, but it was difficult for his entourage to know when he was going to become angry.

“You could talk to him quiet, sensibly, about something and maybe that night you would say something that didn’t quite go along with his way of thinking or doing things, but he would talk calmly about it and sort of see your way of looking at something,” West said. “Then he would go to bed and get out of it on his so-called medicine, and the next day, man, wow. He would stew on something all night and then it would work up inside of him and he would lose total reason and just explode. On those days you would try to keep out of his way.”

When Elvis acted like this, he clashed with Red West

This Vince Everett-esque change in Elvis was particularly hard on Red West. He had known Elvis since high school, and it was difficult to watch him become a different person. West also had a temper and had to fight to keep it down in the face of Elvis’ rages.

“When Elvis got into those rages and took it out on Red, it would bring the worst out in Red,” bodyguard Sonny West said. “I would see Red sitting there trying to control himself for something said to him that was very unfair. Then he would go outside and get in a fight just to let off the steam. He could always bring the worst out in Red.”

Elvis recorded ‘Jailhouse Rock’ 20 times

Though Elvis may have been arrogant and quick to anger, he was also a hard worker, particularly in the early days of his career. He threw himself into recording the song “Jailhouse Rock” for the film.

“He worked very hard in the studio. It was hard work, but it appeared to be effortless for him because he loved what he was doing,” songwriter Mike Stoller said in an interview with Elvis Australia. “If he liked a song he would just keep going, ‘Yeah, I can do it better. Wait a minute, let me try this. Give me one more shot!’ As I said, we were up to take 27 or something on ‘Jailhouse Rock’ when he finally said, ‘OK, let me hear that take that you think is the one’. And he came back in and listened and said, ‘Yeah, you’re right. That’s the one.’”

The hard work was worth it; the song peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.