Elvis’ Macabre Special Interest Made His Bodyguards ‘Sick’

Elvis Presley spent much of his life surrounded by his bodyguards. They were friends with the musician and would have done anything for him, even when it made them uncomfortable. Two of Elvis’ bodyguards discussed Elvis’ interest in death and embalming. His fascination forced them into situations that made them both nervous and nauseous.

Elvis’ bodyguards did not appreciate his fascination with death

Elvis was so interested in death that when a Memphis police officer he’d been friendly with died, he requested to watch a mortician embalm him. This made his bodyguard Red West’s skin crawl.

“Can you imagine that? Someone watching someone else slicing into the body of a friend,” Red said in the book Elvis: What Happened? “Elvis could tell us details about embalming that would impress a doctor. He knew all the right terms, and he would tell us how a body is bled and blood is taken out and replaced by the embalming fluid. It used to make me sick.”

Elvis’ bodyguards hated accompanying him to morgues

Red’s cousin and fellow bodyguard, Sonny West, felt the same way. Elvis often brought them to morgues after hours, which he said “scared the s***” out of him every time.

“We come into this big room with heads sticking from under sheets,” Sonny recalled. “They were bodies, and they were sort of tilted upward, feet first. This was the damn embalming room. I’m horrified. But this was apparently what Elvis was looking for. He is happy he has found the room. Then he starts lecturing us on how people get embalmed.”

Sonny said he found Elvis’ lectures disturbing, but he also worried that someone would discover that they had broken in. Somehow, though, this never happened.

“Well, man, I’m flipping,” he said. First of all, I’m convinced that a security guard is going to come in and start blasting away at us, and the whole thing is making me sick. I mean, three o’clock in the morning on a tour of a mortuary. Damn madness … Well, we were there about forty-five minutes, and nobody so much as showed a face. It was amazing nobody was around. But it just shows you what a night out with Elvis might end up like. Red has also been with him on trips to embalming rooms, and I know he used to hate it, but that’s what Elvis wanted and you just went along with it.”

Priscilla Presley recalled a similar trip

Elvis often brought romantic partners on these trips. Sonny West recalled a night at the morgue with Elvis’ girlfriend, Linda Thompson, and Priscilla Presley recounted a similar experience in her book Elvis and Me. 

“His fame was his passkey,” Priscilla wrote. “It was eerie walking through the halls and viewing each room. They were still, solemn, dimly lit. I clutched at Elvis’ hand. At first, I didn’t want to look, but he assured me the bodies were at peace and that once I looked, it wouldn’t be so bad.”

Elvis believed these trips were a good reminder that life was temporary.