Elvis Nearly Started an On-Set Feud With 1 Award-Winning Actor

Elvis Presley’s work as an actor never fulfilled him in the way he’d hoped, but it brought him into contact with a handful of major stars. Elvis often got along well with his co-stars — he even dated quite a few of them. There was one actor he clashed with, though. While they eventually got along well, Elvis and Barbara Stanwyck had a rocky start to their relationship.

Elvis got off to a rough start with another actor

In 1964, Elvis starred in Roustabout, a musical film in which his character joins a struggling carnival. Stanwyck played the owner of the carnival who gives him a job. When the two actors met, a misunderstanding nearly led to a very uncomfortable on set experience.

“Elvis was a little bit late and Miss Stanwyck was already on the set waiting,” bodyguard Sonny West said in the book Elvis: What Happened? by Steve Dunleavy. “Now Mickey Moore, the assistant director, looked at his watch and commented on it.”

When Elvis arrived, he mistakenly believed Stanwyck was the person who commented on his lateness. 

“I don’t give a damn if the big star Barbara Stanwyck is waiting for me, I’ll get here when I’m good and ready,” he snapped. 

According to West, Stanwyck treated coolly afterward, though she did not respond to him.

“There was a little situation there at first,” West told Elvis Australia. “She was very cool towards Elvis.”

In the end, though, they learned to get along.

“She was a great lady,” West said, “and in the end a real rapport developed between her and Elvis.”

He didn’t get along well with the director either

Elvis and Stanwyck briefly clashed, but he had a bigger problem with the film’s director, John Rich. He typically brought his entourage on set with him and their behavior irked Rich.

“Elvis didn’t have much of a rapport with Mr. Rich, and somehow when he directed, the Memphis boys seemed to get the freeze from him,” West explained. “It’s not that he didn’t like us, I just guess he thought we were not a necessary part of the movie-making. Elvis was convinced that Mr. Rich didn’t have the right temperament to handle people like us.”

Despite this, Elvis went on to work with Rich again on the film Easy Come, Easy Go.

Elvis often did not like other actors or singers

Elvis eventually charmed Stanwyck, but he didn’t always make an effort with other celebrities. Members of his entourage said Elvis liked to be the biggest star in the room and sometimes behaved coldly toward his peers.

“He wasn’t interested in other performers. In fact, he didn’t like other performers,” West said. “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.”

West said that Elvis developed such an overinflated ego that he couldn’t handle being around other stars.