Elvis Didn’t Pay His Employees Enough Because He Didn’t Want Them to Be Independent From Him, Claimed His Bodyguard
Elvis Presley had an entourage of employees who did everything they could for him. They traveled with him and rose from the middle of sleep to rush to his side. According to Elvis’ longtime bodyguard Red West, they did all of this for very little pay. West said that Elvis gave his entourage lavish gifts, but he didn’t want them to have big salaries. When they didn’t have much money, they were more dependent on him.
Elvis’ bodyguard had a theory about why he didn’t pay his employees much
By 1956, Elvis’ career was blowing up. His dream of being a professional singer was now firmly a reality, and money had begun to roll in. His entourage saw very little of this money, though.
“There were plenty of deals going down at the time and there was big money coming in,” West said in the book Elvis: What Happened? by Steve Dunleavy. “Now, earlier I was there for the ride, but thinking back, for the work I did there should have been some kind of payment because, man, I worked like a dog. All the odd jobs, all that damn driving, anything that nobody else wanted to do, I did. I know that Scotty, Bill, and D. J. weren’t happy about their money setup. I believe in the end they quit because they weren’t getting paid what they thought was right.”
He gave the people in his life expensive gifts but paid low salaries. West believed this was intentional.
“In later years he was to give away clothes and cars and rings, and even airplanes and houses, but he likes to be in control,” West said. “Gifts are one thing. Money is something else. The point is that I believe somehow he believes money gives a person independence. He doesn’t want people to have independence from him. He likes to be a father figure, or a God figure.”
Priscilla Presley said Elvis treated his employees well
Priscilla Presley also spent much of her life around Elvis’ entourage, too. She acknowledged that the salaries he paid them weren’t all that high, but she thought he made up for it in other ways. They lived at Graceland, went on vacations with him, and accepted his expensive presents. According to her, Elvis was also happy to lend them money.
“By today’s standards the boys’ salaries were not high — the average paycheck was $250 a week — but if the boys ever felt the pinch by the end of the month, they would go to Elvis,” Priscilla wrote in her book Elvis and Me. “They’d ask him if he could help them out with a down payment on a house or the first and last months’ payments on an apartment. Elvis always came through for them, lending them the one thousand or five thousand or ten thousand dollars they asked for. He was rarely if ever paid back.”
He grew sad when people didn’t like his gifts
Priscilla also described the expensive presents Elvis gifted to his entourage, which ranged from cars to horses to homes. His fiancée, Ginger Alden, also said that Elvis loved giving people gifts. She said it hurt him when people didn’t like his presents.
“If he could put a smile on someone’s face, that made him the happiest,” Alden told Smashing Interviews. “He loved giving gifts to other people and surprising them with gifts. He would get really hurt if you didn’t accept a gift. Maids, housekeepers, nurses … I don’t know how many people have brand new homes and cars. He was so generous to so many. A lot of that came from the fact that he didn’t have a great deal when he was younger, and he thought that would just brighten their lives being able to do that.”
