Elvis Presley Looked so Much Like Dracula When He Met Richard Nixon That His Friend Worried He Would ‘Arouse Suspicion’
During an impromptu trip to Washington D.C., Elvis Presley met with President Richard Nixon. He wrote Nixon a letter about how he wanted to help reduce youth drug use. While Elvis was eager to meet with Nixon, his friend and employee, Jerry Schilling, worried that the meeting wouldn’t go well. He explained that Elvis rolled up to the White House looking like Dracula.
Elvis Presley looked like Dracula when he met with Richard Nixon
After instructing his father to fire his manager, Colonel Tom Parker, Elvis took off without telling anyone but Schilling where he was going. As it turned out, he had his eyes set on the White House. On the flight there, he wrote Nixon a letter about his plan to get kids off drugs.
“Elvis was never much of a letter writer, but he now wrote President Nixon a letter explaining how he could assist the youth of today in getting off drugs,” Priscilla Presley wrote in her book Elvis and Me. “It was an impassioned plea, mistakes hastily scratched out and corrected as he poured out his thoughts.”
At this point, Nixon had no idea Elvis intended to meet him. Elvis proposed the meeting in his letter.
“Sir, I can and will be of any service that I can to help the country out … I would love to meet you,” he wrote, per Smithsonian Magazine, adding that he would be staying in a nearby hotel under an alias. “I will be here for as long as it takes to get the credentials of a federal agent.”
Elvis and Schilling arrived at the White House in the early morning so that the former could deliver the letter. Schilling worried that his employer’s appearance would get them in trouble.
“It was 6:30 am and Elvis was dressed in black, including his black cape, sunglasses, his large gold International belt, and a cane,” Priscilla wrote. “He approached the gate looking, as Jerry put it, like Dracula. His face was a bit swollen, and Jerry feared that his appearance would arouse suspicion.”
Elvis Presley’s meeting with Richard Nixon went over well
Had anyone else tried to pass on a letter to the president in this manner, security likely would have delivered the note directly into the trash. But this was Elvis Presley. Not only did Nixon read the letter, but he agreed to meet with him that same day.
Before that, though, Elvis had a meeting with Deputy Narcotics Director John Finlator. The musician wanted a Federal Narcotics badge, as it would allow him to keep drugs on his person, carry guns, and enter any country with both of these things.
The meeting with Finlator did not go to plan; he declined to give Elvis the badge. His meeting with Nixon had a better result for Elvis. He walked away with the badge after Nixon overruled Finlator’s decision and presented it to Elvis himself.
The musician’s appearance lost him a chance to meet J. Edgar Hoover
While Nixon didn’t seem to mind Elvis’ appearance and style choices, they didn’t go over as well with the FBI. Elvis visited the headquarters while in D.C. in the hopes of meeting his hero, J. Edgar Hoover. Hoover wasn’t in town, but, according to a memo by the agent who gave Elvis a tour, he likely wouldn’t have met with the musician anyway.
“Presley’s sincerity and good intentions notwithstanding, he is certainly not the type of individual whom the director would wish to meet,” the agent wrote, per The Washington Post. “It is noted at the present time he is wearing his hair down to his shoulders and indulges in the wearing of all sorts of exotic dress.”
Still, the agent noted that despite Elvis’ “rather bizarre personal appearance,” he seemed sincere in his desire to lower rates of drug use.
