Elvis Presley: The Low Salaries He Paid Led to a Humiliating Moment for His Bodyguard

Elvis Presley’s bodyguards were like family to him. They often lived with him, took trips with him, and were there whenever he needed them. In the earliest years of Elvis’ career, they did all of this for very little money. One of his longtime bodyguards, Red West, said this led to an embarrassing moment for him in a New York City bathroom.

Elvis Presley’s bodyguard felt embarrassed while in New York

In 1956, Elvis traveled to New York City and made an appearance on Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey’s Stage Show. Afterward, he went to dinner at the Brown Derby restaurant.

“Now, there were the two of us, ‘E’ and me, at the classy Brown Derby,” West said in the book Elvis: What Happened? by Steve Dunleavy. “We were fresh out of Memphis, and we both looked like real rednecks, real hicks.”

West went to the bathroom at the restaurant, where he was surprised to see a bathroom attendant. He was even more surprised when the attendant asked for a tip.

“Anyway, I made the mistake of going to the bathroom. I went and washed my hands, and this attendant in there did something I had never seen,” West said. “He passed me a towel and I thought, ‘Well, that’s a nice gesture and maybe New York is not that bad a town after all.’ I thanked him and started to leave. The sonofab**** grabbed me and said, ‘How about the tip?’ I never heard of tipping in a toilet, but this was New York. Well, now I haven’t had a dime in my pocket at this time since I can’t remember when.”

West felt humiliated that he was at dinner with “bigshots” but he had nothing to show for it. At this time, Elvis hardly paid him anything.

“I’ve never been so embarrassed,” he said, adding, “I just said something about having left my wallet behind. I sat down to dinner and I worried that he was going to come out in front of all those important people and start demanding money for the leak I had in there. I’ve never been too fond of New York since then. But it gave you an idea the situation I was in.”

Elvis Presley’s bodyguard said many people were happy to work for low pay

While West was embarrassed that night at dinner, he was happy to do whatever he could for Elvis, even if it meant taking little pay. He said that most of the entourage felt the same way.

“If you look through most of the boys around him, none of us ever had any real money when we started with him,” West said. “Me, Sonny [West], Dave [Hebler], Joe Esposito, Gene Smith, Jerry Schilling, Lamar Fike, Cliff Gleaves. None of us had bread. We just jumped at the chance to do his bidding and work for him. Good times, bad tunes, but not much money.”

He believed that Elvis wanted it this way. 

“It was almost as if it was a requirement to work for him that you had to be broke,” he said. “You had to need him more than he needed you.”

He eventually felt foolish for being willing to die for Elvis

Over time, the low salaries began to wear on West. He felt Elvis’ bodyguards deserved more money for the demands of their job. They were all willing to take a bullet for him, for which West later admitted he felt “stupid.”

“If anyone was going to hurt him, they would have had to kill us to get to him,” bodyguard Dave Hebler said. “That was the relationship.”