Elvis Presley gave away millions of dollars of his own money to make family and strangers happy
Elvis Presley’s stepbrother has revealed the generosity shown by the king of rock n roll and confessed to his earliest memories of the iconic singer
Kindhearted Elvis Presley gave away millions of dollars of his own money to make family and strangers happy.
The generous rock ‘n’ roll stars also was loving and caring for his step family after father Vernon remarried following the heartbreaking death of his mother Gladys in 1958. Elvis’ stepbrother David Stanley today gives The Mirror an insight into the kind nature of the superstar, who welcomed him into his life as a child.
David revealed that Elvis urged Vernon to move his second wife Dee along with their three children (him, Ricky and Billy) into Graceland in the early 1960s. The Suspicious Minds artist dished out freebies to people all the time on his travels.
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David, 67, said: “The first thing I noticed about Elvis was his heart. When we came in to the house (Graceland) there was Dee, a hot, blonde and beautiful woman, who was not his mother, but Vernon’s new wife – the stepmom – with three young boys. Elvis easily could have said ‘pop that is too much baggage emotionally.’
“But he did the opposite. He welcomed us into his family and shared 17 years of his life with us. This guy was only 24 years old then too and showed us that his house was now our house. “I loved him as a brother. I didn’t love him for any other reason. He picked me up that first meeting and welcomed me into his family. He said ‘I have always wanted a little brother and now I have got three.’
“You know how much Elvis loved his mother Gladys. He bought Gladys Graceland as a present. And we were told sleep in his mother’s room, where we all prayed before bed.
“The morning he woke us up at eight o’clock in the morning, went in the backyard and there were toys everywhere. Elvis bought am entire toy store and set it up in his backyard.”
He continued: “He always threw me on his shoulders as at that time I had braces on my legs. I didn’t know what an Elvis Presley was. I knew what a Santa Claus was. It was just my one had sideburns. That was the introduction to his heart and his joy of giving.”
Elvis even played nanny and chauffeur at times to his brothers in Memphis. David went on: “I got a lot of attention at school every day, because he’d drive us to school. I could not comprehend it. One afternoon, I saw him sign an autograph and my brother Billy says, ‘what is that for?’
“He said, ‘that’s an autograph. Some people think I’m famous.’ Billy goes,’ are you more famous than Mickey Mouse?’ And he laughed: ‘well I don’t think so.’
“Long story short, I got this idea. I asked Elvis to sign 20 pieces of papers for me and I sold them for about five bucks a piece. I told Vernon and he reacted: ‘ right there, a little businessman.’”
Elvis’s presence in their lives was like starring in their own movies as teens, David admitted. “The school football team practiced one day and Elvis showed up and it went from 20 people to a few more.
“We went back the next day and there’s almost a thousand people waiting to see my big brother, not the actual practice. That’s how cool that guy was right there.”
David also claimed Elvis splashed millions of dollars on strangers, who he felt needed acts of kindness. “Elvis as a born giver,” he gushed. “I don’t think he ever thought about money. He would buy people cars. And he didn’t do that every now and again, he did it all the time. It was sometimes a daily thing.”
David added that as he got older, Elvis made him part of his inner circle. In 1972, Elvis asked David to ditch school, aged 16, to work as one of his bodyguards.
“We were having dinner one night and Elvis came downstairs and we started talking about doing a show in Vegas. I said, ‘what’s Vegas?’ He said, ‘that’s where the adults go play? And Elvis said, ‘we’re going there. I’m opening a hotel called The International.’ Then in 1972 he asked me to work for him, for $50,000 a year – which was a crazy amount of money back then.
“I didn’t know what Las Vegas was and I didn’t want to be here. I was happy living in Memphis with my stepfather Vernon, my mother, Dee and my two brothers. When he said he was doing Vegas, I wanted to go to Woodstock.
“But when Elvis came out on the stage there for that first time when I saw and started with a couple of the songs, I just felt the electricity in this room could light up the Hoover Dam. It was like an energy I have never felt in my life and have never since. I remember afterwards I said to Elvis ‘that was unbelievable.’ He just rubbed my head. And that is when I realised why they called him the King Of Rock And Roll.”
David smiled and added: “But a little secret about me, when I was 12 to 15 years old, I wasn’t an Elvis fan. Elvis was my big brother who brought me in 1960 into his family and I thought everybody was a singer or movie star. So I was more a Beatles, Stones, Zeppelin fan and was a rock’n’roller.” (PLEASE KEEP IN)
David tells stories about his astonishing life with Elvis at The Westgate Resort in Las Vegas – the same home the King performed his famous Sin City residency.
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