In early September 1956, a newspaper columnist from New York traveled all the way to Memphis to find out who Elvis Presley really was.
He didn’t get to meet Elvis. The young star was out in Hollywood, busy making his very first movie, “Love Me Tender.”
So the columnist, Sidney Fields of the New York Daily Mirror, did the next best thing. He sat down with Elvis’s parents, Gladys and Vernon Presley, in their home and let them do the talking.
What they told him became a five-part series called “The Real Story of Elvis Presley.” It ran in the Daily Mirror from Sept 23 to 27, 1956.
What Fields came away with was a picture of the boy his parents knew.
Gladys painted a picture of a son who treated everybody the same. “Big people are still the same as little people to him, and he’s considerate of both the same way,” she said.
She remembered that even in school, Elvis would quietly help out at home. “And even when he was in school he’d go around and pay the grocery bill, $25, $30. We didn’t ask him to. He’d just do it himself.”
She also said they had raised him a certain way. If he couldn’t help a man out of a ditch, she said, “the least he can do is say a prayer for him.”
Then Vernon told a story of his own.
He started by describing his son in a few simple words. “He’s a sympathetic boy, and tender-hearted.”
Back then, Elvis wasn’t famous yet. He was working as an usher at a movie theater. One night when he had the evening off, he was downtown with some friends.
That’s when he saw her. A Salvation Army lady was standing there taking up the Christmas collection.
And her box was empty.
Here’s how Vernon told it, word for word. “He was usherin’ at the movies this time, and on his night off he was downtown with his friends and he sees this Salvation Army lady takin’ up the Christmas collection. But the box was empty. Elvis put his last $5 bill in it, and started drummin’ up a noise to get that box filled. It was filled.”
His last $5. Then, instead of walking on, he started making a fuss right there downtown, and he kept at it until the box was full.
It’s easy to see the future showman in that moment. A teenage usher with no money left, drawing a crowd for somebody else.
There’s a short video series called “Stories From the Kettle,” and the very first one is about Elvis, so it’s a good place to go next.
A “Stories From the Kettle” video about Elvis
Vernon and Gladys could have told that New York reporter anything they wanted about their famous son. They picked stories like this one.
Elvis was still years away from Graceland, and he was spending his nights showing people to their seats in a dark theater. But according to his dad, the kind heart was already there.