Vernon Presley was Elvis’s father, and for years he had a front-row seat to how his son handled money. He helped keep track of it. He also watched a whole lot of it walk out the door, because Elvis loved to give.
Cars. Rings. Sometimes a whole new life for someone who’d started out with very little.
In 1978, Vernon sat down to talk about that side of his son. He gave the story to a writer named Nancy Anderson for Good Housekeeping, the big family magazine, and he didn’t hold back about how far Elvis would go for the people he cared about.
“Elvis gave lavishly because it was his nature to be generous. He wanted to share his good fortune with everyone who was close to him,” Vernon said. Nobody in the circle went without. He talked about Cadillacs, diamond rings, even furs for their wives.
Elvis kept a big group of people around him almost all the time. Friends, cousins, guys who worked for him and traveled with him wherever he went. They were part of daily life, and Elvis paid for most of it.
That’s the part that started to bother his dad.
Vernon Presley told Good Housekeeping in January 1978 that he’d once pulled his son aside about it. He thought the crew had gotten too big, and that a few of them were only sticking around for what they could get out of Elvis. So one day he said something.
What Elvis said back was so simple that Vernon never let go of it.
Before you hear the answer, it’s worth hearing Vernon’s own voice. This is him in 1956, sitting with Elvis’s mother Gladys, back when the whole family was still getting used to the world wanting a piece of their boy.
Vernon and Gladys Presley talk about their son in 1956
Here’s how Vernon remembered it. “I remember a time not too long ago when I felt that he was carrying too big a crew, so I advised, ‘You don’t need all of them, especially some who just seem to be out for what they want’. Elvis stopped me cold, answering, ‘You see their wants. I look beyond their wants and can see their needs.'”
And that was pretty much the end of it. Vernon didn’t have a comeback.
It says a lot about the way Elvis looked at the people around him. His father saw a crowd of takers. Elvis saw the same faces and saw folks who were struggling, and he figured he was in a spot to help them out. Right or wrong, that was who he was.
Vernon told a lot of stories about his son over the years. This is one that stuck with him.