Elvis' best friend and confidant names those he blames for superstar's death
It is the late night chats Jerry Schilling misses the most, when he and the King of Rock ’n’ Roll would talk for hours “about everything and nothing”.
Then there were the bus trips they took together, when Elvis would take the wheel, sometimes making a three-day journey last weeks as he pulled over every few miles for a coffee, burger or quick game of American football. With him from the beginning of Elvis’ career right to his tragic end, Jerry was the singer’s closest confidant and best friend, and today the one person outside of his family who knows him best.
And, as one would expect, he has the most fascinating stories to tell. Speaking to me from his Los Angeles home, which Elvis bought for him in 1974, every memory is worthy of a place in the history books, from their antics on film sets to the time they met President Nixon to when they went shopping for horses together.
It’s why Elvis fans are in for a treat next month as Jerry will be retelling his tales of life with the musical legend as the special guest for a Royal Philharmonic UK tour, in which the world-famous orchestra will play alongside the King singing on screen.
Jerry Schilling (Getty Images)
Elvis posing for a publicity photo in 1962 (Michael Ochs Archives)Jerry, 81, who went on to become manager for The Beach Boys, Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis’s daughter Lisa Marie, says that while he’s not used to being in the spotlight he enjoys remembering the good times with his old friend, who died suddenly in 1977 aged just 42.
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Of the experience of hearing Elvis singing to the live backing music, he says: “It’s incredible. The audience’s reactions are exactly the same as when I was on tour with Elvis. I get goosebumps, even thinking about it. Being there, it’s kind of bitter sweet. But it’s more sweet because the world still loves him and you can feel the love and the excitement from the audience. After all this time, that hasn’t changed.”
Jerry first met Elvis aged 12 when he turned up to play American football on a field near where they both lived in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1954. Elvis, then 19, had just recorded his first single that had been played on the radio for the first time two days earlier.
It was perhaps the last time the singer would be able to go out in the neighbourhood incognito, but Jerry remembers: “It was before the high collars and jumpsuits and all of that. He was just in a T-shirt and a pair of jeans, but there was something different about him.
Jerry (seated, centre) and Elvis on set of Paradise Hawaiian Style, 1965 (DAILY MIRROR)“He also had a warmth about him that would make you feel comfortable. He went out of his way to make me feel like one of them. Knowing him before he was famous was important, it gave me a real overview of who he was and where he had come from.”
Jerry started hanging out with what became known as the Memphis Mafia. They were the friends Elvis would call when he started getting the local amusement park or cinema to open late just for him, or when he threw his Graceland all-nighters.
Jerry was 22, about to go to college in Arkansas and working two jobs, when he got a call from Elvis that changed his life. “I was going to be a history teacher and a football coach, but I was summoned to Graceland in the wee hours.
“Elvis said to me, ‘I need you to come to work for me’ and when I asked when he said, ‘Now’. It thought about it for a few seconds, then asked if I could go home to get some clothes. I had just a few minutes to tell my father that I was dropping out of college in my senior year, then five of us got in a little Winnebago bus and drove 2,000 miles from Memphis to LA.
Elvis with President Nixon (Getty Images)“Every couple of miles he would stop, we’d eat, throw footballs, talk about girls and life. That’s where my friendship with Elvis totally changed, because I was now living with him.” It meant he also got to see the side of the star the public never did. “People think he was always walking around smiling and singing songs. Because that’s what they saw in his movies,” Jerry says. “But no, Elvis was a very deep, complex character, he could be moody and whatever.
“But he loved the trips, because there was real camaraderie. One of his dreams had been to be a truck driver, and when we were on the road there was no-one telling him what to do, it was a just a bunch of guys taking a trip. They were my favourite times too.”
Their friendship deepened after Elvis invited Jerry to live at Graceland, staying in the main house for ten years. It also meant having to go out whenever Elvis suddenly decided he wanted to spend the night watching the latest movies. “We sometimes went to the movie theatre five nights a week after it had closed and stay until two or three in the morning. Elvis had access to all the films, often before they came out.
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“If he really liked something he would tell them to put the reel back on again and would watch the film on repeat. And if I didn’t like it he would cut it off and tell them to put on the next film. He’d pull four to five films a night. After coming back to Graceland in the early hours we’d often stay up all night, talking, or shooting balls. We’d talk about everything, from the films we’d just watched, to the girl we wanted to meet, to religion. I do miss that. If there was one wish it would be to stay up all night talking to Elvis about everything and nothing.”
Elvis, Jerry and pal Sonny West meet Nixon in the White House in 1970 (DAILY MIRROR)And Jerry still laughs as he remembers Elvis’s “English sense of humour.” He says: “You had to be really sharp to be around Elvis because he had a keen sense of humour. He was the only guy I knew who was into Monty Python. He loved it. He would watch it on the big screen in the movie theatre and would break into fits of laughter.
“It would set us off too. When Elvis laughed it was contagious.” Another memorable moment was one Christmas when Elvis invited Jerry to have breakfast with him “That was real unusual because although we’d have dinner together, we’d normally all get breakfast separately. It was me and him at the dining table at Graceland and he said to me, ‘I wanna get Priscilla a horse for Christmas’.
“I said it was a great idea. Then he asked if he could get one for my girlfriend, Sandy, so they could ride together. So we went out in the pick-up truck horse shopping. What I didn’t know was that he wanted me to try out each one, as Elvis had a fear of riding after one ran away with him on and almost killed him. We bought two beautiful horses and brought them back to Graceland and we started cleaning and mending the barns.
“And Elvis being Elvis, it started off slowly but quickly became bigger, and almost every day we were taking another trip to buy another horse. We wound up with 28 horses in Graceland.” Jerry was also with Elvis when he met President Nixon in 1970, after the singer decided to drop by the White House on a whim, which resulted in one of the Oval Office’s most famous photos.
With star’s ex-wife Priscilla (left and second from left), 2022 (Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue)Elvis had written a letter to the president on American Airlines stationary as he took a flight to Washington, then directed his limo the White House where he jumped out to hand the note to Secret Service guards. Jerry remembers: “I think Elvis wrote three letters in his life. Two of them when he was on national service in Germany, and this one. He asked me to proof read it, and that was the first I’d heard about his idea to meet the president.
"I didn’t want to disappoint him by telling him this just wasn’t going to happen. And I was wrong, he made it happen. Ever since then, I never doubted what Elvis Presley could do.” Both men would soon face swift falls from grace - Nixon resigned in 1974 while Elvis’s reliance on prescription drugs worsened in the lead up to his heart attack that ultimately killed him on August 16, 1977, a day that left fans around the world devastated.
Jerry puts the blame for his friend’s death firmly at the door of the agents, record labels and film studios that controlled his career. He says: “I feel I lost my friend at an early age due to creative disappointments. They caused other complications and other problems. You can’t take a genius and put them in a box, and that’s what happened with Elvis.
“People say, ‘But he was Elvis Presley, he could do what he wanted’ but not so. There were people controlling the publishing of his music, the movie scripts he could do, or telling him he couldn’t tour overseas. I think that’s what affected him and made him sick.”
Jerry is determined to hold on to the happier memories, though. “There was the down side, but there was the upside too. Elvis could have walked around with a chip on his shoulder, but he was determined to have fun, and he was so much fun to be around.”
* Jerry Schilling will be special guest at the Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds and London performances of The Very Best of Elvis in Concert with the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra this October. Ticketline.co.uk
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