In the year 1956 Elvis was already a true musical and social revolution throughout the world, a star that already shone with its own light and represented for the youth the transgression of everything established. Elvis defined the 1950s and his influence changed popular music and youth culture. In the fall of this year, the New York Daily Mirror took an interest in this artist who was revolutionizing society, and at the beginning of September, one of its columnists, Sidney Fields, packed his bags and headed to the city of Memphis with the aim of collect all kinds of information to answer the question that they themselves and all their readers were asking at that time: Who is Elvis Presley?
The objective of this trip was to create a series of articles in the newspaper for publication and dissemination.
Once in Memphis, Fields, although it was not possible for him to speak with Elvis, since he was working in Hollywood, on the set of what was his first film: Love Me Tender, he was able to go to his home on Audubon Drive and interview his parents, who kindly welcomed him into their home. As a result of this very extensive interview, a five-part exposé was created in the newspaper, which was entitled “The True Story of Elvis Presley” and was published by the Daily Mirror from September 23 to 27, 1956.
Gladys and Vernon received Fields with great hospitality, closeness and kindness and he could feel the affection that was breathed there. Gladys proudly showed Fields her son’s room, which she was astonished to see was full of stuffed animals everywhere.
“It’s just that I took him to carnivals when he was a kid,” Vernon told him, “and I taught him how to throw balls to the fairground targets and get stuffed animals, and he still does, in fact last week he won a truckload of target shooting toy at the fair!” They were chatting for a long time. The Presleys told him that their son called them every night on the phone to ask how they were, since they had always been very close. They explained to him, with humility, how they had not been able to attend school and that they only knew how to read and write. “That’s why we made sure our son always had a good education,” they said.
“We were very poor” said Vernon “When I was sick, my wife always walked to work because she had no other way to go, many times we barely had money to give Elvis lunch, but we always ate and had clothes and a roof over our heads.” , and Elvis never lacked for anything, and we always taught him what was right and what was wrong, as far as we knew, even if we had hardly been educated.”
Fields asked them how they felt about the horrific accusations that his son was making obscene moves onstage, and that it was damaging the morale of America’s youth. “Those things hurt” said Gladys “Elvis has never made fun of us, or anyone else and he has never been conceited. For him, big people are still the same as little people, and he considers everyone the same way. We are country people. He is a country boy, and always will be. How can a polite boy like mine be indecent or vulgar, especially when he is so good to us and his friends and always wants to do the right thing? ”.
They remembered that from a very young age Elvis dreamed that one day he would give his parents everything they had not had. “When she was just 4 years old” Gladys recalled “she told me: Don’t worry, baby, when I’m older I’ll buy you a big house and two cars, one for you and dad and one for me… all her life she spent saying out loud what he was going to do for us and he also said it in front of other people and I always believed him”
“When Elvis turned 19 and started making money he told us: You’ve been taking care of me for 19 years, now it’s my turn…” Gladys declared.
And she always took care of his parents. She adored them.
When journalist Sidney Fields walked out the door of that home on Audubon Drive, he not only took with him the information he had gone looking for, he also took with him the feeling and affection of having met a humble and united family… and knowing who Elvis Presley really was.
”I like these people,” he wrote in one of his Daily Mirror articles a few weeks later. “They are simple, good neighbors and good people, and they are not affected by the fame and fortune of their son, nor by the furor that he has created…”
And the rest is history…
