Planes and Automobiles: “You May Have a Pink Cadillac But Don’t You Be Nobody’s Fool”

The cumulative effect of the entire day at Graceland was awe-inspiring. You see the house. You see where he lived. You see the gold records and you see the racquet-ball court which puts the “normalcy” you just saw in the house into daunting perspective. The racquet-ball court says, “Don’t be fooled. This was NOT a normal guy.” Then you go and see the two planes. Then you go to the car museum (which was probably my favorite part of the tour. I felt like I was having a nervous breakdown with those cars.) The sheer amount of cars starts to sink in. You start to get another level of understanding. It is difficult to comprehend the wealth. I mean, you know he was rich and you know he spent money like he knew it wouldn’t last. That is obvious. But to see it all … to see the results of his spending … that whole other side of his career, the money-side, the side that some people seem to find distasteful but is really the key to the whole thing, the key to Elvis in general … gives a deeper level of understanding of his success. It’s an onslaught. Graceland is not like the Spelling mansion in Beverly Hills which actually looks like a castle from the air. It’s a house, yo. Yeah, it has some columns which makes it look kind of fancy, but it’s not insanely huge, like the Breakers in Newport. It’s not conspicuous in its consumption, although everything inside is obviously beautiful. But the conspicuous consumption was certainly a factor, and that’s what you get to see in the next part of the tour, as you walk through the two airplanes, and as you walk through the cars Elvis owned throughout his life. WOW, is all I had to say when I first walked through the door of the car museum. I felt like I had died and gone to heaven.

But first up was my tour of the Lisa Marie. Again, for some reason, I was alone on my tour. There was one other guy on the plane with me. I saw pictures of later that same day on the Graceland website, and there was a long line of waiting people snaking around the plane, waiting to go up the steps and go in. It was astonishing because it wasn’t like that for me at all. I wasn’t in a line at all. I was by myself. So I didn’t even go into the Lisa Marie at all at first. I just walked around the plane, looking up at it. I walked under the damn plane. I stood off to the side and stared at the ranks of windows. The thing is enormous. I walked around to the tail, to look up at the TCB logo.

Oh, Elvis. You and your dorky lightning bolt.

Elvis bought the plane in 1975. He was flying back and forth from Vegas so much, and touring the rest of the country, that he needed to have a private plane. You know, when you’re famous your “needs” become much different. It was a retired Delta Airlanes Convair 880 Jet. Elvis bought it for $200,000. In 1975 terms that was a shitload of money. He called it The Lisa Marie and immediately began decorating it like a madman. This was typical of Graceland as well: the purchase price was one thing, but Elvis sunk far more money into redecorating than the house was even worth. This was his style. Everything – from sunglasses to jets – had to have his personal stamp. I mean, he was having his name stencilled on his cars back in the 50s. Before “branding” became common (and so common now as to be disgusting), Elvis treated himself like a brand. He just WAS a brand. And he was 20 years old, and everyone was loving him, and dressing like him, and growing sideburns, and he had a lot of money, so it was fun to make everything he owned a personal statement in some way. Elvis and Priscilla had divorced in 1973 and although Elvis had never been faithful to Priscilla he was devastated by it. He never wanted to get divorced. There’s a picture of the two of them coming out of the Santa Monica courthouse the day the divorce was final, and they are walking side by side, holding onto each other.

Priscilla has said she saw him even more often after the divorce than when they were married. They talked on the phone every day. He would come over late at night to look at Lisa in her bed sleeping. Elvis wasn’t a deadbeat dad. Lisa was his whole life.

So of course he would name his jet after his daughter, and sink hundreds of thousands (literally) of dollars into redecorating it. Nothing but the best for Lisa’s namesake.

Elvis also bought a smaller Lockheed JetStar which he named Hound Dog, and that was used for more local trips. Both planes are in the big lot opposite Graceland.

Elvis had the whole Lisa Marie gutted and created different rooms. He wanted a bedroom, a conference room, a hangout room. He wanted brass fittings in the bathroom. He had Priscilla involved in some of the decisions, too. He wanted her to check out the designs, and would call her up in the middle of the night and fly her to some airplane hangar somewhere so she could see what he was doing. She gave her input. Elvis was insane. There is something charming about him.

The Lisa Marie is set up, then, like a railroad flat, where you walk from front to back, through all of the different rooms. You can see from front to back, but there are dividers in between rooms so you could certainly close them and get some privacy. And once you tour the Lisa Marie, you can see why Elvis often chose to sleep on the plane when they’d fly into some city for a tour date. Just less hassle. No hustling into cars surrounded by bodyguards. He could just stay in bed, watching TV, in his own private space.

I still think it’s weird that it was just me and this one other guy on that plane. No rush. I didn’t have a throng of people clambering up behind me. I could linger. I went at my own pace. I could stand and stare at one chair for 10 minutes if I felt like it. I wonder where all the other people were. It was probably around 1 p.m. at that point. Maybe that was when all the big throngs were just starting their tour of the house, so they were a couple of hours behind me? Regardless, I am very grateful. I was by myself in that plane. IT WAS SO COOL.

You climb up the steps into the jet. Right there, in the small hallway, is a little closet. You could see Elvis’ clothes hanging in there, the loud silk shirts he loved in the 70s, and on a little shelf above a pair of giant – GIANT – Converse hi-top sneakers. I believe I have made it clear my love of seeing the clothes. Elvis wasn’t a casual guy, he always dressed up, and it’s rare to see him in those hi-tops (I love when he plays touch football in Change of Habit and he’s wearing a sweatshirt, jeans, and hi-tops. It’s a good look for him.) Opposite the hallway is the tiny bathroom. You couldn’t go into it, but you could see the sink with the gleaming brass fittings and the little red and blue hand towels, obviously hand-picked by Elvis. He was all about colors. He was obsessed with colors. This also had to do with his whole New Age discovery trip that he was on for almost 20 years. Certain colors evoked certain moods, and had certain correspondences to certain spiritual hoo-hah, I don’t even understand it, but Elvis was really into it.

I walked forward into the main sitting room. The plane’s decorating scheme was mostly green, dark greens and sea-greens, and the entire thing ends up having an almost underwater feel. It’s peaceful. Elvis hated flying. He had a terrifying experience in a plane in 1956 when it ran out of gas in the air and they had to make an emergency landing. He promised his mother he wouldn’t fly after that, and, except in emergencies, he kept his word. Until the 70s, when it just became more practical to get over his fear of flying and buy a damn jet. But the interior of the plane is extremely peaceful, nothing too bright, everything green and dark. Designed for relaxation and peace.

The sitting room had a green couch all along one wall (all of the furniture was shrink-wrapped). There were a couple of first-class seats on the other side, big and plush and dark blue-green. There was a television at one end of the room. (Every room had a television, what a shock).

Looking back up at the cockpit

You can see how alone I was. There was one other guy on the plane and he was two rooms ahead of me, and then there was one other person who came up the stairs just as I moved on to the next room, so he was one room behind me. Thank you, Jesus.

Then I moved on into the conference room. It had a long gleaming table, with a bouquet of flowers in the middle (everything color-coordinated. Elvis, you dork.)

Leather chairs were placed around the table. At one end of the room (with a television, of course), was a console area, with a giant dark green swivel chair (Elvis’ favorite chair on the plane). He could sit there and control everything on the plane: music, lights, TV stations.

Then I moved back into Elvis’ sanctuary. There was a queen-size bed (with a seatbelt on it, gleaming gold from beneath the shrink-wrapped pillows: the FAA requires seatbelts on beds in airplanes), with a seafoam-green (almost blue) covering. It took up almost the entire room. The room was dark and cozy. A television was on the wall opposite the bed, and underneath that was a huge storage area where Elvis would stash the veritable library of books he always traveled with.

The upstairs of Graceland is closed off. It is where Elvis died. Not allowing us to see it is a brilliant PR move, I have to say.

The Colonel always managed Elvis by holding him back, by withholding product to up its value. This worked for almost the entirety of Elvis’ career (although things were shifting at the end, and would have gotten even more interesting had Elvis lived). So I like that something is still “held back” at Graceland. I know it’s also a personal issue for Priscilla and Lisa (Lisa, who was there when her father died). But in a PR sense, it’s brilliant. We still don’t get to have all of him. And so that makes us want him even more.

My friend Allison, who worked for TV Guide, told me a hilarious story about her official trip to Graceland with a TV Guide team. They were given a private tour. They saw things nobody on the regular tours saw: private papers and photo albums. They all had to wear special gloves when handling this stuff. Allison was so curious about the closed-off upstairs and kept standing at the bottom of the stairs, staring up. The two tour guides were like, “Allison. Don’t do it. Seriously. Don’t do it.” hahaha They could sense that she wanted to burst over the railing and race upstairs. She kept wandering off from the official tour, and the guides would be like, “Oh shit – where’s Allison? ALLISON??” Meanwhile, she was in another room staring at everything like a maniac. She actually DIDN’T run upstairs but the guides seemed to fear she would throughout the tour. So then when she got home to New York, she went onto Google and found a picture of Elvis’ bedroom upstairs at Graceland. (There actually isn’t a lot out there, but leave it to Allison to find a good shot). In the photo was one of Elvis’ girlfriends, smiling at the camera, with the room clearly visible in the background. So mischievous Allison went to work, and Photoshopped herself into the picture, removing Elvis’ girlfriend, so it looked like Allison was seated in Elvis’ bedroom, smiling at the camera. She then sent it to the Graceland tour guides, saying, “Thank you so much for the great tour! I had a great time!” She told me this story and I was in tears of laughter. She said the two guides were emailing her back like, “You are so insane and that is the funniest thing I have ever seen.”

I had no idea that I actually wanted to see where Elvis slept. That’s not the kind of thing that normally matters to me. I’m all about the clothes and the books. But suddenly, looking down at that bed, I did have a moment. “Holy shit. He slept here.”

I don’t have any more to say than that. “Holy shit. He slept here” pretty much covers it.

At the back of the plane, sort of attached to Elvis’ bedroom, is a makeup mirror that looks like something out of All That Jazz. He could get ready in peace. It was kind of beautiful. The back exit to the plane was right there, but this area was its own little haven.

There’s another bathroom back there, and I believe it has a shower. We couldn’t go in it. But you could peek through the glass. The colors back there were warmer, golds and browns. I wonder about Elvis’ philosophy with that. It was where he showered, got his hair done, whatever else he did to get ready for a show. The feeling I got from peeking through the glass was that it was a warm enveloping space. There were two plush stools back there. One for Elvis and one for the hairdresser?

Then it was time to leave and go check out the Hound Dog which was right off to the side.

You got to that plane by walking up a wooden walkway and only one person was allowed in the plane at one time. I was the only one there so I didn’t feel rushed or nervous about the people behind me.

Hound Dog is small, with a rounded snout, and about 8 seats. You can’t go into the body of the plane. You stand in the entranceway and stare at it through glass. The cockpit is right behind you. I loved looking at the cockpit. The chairs in the Hound Dog are all crazy bright, in direct contrast to the underwater greens of the Lisa Marie. Bright yellows and greens. Chairs face each other over little tables, and then there are some which are stand-alones.

The cockpit

I left the Hound Dog and then it was time to go off and find the Car Museum. It was back beyond the ticket pavilion, still on the main road, so I walked back there, stopping on occasion to look at the Elvis graffiti that covered every surface, every telephone pole, fence post, fire hydrant. Messages to Elvis everywhere. It was a grey day. Graceland was bustling, the vans going across the street, but I was alone walking on Elvis Presley Boulevard to get to the car museum.

The museum is its own separate building. It feels gigantic inside. It’s dark with special lights highlighting different cars. You walk a winding path through all of the cars. There are little signs that explain the significance of each car, its history. I should have taken notes. I tried to remember as much as I could. Some of these cars are already famous to me, and I knew them on sight. “Oh, that’s the Stutz Blackhawk!” “Oh! That’s Gladys’ pink Cadillac!” “Hey, there’s the purple Cadillac.” Others were new to me. They also had all of Elvis’ toys: the motor bikes, and the motorized golf carts, and the little go-carts, and all of the things Elvis loved. Anything with a motor, boy wanted to own it.

In the center of the museum is a wide-open space where a documentary about Elvis and his cars is playing on a loop. Tons of clips from the movies. And a soundtrack of a remix of “Blue Suede Shoes” that was so awesome (I’m not usually a fan of re-mixes) that I actually tried to find out what it was when I got back home. It was nearly impossible not to dance to it. People sat in chairs in that big space staring up at the screen. Behind them, was a neon sign saying HWY 51 DRIVEIN – and beneath it was Elvis’ famous purple Cadillac Eldorado. (It had been white when he bought it. He decided to paint it purple, and have a white leather interior. He was 21 when he got that car. He was the kind of person who would buy a white car and have it painted dark purple.)

The cars were so beautiful, silent and gleaming. Intimidating and aggressive. They say WEALTH WEALTH WEALTH and they also say SEX SEX SEX (as I mentioned when I saw Isaac Hayes’ Cadillac at Stax). I looked at that purple Cadillac and all I could see was the amount of petting that had gone on in that car. You still can feel it. 1950s teenage sex is the aura that car emanates. Elvis had joked to June Juanico, his girlfriend in 1956, that some of his boys referred to Elvis’ cars as “the cherry busters”. When the whole TCB thing started in the 70s, June Juanico heard about it in the news, and knew there was a double meaning to that acronym. Elvis loved puns and double meanings. It made her smile. Lots of sexual negotiation went on in that car. I mean, can’t you feel it?

Even with the crappy iPhone pictures – it was dark in there – you can get a feel for the magnificence of that car

Speaking of that car, he bought it in the summer of 1956. He had had it ordered special from a dealer in Houston. He paid $10,000 for it. He was dating June Juanico, and hanging out with her in Memphis when he got word that the car was ready. He had been driving her crazy with standing right by the phone waiting for the call. He couldn’t wait. He had to fly to Houston IMMEDIATELY to pick up the car. He convinced June’s mother to allow June to accompany him on the overnight journey. They had only been dating for a week or so, maybe two. He assured Mrs. Juanico that June would be safe with him. They would get separate hotel rooms. Amazingly, Mrs. Juanico said Yes. It was June’s first time on an airplane. She had nervously packed babydoll pajamas. They flew to Houston and went and picked up the car.

Elvis took this pic of June, standing by his newly purchased baby

It was a gleaming beautiful machine. It was white. Elvis apparently was eating purple grapes at the visit to the customizer for the car, and he squashed some of the grapes, rubbed it on the hood, and said, “Can you paint it that color?” They drove the car to the hotel, where they checked into separate rooms, but then of course slept in the same room. June debuted her baby doll pajamas. Elvis whistled and made her walk to the dresser to get his watch so he could see her from behind. Despite the honeymoon-vibe of the whole thing, no cherry-busting went on that night (and, as June informed Elvis, she wasn’t merely a cherry, she was “the whole damn pie”). They slept curled up in each others’ arms, and on occasion Elvis would wake up, get out of bed, and go to the window to stare down at the beautiful car parked on the curb. (He could still do so at this time in his life. Two months later it would be impossible. Fans ruined his cars wherever he went.) Elvis would wake June up, saying to her, “Baby, come look at the car. Just come look at it.”

He sold it in 1957. But there are a lot of great stories associated with that car.

The car museum was so awesome I wanted to hide in a bathroom so that I could sleep over amongst those beautiful machines.

Elvis famously bought his mother a Cadillac in 1955. She couldn’t even drive. It was blue but Elvis had a friend come up with a special pink color (named “Elvis Rose” – again, with the branding) and painted the whole thing pink. Gladys rarely drove it. Elvis and his band used it for the majority of 1955, traveling around to shows. Picture the excitement in those little towns when that pink Cadillac came swooping in. Elvis was as flashy as possible, as attention-getting as possible. It is the only car he never sold. It stayed out in the carport at Graceland for 20 years, and it was kept in mint condition.

Elvis had a fleet of Stutz Blackhawks and these cars were out of this world. In 1970, Elvis was presented with a Stutz Blackhawk in Vegas, as a gift for opening at the International Hotel. It was the first Stutz Blackhawk in the United States.

Here’s another one.

And here’s one of the famous golf carts which he used to take careening through the grounds of Graceland at all hours of the night.

Even his John Deere tractor was there.

I could have stayed there for hours. I think I was in there for an hour, at least. It’s a great space. The darkness, the Blue Suede shoes remix, the displays – all designed to showcase Elvis’ crazy fleet of cars through the years. Yet another piece of the puzzle. You can’t talk about Elvis without talking about cars.

He was an American boy.

When he played his first show at the Overton Park Shell in 1954, he was driving a second-hand car. His parents had to come to the show in a relative’s car.

The first thing Elvis bought when he had the cash was an automobile.

His first car burned up on the highway in 1955. Elvis and the boys had to drag the instruments off the top to save them from burning up and then had to wire for help to get out of there. I think they were in Texas. Elvis was so sad. His first car! How could it burn up? He bought another one. Of course. But years later he was still talking about that damn car that had the gall to burst into flames on the highway. Cars were not just cars to Elvis, although they always had their practical uses. They were status symbols and beautiful objects. He loved beautiful objects. He loved owning beautiful objects. But, equally, he loved giving objects away. Maybe he just liked the purchasing part of it best. Once he had the objects, whatever, he would give them away. There is the famous story of him overhearing a black woman admiring a Cadillac through a store window in Memphis. The next day she came home and found that very car sitting in her driveway. Elvis had had it delivered.

There are many more stories like that. He certainly kept the car dealers in Memphis and elsewhere busy. He was their primary client. Who else puts in an order for 10 Cadillacs at one given moment in time? He gave away Cadillacs at the drop of a hat.

Here is a funny story which I will close with.

A good friend of mine came up in show business with Jerry Seinfeld. They both were Long Island boys, they ran with the same crowd, and they both were starting out doing standup at the same time. Jerry, of course, passed my friend (who is still an actor), and they have remained friends, although Jerry’s fame makes it difficult to have a normal life. When Jerry first got his show on NBC, he took out all his old buddies for a lavish dinner. It was about 20 or 30 people. All of Jerry’s good friends, his co-conspirators in the early days. Jerry paid for the whole dinner, which had to come to thousands and thousands of dollars.

One of the guys at the table joked, “You know, this is all nice and everything, and it’s nice of Jerry to pick up the tab, but if he were Elvis Presley, we’d all have brand-new Cadillacs right now.”