This article was originally published on AtlanticMirror
Any fan of Elvis knows he was incredibly close to his mom, Gladys. Over the years, though, a narrative has formed about her being too overprotective of her son. But while there is evidence to suggest that this may have been at least partially true, she also had a different side to her personality. And this wild, free-spirited Gladys is a far cry from the image that many people have of The King’s mother.
Elvis’ best girl
Elvis and Gladys were so close that the iconic star often referred to her as his “best girl.” In fact, the first piece of music Elvis ever recorded at just 18 years old was a song called “My Happiness,” and it was reportedly a gift for his beloved mom. Gladys had always believed that her son was special, and she fiercely supported his musical efforts. So it's maybe no surprise that Elvis may have dedicated his first recorded track to her.
The young Elvis apparently paid just $4 to take home a copy of his first record, which he was planning to give to his mom. However, as the story goes, Gladys never received it because Elvis accidentally left it at a friend's house.
Mama’s boy
Nevertheless, Gladys and Elvis’ bond was intense for mother and son — so intense, in fact, that Elvis gained a reputation as a “mama’s boy” at school. Gladys apparently walked her son to school every day until he was well into his teens. And when Elvis was a baby, to keep him close, Gladys would reportedly pull him along in a bag next to her while she worked in the cotton fields.
Elvis reportedly even once said in an interview, "My mama never let me out of her sight. I couldn't go down to the creek with the other kids."
A psychic connection?
As Elvis got older, their connection somehow became intrinsic — almost as if they were psychically connected. For instance, it’s believed that Gladys woke in a panic one night and told her husband, Vernon, “I see our boy — he’s in a blazing car!” The story goes that Elvis called the next day to tell his parents that his Cadillac rental car had caught on fire, and he’d been lucky to escape unharmed.
It was a sign of what to come; Gladys would eventually find Elvis’ meteroic rise to fame difficult to handle. She once told a friend, “I wish we was poor again, I really do.”
Struggles with fame
Sadly, Gladys doted on her son so intensely that she wound up struggling to come to grips with his career. At an early show in a high school, when the crowd mobbed the stage in an attempt to get to Elvis, Gladys reportedly waded in and pushed many of the young girls away. In a panic, she yelled, “Why you trying to kill my boy?”
Though seemingly overbearing from an outside perspective, Elvis’s childhood and Gladys’ own past experiences may explain some of her protective behavior. Elvis’ mother did not lead an easy life.
Humble beginnings
In fact, Elvis’ fame and fortune was poles apart from how Gladys had lived. Growing up in a poor household in Mississippi, she was the daughter of a cotton farmer. In her early twenties, she met and married Vernon, and they had to borrow money from the owner of the dairy farm where he was working. He used it to build his family a house.
With the help of his brother, Vester, and their father, Jessie, the house was ready by December 1934. It had no indoor plumbing, and they couldn’t even afford to turn the electricity on.
Jesse and Elvis are born
On January 8, 1935, Gladys gave birth to twin boys. Tragically, the first twin — named Jesse — was stillborn, and after Elvis was delivered, both the baby and Gladys had to be rushed to hospital. She nearly died during childbirth, and people close to the family said that she was markedly different when she and her miracle baby returned from the hospital. The experience would have a huge impact on Elvis’ life.
Considering the way in which Elvis entered the world, it becomes easy to see why his bond with his mother was so intense. Perhaps she was always afraid of losing him.
My mama never let me out of her sight
From then on, Gladys would be fiercely overprotective of Elvis in many aspects of their lives. In the biography Last Train to Memphis, Vernon said, “He never spent a night away from home until he was 17. The three of us formed our own private world.” Elvis himself once told an interviewer, “Sometimes when I was little, I used to run off. Mama would whip me, and I thought she didn't love me."
And from the very start, the presence of his twin was always there. Gladys allegedly believed that “when one twin died, the one that lived got all the strength of both.”
A troubled family history
To Gladys, too much bad luck had befallen her family over the years. When she was 18, her father was struck dead by pneumonia. When she was 23 — barely months after Elvis was born — her mother passed away from tuberculosis. On top of that, many of Gladys’ brothers and sisters suffered from physical and mental disabilities. She was therefore terrified of anything happening to Elvis. She also couldn't have any more children.
It's perhaps no surprise, then, that Gladys kept Elvis so close as a child, and the bond between the two of them only got stronger and stronger as the years went on.
Vernon makes a bad call
Then, in November 1937, an event would blow up the family's world — and only bring Elvis and his mother even closer together. Vernon, Gladys’ brother Travis, and a friend named Lether Gable were all charged with "uttering a forged instrument." They had altered a $4 check that Vernon had received after selling a hog to his boss to reflect a higher amount. And they were caught.
The men were sentenced to three years at the Mississippi State Penitentiary, beginning May 25, 1938. And it would have a huge impact on Gladys and her only son.
Vernon goes to jail
Suddenly, Gladys was left with no husband, no means of making a living, and a young child to raise. Plus, Elvis lost his father. As Elaine Dundy wrote in Elvis and Gladys, “These are hard times for mother and son.” Gladys and Elvis even lost their house and were forced to move out. If anything, though, this period simply strengthened their bond— and in some unusual ways that have been a source of fascination for many people over the years.
Apparently, Elvis and his mother developed pet names for each other and even spoke to each other using baby talk. "She worshipped him," a neighbor once said. "From the day he was born."
“There, there my little baby”
Amazingly, Elaine Dundy claimed to United Press International in 1985 that the first thing Elvis did when he found out that his father was going to prison was to pat his mom on the back and say, “There, there my little baby.” Keep in mind that at this point, he wouldn’t yet have been three years old. True or not, the claim certainly adds to the intrigue surrounding their unusual relationship.
Dundy elaborated, “Those are the words of a father protecting his baby, not the words of a son. This is a funny reversal of a role. That was the key. If they were to get anywhere in life, he was the one who had to do it.” The implication is that, even as a toddler, it’s believed that Gladys and Elvis already knew he was going to be the man of the house.
The Presleys Lose Their Home
Dundy continued, “At some point during Vernon’s prison sentence, Gladys moved out and stayed with her first cousin Frank Richards. Whatever the reason, the Presleys never return to the house Vernon built; stories differ as to the reason and how the house left their ownership.” The entire turbulent period seemingly added to Gladys’ fear that the people she loved could be ripped away from her at any moment.
Vernon would ultimately only be in prison for eight months, but the period clearly had a huge effect on Gladys and Elvis and their relationship. A lot changed during this time.
More and More Protective
During this time, Gladys seemingly became more protective of Elvis. According to a family member, "she didn't want him out of her sight. She had always been lively, but after [Vernon] went to prison she was awful nervous." It seems this period was tinged with deep sadness for Gladys and her only son. Elvis himself reportedly once recalled feeling extremely upset during the time that his father was incarcertaed.
Apparently, the young Elvis used to sit out on the porch of their house "crying his eyes out because daddy was away."
An Uncommon Bond Gets Even More Intense
By the time Vernon got out of prison on February 6, 1939, he returned to a wife and son whose increased closeness even took him by surprise. Allegedly, mother and son would sleep together in the same bed until Elvis was 13, and they continued to talk to each other in a baby language that only they understood. And the whole time, Gladys would impress upon her son that it was his destiny to do big things.
When once later asked about his father, Elvis said, "My daddy may seem hard, but you don't know what he's been through." Clearly, Vernon's prison sentence was a large moment in Elvis' life.
A Relationship of Twinship
And still, the shadow of Elvis’ twin loomed large in the family's lives. Elaine Dundy told UPI that she believed the fact that Elvis was Gladys’ only surviving twin immediately made their bond stronger than the average mother-child relationship. She revealed, “There were twins in every branch of the family on both sides. You could say a relationship of twinship developed between them — beyond the mother and son.”
For Elvis, meanwhile, it seems that the loss of his twin created in him a huge sense of responsibility. Just as his mother was protective over him, he seemingly felt the need to take care of her, too.
Elvis Promises the High Life
It’s believed that Elvis once told his mother, “Don’t worry, Mama. When I grow up, I’m going to buy you a fine house and pay everything you owe at the grocery store, and buy two Cadillacs, one for you and Daddy and one for me.” Of course, Elvis would go on to do all that and far more over the years, but it didn’t always have the desired effect on Gladys.
Elaine Dundy explained, "[Gladys] wanted to make sure he didn’t play hooky, and she was determined that he would be as little like Vernon as possible.”
Gladys Struggles to Handle Elvis’ Fame
As Elvis’ music career progressed over the years, he became more famous than anyone could have imagined. This included Gladys, who had always wanted her son to be a success, but she couldn't have foreseen him becoming quite that big. And sadly, it didn't always have a positive impact on her. In fact, her friend Lillian reportedly once said, “After Elvis became famous, Gladys was never happy another day. She never had peace no more.”
There's not doubt that Gladys was proud of her son, but his enormous level of fame was shocking for her. Her entire life was changed, and it was so far from anything she had ever known.
Relentless Worrying
To Gladys, it must have seemed like her son now belonged to the world, when she had wanted to keep him for herself. Gladys would reportedly worry herself silly while Elvis was touring — which was of course becoming more and more frequent — even going so far as to ban him from flying to his concerts for fear of him ending up in a plane crash. So, he agreed to travel to all of his gigs by car instead.
But Gladys still worried for her son. She feared that Elvis would die in a car wreck, and she told him, “If you don’t slow down, you won’t live to 30!”
A Different Portrait of Gladys
Given the portrait painted of Gladys so far as a worrysome, overprotective, and sad mother, it may surprise some fans to learn that she was once a very different woman. In fact, in Elvis and Gladys, Elaine Dundy paints a wildly different picture. She wrote, “Impetuosity and impulsiveness played a large part in Gladys’ make-up. She knew nothing of half measures, nor was there anything half-hearted or self-protective about her.”
Dundy also said, “I think [Elvis] was very like Gladys while she was a young girl. She had rhythm. She was a great beauty. She did a wild Charleston to Jimmie Rodgers records.”
Gladys and Elvis as Peas in a Pod
Elvis’ friend and employee Lamar Fike also thought that Gladys was more similar to his son that many people may have thought. "Bascially, Elvis's personality was that of Gladys's," he once wrote. "There wasn't a dime's worth of difference between them." Interestingly, Elvis allegedly also beleived that wife Priscilla, shared similarities with Gladys. And Priscilla, for her part, famously thought that Elvis’s mother was the true “love of his life.”
“Priscilla may have captured Elvis’s heart (at least for a period),” author Eric Wolfson wrote in his book From Elvis in Memphis, “but when it came to Gladys, she never had a chance.”
The Wild Side
Perhaps the best example of Gladys’ early wild side is how she approached her wedding in 1933. Vernon was still legally underage — 17 to her 21 — when they wanted to get married, so they had to come up with a plan. The couple wound up eloping to tie the knot in the neighboring county of Pontotoc, where nobody knew who they were. Vernon said he was 22, and Gladys said she was 19!
As an interesting side note, Gladys initially dated Vernon’s brother, Vester, who was closer to her age. And at the same time, Vernon dated Clettes, Gladys’ sister! Eventually the two couples realized that they were with the wrong siblings and swapped, with Vester and Clettes going on to marry as well. Their families were well and truly intertwined.
Only Room for One Wild Person in the Relationship
Amusingly, Vester once said in an interview, “Yeah, I dated Gladys a few times and Vernon dated Clettes. Gladys didn’t like my attitude. Like I always said, I was pretty wild in those days.” He added, “So, Vernon started dating Gladys and soon there was only one object of his affection.” Maybe Gladys wanted to be the only wild one in the relationship!
Either way, things worked out as they were meant to, it seems. But Gladys' wilder side didn't last too long into her relationship with Vernon.
A Buck Dancing Party Girl
Indeed, before settling down with Vernon, Gladys was reportedly a fun-loving party animal who particularly loved buck dancing. But, after a year of marriage, the young woman found out that she was pregnant, and by her fifth month, she was positive that twins were on the way. Twins ran in the family, apparently. At this point, everything became about family for Gladys, so gone were her wild days.
As time went on, Gladys' carefree, wild side was replaced with her overprotectiveness and her worrying about her only son. And things only got worse the more famous Elvis became.
“The Most Miserable Woman in the World”
As Elvis rose to fame, Gladys and Vernon also became famous by proxy of their son. When Elvis moved his family into Graceland — his soon-to-be iconic mansion — cousin Richards said to Gladys, “I guess you must be about the happiest woman in the world!” But, as we now know, that sadly wasn’t how she felt at all. “You got it wrong,” replied Gladys. “I’m the most miserable woman in the world. I’m guarded.”
Now living in a mansion with very wealthy neighbors, Gladys felt out of place. The neighbors would allegedly make fun of Gladys for doing her laundry outside, and she was asked to stop feeding her chickens in the yard.
Sad and Isolated
The family hadn’t been in Graceland long before Elvis began to notice changes in his mother. She was clearly not happy, and she began to drink heavily and take pills. The pill dependency reportedly caused her to rush around the house, frantically cleaning at all times. Gladys told Elvis that the pills were diet pills she was taking to control her weight, but that wasn’t the whole truth.
It’s believed nowadays that the pills were actually amphetamines, and Gladys was taking them in conjunction with Benzedrine — also known as pep pills or speed — to stay awake and alert.
A Dangerous Mix
Added to this mix was vodka, and it soon became obvious that Gladys was an alcoholic. Though Elvis tried to ignore the heavy drinking, he could see that his mother wasn’t in a good way. She was taking amphetamines to sleep, speed to wake up, and alcohol to cope with everything. She was clearly on a downwards spiral, and she needed help — or it would not end well.
Elvis would try to make his mother feel better by giving her extravagant gifts, but it didn't help. "Mama, what do you want?" he would reportedly say. "For you to stay home, baby!" Gladys would reply.
“She Had a Morbid Streak in Her”
“[Gladys] was isolated," Elaine Dundy explained. "This house, Graceland, which was supposed to be her monument became her mausoleum. She could not do her grocery shopping. She wasn’t allowed to feed her chickens because of the image. She could see very few people. That made her morbid, and she had a morbid streak in her anyway.” So Gladys felt trapped, sad, and alone. And news from her son was about to make things worse.
Elvis received his draft notice into the U.S. Army in March 1958, much to Gladys' dismay. It was one of her worst fears. How would she be able to keep her son safe?
Elvis Joins the U. S. Army
Gladys pleaded with Elvis not to agree to join the army. Other celebrities had pulled strings not to serve. But Elvis believed it was his patriotic duty, and his manager thought that it would do wonders for his career. The Colonel thought Elvis' fans would love him in uniform, and besides, it wouldn't look good if he tried to dodge the draft. So, Elvis enlisted, and he left for basic training in Arkansas.
Elvis was soon able to live with his family while in the army, but unfortunately this didn’t seem to allay any of Gladys’ fears.
Gladys Passes Away
Around the same time Elvis went overseas for active duty, Gladys fell seriously ill. She collapsed on August 8, 1958, and the next day she was rushed to the hospital. It was discovered that she had cirrhosis of the liver. Her condition worsened very quickly, and Elvis managed to secure emergency leave to go and see her. She died on August 14. To say Elvis was devastated would be a gross understatement.
Elvis once said of his mother's death, “I lost the only person I ever loved.” And many people who knew him said that The King was never the same after his beloved mother died.
"Please Don’t Take My Baby Away"
In his book Fortunate Son: The Life of Elvis Presley, Charles L. Ponce de Leon wrote that Elvis was so distraught at his mother's funeral that he threw himself on Gladys’ coffin and wailed, “Please don’t take my baby away! She’s not dead. She’s just sleeping.” And as the coffin lowered into the ground, he said, “Goodbye, darling. I love you so much. I lived my whole life just for you!”
Elvis was inconsolable. “Goodbye, darling. We loved you,” the singer said at his mother's gravesite. “Oh God, everything I have is gone... I loved you so much.”
A Broken Heart
Allegedly, Elvis spent the last nine days of his leave alone in his room, crying. “It broke my heart,” Elvis once said. “She was always my best girl.” And the King of Rock and Roll would never really recover. Some people believe that Elvis even tried to keep his mother alive in a way through his relationship with his future wife Priscilla, who reminded him a lot of Gladys. Apparently, it didn't always feel healthy.
In her 1985 autobiography, Priscilla revealed that her and Elvis’ sex life had deteriorated once they became parents. And Elvis’ good friend Sonny West believes that The King’s relationship with his mother was to blame, sayiing, “[Gladys] gave him so much love and attention when he was growing up that he came to put all mothers on a special pedestal. The idea of sex with a mother was, to Elvis, out of the question.”
Forest Hill Cemetery
The story of Gladys’ final resting place turned out to be long and winding. When she was originally buried, it was at the Forest Hill Cemetery in Memphis, on top of a hill. An elaborate white marble monument depicting a cross with Jesus Christ and two cherub angels marked her grave, along with a simple marker saying “Presley.” The marker was adorned so simply because Gladys’ burial site was intended to eventually be the family plot. But in 1964 Elvis decided to change the tombstone to something more personally representative of his beloved mother.
This new tombstone included her full name “Gladys Love Presley” — yes, her middle name was actually “Love” — as well as the heartfelt message, “Sunshine Of Our Home.”
The Move to Graceland’s Meditation Garden
When Elvis passed in 1977 he was buried in a mausoleum at Forest Hill Cemetery, and his mother’s remains were moved there to be with him. But then the police got wind that grave robbers were intending to steal the King’s remains, so Vernon had his son’s and wife’s bodies moved to the Meditation Garden at Graceland. And this is where they remain today. Interestingly, Vernon chose not to display Gladys’ “Sunshine Of Our Home” gravestone in this new spot.
No one really knows why, but perhaps it had something to do with the fact it featured a Christian cross and a Star of David. Elvis, who held tremendous interest in faith of all kinds, had wanted this added as a nod to Gladys’ Jewish heritage.
Sunshine Of Our Home is added to Graceland
Incredibly, it took until 2018 for the gravestone to be brought out of storage and added to Gladys’ resting place in the Meditation Garden. It now sits proudly alongside the white marble monument of Jesus and the cross. It’s a fitting resting place for Elvis’ best girl — the woman who loved him so much that it hurt. She was only 46 at the time of her death.
Elvis’ friend Judy Spreckels said of Elvis at the funeral, “I have never seen anyone as sad as Elvis was. He cried continuously. We were in the front hall at Graceland, and he stood there hugging me for a half-hour… It was the saddest thing I’d ever seen.”
Did Gladys die because of Elvis’ fame?
Indeed, some observers — even those close to the family — even believed that Elvis inadvertently killed his mother. His almost unprecedented fame and fortune was extremely challenging for his mother, and her unhappiness drove her to find solace in drink and drugs. Although it was officially a heart attack that killed Gladys, it was later discovered that liver failure due to alcohol poisoning was one of the contributing factors.
Elaine Dundy told UPI, “All these people in Tupelo said what killed Gladys was of course Elvis. Four years after he became famous, she died.”
“You Worried Your Mama Right Into the Grave”
As unfair as this undoubtedly sounds, Elvis reportedly once heard the accusation from the lips of his very own father. In 1975 both Presley men were recovering in the hospital — Vernon from a heart attack and Elvis from a drug overdose. Elvis’ cousin Billy Smith was in the room, and he later claimed that something shocking transpired between the two men. Their relationship had been shaky for a while — with Elvis perhaps believing his father remarried too quickly after Gladys' death.
According to Smith, an unprompted Vernon told his son, “You worried your mama right into the grave!” Smith claimed, “Elvis broke down and cried. It about killed him.”
In a strange way, even Elvis’s own death showed the strong connection that he always shared with Gladys. He passed away 19 years later almost exactly to the day, on August 16, 1977. And perhaps in one last act as the loyal son, Elvis' death brought his family together. Gladys, Elvis, and Vernon are all laid to rest side by side on the Graceland estate. And now Lisa Marie Presley, Elvis' only child, has been buried there, too.
On an estate as historically significant and beloved as Graceland, it's impossible not to feel the presence of all the Presleys. It will no doubt continue to be a special place.