Elvis’ Mom Had A Wild Side Most Fans Aren’t Even Aware Of

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 18 years old was a song called “My Happiness” and it was a present for his beloved mom. You see, Gladys always believed her son was special, and fiercely supported his musical efforts.

Their bond was so intense that Elvis gained a reputation as a “mama’s boy” at school. For instance, Gladys would walk her son to school every day until he was well into his teens. According to website Neatorama, when he eventually rebelled against this, she simply took it upon herself to secretly shadow him on his way to and from school. She had to make sure he got there and got home safely, after all!

As her son got older, their connection somehow became intrinsic — almost as if they were psychically connected. For instance, it’s believed 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 his Cadillac rental car had caught on fire, and he’d been lucky to escape unharmed. 

Sadly, Gladys doted on her son so intensely that she wound up struggling to come to grips with him becoming famous. 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?”

This fame and fortune was poles apart from how Gladys and Vernon started. In 1934 Vernon borrowed $180 from Orville S. Bean, the owner of a dairy farm at which he was working. He used it to build his family a house and, with the help of his brother Vester and their father Jessie, it was ready by December 1934. It had no indoor plumbing, and they couldn’t afford to turn the electricity on.

On January 8, 1935, Gladys gave birth to twins. 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.

From then on, Gladys would be fiercely overprotective of Elvis in every aspect 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 would also tell an interviewer, “My mama never let me out of her sight.” 

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.

Then in November 1937 Gladys’ family unit was blown apart. You see, Vernon was incensed when he sold a hog to Bean — the man who’d loaned him money to build his house — and only received a $4 check as payment. He believed the hog was worth much more, so — along with Gladys’ brother Travis and a friend named Lether Gable — he forged a higher amount on the check.

They were caught and the men were sentenced to three years at the Mississippi State Penitentiary, beginning May 25, 1938. Suddenly, Gladys was left with no husband, no means of making a living, and a young child to raise. As Elaine Dundy wrote in Elvis and Gladys, “These are hard times for mother and son.” If anything, though, this period simply strengthened their bond.

Amazingly, Dundy claimed to United Press International in 1985 that the first thing Elvis did when he found out his father was going to prison was pat his mom on the back and say, “There, there my little baby.” Keep in mind — at this point, he wouldn’t yet have been three years old. True or not, the claim certainly adds to the myth surrounding their 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 Gladys and Elvis already knew he was going to be the man of the house.

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 simply added to Gladys’ fear that the people she loved could be ripped away from her at any moment.

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. They would sleep together in the same bed until Elvis was 13 and talk to each other in a baby language that only they understood. The whole time, Gladys would impress upon her son that it was his destiny to do big things.

Dundy told UPI she believed the fact that Elvis was Gladys’ only surviving twin immediately made their bond stronger than the average. 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.”

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, he did all that and more over the years, but it didn’t always have the desired effect on Gladys.

As Elvis’ fame ballooned over the years, he became more iconic than anyone could have imagined. This included Gladys, who had always wanted her son to be a success, but didn’t foresee him becoming that big. In fact, her friend Lillian reportedly said, “After Elvis became famous, Gladys was never happy another day. She never had peace no more.” 

To Gladys, it must have seemed like her son now belonged to the world, when she wanted to keep him for herself. As per website The Wrap, she would worry herself silly when he was touring, even going so far as to ban him from flying to his concerts. Then, when he agreed to drive everywhere instead, she told him, “If you don’t slow down, you won’t live to 30!”

Given the portrait painted of Gladys so far, though, it may surprise some fans to learn she was once a very different woman. In fact, in Elvis and Gladys, Dundy 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.”

In fact, Dundy told United Press International in 1985 that she believed Gladys and Elvis had a similar nature. She said, “I think he 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.” Of The King, she added, “you are either a momma’s boy or a daddy’s boy. I think he was a momma’s boy.”

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. They wound up eloping to tie the knot in the neighbouring county of Pontotoc, where nobody knew who they were. Vernon said he was 22, and Gladys 19!

As an interesting side note, Gladys initially dated Vernon’s brother Vester, who was closer to her age. At the same time, Vernon dated Clettes, Gladys’ sister! Eventually the two couples realized 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.

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.” Perhaps Gladys wanted to be the only wild one in the relationship!

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, she found out she was pregnant, and by her fifth month, she was positive twins were on the way. At this point, everything became about her family.

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 touched on earlier, that 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.” The family hadn’t been in Graceland long before Elvis began to notice changes in his mother, including a pill dependency that caused her to rush around the house, frantically cleaning at all times. She told him the pills were to control her weight, but that wasn’t the whole truth.

It’s believed nowadays that the pills were actually amphetamines, and Gladys took them in conjunction with Benzedrine — also known as pep pills or speed — to keep her awake and alert. Added to that mix was vodka, and it soon became obvious that Gladys was an alcoholic. Though Elvis tried to ignore the heavy drinking, he knew his mother wasn’t in a good way.

As Dundy told UPI, “She was isolated. 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.”

Then, when Elvis was drafted into the U.S. Army in March 1958, Gladys pleaded with him not to agree to it. He believed it was his patriotic duty, though, so he enlisted, and wound up going through basic training at Fort Hood in Texas. He was soon able to live with his family while in the army, but unfortunately this didn’t seem to allay any of Gladys’ fears.

On August 8, 1958, Gladys collapsed and the next day she was rushed to the hospital. It was discovered that she had cirrhosis of the liver, and she died on August 14. To say Elvis was devastated would be a gross understatement — he once said, “I lost the only person I ever loved.” Many people who knew him said The King was never the same after his beloved mother died.

In his book Fortunate Son: The Life of Elvis Presley, Charles L. Ponce de Leon wrote that Elvis was so distraught at the 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.” As the coffin lowered into the ground, he said, “Goodbye, darling. I love you so much. I lived my whole life just for you!”

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 the 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.”

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. This is where they remain today.

Interestingly, Vernon chose not to display Gladys’ “Sunshine Of Our Home” gravestone. 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 that added as a nod to Gladys’ Jewish heritage. 

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.

Indeed, some observers — even those close to the family — ultimately believed that Elvis inadvertently killed his mother by achieving fame and fortune on an almost unprecedented scale. As Dundy told UPI, “All these people in Tupelo said what killed Gladys was of course Elvis. Four years after he became famous, she died.” 

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 later claimed something shocking transpired between the two men.

According to Smith, an unprompted Vernon told his son, “You worried your mama right into the grave!” Their relationship had been shaky for a while — with Elvis perhaps believing his father remarried too quickly after Gladys died — but this understandably devastated him. Smith claimed, “Elvis broke down and cried. It about killed him.”