The down side to being close to Elvis

[MissyM]

Ok, there has been a lot of talk about the advantages of being close to Elvis as friend, employee, family and ect. And some will even say the advantages out-weigh the disadvantages but there were some. Hopefully this won't end up being an arguement about the above.
A conversation I had last week with a family member got me to thinking about this. I asked this person a question about E. and they said they really didn't know. I asked how could you not know. The person said that they quit going to Graceland (about 1968)and seeing much of E. or even telling people about the association. Because once people knew, that's all they wanted to talk about. They had people trying to make friends with them to get a visit to Elvis or even just to see Graceland, get autographs, concert tickes,,,the whole nine. The person realized that many many people just wanted to use him/her. And some people were gossip hounds and since they still guarded Elvis's privacy, were leary of strangers. As a footnote, Elvis understood this perfectly..there were no hard feelings.
So my point is this: I have to consider that there are things that would have been difficult such as this area. Are there other things you can think of?

[The King's Queen]

Hi Missy...good question!

Well, some of these disadvantages would be depending on which side of the ol' gender fence you happened to be on I would think.

For a woman, I would imagine that all of the benefits of being closely connected via her husband would not compensate for the time her man would be spending away from home. And besides, running around with E meant that there would not be a shortage of females in tow! ;) This obviously accounts for the many divorces that the MM members went through I would guess.

From a man's perspective, I will have to guess that always being "second fiddle" to Elvis would surely cause some tension from time to time. Face it, the females were not chasing after them...they wanted ELVIS! And I'm sure that any of those men who may have had a bit of a self-esteem problem most likely found it difficult to follow Elvis around. ;) And even though E gave them a lot in return for their loyalty and time spent with him...there still had to be an almost love-hate relationship between them at times. Maybe not with all, but certainly with some I'm sure.

Jealousy would also be a pitfall, IMO. Being so close to someone who was never short of money, could always buy whatever he wanted, have whatever he wanted, ect., would be trying on someone who lived payday to payday. I'm sure that seeing Elvis enjoy his fame caused moments of resentment for some. Being an insider might not have had all of the advantages that we/some may think it had. :hmm:

[italianfan]

I think the hardest part about bein Elvis' friend would have to be watching his self destructive nature from time to time. Esp. when its at its worst, it would crush me having to stand by and watch.

[Stryx]

Yes....and then he'd fire you if you got too vocal about it.