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 Facts about Elvis Presley we bet you did not know

Sixty years ago this week, on July 5, 1954, music history was made when an unknown, 19-year-old named Elvis Presley recorded “That’s All Right (Mama),” the first commercial single of his career and the song that set him on a path to superstardom. Produced at Memphis-based Sun Studio, “That’s All Right,” written by Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup, officially was released on July 19 and quickly became a regional hit. By the following year, the future King of Rock ‘n’ Roll was garnering national attention, and in January 1956, he recorded “Heartbreak Hotel,” his first song to top Billboard’s pop singles chart. Learn more about the man who, before his death in 1977, racked up over a dozen No.1 singles, starred in 31 movies and reigned as one of the most iconic entertainers of the 20th century.

Elvis had a twin.

On January 8, 1935, Elvis Aron (later spelled Aaron) Presley was born at his parents’ two-room house in East Tupelo, Mississippi, about 35 minutes after his identical twin brother, Jesse Garon, who was stillborn. The next day, Jesse was buried in an unmarked grave in nearby Priceville Cemetery.

 

Elvis Presley, who spoke of his twin throughout his life, grew up an only child in a poor family. His father, Vernon, worked a series of odd jobs, and in 1938 was sentenced to three years in prison for forging a $4 check (he spent less than a year behind bars). In 1948, the Presleys moved from Tupelo to Memphis in search of better opportunities. There, Elvis attended Humes High School, where he failed a music class and was considered quiet and an outsider. He graduated in 1953, becoming the first member of his immediate family to earn a high school diploma. After graduation, he worked at a machinist shop and drove a truck before launching his music career with the July 1954 recording of “That’s All Right.”

 

Elvis bought Graceland when he was 22.

In 1957, Elvis shelled out $102,500 for Graceland, the Memphis mansion that served as his home base for two decades. Situated on nearly 14 acres, it was built in 1939 by Dr. Thomas Moore and his wife Ruth on land that once was part of a 500-acre farm dubbed Graceland in honor of the original owner’s daughter, Grace, who was Ruth Moore’s great-aunt. The Moores’ white-columned home also came to be known as Graceland, and when Elvis purchased the place he kept the name.

The entertainer made a number of updates to the property over the years, including the addition of music-themed iron entrance gates, a “jungle room” with an indoor waterfall and a racquetball building. After finding out President Lyndon Johnson enjoyed watching all three network news programs simultaneously, Elvis was inspired to have a wall of built-in TVs installed in his home. In 1982, five years after Elvis was found dead in a bathroom at Graceland, his ex-wife Priscilla Presley opened the estate to the public for tours. Some 600,000 fans now flock there each year. Elvis’ only child, Lisa Marie Presley, inherited Graceland when she turned 25 in 1993 and continues to operate it today.

Elvis’ controversial manager, Colonel Tom Parker, was a former carnival barker.

Born Andreas Cornelis van Kuijk in the Netherlands in 1909, Elvis’s future manager immigrated illegally to America as a young man, where he reinvented himself as Tom Parker and claimed to be from West Virginia (his true origins weren’t known publicly until the 1980s). He worked as a pitchman for traveling carnivals, followed by stints as dog catcher and pet cemetery founder, among other occupations, then managed the careers of several country music singers. In 1948, Parker finagled the honorary title of colonel from the governor of Louisiana and henceforth insisted on being referred to as the Colonel.

After learning about the up-and-coming Elvis in 1955, Parker negotiated the sale of the singer’s contract with tiny Sun Records to RCA, a major label, and officially took over as his manager in 1956. Under the Colonel’s guidance, Elvis shot to stardom: His first single for RCA, “Heartbreak Hotel,” released in 1956, became the first of his career to sell more than 1 million copies; his debut album, “Elvis Presley,” topped Billboard’s pop album chart; and he made his big-screen debut in 1956’s “Love Me Tender.”

The portly, cigar-chomping Parker controlled Elvis’ career for the next two decades, helping him achieve enormous success while at the same time taking commissions of as much as 50 percent of the entertainer’s earnings and drawing criticism from observers that he was holding Elvis back creatively. Parker outlived his protégé by 20 years, dying in 1997 at age 87 in Las Vegas.

Elvis served in the Army after he was already famous.

In December 1957, Elvis, by then a major star, was drafted into the U.S. military. After receiving a short deferment so he could wrap up production on his film “King Creole,” the 23-year-old was inducted into the Army as a private on March 24, 1958, amidst major media coverage. Assigned to the Second Armored Division, he attended basic training at Fort Hood, Texas. That August, while still at Fort Hood, he was granted emergency leave to visit his beloved mother, who was in poor health. Gladys Presley passed away at age 46 on August 16, 1958. The following month, Elvis shipped out for an assignment with the Third Armored Division in Friedberg, West Germany, where he served as a jeep driver and continued to receive stacks of fan mail.

While in Germany, he lived off base with his father and grandmother Minnie Mae Presley. It was also during this time that Elvis met 14-year-old Priscilla Beaulieu, the daughter of a U.S. Air Force captain. (After a lengthy courtship, Elvis and Priscilla married in 1967; the couple divorced in 1973.) Elvis was honorably discharged from active duty in March 1960, having achieved the rank of sergeant. His first post-Army movie, “G.I. Blues,” was released that November of that same year. The film’s soundtrack spent 10 weeks at the top of the Billboard album music chart and remained on the chart for a total of 111 weeks, the longest of any album in Elvis’ career.

Elvis never performed outside of North America.

An estimated 40 percent of Elvis’ music sales have been outside the United States; however, with the exception a handful of concerts he gave in Canada in 1957, he never performed on foreign soil. A number of sources have suggested that Elvis’ manager, Colonel Parker, turned down lucrative offers for the singer to perform abroad because Parker was an illegal immigrant and feared he wouldn’t be allowed back into the U.S. if he traveled overseas.