Baby, Let's Play House_ Elvis Presley and the Women Who Loved Him - Alanna Nash [241]
As an example, Elvis took time to share with her what was on his mind. He told her about his brother and said he was reading a lot of books about the metaphysical, and he asked if she ever wondered about the things that happened in her life.
“I said, ‘All the time.’ And he said, ‘I do, too, especially about why I lived and Jessie Garon didn’t.’ I think he was looking for answers. He knew there should be answers, but he wasn’t sure how to find them.”
Their conversation got back to Colonel Parker, who wasn’t pleased to hear about it, fearing Elvis’s constant talk about spiritual searching might make him seem unstable in the view of the studio heads. Parker, Priscilla, and most of the entourage also took a dim view of Elvis’s new course of thought. And though Elvis was the one who had reached out to Larry Geller and invited him into the group, they viewed Elvis’s new guru with jealousy and suspicion, if not derision. (Lamar called him “the swami.”)
From one chance meeting, they thought, Larry had upended almost everything about Elvis’s life. The nightly parties continued, but now Elvis was spouting philosophy and religion, not playing pool. Instead of seeing Larry as a positive force who brought depth and challenge to a man desperately in need of change, nearly everyone in the group regarded Larry as a disruptive interloper who threatened the status quo.
“Elvis was very much into all this unknown stuff, and Larry came along at the right time,” offers Joe Esposito. “I wasn’t into it that much, so whenever those conversations started taking place, I would disappear. I just didn’t trust Larry too much. I thought Larry was out for Larry and that was it.”
Larry was acutely aware of what they thought. One day the Colonel said, “You missed your calling, Larry.” It was a sly remark, a put-down from the old carny. “I knew that he was speaking metaphorically, that he thought I was a magician, that I had power and that I was hypnotizing Elvis. And yes, it was true on one level. But it had nothing to do with putting someone in a trance or playing with his subconscious mind. My whole motive with Elvis was to be as truthful as I knew how. All I wanted was for Elvis to be his own man. What does that mean? That means opening your eyes. It means waking up—not being hypnotized by influences and suggestions.”
At first several of the guys considered Elvis’s metaphysical studies his latest obsession, a mood regulator like his interest in slot cars that would come along at the end of 1965. But in short order the group accused Larry of “messing up Elvis’s head with all that nonsense,” as one of them puts it. Joe realized that it didn’t just fill a void in his life: “He got so wrapped up in it that he started forgetting about his work and his music. All he talked about was this religious stuff.”
The Colonel, who was negotiating with MGM for the benchmark figure of $1,000,000 for Elvis’s next picture, Harum Scarum, had a heated discussion with Elvis about it at the studio that August, accusing him of going on a “religious kick.” Elvis was furious. “That motherfucker, man,” he told Larry. “My life is not a ‘religious kick.’ I’ll show that fat bastard what a kick is.’ ”
Elvis fumed for days and made plans to fly Larry and his wife, Stevie, and their children to Graceland later that month. On the way home, during a stopover in Amarillo, Texas, Elvis was still so testy that he blew up with Joe over a minor matter and fired him. Marty would now be the foreman of the Memphis Mafia.
He stayed home until October, lying around much of the time, depressed, listless, not feeling well. Late in the fall, he took the caravan back to Hollywood for Allied Artists’ Tickle Me, with Norman Taurog again in the director