Elvis

by Albert Goldman

Book Overview

Coinciding with the twentieth anniversary of his death, the best-selling author of Elvis and The Lives of John Lennon provides this definitive account of the final hours of Elvis's life. Reissue. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0070236577
• ISBN13: 9780070236578
• Release Date: January 1981
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies
• Length: 598 Pages
• Weight: 2.51 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Good for a chuckle or two

People couldn't believe I was reading this book as it was 'trash' and 'awful' but I had to read it myself and I have to say, I found it quite amusing. The author, although somewhat of a bigot and racist at times is sarcastically very funny at times. Especially when talking about Elvis and his eating habits. All in all, I took the whole massive book with a grain of salt and filed it with my Elvis collection. If you're a die-hard Elvis lover, this book is not for you. But if you're open minded and can go with the flow then go ahead and give this book a shot.

Sensational Bigotry

Albert Goldman clearly wrote this book for the single purpose of sensationalist sales, it deserves zero stars. I kept looking for actual true stories but it was hard to disseminate truth from the hateful bigotry against poor southerners. He clearly does not understand the people he is writing about as they were impoverished hard working southerners from the Great Depression era. Instead of admiring Elvis for achieving the American dream and generously sharing that success with his family and other less fortunate souls, Goldman describes the Presley/Smith families as hillbilly trash. In reality, this book is biased trash. Elvis was not a perfect man but he loved God and family, he was a great entertainer and for that he is loved worldwide. A lot of people took advantage of his generosity and in the end it is heartbreaking to never know his side of all the lies being written about him and that includes his ex-wife’s lies. Read Child Bride instead.

Entertaining

The accuracy of this book has been debated but its very entertaining. If your one of these nutters that want to turn Elvis into some sort of holy figure then you will hate this book. If you want to be entertained with tales of the "wacky Elvis" then this is the book for you. Some of the stuff that gets into this is depressing, like Elvis' drug use and penchant for young girls, but some of it is funny as hell, like Elvis' bizarre eating habits, (the story about flying all the way to Denver from Memphis for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches is classic!) his idea that he was an enlightened new age spiritual master, or the meeting between Elvis and Nixon where Elvis proposed to Nixon that he would be some sort of undercover agent and infiltrate the hippies for the FBI because he believed pot smoking was destroying the youth of America. Now keep in mind Elvis was high as a kite on drugs prescribed by his Doctor that are many times more harmful than Marijuana while proposing this to Nixon! Like I said if Elvis is your religion you will be offended by this book, if your a casual Elvis fan or could care less about him one way or another you will be entertained.

Explosive, Inflammatory, Malicious, and Brilliant

Explosive, inflammatory, malicious, and brilliant. These are just a few of the adjectives that describe this indelible portrait of Elvis Presley -- a portrait that enraged his devoted cult and shocked the rest of the world. In retrospect, it's difficult to understand what rock "loyalists" like Greil Marcus and Dave Marsh found so offensive about Goldman's books. After all, photographic evidence for years before Elvis' death made his grotesquely obese, flabby appearance clear to everyone. The total decline in his music was charted by his increasingly lackluster albums. And when a 42 year old man dies of a "heart attack" while using the bathroom it's pretty clear that drugs were a factor. What the "loyalists" of the Marcus/Marsh school really hated was the way Goldman exposed Elvis politically, not just sexually and medically. Read a "good" rock book and all you get is tired, tired, Marxist rhetoric about Elvis as a "poor boy" who never forgot his roots. In the minds of Marcus and Marsh, Elvis is Tom Joad, proud and humble in patched overalls, forever marching across the pastures of heaven arm-in-arm with Lenin and Trotsky. Please. Albert Goldman may have been wrong about Elvis' music (he doesn't like rock and roll very much, and he says so) but he was absolutely right about the man. The essence of Elvis Presley the man was not pride by self-loathing, not compassion but callous indifference, not rebellion and defiance but hypocrisy and submission. Elvis could have marched on Washington DC with Martin Luther King -- but chose instead to play toady and lick Richard Nixon's boots. Elvis could have toured with Chuck Berry and Little Richard -- but chose instead to make lousy movies while Little Richard prayed for salvation and Chuck Berry rotted in jail. No matter what his gifts as an artist, Elvis was a man who always, always took the easy way out, who recorded powerful music only when his back was against the wall. Elvis loathed the Beatles, the student left, the anti-war movement, the feminist movement, the Gay Liberation movement, and (in all probability) the black Civil Rights movement as well. Elvis was the kind of self-hating trash who reacted to his own "outsider" status by toadying to the rich and powerful and bullying anyone whose "differences" reminded him (however faintly) of himself. Goldman presents Presley as the weak, cowardly, bigoted and self-destructive buffoon he really was -- not as the lily-white working class Virgin Mary of Dave Marsh's pathetic infantile fantasies. The irony, of course, is that there are millions upon millions of working Americans of all colors who are infinitely superior to Elvis in character and moral courage, and yet Marsh and Marcus try to frame the debate so that any attack on Elvis is an attack on "the working class." In reality it is the rock left who have betrayed the working class by substituting sentimentality and hypocrisy for honesty and truth.

Goldmans research was second to none

For the mindless fan who refuses to believe Elvis was less than a god this book will be a disappointment. For anyone who can see Elvis as a human being, buy it. Goldmans research was the absolute best and most detailed there has ever been. Without his earlier, no less brilliant, book on Elvis no-one to this day would've known Colonel Parker was dutch.Absolutely brilliant, along with his first book this is the greatest book on Elvis that will ever be written.

Hilarious Book

The hard core Elvis fans take themselves (and Elvis) way too seriously. Goldman may be prone to hyperbole, but it's damn entertaining. Besides, he's just relating what those close to Elvis told. If Memphis Mafia (the guys) recall that Elvis installed two-way mirrors all over the house, or that his LA parties amounted to nothing more than everybody watching Elvis watch TV, with everyone laughing at anything stupid thing he said, then why not write about it? I ended up liking Elvis more than ever after reading this hilarious book. I think Goldman's treatment of the Colonel as the Carny was right on the money!

HUMANIZING A "KING"

Goldman (or is it "COLDMAN"?), does indeed become sarcastic at times, and his desciption of certain events are emblazoned with the MAD MAGAZINE SEAL OF APPROVAL. Yet his stitching together of Presley's career and life, doesn't seem to deviate from the accounts offered by Elvis' own "Memphis Mob". If anything, after reading this unauthourized bio, I feel more in touch with Elvis than ever, and also have a decidely more positive view of Elvis. I really feel for the man. Moreover, I appreciate his work more than ever, and share with Elvis his dream of being a serious actor. I despise Colonel Tom, and see the "inner circle" for the manipulative and exploitive parasites they were. Seems to me, Goldman was the best person to pen this bio, as he is somewhat grandiose as well. Perhaps we all are. Even the King! In a left-handed way, thats a compliment to Elvis. He was just like you and me.