Graceland - Notable Visitors

Notable Visitors

In 1957, Presley invited Richard Williams and Buzz Cason to visit the Whitehaven neighborhood of Memphis where Graceland is located "to get a close look at this mansion Elvis had told us about. ... We proceeded to clown around on the front porch, striking our best rock 'n' roll poses and snapping pictures with the little camera. We peeked in the not-yet-curtained windows and got a kick out of the pastel colored walls in the front rooms with shades of bright reds and purples that Elvis most certainly had picked out."

"In the late 50s, Elvis was fond of claiming that the US government had mooted a visit to Graceland by Nikita Khrushchev, 'to see how in America a fellow can start out with nothing and, you know, make good'.

In 2002 Art Historian Kirsty Matheson visited and tripped over a bar stool.

On June 30, 2006, when US President George W. Bush hosted Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi for a tour of the mansion, it became the only residence on American soil other than an Embassy, the White House, or any of the other Presidential retreats to have hosted a joint-visit by a sitting US president and a head of a foreign government. (Koizumi, who served as Prime Minister of Japan from 2001 to 2006, is an avid Elvis Presley fan and even shares Presley's January 8 birthday.)

On August 6, 2010, Prince Albert II, the Principality of Monaco's Head of State, and his fiancée Charlene Wittstock, on a vacation tour of the United States, also toured Graceland. Albert explained: "If you're on a summer holiday, you've got to come at this time of year. I've always wanted to come to Graceland. Charlene and my friends wanted to be here today for this visit, Elvis touched our lives as well and the lives of so many people. We wanted to pay our respects and see what this place was all about." Former WWE Divas Trish Stratus and Lita have visited Graceland while on tour with WWE.