Books By Former "Memphis Mafia" Members
Since the late 1970s, some former members of the Memphis Mafia have written books on Elvis. The first exposé book, Elvis: What Happened? appeared in 1977 shortly before Elvis's death. This so-called Bodyguard book came from the West cousins and Dave Hebler. They wrote about Presley's years of prescription drug abuse which eventually led to his death. Elvis's youngest stepbrother says the singer "was devastated by the book. Here were his close friends who had written serious stuff that would affect his life. He felt betrayed. Red was honest with Elvis about his medication problems and I think this was one of the reasons he was fired. For the guys they were fired, but not by Elvis. That must have hurt." Elvis had "even offered the publishers money not to go ahead with it. For Vernon the book was proof of his long-held distrust and dislike not just of those three but of the whole of the Memphis Mafia ..." In 2007, Sonny West released Elvis: Still Takin' Care of Business, which was a softer look at his relationship with the King.
Read more about this topic: Memphis Mafia
Famous quotes containing the words books and/or members:
“...I believed passionately that Communists were a race of horned men who divided their time equally between the burning of Nancy Drew books and the devising of a plan of nuclear attack that would land the largest and most lethal bomb squarely upon the third-grade class of Thomas Jefferson School in Morristown, New Jersey.”
—Fran Lebowitz (b. 1950)
“The members of a body-politic call it “the state” when it is passive, “the sovereign” when it is active, and a “power” when they compare it with others of its kind. Collectively they use the title “people,” and they refer to one another individually as “citizens” when speaking of their participation in the authority of the sovereign, and as “subjects” when speaking of their subordination to the laws of the state.”
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778)