Customer Reviews

The Boy Who Would Be King: An Intimate Portrait of Elvis Presley By His Cousin (Signet)

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EARL GREENWOOD PRIMARILY FOCUSES ON ELVIS' HUMBLE BEGINNINGS AND HIS TRAGIC CHILDHOOD FROM THE PERSPSCTIVE OF SOMEONE WHO KNEW THE FAMILY INTIMATLEY. HE EXPLAINS ELVIS' GUILT OVER HIS TWIN BROTHER'S DEATH AND HIS INCONSOLABLE SADNESS OVER HIS MOTHER'S DEATH. GREENWOOD TELLS OF AN ELVIS WHO NOBDY REAALY KNEW, A BOY WHO WAS BULLIED AND RIDICULED AND WHO EVENTUALLY BECAME ONE OF THE MOST FAMOUS ARTISTS IN HISTORY. IN SHORT THIS BIOGRAPHY IS TOLD WONDERFULLY.

Earl Greenwood was no relation to Elvis nor was he an employee or press agent - his account of himself is a fabrication from start to finish. I'm not sure what is more appalling - that Greenwood/Tracy invented this book, or that the Library Journal (and David M. Turkalo) would publicly laud such a blatantly false work.

I've read many books on Elvis as I'm always trying to gain new information to help me understand his complex personality. I had high expectations for this offering because of its focus on Elvis' early life and relationship with his mother. However, I found the general tone of the book to be sensational. The sex "revelations" don't seem to be anything more than lurid details the like of which can be found in any tabloid. Everyone knows Elvis was a wonton womanizer. It's hardly news at this point. I found there to be many mistakes and inconsistancies throughout the book. One is so careless as to describe Elvis' first girlfriend, Dixie Locke, as a blond then two pages later she is in picture showing a girl with black hair. The whole thing just read like a trashy novel to me.

If you are not a big Elvis fan this is not the book to read because there is so many untruths in it, you will get the wrong impression of the man Elvis was. I have read a great number of books on Elvis and this one has to be the worst one. No one that knew Elvis even knows who this guys is??? He made numerous errors in telling his story. Such as he said Gladys, Elvis's mom went to Germany with him and then died in 1960!! Untrue - she died in 1958 before he left for Germany. He dated Dixie Locke before he made it big but was still dating her when he was signed to Sun Records. She did not break up with him because he asked her to marry him. They had talked of marriage but unforuntaely it did not last long because he was gone so much. He dated Anita before going to the army and for a while after he was discharged. He did not play in Vegas while he was making movies in the 1960s!!! And so on and so on. There are to many to mention here but I can say that this was a BIG DISSAPPOINTMENT and a waste of my money. DO NOT WASTE YOUR HARD EARNED MONEY ON THE PIECE OF TRASH BELIEVE ME YOU WILL BE SORRY.

Earl Greenwood says in his introduction to this book that he wrote it to correct some "half-truths, supposition, or out-and-out falsehoods" he says appeared in many earlier books written by Elvis's relatives, employees, etc. OK; fair enough. He is Elvis's cousin, and grew up with him. No doubt he knew things about "the King" that many previous biogaphers did not.

But it seems to me that his ghost writer, Kathleen Tracy, was allowed to re-construct too many conversations from lo these many years ago, word for illiterate word. Her attempts to write quotes from Elvis, Vernon and Gladys, and others in the extended family, in what she apparently thinks is authentic "White trash dialect, Mississippi style," are ludicrous and laughable. Long conversations, quoted word for word, about things that happened in the childhoods of Elvis, his cousin and other family members, strain credulity to the breaking point.

There are other, glaring flaws that could have been corrected by competent copy editing -- but were not. For instance, in the end papers, Gladys Presley's death year is given as "1960" when she actually died two years earlier than that -- shortly after Elvis was drafted into the Army. The repeated references to Debra Paget, Elvis's co-star in "Love Me Tender," as "Deborah Pageant" are a piece of unforgivable carelessness. Vernon's arrest and jail term in the late 1930s for altering a check from a "wealthy" man in Tupelo, Orville Bean, is represented as the result of a crime he committed all on his lonesome. In actuality, two friends of his were complicit in altering the check, and were arrested also. But their part is ignored in the book. As a matter of fact, Greenwood and Tracy seem intent in many places on making Vernon Presley the "villain of the piece," hated by his son for allegedly not doing right by Elvis's "momma." On the other hand, Gladys's drinking is portrayed as an understandable if regrettable reaction to the "stresses" of having a ne'er-do-well husband.

But it's interesting that Greenwood and Tracy, in their word-for-word quotes from so many people in the book, give the reader a picture of Vernon as the only one in his small family with good common sense about a lot of things, given Elvis' and Gladys' unhealthy obsession with each other.

All in all, the book is OK for giving one an inside, family member's picture of Elvis Presley, an enormously complex man as well as probably the greatest entertainer of the 20th Century. But it is deeply flawed. If you want a truly accurate, professional portrait of Elvis Presley, look somewhere else.

I read Mr. Greenwood's book and found it very informative and personal. The book takes the reader through Elvis' personal life and marriage and numberous love affairs. It depicts the Colonel's control over Elvis and possible black mail. It depicts how the people he was associated with over the years were mainly there for the gravy. An excellent book.