Gates of Graceland: Giving Tuesday - Elvis Presley's Charitable Donations

[Music] hi Elvis fans Tom Brown here coming to you from inside Elvis Presley's Memphis on Elvis Presley Boulevard just across the street from the Graceland mansion we have another episode of gates of Graceland and we're going to talk about an aspect of Elvis's life that a lot of people know a little bit about but I have someone that knows a lot about it and that is Elvis's charitable giving I mean the things that he did even from childhood for other people are legendary and here to tell us more about that and to show us some of the evidence of that is Angie Marchesi vice president of archives and exhibits here at Graceland I'd um great to come back to another episode of gates of Graceland and I know the fans always I see the comments that you leave and you always want her job she's not leaving I'm not going anywhere you have a great as you come in the the complex here when we see the gold records just passed the gold records and just I can see the Gollum a suit right there just past that you have a neat little display back here of Elvis and charity and on the wall we see a lot of checks and we see a lot of things in the cases but first of all tell us about Elvis's how he felt about about giving you know Elvis was a giver at heart it's even said that when he was a little boy in Tupelo and had nothing to give that he would actually try to give the few toys he had to other people who didn't have anything yeah so it really was just part of his DNA of who he was and of course as he got older and became COO he became and money became no object basically he is giving that bigger it went from small toys to donations for three checks to even given obviously we know about the famous car giveaways that he used to give to all his friends you know but Elvis was generally a very charitable person inside and out Gerry shelling told me one time one of Elvis's Memphis mafia one of his best friends went to the White House with Elvis Jerry told me that that when you have anything when you can get anything the pleasure that you get is the look on the faces of other people that you then give to the people that can't have anything and that that's where Elvis's joy came from was the was the reaction of the other people when unsolicited he gave them again well that's kind of like Jerry what no Jerry was first had experience too that when they were flying back from LA to Washington for the Nixon visit and Elvis befriends a soldier on the plane that's coming home from Vietnam and tells Jerry how much cash do you have on you give it to him and Jerry's like this is all the money we have and Elvis is like he needs it more no you know that just kind of sums it up and you know they say that if you woulda complimented Elvis on something that if even if it was too sure on his back he might have taken it off and given it to you at the time yeah but what they said you know whatever you do don't tell him you like his rings cuz he'll just start giving it I'll start giving them to you and and Jerry and one of the ultimate gifts that Elvis gave Jerry had come from you know a not grape family background and Elvis wanted to give him a home Elvis gave him the keys to the home that Jerry still lives in so what an ultimate you know gift that was to it to a friend okay one of the things that I love about what you have here is things are always changing and evolving at Elvis Presley's Memphis you have some display cases over here that have some very neat material and so let's walk over and see what we got here well it made sense when we started talking about Elvis and charity that we put the exhibition here kind of at the end of the 1956 corridor because his charitable work really started getting like felicity I mean he did the ads for the American Cancer Society and had the March of Dimes here to Graceland so this kind of seemed like a really appropriate place to discuss Elvis and giving some of the things that we have here in this first case include a newspaper clipping from Elvis donating blood we've got as we know you've seen the large charity plaque of the trophy building yes so Elvis started giving $1000 to 50 local charities every year at Christmastime used back in the 50s this is the list from 1960 one of the charities that received those donations now you can see they vary they weren't all a thousand dollars yeah but the total came to around $36,000 Elvis gave away that Chris okay I went on my little app and I found out $36,000 1961 would have been the equivalent today I'm Jeremiah Wright around $300,000 that's no pocket change yeah $300,000 he sits he writes checks to all these these charities and this is at a time throughout Elvis's career when he always paid the mat because my max income tax yes no deductions no nothing no it just I made this I'm paying that his income taxes must have been one page his income taxes literally at various times throughout his career could easily have been a half a million dollars yeah you know and so I mean it's just his generosity there's no into it in 1961 the Pearl Harbor benefit to help finish raising money and bring an awareness to the memorial at Pearl Harbor the USS Arizona Memorial Elvis sold tickets of course all the money went to benefit the charity there's a floor ticket for the show the floor tickets were $100 each and there were no free tickets everyone had to donate to be able to come to the show and of course it was a sellout we have an official press pass as well for the USS Arizona benefit and is this one of those kind of charity shows and Elvis does that he pays the expenses of the musicians and the people pay for everything to get there to then begin yes thank you so a hundred percent goes to the church to the chair and Elvis covers them yes and of course by performing this show not only did he raise the funds that were needed to complete the memorial but also brought well do awareness to what they were going to do there so the famous Arizona Memorial that we see yes that is just part of American history Elvis helps to raise the funds to complete that more yes he does and it became a place that he does that every time he was in Hawaii well and we know he loved alive yes so that was quite often now another photograph here you have another famous Hollywood person but he has a very deep Memphis connection is Danny Thomas and st. Jude Children's Hospital which is here in Memphis and Elvis decided that he wanted to make a big splash per se a big donation and he actually bought the USS Potomac which was President Roosevelt's presidential yacht yeah and then they offered it to first it was the March of Dimes because that was really the campaign that he had worked on last but the March of Dimes had no way of monetizing a boat so they passed and then Elvis and his actually neighbor in Beverly Hills Italy you know Danny Thomas got together and then he realized that not only was it about the money with the boat but it was the publicity that this donation brings to his cause and the fact that it's here in Memphis how much more that meant to both Elvis and to him so the story goes the yacht gets parked in Long Beach and it's in really awful shape and so Colonel gets a price on what it's gonna cost to paint the boat now this is typical colonel he gets one price to pay the whole bet I've always heard this this is true what is true what you're about to say is true it is a true story he gets a price to paint the whole boat and of course it's astronomical yeah and so colonel goes how much would it cost just to paint the side that faces the press voila Colonel Parker yes that's the babe but then of course Danny and Elvis appear in front of the banner for st. Jude hospital there's a big press conference a signing over the deed a changing of the keys and immediately st. Jude sells the yacht for a ride around I'm not mistaken was around $75,000 and of course that money went straight to the hospital but that of course the money and publicity was priceless even more yeah now you have another I'm gonna make sure that I don't leave any marks on the case as we move over to this other case and and this is you know everybody knows Elvis Aloha from Hawaii yes but a lot of people don't realize that as a as they as they watch that that that was actually something that was done for charity all this even mentions toward the end that it was done for a charity there and in Hawaii yes it was all I was all wrapped around raising money for the Cooley Cancer Fund when Elvis sings I'll remember you it was actually a song that was written by Kui Lee so this was something that was very important to Elvis obviously it was the first satellite show ever broadcast so it was seen by 1.5 billion people but it was important to Elvis that everyone knew what the cause was about and there was no set ticket price you could donate anything you had in your pocket so you can pay $5 and you would have gotten a ticket to go to the show now you might have been up a little high but you would have gotten five you know just to be in the building so I had five dollars in 73 I just couldn't get to Hawaii so Elvis started the donations by issuing this check for $1,000 buy-in his own ticket and I ran I ran the numbers on that as well all right so Elvis donates $1,000 now what that equals to in today's dollars is 5,000 a trial became oast six thousand dollars to go to a someone shot to go to his own show and that was just the beginning of course this was another opportunity that Elvis paid for everything up front you pay for all the band's accommodations airfare everything so all the money that was raised at the show for the tickets what totally for charity and if you remember during the special Elvis thanks everyone for their donations because it ended up totaling around $75,000 for $5,000 in 1970 in 1970 I'm gonna let you do that computation figure out what that is today it's homework for you laughs do this now other things that we have here and we used to see this in the trophy building over at the mansion and now you've got them on display here and it's so interesting to see you said this is from 1962 and this is just a few of the checks that Elvis wrote for charities though so he would would he go to Vernon's office and sit and how did this how did this happen as you can tell they're all pre type so the secretaries would actually type them up and then Elvis literally there's a sofa and Vernon's office he would sit in the corner of the sofa and he would then sign them the only time that he actually signed them outside of Graceland the mayor of Memphis at the time thought that Elvis deserved recognition for all of his charitable work he did here in town and so he had Elvis come downtown and they presented him the large plaque that's in the trophy building right and he actually that year signed all the checks in person downtown and personally gave them to each charity that was represented so averaged around 50 checks a year about $50,000 a year yes not just local but all kinds of kinds of charities yes now you've got something very special here in the spirit of Elvis because Elvis was a giver as we've been talking about you guys have come up with a brilliant thing for Elvis fans from all over the world to do when they're here as they get inspired by Elvis and his giving and it's the opportunity for themselves to get yes for iPads that are here in the exhibition allow our guests to donate to st. Jude which of course here in Memphis the National Civil Rights Museum you're in Memphis Memphis Boys and Girls Club and the Elvis Presley Charitable Foundation but as you know Elvis gave to so many different charities we want to keep that spirit of life so these charities will change throughout the years or months so you never know what charities that we will have the opportunity to donate to but right now it's those for next time it might be something different it was to keep Elvis the spirit alive the important thing is the giving is for Elvis fans to represent their love of Elvis by themselves giving no matter where they do no matter where they do it if they do it here or in their hometown that's one thing that's great about the current fan clubs that are you know part of the Elvis Presley world they hold several benefits all around the world and all the money raised is always donated to either a local charity or a charity that Elvis loves so they're continuing to do Elvis's work as well it comes full circle Elvis Gabe so now it's up to us to do the same yes so many great things to see here another episode of gates of Graceland coming to a close now but I'm sure we have some cool stuff planned for you in the future they never tell me what they're going to do I never know what we're going to see next one we have some white gloves baby oh that would be good there's always white gloves involved we know that's going to be good Angie Marchesi from Graceland I'm Tom Brown thanks for watching another episode of gates of Graceland and be sure to go check out some of the other episodes that are on there we got a lot of cool stuff just a few we'll see you around bye [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Graceland

Views: 69,379

Keywords: Elvis Presley's Graceland, Graceland Memphis, Giving Tuesday, Charitable Donations, generosity, elvis, elvis presley, graceland, memphis, tennessee

Id: To7eMeLkhbA

Length: 13min 45sec (825 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 27 2018