Anyway you want me, that's how I will be," sang Elvis Presley in one of his songs.
How about Jewish?
GAIL ZIMMERMAN ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR
T
omorrow marks the 20th anniversary of the death
of Elvis Presley. The "King of Rock 'n' Roll" may
no longer be with us — despite being spotted re-
cently in West Bloomfield — but rumors of his
Jewish heritage survive. In fact, despite his Tupelo, Miss.-
Pentecostal upbringing, the Elvis-Jewish connection is a
strong one. Read on.
ically his Southern, poor white, First Assembly of God up-
bringing — you have the enigma that was Elvis."
(www.elvispresleyonline.com ), one of Elvis' best friends
was George Klein, who was Jewish. Elvis served as best
man at George's wedding, and said Jaffe, "astounded the
guests with his mastery of various Jewish prayers dur-
ing the service."
• Maybe Elvis didn't attend synagogue — at least not on
a regular basis. But there is some documentation of his
proximity to at least one rabbi.
According to Timothy White in his book Rock Stars, Elvis' • Elvis' career suffered its ups and downs, but the rock
legend received most of his critical acclaim for those pro-
parents were just a "hope away from the poorhouse," drift-
ing on and off the relief rolls, relocating for the promise of jects in which he collaborated with "other Jews."
He may have
better wages.
flunked his audition
They made several moves, "usually
"He's so great, you have no idea how great he is, re- for the "Arthur God-
under the cover of darkness," after giv-
ally you don't. You have no comprehension, it's ab- frey Show," but Elvis
ing up the two-room shack in Tupelo,
scored the highest
Miss., in which Elvis was born. Final-
solutely impossible. I can't tell you why he's so great, ratings
of the year for
ly, they ended up in Memphis, Tenn.,
but he is. He can do anything with his voice. He can the "Milton Berle
renting rooms above a rabbi in a house
sing anything you want him to, anything you tell him." Show" in early 1956
at 462 Alabama St.
— months before his
And Elvis was no slouch in shul ei-
— Phil Spector, record producer and creator of the Wall of famous appearance
ther. According to Paul Jaffe, creator of
Sound, which revolutionized pop music. As a teen-ager, Spector
"from the waist up"
the Web site Elvis Presley Online
formed the Teddy Bears,supposedly inspired by Elvis Presley's
on the "Ed Sullivan
hit "(Let Me Be
Show."
Your) Teddy Bear."
Producers/song-
writers Jerry Lieber
and Mike Stoller
wrote a tune first recorded by Big Mama
Thornton. But Elvis later recorded the
same song, a little ditty called "Hound
Dog," and turned it into a 4-million sell-
er. Shortly after, Lieber and Stoller were
commissioned to write the songs for an
Elvis film hit, Jailhouse Rock (1957).
In fact, Elvis' often-maligned film ca-
reer did have a few high spots. Take King
Creole (1958), in which Elvis co-starred
with Walter Matthau. Loosely based on
author Harold Robbins' steamy novel A
Stone for Danny Fisher, which is set in
Chicago, the movie version showcases
Elvis as a young New Orleans nightclub
singer dragged down into the underworld.
The film was directed by Michael Curtiz,
perhaps better known as the director of
• The whispers and innuendos have been around for years:
Elvis Presley was Jewish. The evidence? Well, Elvis did
wear a chai — alongside his cross. He was, after all, a guy
who covered all the bases: When he got to Heaven, he didn't
want to be turned away "on a technicality," he explained.
Now coming to light is a book, Elaine Dundy's Elvis and
Gladys (St. Martin's Press), which traces Elvis' maternal
genealogy back to his Jewish great-great-grandmother.
Elvis' mother, Gladys (Smith) Presley, was the daugh-
ter of Bob and Doll (Mansell) Smith, first cousins who mar-
ried (which explains a lot). Doll was the third daughter of
White and Martha (Tackett) Mansell, Elvis' great-grand-
parents. Martha was the daughter of Nan-
cy Tackett, who, according to Dundy, was
"of the Jewish religion," at a time when Jew-
ish settlers in Mississippi were rare.
To recap, Nancy (maiden name un-
known) Tackett begat Martha. Tackett who
begat Doll Mansell who begat Gladys Smith
who begat Elvis Presley. Now, since Elvis
was big on technicalities, and since accord-
ing to Halachah (Jewish law) a child born
of a Jewish mother is Jewish, we can say
that, through matrilineal descent, Elvis was
definitely Jewish.
Rabbi Avraham Jacobovitz of Machon
L'Torah concurs. If his great-great-grand-
mother was indeed Jewish, "it is verifiable,"
said the rabbi. "Jewish women make Jew-
ish men."
But let's not take all the credit. As Dundy
writes, "Genetically speaking, what pro-
duced Elvis is quite a mixture. At the be-
ginning, to French-Norman blood was
added Scots-Irish blood. And when you then
add to these the Indian strain supplying the
mystery and the Jewish strain supplying
spectacular showmanship, and you overlay
all this with his circumstances, social con- Mike Stoller, Elvis Presley and Jerry Lieber: Lieber and Stoller were commissioned to write the songs for the
ditioning and religious upbringing — specif- film Jailhouse Rock after Elvis' version of their song "Hound Dog" scored a huge hit.
Casablanca.
In the 1960s, with the British Inva-
sion, Elvis' career began to languish. A
1968 TV special, after an eight-year ab-
ALL SHOOK UP page 93