42 | JULY 15 • 2021 

ARTS&LIFE
MUSIC

T

he large crate sat unopened 
in a 20,000-square-foot 
warehouse here for more 
than four decades, concealing a little-
known fact about one of America’s 
cultural icons.
Inside was the headstone of Elvis 
Presley’s mother, Gladys, which 
had been stored in the Graceland 
archives along with 1.5 million other 
items since 1977. And on the upper 
left side of the long-unseen marker 
— designed by Elvis himself — is a 
Star of David.
Yes, the King of Rock and Roll had 
Jewish roots.
The headstone, which was taken 
from storage only in 2018, is now 
on display at the sprawling complex 
in Memphis where Elvis lived from 
1957 until his untimely death 20 
years later at the age of 42. It sits in 
Graceland’s Meditation Garden, just 
outside the mansion and a few feet 
from Elvis’ own grave.
Stories of Elvis’ Jewish heritage 
have long been in circulation, but 
when it comes to a legend like 

Presley — whose death is not even 
considered settled fact in some 
quarters — it’s not always easy to 
separate fact from fiction. With the 
headstone now on public display and 
an accompanying sign proclaiming, 
“Gladys’ Jewish heritage,” any 
lingering doubts can finally be 
erased.
“There was a lot of mystery 
surrounding it,” said Angie 
Marchese, Graceland’s vice president 
of archives and exhibits, and the 
one who came up with the idea 
of unveiling Gladys’ headstone on 
the 60th anniversary of her death, 
partly to dispel doubts about Elvis’ 
Jewish lineage. “The star is on it, so it 
answered a lot of questions that were 
out there.”

JEWISH ANCESTOR
Marchese says Elvis’ maternal great-
great-grandmother was a Jewish 
woman named Nancy Burdine. 
Little is known about Burdine, but 
it’s believed her family immigrated 
to America from what is now 

Lithuania around the time of the 
American Revolution. According to 
Ancestry.com, Burdine was born in 
Mississippi in 1826 and died in 1887.
Burdine’s great-granddaughter was 
Gladys Love Smith, who married 
Vernon Presley in 1933. Two years 
later, Gladys gave birth to Elvis in 
Tupelo, Miss. The family moved to 
Memphis when Elvis was 13.
The Presleys once lived in an 
apartment directly below the family 
of Rabbi Alfred Fruchter, the first 
principal of the Memphis Hebrew 
Academy. The rabbi’s son, Harold, 
who now lives in Maryland, said 
that Elvis actually served as the 
Fruchters’ “Shabbos goy,” a non-Jew 
who performs household tasks for 
observant Jews that are normally 
forbidden on the Sabbath. Fruchter 
said his parents “never had even an 
inkling” that Elvis had Jewish roots.
“If they had, they would never 
have considered asking him to be a 
Shabbos goy,” Fruchter said.
Elvis was especially close to his 
mother, who died of heart failure in 

A grave marker locked 
away for four decades 
reveals Elvis Presley’s 
Jewish roots.

All
Shook
Up!

DAN FELLNER JTA

MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES/JTA

Elvis Presley on 
The Milton Berle 
Show, June 4, 
1956. 

