Elvis Derailed Don Rickles’ Act by Boring Him and His Audience to Tears

Elvis Presley put on a thrilling act that captivated audiences for years. His most ardent fans wouldn’t say a negative word about Elvis, even when the quality of his shows declined through the 1970s. This wasn’t the case when an audience hadn’t paid to see an Elvis show, though. Once, he took the stage during comedian Don Rickles’ act. His chosen method of entertaining the audience was uncomfortable and embarrassing.

Elvis bored Don Rickles and his audience at a show in Las Vegas

While Elvis’ audiences attended his shows to hear him sing, he often treated them to other forms of entertainment, such as karate demonstrations or readings from his favorite books. Once, Elvis did this to the audience at someone else’s show. 

Elvis was watching Don Rickles perform his comedy act in Las Vegas. Rickles invited Elvis onstage, and the singer was only too happy to oblige. He brought the spiritual journal New Age Voice with him. He insisted that Rickles read aloud from the journal. This went on for an uncomfortable amount of time. 

Eventually, Rickles asked Elvis what his plan was. Elvis insisted he keep reading, telling him it was important for the audience to hear it. After a while, Elvis got off the stage.

“Jesus, was I glad when the reading was over,” bodyguard Sonny West said in the book Elvis: What Happened? by Steve Dunleavy. “The audience clapped politely, but they didn’t know what the hell they were clapping for.”

Elvis kept a captive audience when he read the Bible at his home

Perhaps Elvis believed Rickles’ audience would like this because he often held Bible readings in his home. When he read, he could hold his guests’ attention for hours on end.

“By the mid-sixties he was holding Bible readings in the den of our Bel Air home,” Priscilla Presley wrote in her book Elvis and Me. “I sat next to him one evening as he read passages with great force. Facing us were several of his young female admirers wearing the lowest-cut blouses and the shortest miniskirts. They all listened attentively, disciples enraptured in the presence of ‘their’ lord.”

His bodyguard, Red West, believed Elvis wanted to hold power that had nothing to do with his fame.

“He wasn’t content to let his show-business status speak for itself,” Red said. “He had to have control. You were his subjects, you did what he said. He even called us disciples.”

His bodyguard resented the way Elvis portrayed himself as a spiritual expert

Unsurprisingly, Priscilla Presley had major problems with the way Elvis held court over an enraptured audience of young women. Elvis’ bodyguard, Dave Heber, also took issue with this behavior, though for a different reason.

“Now, there are experts in the psychic phenomena field who are very hard to discount,” Hebler said. “A lot of their stuff stands up, and I am tempted to believe in it quite a bit. But with Elvis, while I believe a lot of his homegrown philosophies, it’s quite obvious he has only a very surface knowledge of this stuff. The ludicrous part was him passing himself off as an expert, particularly in this healing business.”

Still, Elvis remained fascinated with spirituality for the remainder of his life.