If Elvis Were Alive Today…
By Charlotte Evans
If Elvis Presley were with us, on Jan. 8, 2016 he would’ve turned 81 years old. There are few people living today who can actually say they were among Presley’s closest friends, but Las Vegas resident Sam Thompson is one of them. He spent years in Presley’s inner circle and was widely regarded as one of The King’s closest confidants. Thompson is a retired judge and music executive who is also the brother of Linda Thompson, Presley’s longtime girlfriend. Thompson spent years as Presley’s head of security and traveling companion. He is a humble Southern Gentleman who prefers not to ruminate on his rank in Presley’s life, but chooses to honor Presley’s memory with personal stories that let fans know the remarkable human being who was The King of Rock and Roll.
I caught up with Thompson while he was literally rolling down the river aboard a steamboat on the Mississippi. We connected moments after Thompson shared some stories with fans aboard an American Queen Steamboat that was hosting an Elvis Presley tribute cruise for which Thompson contributes his many Presley tales.
Vegas Legal: How long were you and Elvis close?
Sam Thompson: Well, I’m not going to be pretentious and say we were best friends. I’ll leave that for others to decide if they feel that’s true. (Who’s to say who was Elvis’ best friend?) He certainly was one of the greatest friends, greatest mentors and greatest benefactors that I ever had. I knew him for 5 years and traveled with him for the bulk of that and worked for him. For 2 years I was on his payroll. The rest of the time, I just traveled with him as a friend and was his confidante. We stayed up many ‘a night and we talked all night long…and talked about personal things. So yeah: he meant a lot to me and he changed my life.
VL: If you were to sit with Elvis today and have a conversation about the world and current events, how do you think it would go?
ST: I think we would be talking about how the music business has changed so much. How record deals have changed. The record deals that he had in the 50s, 60s and even the 70s were totally different [than the record deals] today. We’d be talking about music streaming, digital downloads and Spotify… and all that type of thing. We’d be talking about how poorly artists and writers are being paid for their endeavors. I think all those things would be really relevant to him. We’d be talking music.
VL: I’m writing this for a legal magazine, and you have a legal background yourself which is quite impressive.
ST: Well, I was a sheriff’s deputy when I met Elvis and I had been admitted to law school, but I didn’t have the money to go. Elvis had given me a guitar. It was the last guitar he had ever played live on stage, in Indianapolis, Ind., in June of 1977. After he died, I realized how valuable it was. I had it authenticated with the Martin Guitar company people, and I sold that guitar and it payed for my law school education. So I tell everybody Elvis put me through law school. Indirectly, he did.
I was an attorney in Memphis, I was a judge in juvenile court for 2 years and I was a general sessions trial judge for 8 years. I retired with 25 years of service with the state of Tennessee. Then I had a short stint in Los Angeles [where] I was the Vice President of Business and Legal Affairs for 143 Records. [As] general counsel I signed such artists as Josh Groban and Michael Bublé. We sold the record company and that’s why I came to Nevada in 2003. [Governor] Kenny Guinn appointed me Commissioner for Transportation and then [Governor] Jim Gibbons appointed me to the Public Utilities Commission and later made me Chairman of the Commission. I retired from the state of Nevada about 3 years ago.
VL: Elvis was personally involved in politics. A lot of people don’t know that he raised money and led the effort to build the USS Arizona Memorial. How do you think Elvis would view the world today politically?
ST: I think with all the religious bigotry in the world—the hatred and all the violence and the killing in the name religion—I think Elvis would have a lot of problems with that. In 1968, when he did the Comeback Special, he actually had Walter Earl Brown write the song If I Can Dream and that came directly from Martin Luther King, Jr.’s speeches. Elvis recorded that song in June of 1968 just two months after Dr. King was killed.
I think Elvis would probably view what’s going on in the world today with a heavy heart and a great degree of sadness and misunderstanding over how people can kill each other in the name of religion.
VL: It’s well known that Elvis loved Las Vegas. What would he say of it today?
ST: Elvis loved Las Vegas. Other than Memphis, his home, his two favorite places were Hawaii and Las Vegas. He liked going to other entertainers’ shows and he liked that nightlife. He liked the glitz and the speed and the fact that it was a 24-hour city. I think Elvis would still love Las Vegas. Las Vegas, in many ways, is still what it once was.
VL: If Elvis were alive today, do you think he’d be a big proponent of rehab?
ST: I’m on this steamboat, the American Queen, [with] EPE (Elvis Presley Enterprises), and I’m an ambassador for them on this boat. They do two Elvis cruises a year from Memphis and New Orleans. I just finished giving a talk about that…about the fact that [back then] there was no Betty Ford Clinic. It was really the kiss of death to confess to problems like Elvis had. Today with Robert Downey, Jr., and others, they go into rehab for serious drug addictions and they come out bigger stars than when they went in. But back in those days, you have to remember [that] culturally, Elvis’ orientation was Jerry Lee Lewis, who lost his career almost over marrying his cousin. He felt like if it came out that he had this drug addiction, or even drug “problem,” it would have ruined his career. He was supremely concerned about what his fans thought of him. I think that he felt that his fans would be disillusioned and disappointed, and I think that’s why he hid it as long as he did and did not seek any help.
I also don’t think that Elvis realized that he truly had a drug addiction. He was taking pills prescribed by doctors. In that time, in that era, that was completely acceptable. For him “drugs” would have been heroin and marijuana and street drugs. He was taking pills from a pharmacy, so I really don’t think that he thought he had a drug problem.
VL: If you were able to talk with Elvis again, what would you want to say to him?
ST: I think I might say, “What happened? What happened to you? Not all the external pressures of what we read about in the tabloids and everything, but what happened to you between your ears? What made you seek solace as you did with medication and retreat to your bedroom?” I think I’d want to know more about what disappointments influenced him and pushed him to the place he was.
I wish—we were so young back then, Charlotte—I wish we all had a little more understanding and knew more about it and maybe could have done more with it. At the end of the day, people are their own arbiters of their future. We can do so little to influence them.
VL: What do you most want people to know about Elvis?
ST: I’m still just amazed. [For] 38 years he’s [been] dead, and people are still interested in his music and his legacy. They’re still interested in hearing his stories, so I’m just grateful to have the opportunity to travel [the world] and to tell Elvis’ story because he’s not here to do that. I want to remind people that he was, after all, just a man—flesh and blood. People put him on a pedestal. I think it’s important to remind people that he was a very human, human being… just like the rest of us.
Charlotte Evans is an award-winning journalist who freelances as a media relations specialist and writer. She has lived in the Las Vegas Valley since 1992, and for more than 17 years anchored the news at KLAS-TV, the CBS affiliate in Las Vegas.
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