Elvis at the Imperial Palace From the website www.vegasdeluxe.com: During a night rife with oddities, selecting the weirdest moment was a challenge. But it had to be at The King’s Ransom exhibit at Imperial Palace, a new-to-Vegas display of Elvis Presley memorabilia, ranging from the mod, blue jacket he wore in “Spinout’ to the mod, blue bottle of Mylanta plucked from one of his medication-laden medicine cabinets. I cut a corner to take a look at one of the more fascinating displays, a collection of framed photos of Elvis meeting President Nixon in December 1970.



You get lost in these photos as you observe a clearly confused, glazed-over, glassy-eyed, acutely paranoid hostage of his own success.



But Elvis, conversely, looks relatively OK.



As any Elvis fan (or Nixon fan, for that matter) knows, Elvis requested the legendary visit so he could gain status as a federal agent at-large for the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. Buffeted by fistfuls of prescription pills each day, Presley actually sought Nixon’s support in his fight against drug abuse (see the National Archives account here.) A series of photos chronicles the famous session that took place in Nixon’s Oval Office, and as I peered through the glass, the person next to me said, “Pretty ironic, huh?”



“Oh yeah,” I said, turning to the person making the comment, who happened to be … Linda Thompson. She’s Elvis’ beauty queen ex-girlfriend (and also ex-wife of Bruce Jenner and David Foster and mother of Brody Jenner), still gorgeous, and she was on hand for the VIP/media opening of the attraction. The display space is set just about next to the Imperial Theater, and you could even faintly hear the boys from Human Nature singing “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” and other Motown favorites during last night’s tour. Bumping into a Memphis Mafia member or former confidant of the King was not too uncommon during this event. Also adding some vintage Elvis-dom to the exhibit space were Memphis Mafia insiders and longtime Presley friends Joe Esposito, Sonny West and Jimmy Velvet. Even Pete “Big Elvis” Vallee turned out, as did Rhonda Williams, who until this year owned a cross Elvis presented to her at the stage during a show in 1974.

PICTURE: Linda Thompson, Elvis’ former girlfriendat King’s Ransom Museum’s Elvis Presley Exhibit at the Imperial Palace.

Published: october 23rd 2009 09:06 PM.
Source: Vegasdeluxe.com / Published by: ElvisMatters - Peter Verbruggen . Reproduction of this news item is granted, on condition of reference to the source: www.elvismatters.com.