The legendary music maker Elvis Presley served consumers his original best-selling hits, including “Hound Dog” and “Jailhouse Rock,” with a mix of country, rhythm and blues, and rock ‘n’ roll, and both his sound and charisma rewarded him with hysterical fans.
Presley pioneered youth music, while Patsy Cline produced a crossover between them country and pop and Ray Charles bridged the gap for groundbreaking soul. The King of Rock ‘n’ Roll was a cultural icon in both the music and television industries in the 1950s.
In the months leading up to his sudden death on August 16, 1977, Presley was reportedly in great pain.
Elvis Presley died on August 16, 1977 at his home in Memphis, Tennessee. (Photo by Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images)
“He was really heavy,” says Ted Pryor, author and former bodyguard for Presleytold Fox News Digital.
“Elvis had gotten to the point where he was so heavy that he didn’t like to be touched because he was sweating constantly and feeling hot,” he said.
Pryor, a super middleweight kickboxing champion, was hired for Presley’s team because of his status as a world champion.
“Elvis, when he was younger in the service, he learned a little bit of martial arts, and he was in love with it,” Pryor said. “It was quite exciting for me to become a bodyguard for ‘the king’.”
Ted Pryor recently published a book titled “Three-Time World Champ: The Death-Defying True Story of a Kickboxer Turned Drug Smuggler… Turned Business Icon,” in which he delves deeper into his time with Elvis Presley. (Jack Randall; Getty Images)
Pryor and his friend Joe were training law enforcement, FBI and DEA personnel in Florida in self-defense techniques they could use in the field when they received a call from Presley’s team offering them work as bodyguards while he toured the US.
“Unfortunately, no one knew it at the time, but he was broke,” Pryor told Fox News Digital.
“He had to go on tour because his manager gambled away his money,” he added of Presley’s then-manager: Colonel Tom Parker.
The kickboxing duo traveled with “the King” around the country, from Tennessee and Florida to New York and California, but never internationally.
ELVIS PRESLEY’S FINAL MONTHS WERE SET BY PHYSICAL PAIN AS HE STARTED HEAVY TOUR, AUTHOR CLAIMS
Elvis battled drug addiction and experienced weight gain in the years before his death in 1977. (Getty Images)
“Elvis has never traveled outside the United States,” Pryor said. “Elvis’ manager, there was a reason why he kept him in the US, because he had a gambling problem.”
Despite Presley’s weight gain, which has been widely analyzed in the decades since his death, women flocked to the “It’s Now or Never” singer and awkwardly maneuvered through the crowd to reach the stage.
“The women rushed onto the stage,” Pryor told Fox News Digital. “It was interesting because you had a stranglehold around their waist. We slowly brought them to the ground and our junior bodyguards took them away.”
Pryor said the men would fend off three to four women at a time using takedown techniques and that one woman, who had been given a scarf by Presley himself, used the accessory to strangle Pryor with it.
Elvis moved Priscilla Presley into his Graceland home in 1963 and later, in 1967, the couple married before divorcing in 1973. (Getty Images)
“She was trying to reach Elvis,” he said. “She put it around my neck and started choking me.”
Pryor and Joe stayed by his side during what would unknowingly be the last tour of his life, until they received the sudden news that would shock and devastate the world. Presley’s death was so shocking that former President Jimmy Carter made a public statement about his death in Memphis.
“It wasn’t a good call,” Pryor said. “I think the whole world was shocked when that happened.”
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Elvis and Priscilla shared one child, Lisa Marie Presley, who was born to the couple in February 1968. (Photo by Michael Ochs Archive/Getty Images)
Looking back on his time with Presley Affectionately, Pryor said that the singer treated his bodyguards “really well” and that despite being generally “sour”, he was “nice” to them.
“He lost his mother, he lost his wifeand he was sour toward women,” Pryor said.
