Devoted friend of Elvis Presley became an early member of his ‘Memphis Mafia’
Afew months before he died, Elvis Presley called United States president Jimmy Carter to ask if he could help to keep his friend George Klein out of prison. Klein, a Memphis disc jockey who had been friends with Presley since their school days, was facing a 60-day jail sentence for falsifying documents to inflate the ratings for his radio show. Desperate to prevent his friend’s incarceration, Presley pulled all the strings he could, but even Carter, a big Presley fan who had met the singer backstage at several concerts, could not help.
Klein, who has died aged 83, served his time in
Tennessee’s
Shelby County
Jail and got out just in time to repay his old friend’s loyalty in tragic fashion, as one of the pallbearers at Presley’s funeral in August 1977. ‘‘I was the last guy to touch his casket when it went in,’’ he recalled. ‘‘I kissed it. They closed it up, and you just felt strange and weak. It was over.’’
One of the earliest members of the singer’s inner circle known as the ‘‘Memphis Mafia’’, Klein met Presley at Humes High School in the eighth grade at the age of 13. They remained close for the rest of the singer’s life.
Presley gave Klein, whom he called ‘‘GK’’ or ‘‘Geeker’’, a Cadillac convertible, paid for him to have a ‘‘nose job’’ and was best man at his wedding to Barbara Little, who was a receptionist for Presley’s physician, in Las Vegas in 1970. The marriage was dissolved. Klein later married Dara Patterson, a computer engineer, who survives him.
Klein’s devotion to Presley was total in life, and in death. When the singer was posthumously inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1986, he was asked by Presley’s wife, Priscilla, to make the acceptance speech. Their friendship had been a ‘‘guy’s thing’’, Priscilla said, with ‘‘their own inside jokes and language’’. Elvis had loved Klein for his outgoing personality.
Deep-voiced and fast-talking, Klein was a radio DJ for 64 years and was still hosting a Presley tribute show in 2018 when ill health forced him off the air. He signed off his shows with the words: ‘‘These United States of America has had 45 presidents, but only one king, and here he is to sing . . .’’
George Klein was born in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1935, the same year as Presley. His Jewish father had emigrated from eastern Europe in the 1920s and set up a grocery business, but he died when George was young. His mother was a seamstress.
In 1948 the Presleys moved to Memphis and Elvis joined Klein’s class. They hit it off and by their senior year Klein used his position as class president to defend Presley against classmates who ‘‘gave him a hard time about his hair and his clothes’’.
He recalled Elvis asking their music teacher, Miss Marman, if he could bring his guitar to class and sing. ‘‘There were a few laughs because it just wasn’t cool in 1948 to do that in front of anyone,’’ he said. ‘‘But the next week he got up and sang Keep Them Cold Icy Fingers Off Of Me. I was blown away because I’d never seen a kid get up and sing like that. Subconsciously I knew there was something happening with this guy.’’
Klein studied communications at Memphis State College, which led to a job spinning records on a local radio station, where he adopted the call sign, ‘‘Everything’s cool, baby . . . this is DJ GK coming your crazy way.’’ He played Presley’s early hits and claimed to have been the first DJ to play records by Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Cash.
When Klein’s radio station fired him,
thinking rock’n’roll was just a fad, Presley put him on his payroll, saying: ‘‘You’ll be one of my travelling companions. We’re going to Canada, Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit and Hawaii. Then we’re going to Hollywood to do the movie Jailhouse Rock.’’ Klein’s onerous duties included scouting ‘‘the best looking girls’’ for aftershow parties.
When Presley was drafted into the US Army, Klein resumed a career in radio and television. After Presley was discharged, the singer invited him to rejoin his payroll. Klein declined, but took up an open invitation to join him on tour. He was at Graceland with Elvis’ father, Vernon, when news arrived from the hospital that attempts to revive the singer after his heart attack had failed.
Noting that so many of the Memphis Mafia had died in recent years, Priscilla Presley dubbed Klein ‘‘the last of our history, in many ways’’. – The Times
Klein was still hosting a Presley tribute show in 2018 when ill health forced him off the air. He signed off his shows with the words: ‘‘These United States of America has had 45 presidents, but only one king, and here he is to sing . . .’’