Elvis: Portrait Of A Friend

by P atsy Lacker and Leslie S. Smith Marty Lacker

316 Pages of Text and Photographs

Genres: Biography

Hardcover

First published June 1, 1979

Reviews

[Chad · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the best books about Elvis that was ever written. The biggest section of the book was written by Marty Lacker, and it's interesting to note that when he repeats some of the stories in the book "Elvis Aaron Presley : Revelations From The Memphis Mafia", the stories don't change. He might add a little more detail, but it's still essentially the exact same story.

My favorite parts of this book are when he discusses the early parts of the sixties, because they seem to be the happiest times of Elvis's life after his mother died. This also seems to be when most of the funnier incidents happened, and there a lot of them!

If you're an Elvis fan, this is the one book that you should absolutely have in your collection, because while Marty mostly covers the good times, he doesn't stray away from the bad ones, either. In other words, while the book is very interesting and fun to read, Marty wrote the truth and he let's you decide for yourself how you want to take it.

Marty's wife of the time, Patsy Lacker, also wrote a small section of this book, and her section does the one thing that no other book before or since has seemed to do : it fills you in on what life was like for the wives of the guys, who didn't really have too much of a choice in being part of that lifestyle. Patsy is upfront about the fact that for the longest time, she actually despised Elvis, and didn't warm up to him until they had known each other for many years. While she could have chosen to be petty and let her feelings dictate how she wrote, she took the more honorable road and followed Marty's example by writing things the way that she saw it and then lets you decide for yourself how to take it.

The last section of the book was written by Leslie Smith, who spends a good deal of his time trying to straighten out the facts about the drugs and the cause of Elvis's death. Les is obviously an outsider, but he also acknowledges that he was never much of an Elvis fan. Not that he disliked Elvis, he just didn't really care about Elvis either way. For what he was undertaking, I think that's a good position to start from, because there is no bias to either believe or dismiss what you find during your research.

Like I said at the beginning of this review, this is the best book ever written about Elvis, and even though I have read it several times, I know that I will read it several more times in the future.

[Tessa · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating, honest and compassionate account of Elvis’s life and struggle with drugs. I especially enjoyed the section by Marty Lacker who clearly loved Elvis like a brother and could relate personally to his struggle with drugs.

[Melissa Barstow · Rating 4 out of 5]

The best parts of this book, were the interviews at the end!

[John Grace · Rating 3 out of 5]

More balanced than the usual Elvis books from that era. Talks about his good deeds more than his bad. I do wonder who the singer was that gave Elvis cocaine and then had his toe broken by Ed Parker.

[Vincenzo Ridente · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating honest book on Elvis told through the words of one of his closest friends Marty Lacker