Elvis Presley’s Stepbrother Shared His Moving Story About Growing Up In The Shadow Of The King

Elvis has been the focus of David’s life ever since the two first met. The former has knocked around a bit and tried a few things out. According to The Independent, he was even an evangelist at one point. But one thing above all has marked him out and formed the shape of his life: David is Elvis’ stepbrother. He doesn’t let anyone forget it, either.

David has mined his relationship to Elvis by writing a series of books about the singer. Among them have been Elvis, We Love You Tender and The Elvis Encyclopaedia. When not writing, David has also been speaking. In fact, people will pack out a venue to hear stories from someone who was so close to the King.

Elvis and David were definitely close: the latter worked for him from the age of 16 until the rocker passed. And you’d better believe that he has some juicy stories! After all, this is someone who describes life with the King of Rock as “chaotic insanity in excess: everything all the time always.” But how did he even come into Elvis’ life?

Though they weren’t blood brothers, of course. Elvis actually had a twin who didn’t survive birth, but that was his only sibling. He grew up with dad Vernon and mom Gladys in poverty in the tiny home that they shared in Tupelo, Mississippi. But poor though they were, the latter had ambition for her son: Gladys wanted him to have the education she’d never had.

The future star got that education in due course and graduated from high school in Memphis, TN, where the family had moved when Elvis was still a preteen. Gladys thought Elvis had shaped well, telling the New York Daily Mirror newspaper in 1956, “He never lies. He doesn’t swear. I never heard him call anyone anything except ‘Mister’ and ‘Sir.’”

It seems that Elvis reflected that high regard and grew to be very like his mom. A friend of the rocker called Lamar Fike said, “Basically, Elvis’ personality was that of Gladys’. There wasn’t a dime’s worth of difference between them.” They were pretty close to inseparable and actually both passed on the same day of the year.

As you can probably imagine, that closeness could only come from a mother who was truly devoted to her son. The Daily Express notes that Elvis told the press later, “My mama never let me out of her sight.” According to the newspaper, they even shared a bed until he entered his teens. And he didn’t pass so much as a night outside of his parents’ place before he hit 17!

But as Elvis became ever more famous, he started to have a life that Gladys couldn’t take part in. And she apparently found it very hard to come to terms with. Suddenly, it seemed, he had been catapulted into a dangerous and threatening world that Gladys could no longer shield him from.

Not that the rising star forgot about his mom for a moment. He’d shower her in presents, which included a flash car. Gladys apparently didn’t even know how to drive! Nevertheless, the Daily Express notes that he told his parents, “You’ve taken care of me for 19 years. Now it’s my turn.”

But separation weighed heavily on Gladys, who was particularly saddened when Elvis joined the army and left for Germany. Before long, she was ailing after catching hepatitis. And in August of 1958 the condition proved too much for Gladys’ heart, and it gave out with the matriarch’s distraught son by her side.

Elvis was absolutely distraught and threw himself on Gladys’s coffin at her funeral. According to the Daily Express, he yelled, “Please don’t take my baby away! She’s not dead. She’s just sleeping.” The depth of his loss was apparent as she was interred. He farewelled her, saying, “Goodbye, darling. I love you so much. I lived my whole life just for you. Oh, God, everything I have is gone!”

Shortly afterwards, someone new came into Elvis his dad Vernon’s life. She was Dee Stanley, a woman whose husband – like the singer – was stationed in Germany. She had spotted Elvis a few years before when he took the stage in Virginia before he’d become famous, and it seems that Dee liked what she saw.

Dee took the chance to introduce herself when Gladys passed, and she phoned through to express her sympathy. That then earned her an invite for coffee. Though the star apparently didn’t show, so Vernon – also in Germany – took his spot instead. The young woman was only a few years older than Elvis, but she didn’t appeal to the singer. That said, Dee would still enter his life permanently soon afterwards.

Vernon was taken with Dee, and by April 1960 she was asking husband William for a divorce. The lovebirds tied the knot in July of that year. Elvis hit the roof: he couldn’t believe his dad was getting hitched again so soon after his mom’s passing, and the musician refused to attend.

A witness to that rage was Vernon’s employee Elisabeth Stefaniak, who shared a home with the singer and his dad. She told the press how Elvis had taken it, saying, “He would start talking about his father. That was the only time I saw tears in his eyes. It was because he was hurt that his mother had just passed away, and his father was already dating.”

Rex Mansfield – the man who’d later marry Elisabeth and also serve alongside the King – said that Elvis hadn’t fallen out with his dad, though. According to the Daily Express, he claimed, “[Elvis] really honored both his parents, and he would never say anything. He never said one word [against Vernon], but you could see it in his expression. You could see him hurting.”

So, we now know what Elvis thought about his dad’s marriage to Dee. But how did he treat her family? Well, it turns out that he opened up his home to them! She already had three boys ranging from seven to four, and they came to live in Graceland. That’s how David Stanley met his stepbrother Elvis Presley – perhaps frightened about what awaited him in the mansion that would now be home to him, too.

David told the Daily Express in November 2020 how it had been. He said, “My mother and father divorced in ’59. When I moved into Graceland with my two older brothers, I came in with Elvis’ new stepmother, Dee – [who] was my mother – and Elvis was a little reluctant towards my [mom] because he had just lost his...”

But David didn’t have a clue who this stranger was supposed to be when the two first met. He told The Independent newspaper in 2011, “We walked in, and there was the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll. And I didn’t have any idea who he was!”

Naturally, David could be excused for being a little afraid of this man 20 years his senior. And it may have been that Elvis resented his being there. But the opposite ended up being true in the end. David told the Daily Express, “... He looked over at me, and he picked me up and he gave me a hug and he welcomed me into his family. And [Elvis] took me in and he shared his life with me.”

And it really would be a whole new life for David. The next day he rose in the morning to find himself surrounded by toys. Elvis had apparently bought out a whole store! Clearly, the rocker would now be a big figure in the young boy’s life. David told The Independent, “That disturbed [my mom] a little bit, to know that this guy was going to have a lot of control over her sons.”

Not only did Elvis have influence, but it was like he was a second dad, too. David told the Daily Express, “He was very generous to me. He knew that my dad had been swept out of my life, and he did that replacement thing.” The young boy had no awareness of what the singer represented, but he understood kindness.

David told the Daily Express, “I did understand one thing, I came from a boarding home and moved into Graceland. And I thought, ‘This is going to be a great ride.’ And it really was. It was a great ride.” But Elvis was more than a stepbrother; he was a pal. David added, “It was a lot of good friends and bonding. We stood up for each other; we took up for each other.”

And there were lots of good times. After all, Elvis had a reputation for chasing fun. He would hire a theater out for his buddies to enjoy a film and once paid for a fairground for a night for his daughter Lisa Marie. Plus, he was generous David with life advice. The latter explained, “He taught me everything. He taught me music. He taught me how to be cool… He taught me about girls. He taught me about spiritual matters.”

If David had held any fears about his new family, the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll soon put them to rest. He told the Daily Express, “[Elvis] went the extra mile to make you feel special. You know, there are a few people in the world [who] can pat you on the back and you’re good for another 10,000 miles. When he patted you on the back, you were good for another 10,000 miles.”

David’s stay in Graceland didn’t last too long, though. His new stepdad Vernon decided to ship out of the mansion. But he didn’t go anywhere too distant. No, he moved right next door! His home was actually adjacent to Graceland. And Vernon acted as Elvis’ personal assistant from his new place on the mansion’s grounds.

As for David, he found that he had a weird new existence where his identity had shifted. He told The Independent, “When I started school I didn’t have any identity – I was just Elvis’ stepbrother. Elvis would come to watch me play football, but then nobody watched the game. They were all watching him instead.”

Still, the two were good friends – right up to the point that another iconic singer caught David’s attention. He told The Independent, “I loved John Lennon. Elvis hated him – he thought he was dangerous. So, there was a period where we didn’t get along.” And Elvis didn’t just sit still for it, either.

David continued, “Elvis went to see the president and said, ‘Mr. Nixon, we have a problem with America. Jane Fonda and John Lennon are corrupting our youth, and my stepbrother is a prime example of that.’” And then, David claimed, he suggested that his stepbrother become a “nark” and rat out everyone who used drugs in his school.

That rather sweet Elvis soon gave way to one more prone to wild excess, though. In 1972 he took David on a tour with him. He reminisced about it to The Independent, saying, “Man, it was wild. Private jets, access to anything you wanted.” And David was up for the partying lifestyle that was opened up to him.

David and his brothers became part of the “Memphis Mafia” – the entourage filled with guys whom Elvis could trust. The youngsters didn’t bother with college and instead became one of the star’s “TCBs” – men who would “take care of business” for the singer. Yes, the Stanleys worked for the singer as security, helpers and fellow bad boys.

Working alongside Elvis, David alleges that he witnessed the singer’s slide into substance abuse. He claimed afterwards that he tried to help the King with it, but his own drug use got in the way. In the end, the singer read a story written by his security about his drug issues, and according to David, it reduced him to tears, “sobbing that his life was over.”

Understandably, the damage that Elvis was doing to himself was extremely difficult for David to come to terms with. He told The Independent, “I’d keep having to drag him to the bathroom and clean him up. It was very tough for me to see my hero self-destruct like that.” And for sure, it could not go on forever.

David recalled to Australian TV show Today the star’s final days. He claimed that the singer had seemed to know his time was limited. And while the King shared with him a prediction of his own passing that chilled David to the bone, he still had a life lesson to give him, too.

“The last time I saw Elvis alive was two days before he passed away,” David went on. “I walked into his room and he was reading his Bible. He said, ‘David, let me ask you a question: who am I?’ I laughed at him and said, ‘Well, you’re the king,’ and he said, ‘No, there’s only one king’ as he held up his Bible.”

Then the superstar had what turned out to be his last words for David. The King’s stepbrother said, “I said, ‘I’m going out of town, I’ll be back for the tour,’ and he said, ‘I just want you to know that I love you, David. I won’t ever see you again – the next time I see you will be in a higher place in a different plane.’”

Elvis had apparently been indulging in some literature about spiritual matters, so David didn’t take him at his word. But maybe he should have done. As he told Today, “Unfortunately, two days later I was in his bathroom and discovered his lifeless body.” For his part, David was sure that the King had taken his own life.

With that, the course of David’s life was set. He told The Independent, “And that’s why I’m here today, why I talk so candidly about Elvis. These days I care about young people, and the problem we have with drugs. I have to tell them what they did to my stepbrother.”