Carolyn Steber

On January 8, 1935, in a two-room house in Tupelo, Mississippi, Gladys Presley gave birth to a baby boy. His name was Jesse Garon Presley, and he never took a breath. Thirty-five minutes later, she gave birth to his identical twin. That baby lived. His name was Elvis Aaron Presley — who became the best … Read more

Long before Graceland, before the gold records and the private jets, the Presley family lost absolutely everything over a piece of paper worth four dollars. Elvis was three years old. His father was sent to one of the harshest prison farms in America, his mother lost their house, and a toddler named Elvis Presley sat … Read more

On a warm July evening in 1975, a 33-year-old bank teller named Mennie Person was walking past a car dealership in Memphis on her way home. She wasn’t shopping. She had no money to spend. She just loved Cadillacs, and there was a stunning custom one sitting on the lot at Madison Cadillac, so she … Read more

In 1956, one of the most famous young actresses in America flew to Memphis to spend a week with the hottest star on the planet. She lasted two days. Then she picked up a telephone, called her sister in a panic, and begged her to invent a fake family emergency so she could get on … Read more

Here’s something almost nobody realizes about the King of Rock and Roll: Elvis Presley very nearly lost Graceland after he died. Within a few years of his death in 1977, the estate was bleeding money so badly that financial advisors were telling the family there was only one sensible option left — sell the house. … Read more

In 1968, Elvis Presley’s career was in trouble, and everybody knew it. NBC had agreed to a television special, and his manager Colonel Tom Parker had already decided exactly how it would end: Elvis, smiling in a sweater, singing “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.” Safe. Cheerful. Sellable. What actually happened instead became the greatest performance … Read more

It gets played at more first dances than almost any song ever recorded. Couples all over the world sway to it under fairy lights, convinced they’re listening to the most romantic thing Elvis Presley ever sang. “Can’t Help Falling in Love.” And nearly every single one of them has no idea that the melody they’re … Read more

The National Archives in Washington holds the Constitution. It holds the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. Every year, people write in asking for copies of the country’s most treasured documents. And out of every single item in that building, do you know which one gets requested the most? Not one of those.  … Read more

For more than a decade, every time Ann-Margret opened a new show in Las Vegas, the same gift was waiting for her—a floral arrangement, always shaped like a guitar, always from the same man. There was never any confusion about who sent it. Then on the night of August 15, 1977, she walked in for … Read more