Al Dvorin killed in road accident

Al Dvorin immortalized the expression, "Ladies and Gentlemen, Elvis Has Left the Building" and sadly he will never again repeat those famous words and instead the sad story is "Al Dvorin has left the building". Our dear friend Al Dvorin was tragically killed in a road accident on Sunday August 22nd. He was in a car being driven by his friend Ed Bonja from Palm Springs to Las Vegas on a small, winding back road when fate took hold. Apparently, Al suddenly took his seat belt off because it was uncomfortable and Ed looked to see what Al was doing, missed a curve and went down an embankment, rolling over. Al was killed instantly as he was thrown from the car and Ed was hospitalised. They were following behind Paul Casey, a promoter who had booked Al for an Elvis Show. Paul did not know about the accident until he heard from Ed Bonja in the hospital. Apparently, Ed has been released from hospital but was badly injured, his seat belt saved him.

Al Dvorin lost his wife earlier this year, she died from cancer. He was just starting to get active again and had several shows coming up. He had phoned me several times in the last month, most recently just before August 16th when he told me he was going to Vegas to do some shows. He loved the designs for the "Elvisly Yours Restaurants" and had printed them and took them everywhere to show people, he loved them so much. I had invited him to England when the first "Elvisly Yours Restaurant" is planned to be opened. I wanted him to be the voice that announced people by name as they left the Restaurant, eg "Ladies and Gentlemen, Sir Elton John has left the building..." or Jim Smith, Mary Rose etc.

We had the honour of meeting Al Dvorin at the "Aloha from Killarney" Concerts staged by Mark Leen, the Emerald Elvis in January 2003. Al was one of those people you took an immediate liking to and we hit it off and became friends, phoning and writing emails. Although, Al always had problems with computers so mostly he would phone. We had plans to tour an Elvis Museum with his personal collection of Elvis artifacts that he had kept from his time working with Elvis from 1955 until 1977.

Of all the people Maureen and I had met associated with Elvis he was the nicest, kindest, funniest and most honest. He would be described in Yiddish as a real "mensch" ...the dictionary definition is "a decent, upright, mature, and responsible person" but it means so much more such as kind, warm, considerate, loving, friendly. Al would often use Yiddish expressions in his conversations with me. In the Jewish religion people are buried very quickly and flowers are never sent. I will try and find out a charity favoured by Al where people can donate money instead of flowers and post it on the website.

I had told Al over and over again to record all his memories of his 22 years with Elvis. He had so many stories to tell and with such humour. Al had the sort of voice that was so interesting, so amusing you could listen to him for hours and we did. Al knew Elvis longer in show business than anyone else and did all his shows from 1955-1977. He had planned to write a book to put the record straight because so many people made such outrageous claims of their time with Elvis and Al knew the truth. I don't think Al got very far with his book because he was not good at organising himself. He could organise Elvis concerts perfectly, but getting into a routine to write or even record his memories he always managed to leave it for another day.

The world's media have now picked up the story and I am pleased that Al has received some recognition for the work he did promoting Elvis' career. Click on links :