Charlie Hodge died on March 3rd 2006
in Fort Sanders Regional Hospital in Knoxville, Tenn. He was 71 years
old and leaves a wife, Jenny; a sister, Margie Poteet of Somerville; a
nephew, Lyle Poteet of Somerville; one great-niece, Caitlin Poteet and
several cousins.
I and Maureen knew Charlie for 25
years and this is our tribute to an old friend.
In 1981 I commissioned the sculptor
Jon Douglas to make a lifesize, coldcast bronze statue of Elvis Presley.
It was decided to portray "Elvis in Concert" from the
1970's and the Aloha Concert was the theme for our magnificent statue.
Jon, who was 76 years old, had many problems completing the statue and it
took seven months to finish. During its construction I asked many fans
who they thought should have the honour of unveiling our statue in London.
The general consensus was Charlie Hodge as he was the closest person
to Elvis having been with him in the Army, lived at Graceland for 17 years
and was by Elvis' side each performance from the '68 Comeback until the
last Concert in June 1977.
Statue curtain gradually
rising at
unveiling ceremony
Charlie on stage at
unveiling ceremony,
Baronnial Suite
I found Charlie's address and
wrote to him, actually expecting a negative reply. But a week later
Charlie called me 'collect' as I had suggested and said he would be
honoured to unveil the statue. He said he would need to earn some
money whilst he was out of America and wanted a fee of $2,000.00,
plus airfare, hotel and expenses paid. I explained we could not
afford anywhere near that amount for a fee but would cover his
airfare, hotel and expenses and agreed a lesser fee but arranged for
a photographer to take photos with fans and he received most of the
proceeds from the sale of the signed photos.
I went to meet Charlie In Los
Angeles where he was living at the time and made arrangements for
his trip. Charlie had no sense of time zones and he would call me in
the middle of the night, collect. On one occasion I said,
"Charlie what time is it" and he said, "7.30
pm", I said, "in London it is 3.30 in the morning". I
don't think it phased him because being around Elvis, a "night
person", Charlie believed 3.30 am was a normal time.
The day arrived when I would
meet Charlie at the Airport. I got there in good time and waited in
the Arrival Hall. There were huge crowds and Charlie's plane had
landed on time but there was no Charlie...until suddenly, I heard a
voice over the tannoy announcing my name and asking me to meet
Charlie Hodge by the "information desk". Charlie was only
tiny and I missed him as he came through the Arrival Hall from
Immigration.
As with all guests I have had
over from America, friends and family of Elvis, I took Charlie all
over London to see the sights and entertained him at famous
old and interesting restaurants. The big day arrived and we had so
many fans for the unveiling that we had to run two unveiling shows
with almost 2,000 fans.
Charlie was superb and enthralled
the audiences with his wit, warmth and such great stories about Elvis.
Charlie truly loved Elvis Presley and you could see the sadness in his
heart; even though he was making you laugh, deep down inside Charlie
was crying. I don't think Charlie ever recovered from the death of
Elvis.
There had been pandemonium the
night before the unveiling and the trauma did not end even the day of
the unveiling. Jon Douglas, the sculptor had the statue in eight
pieces the night before it was to be unveiled and had become paralysed
in his arms and could not complete the statue. His sons and my staff,
under Jon's instructions, assembled the statue all night. We had
almost 2,000 fans coming from all over Britain and Europe and I kept
on calling each hour checking on their progress. Somehow it was
finished and then had to be polished by some female fans that had
stayed up all night helping. You can imagine the shiniest bit of the
statue. A truck trasported the statue to the Hall for the unveiling
but was in an accident when a car jumped the lights. Everyone sitting
around the statue went flying in the back of the truck and some got
hurt but the only damage to the statue was the microphone was bent
back and looked rather rude. We had to delay the unveiling until Jon
could fix the microphone (Elvis always had problems with mics).
Charlie praising sculptor Jon Douglas
for
his masterpiece
Charlie with young fan at
unveiling ceremony
Charlie, of course, took the panic
in his stride and at last the big moment arrived. There was Charlie on
stage with the statue covered by a pink satin curtain on a moving
turntable. The music from "2001" blasted out followed by
American Trilogy while slowly the curtain raised, the statue turned and
fans were cheering, clapping, screaming, crying, laughing while a tear
went down the face of Charlie as the statue was finally unveiled. Fans
then came up, it seems in their hundreds, to place flowers at the base
of the statue and take their photos. It was a very moving experience
followed by a speech from Charlie and his stories of Elvis. He was
wonderful, so professional and so charming. Suzie Quattro was a guest
and gave a speech. Charlie was very concerned about security and
asked after a short autograph session to be taken to a quiet area to
recover. There were too many fans crowding around the stage so all we
could do was to hide Charlie in a small room behind the
stage until we could clear the crowd. I got some stick from Charlie
for that but there was nothing else I could do to get him
away....Charlie hadn't left the building, he was hiding in a broom
closet. There was a film show, the photograph session and live music
by rock 'n' roll groups and then we had to repeat the unveiling all
over again.
For the second unveiling the sound
broke down and American Trilogy was cut short. There was still great
excitement and a great atmosphere and all the fans present for the
second show had a great time and more time with Charlie. For Jon
Douglas it was the highlight of his career and the fans showed great
appreciation when he was introduced on stage by Charlie. Of course,
the statue is permanently on display at the Elvisly Yours Shop, 233
Baker Street, London NW1 and often tourists and some fans ask how much
it costs. My standard answer is "it's not for sale but if you
offered me £1 million I would consider it". Charlie was on a
high after the unveiling ceremonies and loved meeting the fans but
still had this worry in the back of his mind about security. At the
time I did not know Elvis and most of the guys carried guns just in
case there was an assassination attempt on Elvis. Charlie coming from
a "gun culture" did not realise Britain is much safer and
Elvis fans do not carry guns here.
Whilst we were celebrating
unveiling our statue of Elvis the Daily Mirror was planning a
character assassination of Elvis Presley when they serialised the
Goldman book "Elvis". Once I saw all the garbage I
immediately phoned the Star and the Sun newspapers and told them I had
in England Elvis' closest friend who could answer back for Elvis and
destroy all the lies in Goldman's book. Both papers immediately sent
around reporters and the Sun ran positive features about
Elvis while the Daily Star ran a campaign with two page spreads
for five days entitled "We Love Elvis". The Mirror lost
thousands of readers while the Star received 14,000 letters thanking
them for supporting Elvis, all courtesy of Charlie Hodge and Elvisly
Yours.
Our agreement was to cover all
Charlie's expenses for hotel and food for one week before and after
the Shows. At the end of the week Charlie said he loved London and
would like to stay longer. I said he could book into a hotel if he
wished and jokingly said or you can sleep on our couch. We only had a
one bedroom apartment but Charlie said that would be fine and we had
Charlie stay at our apartment for two weeks. While he was in London I
got a call from a famous clairvoyant asking to meet Charlie because he
wanted to have a seance with Charlie to reach Elvis. Charlie agreed
and one evening this clairvoyant came over and spent the next three
hours trying to call the king "spiritually". I do believe
there is some sort of spirit world having had so many strange
experiences associated with Elvis but this guy almost made me a
non-believer. He got 'nothing' and then actually asked Maureen to
leave the room because she was breaking the signal or whatever...still
he got nothing, perhaps Elvis was out. But Charlie enjoyed the
experience and was a believer in life after death.
Charlie and Sid at the
Baronnial Suite in
the City of London
Charlie lighting candles
on giant E-L-V-I-S
cake for Elvis' birthday 1982
Charlie would drink a bottle of Canadian Club whisky every night
because he said he could not sleep and he was a heavy chain smoker but
he only ever smoked half a cigarette. He drank gallons of coffee and
was only a small eater. Imagine having the memories of being with
Elvis for almost 20 years and all those highs and some lows as Elvis
was in the Army and started to rebuild his career, the wilderness
years while he was contracted to movies when all he wanted to do was
go back on stage and then the exhilaration of the '68 Comeback and the
concerts of the 70's...what memories and now Elvis was gone. Deep
down Charlie was a sad, lonely man and he missed Elvis terribly,
probably more than anyone in the Elvis circle.
Often Charlie did not want to
speak about Elvis privately, I think it brought back sad as well as
good memories. Just like Elvis, Charlie was devoted to his mother and
talked about her incessantly and their dog. He was from a tiny
town, Decatur in Alabama and was very proud of his little town and his
mother's little house. He had just one sister and a nephew at the time
and was from a small family.
Charlie never had a bad word to
say about Elvis. I know there were times when Elvis was very mean to
Charlie but to Charlie "Elvis was his friend" and I believe
the love of his life...he would have loved to have been Elvis'
brother. However, much you prodded his memory there was never a bad
word about Elvis, so I said one day surely there must have been
something Elvis did that upset you, made you mad. He recounted a story
I published in a previous Elvisly Yours Cyber Newsletter:
Charlie had a date
with a gorgeous girl and he decided to take her way out of town for
dinner in the hope that Elvis would not bother him. He picked up his
date and drove to a far away restaurant. As usual Elvis needed to know
where the guys were just in case there was an emergency.
The
date was going great and they were about to start dinner when suddenly
there was a message that Charlie had to get back to Graceland right
away. You don't say 'no' to Elvis Presley so Charlie made his
apologies to the girl, said he'd be back as soon as he could and drove
at great speed to Graceland. He rushed into Graceland, into the TV
room where Elvis was sitting and while trying to catch his breath
Charlie asked "what's wrong ?". Elvis then replied,
"change the TV channel Charlie".....
Charlie after unveiling the Elvisly
Yours Statue
Elvisly Yours Statue knee
deep
in flowers
The British fans
loved Charlie Hodge so I booked him to come back to England to
celebrate Elvis' birthday January 1982 and Charlie started our large
Birthday Conventions in the 1980's. We had our Elvis Birthday Show in
De Montford Hall Leicester. Of course, we had to have a snowstorm on
the day of the convention and the truck carrying the statue broke down
in the snow. The show started late to allow fans travelling from all
over Britain to get to Leicester even then the sound system broke down
and it seemed "Elvis had NOT left the building" .
In life Elvis was a practical joker and in death perhaps he still
plays his tricks because we have had so many traumas over the years
with our Elvis Events. Again, Charlie was superb and the fans loved
him so much so that one of the fans Barry White invited Charlie to
stay with him and I believe he stayed in Britain almost one year. We
continued to see Charlie when he came back to London.
Over the years we
met many times in Memphis and especially when he was working with
Charles Goodman to publish his book "Me 'n' Elvis". It was a
best seller for us for a long time through our Elvisly Yours magazine,
in our shop and wholesale to fans clubs around the world. Almost every
Elvis Week in the 1980's and early 1990's Charlie was in Memphis for
Elvis Week. Fans always had nice things to say about Charlie and he
was always friendly, courteous and charming whenever a fan would
approach him to sign an autograph or pose for a photo. I chastised him
for his drinking and smoking but Charlie was Charlie and it
helped him relax and sleep.
When we stopped
going to Memphis in 1993 we lost touch with Charlie. I tried to get an
email address for him but don't know if he had a computer. He was not
a good letter writer and I only ever got one letter from him, phone
calls were the way you had to contact Charlie. To the day he died he
was the consummate showman performing regularly at the Memories
Theatre, Pigeon Forge, Tn. He had the gift to capture an audience of
Elvis fans and make them believe he was not only a friend of Elvis but
their friend for life. The years of smoking finally took their toll
and he died from lung cancer and complications brought on by
radiotherapy treatment. Just like Elvis he made people happy and that
is a great epitaph to put on your grave. The fans loved Charlie
because they saw in him the love he had for Elvis and they could share
with Charlie that love and those wonderful memories.
Instead of RIP I
think a more appropriate abbreviation is RIH, "Rest in
Harmony" with Elvis now you are both rocking and harmonising in
Blue Suede Heaven. Instead of the scarves and water Charlie is
probably adjusting Elvis' halo and both sharing in that raucous
laughter when they were cracking up on stage.
One final thing, I
never managed to apologise to Charlie for something he has said when
we first met in Los Angeles and I just did not believe him at the
time. Charlie had said, when Elvis missed a note he would carry it for
him. I thought, Elvis miss a note who is he kidding? Until I met Al
Dvorin I always believed Charlie was bragging. But I was wrong, so
sorry Charlie...Al Dvorin explained the truth. Just imagine Elvis had sang
Polk Salad Annie followed by Suspicious Minds (long version), had
been doing his stuff and karate kicking all over the stage...of
course, Elvis would miss the occasional note and there was Charlie to
cover it, so you never knew. Look out the next time you watch
Elvis exhausting himself on stage on your favourite concert DVD ,
the note you next hear was probably from Charlie Hodge.
Thank you Charlie
for all those wonderful memories and sharing in your love for
Elvis,
Our sincere condolences to his wife Jenny and his family.
Tuesday March 7th 2006,
at 2 pm. Roselawn Funeral Home in Decatur, Al. In lieu of flowers,
the family requests that you make donations to your favorite charity
in Charlie’s memory.
