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226

Elvis Presley

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Autographs Start Price:NA Estimated At:50,000.00 - 60,000.00 USD
Elvis Presley

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Auction Date:2012 Jan 26 @ 18:00 (UTC-5 : EST/CDT)
Location:5 Rt 101A Suite 5, Amherst, New Hampshire, 03031, United States
ALS - Autograph Letter Signed
ANS - Autograph Note Signed
AQS - Autograph Quotation Signed
AMQS - Autograph Musical Quotation Signed
DS - Document Signed
FDC - First Day Cover
Inscribed - “Personalized”
ISP - Inscribed Signed Photograph
LS - Letter Signed
SP - Signed Photograph
TLS - Typed Letter Signed
Amazing ALS signed “P.F.C. Elvis Presley,” two pages, lightly-lined, 8 x 9.75. In a letter to Sgt. Bill Norwood, Presley writes, in full: “Well I am writing a letter for the first time in years. I received your letter and was glad to hear everything is o. k. I am in a scout platoon and believe me we are on the move alltime [sic]. We are up at a place called Grafenwohr. I’m sure you’ve heard of it. It’s miserable up here and we are here for 6 wks. The German people are very nice and friendly but there is no place like the good ole U. S. I am with a good bunch of boys and Sgts. although I would have given anything to stay at Ft. Hood with you guys. I talk to Anita every so often and she writes me all time. I sure miss her along with 50 million others ha. Boy I’ll tell you something I will be so thankful when my time is up. I can hardly wait to get back home and entertain folks and make movies and everything. Well it will come someday soon. All of us were separated over here. Nowell and Mansfield are in other companies, but there is a lot of good boys in this outfit. Well tell Olly and the kids hello for me. Also tell Sgt. Wallace and Lt. Meister hello for me and if I get a chance I will write to them. Tell Sgt. Wallace to write me sometime so I will know to write him. Well when it’s over we will get together again and it’ll be like old times. Well I have to go now so you all take care and write again.” In very good condition, with three horizontal mailing folds, one of which passes through the tops of the “E,” “l,” and “P” of the signature, a central vertical crease passing through “Elvis,” scattered creasing, and a few crossed out words. Accompanied by the original mailing envelope, postmarked November 11, 1958, addressed in Presley’s hand, including another signature in the return address. A truly remarkable letter, Presley, in his own hand, admitting the letter to be the first he had written in years. And, indeed, the few known Presley handwritten letters are at the pinnacle of desirability amongst serious Presleyana collectors.

After the intense media frenzy surrounding Presley’s induction into the US Army in March 1958 subsided, completing basic training with the 2nd Armored Division at Fort Hood, Texas, was the task at hand. While some of the soldiers gave him a hard time about his celebrity status, Elvis soon became friends with other recruits such as Privates Rex Mansfield and William Norvell, as well as one of his instructors, Master Sergeant Bill Norwood. Elvis had never lived away from home before, and he was miserable, homesick for his mother, Gladys. Mansfield relates "He needed someone to look out for him and Sergeant Norwood was a good one to do that." Norwood saw the despair in the kid's face and took him home so he could call his mother on numerous occasions; the Sergeant witnessing instances of Elvis being brought to tears during some of the calls. Norwood’s fatherly advice to the young recruit was "When you come in my house, you can let it all out, but when you walk out of my front door, you are now Elvis Presley. You're an actor. You're a soldier. So, by God, I want you to act! Don't let anybody know how you feel on the inside." It was Norwood who suggested that Presley’s girlfriend, Anita Wood, should visit, making his home available to her during the visit. Consequently, by the time he completed basic training at the end of May, Elvis had settled into Army life. He had earned his marksman's medal with a carbine and was classified as a sharpshooter with a pistol. After a two-week furlough back at Graceland, interspersed with his final recording sessions until his discharge in 1960, Presley returned to Ft. Hood on June 14 for advanced tank training. His parents followed, renting a house in nearby Killian, Texas. As Gladys Presley’s health declined, Elvis took emergency leave and returned with his parent to Memphis where she died of a heart attack, brought on by acute hepatitis, on August 14. Elvis was inconsolable. One of his first calls was to Sergeant Norwood. They talked until four in the morning. Upon his return from Memphis and completion of his training, on September 19, he departed Fort Hood on a troop train bound for the Brooklyn Army Terminal in New York, boarding the USS Randall for the voyage to Germany. It was from Grafenwohr on the Czech border that the newly promoted Private First Class Presley, as a member of Company C, wrote this letter to his friend, Master Sgt. Bill Norwood.
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