The Fab Four" meet "The King"

The Fab Four" meet "The King"     During filming of Paradise, Hawaiian Style, Presley returned to his Bel Air home. The Beatles were at the end of their second U.S. tour. Colonel Parker had been negotiating a meeting for some time, through The Beatles' manager Brian Epstein, though Parker simply saw it as a valuable publicity opportunity (He had apparently even tried to get the group and Presley to perform the closing song in the same movie, but The Beatles' film contract precluded it). The group arrived in Bel Air amid a flurry of elaborate security arrangements made by Parker at 10pm, on August 27, 1965. The visit lasted about four hours. Many of Presley's closest and trusted friends— members of the so-called "Memphis Mafia"—were present, including school friend and bodyguard Red West, Marty Lacker, Jerry Schilling, Larry Geller and their girlfriends. Biographer Peter Guralnick maintains that Presley was at best "lukewarm" about playing host to people he did not really know, and it took a while for everyone to feel comfortable. Paul McCartney later said: "It was one of the great meetings of my life. I think he liked us. I think at that time, he may have felt a little bit threatened, but he didn't say anything. We certainly didn't feel any antagonism. I only met him that once, and then I think the success of our career started to push him out a little, which we were very sad about, because we wanted to coexist with him." Marty Lacker recalls Presley saying: "'Quite frankly, if you guys are going to stare at me all night, I'm going to bed. I thought we'd talk a while and maybe jam a little.' And when he said that, they [The Beatles] went nuts." The group told stories, joked and listened to records. The five of them had an impromptu jam session."They all went to the piano," says Lacker, "and Elvis handed out a couple of guitars. And they started singing Elvis songs, Beatle songs, Chuck Berry songs. Elvis played Paul's bass part on "I Feel Fine", and Paul said something like, 'You're coming along quite promising on the bass there, Elvis.' I remember thinking later, 'Man, if we'd only had a tape recorder.'' Ringo Starr played pool with two others that night; George Harrison "looked to most of the guys to be stoned" on arrival and allegedly smoked a joint with Larry Geller and talked about Hindusim . Parker played roulette with Epstein.  However, Guralnick claims The Beatles were, overall, disappointed by the visit. They still reciprocated with an invitation for Elvis to visit them, but only some of Presley's "Memphis Mafia" accepted. John Lennon went out of his way to tell Jerry [Schilling] how much the evening had meant to him" and asked Schilling to tell Presley, "'If it hadn't been for him I would have been nothing.'" Schilling says that when he told Presley he did not say anything, but "just kind of smiled."