Happy Father's Day to Everyone!

A personal anecdote

My father, an accomplished musician, was born the same year as Elvis, 1935, and was also instinctively connected, mind, body and spirit, to the music, a natural artist.

Like Elvis, he was a fun-loving father and “not strict at all,” as Lisa Presley said.

The only thing my father insisted on is that we listen to good music, no baby music for the children. Music is the universal language that even babies can understand.

Both men unfortunately married beautiful women they met as teens who did not understand them or their daughters at all, their cross to bear, and ours. These are women who clearly married for money, not for love.

Both men were also workaholics who LOVED their music, their work, with all their hearts. This was their saving grace.

Just this year I found out Elvis performed a stint at the Intercontinental Hotel in Las Vegas in the summer of 1969 when my father was at the same hotel playing the trumpet for Peggy Lee, the singer/songwriter all the musicians were listening too. But my dad never mentioned Elvis. I knew he didn’t like Elvis, but I had no idea he was jealous of the icon, even though my father had the luxury of living his life in freedom and privacy.

I don’t think my father would have traded his comfortable life for Elvis’s in a million years. His jealousy was irrational, not rooted in reality at all. But my father was not alone — Rita Moreno revealed she found out in her 8 year relationship with Marlon Brando that Brando was also insanely jealous of Elvis, along with many other men.

Now that they’ve passed on to the other side, I hope they they find healing. Happy Father’s Day!