When a Teenager Knocked on Elvis Presley’s Door and Found His Future
Our American Stories
iHeartPodcasts
4.6 • 817 Ratings
🗓️ 6 November 2025
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this episode of Our American Stories, Greg McDonald was sixteen when a summer job opened a door he never expected. Working maintenance in Memphis meant seeing beautiful homes and meeting the occasional celebrity, but nothing compared to the day he stepped inside a mansion owned by Elvis Presley. One introduction led to another, and soon Greg was talking with Colonel Tom Parker, Elvis’s legendary manager. That brief encounter grew into a lifelong career beside the King of Rock and Roll. Greg traveled with Elvis, helped manage details behind the scenes, and watched history unfold from just a few steps away. Over the years, he came to know not just the performer but the man who carried the weight of fame with humor and heart. Greg joins us to share how a single afternoon shaped the rest of his life.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:14.4 | And we continue with our American stories. |
| 0:18.7 | Greg McDonald got his start in show business as a teenager after meeting Elvis Presley |
| 0:23.9 | and his manager, Colonel Tom Parker, while changing their AC filters in Palm Springs, California. |
| 0:31.6 | Greg went on to manage Ricky Nelson for 17 years and worked under Colonel Parker and Elvis |
| 0:37.3 | shortly after Parker began managing Elvis |
| 0:40.0 | in the 1950s. Here's Greg with the first time he met Elvis and Colonel Tom Parker. |
| 0:52.1 | When I was a young kid, my dad was a part-time preacher and a part-time air-conditioning mechanic. |
| 1:04.0 | And we used to work for Oral Roberts, who was a famous evangelist preacher. |
| 1:14.7 | Well, Oral Roberts had this giant tent that used to belong to Ringling Brothers. It had 10,000 seats. And my dad was one of the preachers, and we'd travel with that |
| 1:21.8 | tent and set up 10,000 chairs and set up the stage and put the tent up. And when the revival was over, |
| 1:32.4 | when Oro Roberts was finished with that revival, we'd come back to Palm Springs, California, |
| 1:38.7 | where my dad did pretty good in air conditioning because it's very hot here. He was in the air conditioning business. |
| 1:46.9 | So I was only a young teenage kid and my dad and the company had me out changing filters in the |
| 1:56.1 | Los Palmas area of Palm Springs, California. And at that time, that's where all of this, a lot of the old |
| 2:02.2 | movie stars lived there. So Elvis was renting a house that belonged to the Jack Warner, the famous |
| 2:10.7 | from Warner Brothers Studio. Well, I didn't, I knew it was the Warner House because I had a key to the |
| 2:17.3 | house. |
| 2:18.3 | It was summertime and I was supposed to go in and change the air conditioning filter. |
| 2:24.0 | So I'm in the house. |
| 2:26.0 | It's hot outside. |
| 2:27.9 | I don't think anybody's home. |
... |
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