Elvis to Lansky:

"When I Get Rich, I'm Going to . . . "

(by Bill E. Burk)

Little did Bernard Lansky realize, on looking at that young boy in the window of Lansky's menswear store on Beale Street in Memphis, that for years after, and even more years after that young man died, Lansky's would enjoy a worldwide reputation among Elvis fans for being the Clothier to the King.

Lansky and his brother, Guy, had opened Lansky Brothers originally as a war surplus store. "We had both come home from the Army and started selling surplus goods," said Lansky, who could sell ice to the Eskimos.

"People would come into our shop and drop down 50 cents and walk out of here with a cap or something. Or, for $1.95, they could get a fatigue shirt or fatigue pants."

When the surplus era began fading, the brothers Lansky looked at the overall Memphis fashionwear market and decided to go the high fashion route, mainly because it filled a need. High fashion? On Beale Street? Were they crazy or something, other merchants asked.

"Practically everybody in town was selling the same old stuff," said Lansky. "No one was selling high fashion clothes. I mean, we carried nothing but the finest.

"That's what the kids of the late Forties, early Fifties wanted. And we gave it to them."

One of those "kids" was standing outside the store during a break from his job as an usher at Loew's State Theater, just around the corner on Main Street. "I had seen him before," said Lansky.

"I knew enough about him to know he worked at Loew's, but I didn't know his name. "I walked outside to greet him and told him, 'Come on in and let me show you around.'

"He said, 'I don't have any money. But when I get rich I'm going to buy you out!' "I still had no idea what his name was, but I told him, 'Do me a favor, will you? Just buy from me. I don't want you buying me out.'"

And that's how Elvis Presley began shopping at Lansky's and that's how, in years to come, the store would become known as Clothiers to the King.

In those days, Lansky's was pushing black and pink combinations to the kids. Elvis was one of his early black/pink customers. And once Elvis' fame began to spread via his Sun Records hits, practically all the hip kids in Memphis were swarming to Lansky's to get way out clothes.

"We had everything they wanted," said Lansky. "Black pants with pink shirts with high collars; the row collars with the big sleeves; with three button sleeves; and with big sleeve cuffs. Something different."

Lansky knew that as Elvis' tour schedule began to include the Louisiana Hayride and appearances on national TV, Elvis should be wearing something different, "so, we started him out with big shirts, peg pants, half-boots of patent leather. He would also come into the story and buy fly clothes. This was with rolled up collars.

"He would watch TV and see all those gangsters wearing those big hats. We called them Dobbs hats. I think we sold them for $20 ... $30. They would cost $150 today. Elvis would call and say, 'Mr. Lansky, send me over a half-dozen of them hats. And send some over for the guys, too.' (It was the gangster look that led to Elvis' guys becoming known as the Memphis Mafia.)

"Elvis was a dynamite young man. What he did for us ... well, he was a great public relations man for us. A walking billboard. Anybody asking him where he got his clothes, he would answer, 'Lansky's on Beale.'

"And despite how tremendously big he became -- you know, RCA/BMG named him Artist of the Century -- he was the nicest guy you would ever expect to meet."

It was always "Yes, sir, Mister Lansky." And Lansky would reply: "Mister Lansky is my father. I'm Bernard."

And Elvis would come back: "Yes, sir, Mister Lansky."

And that never changed for as long as the two were close. "Once he hit it big, he came in more often and, no, he never bought me out.

"And when he came in on a shopping spree, if you happened to be in the store when he was there, and you wanted something, he'd buy it for you. He didn't care who it was or what it was. He bought it for them," Lansky said. Elvis wasn't the only walking billboard for Lansky's. Superstar Rufus Thomas, a Sun artist before Elvis ever walked into the place, would splash out on stage, show off his high fashion duds, and shout to the audience, "Ain't I clean?! Lansky's!!" "We did a lot of mail order because of him (Elvis)," Lansky said.

"We still do a lot of mail order because of him. He had this taste for these clothes because I put that taste in him. He was sharp. He was clean as Ajax.

"We would get new merchandise in and we would load it on a truck and I would have my son, Hal, drive it out to Graceland for Elvis to look at. When the truck came back, it was empty! Elvis had taken all of it."

Lansky said he still remembers Elvis' sizes from the early years -- 42 coat, 32 waist, medium shirt (15 1/2 x 34) and a size 10 1/2 boot. When Elvis walked into Lansky's, "I would treat him like a baby. Put clothes on him. Stand him in front of a mirror. Marked his clothes (for alterations). And I would say, 'Elvis, this is what you want, right here. This is what I've got for you.'

"And he would start laughing, then buy it." Once Elvis traded Lansky a three-wheeled Messerschmidt sports car for a two-hour shopping spree in the store. "I still have the car," Lansky said.

"And I still have wonderful memories about our times with Elvis."

=== 007===

THIS STORY appeared in ELVIS WORLD magazine in August 1989.

Visit The Lansky Brothers website