Elvis and Gladys sounds like a corny sit com but is the stranger-than-fiction tale of Elvis Presley and his mother, turned into a novel – Graceland by Bethan Roberts. They were renowned as being close since his birth when a stillborn twin was lost. The family lived in chaotic poverty with his feckless father, an abusive drunk, in prison at one point for forging a check and Elvis becoming his mother’s protector when young. His parents had married when Vernon was 17 and his mother 21. Both lied about their ages and settled on 19 to get the deed done.
Gladys’ appeared to have been obsessed with her son, wanting absolute closeness yet she was also keen he find a wife to settle down with, and interviewed girlfriends, even very young ones to gauge their suitability. At 19 he became the family breadwinner, which unsettled her since he was more often away so despite her religious leanings she turned to drink for support. The richer he became, the more unhappy she was, effectively locked away in grand mansions. She died at 46 of alcohol related damage.
Born 25 April 1912 in Mississippi, she was an earthy, stubborn Taurus Sun square Uranus; with an upbeat collection of planets in all three inspirational Fire signs – Jupiter in Sagittarius trine Venus Mercury in Aries perhaps trine a Leo Moon.
Her Jupiter was conjunct Elvis’s Ascendant so she’d boost his confidence and with her Venus in his domestic 4th and her Sun in his entertaining and romantic 5th, she’d play an important role in his emotional life. Her Pluto was in his 7th house of relationships making her controlling about his partners; and her Mars fell in his 8th which would be uncomfortable psychologically, stirring up feelings of anger he would not know what to do with.
He had Pluto in the 8th which is not uncommon in the charts of people who cast a spell over public consciousness, though not easy to live with at a personal level. His mother’s Neptune was conjunct his Pluto – and in an odd way, despite her reticence and downtrodden life, her own personality and unlived elements would be one of the key driving forces in producing the phenomenon that became a global superstar.
Their relationship chart had an affectionate composite Sun Venus Mercury though it was also conjunct a wayward, needs-space Uranus and all trined Pluto – so their bond would veer between possessiveness and rebelliousness, wanting closeness and freedom. There was also a chained-together Pluto square Saturn, so ultimately there was no escaping the ties that bound, all too closely at times.
On Elvis’s chart his Pisces Moon isn’t heavily aspected, being only in out out-of-sign conjunction with Saturn and widely sextile Uranus, though his ambitious 10th house Mars would come from his mother. If anything what marks him out as special is that 8th house Pluto which opposes his Sun, Mercury, Venus in Capricorn which is an inheritance from a grandparent.
It makes you understand where his addictive tendencies came from.