Even though they would have had plenty to talk about when the cameras weren’t rolling due to their shared military backgrounds, Elvis Presley didn’t appear to have much interest in conversing with Charles Bronson during their downtime on the set of Kid Galahad.
That being said, their service records were entirely different. ‘The King’ was drafted in 1958 and served as an armour intelligence specialist in Germany before being honourably discharged at the rank of sergeant two years later without seeing any active combat.
Bronson, meanwhile, was a genuine war hero. Before turning his attention to acting, he enlisted in the Air Force in 1943, was an aerial gunner who flew in 25 combat missions during World War II, and received a Purple Heart after being wounded in battle. Despite that shared connection of serving, though, they just didn’t click.
One of Presley’s first features after leaving the military and resuming his career, Kid Galahad was a remake of the 1937 film of the same name starring Edward G. Robinson, Humphrey Bogart, and Bette Davis, with ‘The King’ taking top billing as Walter Gulick.
Fresh out of the army and with barely a penny to his name, he takes on a job as a sparring partner at the local gym, only for the owner to become increasingly convinced there’s a professional fighter waiting to be unleashed to their maximum potential. Bronson plays Lew Nyack, the top trainer at the gym who takes the untried fighter under his wing to show him the ropes, both figuratively and literally.
According to Presley’s former bodyguard, Sonny West, he didn’t care for Bronson in the slightest, saying, “Elvis just did not go for him.” The ex-minder was of the belief the dislike came from the grizzled tough guy not caring in the slightest that he was working with one of the most famous people on the face of the planet, and he refused to get caught up in the hype that followed ‘The King’ wherever he went.
“He was a very quiet kind of guy, a loner, and he just didn’t think Elvis was that big a deal,” he explained. “Elvis hated this, and he was always putting him down. He used to call him a muscle-bound smart alec and a musclebound ape. Just never stopped putting him down, although I never heard Bronson knock Elvis.”
Growing resentful of someone because they don’t echo the same sentiments as most people and become enthralled by the sheer wattage of the star power unfurling in front of them is a strange reason to hate anyone, but it’s typical Bronson in a way. He was one of his generation’s most prominent everyman stars, so it makes complete sense he couldn’t give less of a shit that he was co-starring with ‘The King’.
