“All them terrible movies”

Leon Russell:

“You know how people come up to sometimes when you’re sort of a celebrity and they say real strange things to you? I met Elvis up in Vegas and he called me backstage, so I was so excited about meeting him and everything. I walked up to him and I shook hands hello, and then I said ‘Elvis, how come you ended up in all them terrible movies?’ Why did I say that?”

See also Jonathan Schwartz meeting Frank Sinatra for the first time.

And John Ashbery: “I once said to Kenneth Koch, ‘What are you supposed to say to Auden?’ And he said that about the only thing there was to say was ‘I’m glad you’re alive’ (Paris Review interview, 1980).

[Why all those terrible movies? The Colonel knows.]