Always On His Mind

Monday, Jan. 8, 2001 | 8:57 a.m.

Elvis has left the Roadhouse.

Impersonator Pete "Big Elvis" Vallee, 35, won't be celebrating his favorite performer's 66th birthday tonight in the funky casino on Boulder Highway in Henderson.

For the past three years the 400-pound Elvis Presley impersonator has paid homage to the King each Jan. 8 at the casino's Pink Cadillac lounge. He'd tell a few Elvis stories and sing a few extra Elvis songs during his set.

This year, though, Vallee is without a gig. He abruptly ended his long-term engagement when, he said, the Roadhouse's management failed to pay him for a performance during a New Year's Eve bash there last week.

"No pay, no play," Vallee said. "Once they paid me in dollar bills. Things were getting worse out there."

A spokesman for the casino could not be reached for comment.

Disappointed but not particularly shook up, Vallee will instead take today off and maybe drop in on a few Elvis celebrations around town, such as the one at the Harley-Davidson Cafe on the Strip, which will feature Elvis' favorite food fried banana and peanut butter sandwiches. Or he may see what's shakin' this evening during the "Elvis Lives at the Silverton," party at the hotel-casino, which will feature traveling Elvis impersonator Larry Glen Anderson, and a room full of guests dressed like the King and taking part in a karaoke contest.

The big bash, of course, is at Elvis' Graceland mansion in Memphis, Tenn., where thousands of people many of them also dressed as Elvis will attend an annual birthday party, with free cake and coffee, and watch local politicians once again proclaim it "Elvis Presley Day." Vallee isn't concerned about the events, though. Whatever he does, he won't be lonesome tonight.

"I usually work (on his birthday), but this (leaving the Roadhouse) happened so quickly. It is one of the first times in years I haven't done something, said Vallee, who lives in a mobile home park and drives a gold Cadillac.

"I guess I will spend the day reading some stuff on him and listening to his music. It will be a time to reflect."

He might reflect on the casino where he previously worked, a neighborhood joint where the bartender answers the phone if the person in the cash cage doesn't pick it up first. Once a Stuckey's restaurant, the building was converted into the casino (but still looks like it used to be a Stuckey's).

There is no stage in the Pink Cadillac lounge. "Big Elvis" performed in an open space designated as a lounge because, well, every casino needs a lounge, even a former Stuckey's.

It was a lounge without boundaries, whose space flowed into a dining area reminiscent of a diner you might find on the main street in Tupelo, Miss., where Elvis Aron Presley was born on Jan. 8, 1935.

Possibly, when the casino was a Stuckey's, the site that now is the lounge area may have been occupied by shelves stuffed with the defunct restaurant chain's famous Pecan Log Rolls candy bars. Elvis probably would have thought he'd died and gone to heaven if he had been surrounded by Log Rolls.

The Pink Cadillac not only is a lounge without walls, it is a lounge without lighting, acoustics or an elaborate sound system.

Still, Vallee was happy to have entertained at there. "They were good to me," he said. "The experience gave me a chance to develop a following."

Heartbreak Hotel

Vallee was 13 years old and living in Seattle when Elvis died of a heart attack on Aug. 16, 1977 (reportedly while sitting on a toilet at Graceland).

The teenager had spent the day at Lake Washington. "I remember it so vividly because it was so hot that summer, 100 degrees. It was so hot the fish were dying."

Also, Vallee's mother had bought tickets to an Elvis concert to be held in Seattle in November.

When he returned home from the lake, "Mother was sitting at the table, crying. She said we weren't going to be able to see Elvis in November, he got sick and died," he recalled.

"I remember going downstairs -- we lived in an apartment on the fourth floor -- and walking out into the street. It was a pretty big street, but all of the cars had stopped. It was like 5 o'clock (p.m.). I could hear crying all over the street. I went to the store and there were people (passed) out. It was like when John F. Kennedy died. People were freaked out."

The following year Vallee, who says he still has the unused concert tickets, became an Elvis imitator. He traveled the country performing part time while studying his craft, and became "Big Elvis" five years ago. He moved to Las Vegas in 1998.

Vallee, who is one of about 35,000 impersonators around the world, claims he's only one of a few good ones. He doesn't respect most of the others.

"They're just young kids who (get the Elvis haircut and wear the clothes) and jump up and down," he said. "I took a little time out and studied my craft, like some people do to be a good welder or chef. I think what I do, I do very well. It's better than most, I would say."

Ron Livingston, who sings oldies tunes and country songs in the lounge at Arizona Charlie's East, has seen Vallee perform and says he has one of the best Elvis voices around.

"In some ways, he sings better than Elvis," Livingston said. "He has a very rich voice. There are a lot of Elvis impersonators who present a good image, but Pete has a very good voice. And, he's a nice guy -- which counts a lot (in the locals market) on Boulder Highway. He's not conceited, where some entertainers are hung up on themselves."

Livingston and Vallee have crossed paths several times over the past three years, on occasion appearing at the same lounges, such as the Pink Cadillac.

"Me and Pete are Boulder Strip (entertainers)," he said. "We're a hit with the locals, mostly. They want what me and Pete do."

Vallee may have a new place to perform in the near future, where he'll be part owner and can do his routines, which not only include Elvis but other legendary entertainers such as Louis Armstrong. He's even been known to throw in some country material.

"I'm about to have my own entertainment venue, like Wayne Newton at the Stardust," Vallee said. "It will be a supper club, with dinner shows and late shows and stand-up comic nights, and on Sundays a gospel hour, kind of like Elvis. He was deeply religious, like me. We were raised in the same church, the Southern Baptist."

According to Vallee, the project should become a reality within the next two months. He declined to discuss details, such as location and parties involved.

He said he will be the focus of most of the entertainment, but others will be brought in to fill in for him.

"It's not just going to be all Elvis," Vallee said. "We will have other entertainment, with themes from the '50s and '60s."

The dinner menu will include some of Elvis' favorite meals, but probably not fried bananas and peanut butter. High on the list will be fried chicken and cheeseburgers.

"The food is going to be like homemade," he said.

Big Hunk O' Love

Turning a 400-pound Elvis loose in a restaurant may not seem like a wise move, but Vallee, who wasn't always large, doesn't see it as an issue.

"Weight has never been a problem for my career," he said. "I was smaller in my 20s, but I took some time off (from impersonating) and put on weight. Five years ago, when I got back into it full time, I was a little nervous about what people would think, but when I came out as 'Big Elvis' and started shaking around, people didn't care about the weight. They just came to hear the vocals."

Besides, Vallee is closer to what Elvis looked like toward the end of his life than most other impersonators.

"Elvis got big before he died, 275 or 300 pounds, and he was shorter than me. I'm 6 (foot) 3," he said.

The weight, he said, has not been an anchor to his career. "People see the novelty of it. It has worked very well."

Although it failed to help him get a part in the upcoming Kevin Costner movie "3,000 Miles to Graceland," which was filmed in Las Vegas last summer, he did have a small role in "The Elvis Killers," a low-budget, straight-to-video film that came out in August.

Vallee is not surprised that his idol continues to inspire movies and parties 23 years after his death. There was something special about the King that will never die, he said.

"This is my opinion, but I believe Americans are really good people deep down inside. They love their family and they respect somebody who loves their mom and dad, which (Elvis) did. Also, they respect somebody who will serve their country and not balk about it, and he was all that.

"People like somebody who is good to people, who cares about people, which he did. And people love somebody who loves the Lord, and he did. Unfortunately, at the end, he got sidetracked."

If Elvis were around today to celebrate his own birthday, Vallee said he would be an elder statesman for American values.

"I'm sure he would have been a spokesman for the United States. I think he would still be admired and respected, especially if he came out and said, 'Hey, I had a problem a few years ago, but I'm back on track now.' "

The country lost a great asset when Elvis died, Vallee said. "I think Elvis was America. It lost a part of itself when he died."

Vallee, when performing, said he gets a sense of what it must have been like to actually be Elvis Presley.

"People start taking out their cameras and flashes go off all over and ladies start crying," he said. "You have a feeling, for a little while, what he must have felt like, but then you remember you are your own entertainer."

He especially likes it when young children run to him and throw their arms around him, as though they know him.

"It really warms your heart," he said. "Kids look at you like you're Mickey Mouse, or somebody really important."

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