RED DEER, Alta. – It’s a crown fit for The King.
A dentist in central Alberta has shelled out nearly $10,000 to buy a dental crown made for rock legend Elvis Presley.
Michael Zuk already owns a $31,000 rotten tooth out of the mouth of Beatles icon John Lennon.
The Presley crown came to him through an auction in the United Kingdom and had previously belonged to Memphis dentist Henry Weiss.
Presley apparently had a gap in his smile that he covered with a crown, and Weiss made a number of crowns for him because The King would often chip them on microphones.
The crown is set in a model made from a mould of Presley’s mouth. It comes with a letter describing an emergency trip Weiss’s son had to make to Las Vegas with a crown in 1971, because Presley had broken one.
“I’m hoping it was one that he wore of course, but if not, well then I guess it was just made off his moulds. It’s still kind of cool,” Zuk said.
“Most of us didn’t know that he had a capped front tooth. He had a smile that made women go a little bit crazy – just goes to show that some of these celebs have their weaknesses.”
Zuk said it was actually his purchase of the yellowy-brown Lennon tooth that led to buying the Presley crown.
He said the Weiss family decided to put their possession up for sale, when they heard how much the Lennon tooth went for. When it was listed, the auction house called Zuk.
He got it for just over 5,000 pounds. When exchange rates and fees are factored in, the total cost will be about C$10,000.
Zuk has other celebrity memorabilia: a piece of a Presley scarf and a lock of his hair, along with a piece of Marilyn Monroe’s golden locks. The Lennon tooth came with a baby tooth from Lennon’s son Julian, so a DNA comparison could be made. He is currently working with a British filmmaker on getting that done.
He jokes that his waiting room is more like a Hard Rock Cafe than a dentist’s office.
But, he said, it’s good for business.
– By Tim Cook in Edmonton
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