“M*A*S*H ”Actor Elliott Gould Recalls Elvis Presley Asking About Barbra Streisand Split: 'Shut Up, Elvis'

Elliott Gould and Barbra Streisand were married from 1963 until 1971 and share a son, Jason Gould

Elliott Gould is recalling the time he met Elvis Presley.

Gould, the acclaimed actor known for roles in everything from M*A*S*H to the Ocean's Eleven franchise, recently told Fox News that when he met Presley in the 1970s, the rock music icon had one thing on his mind: Gould's then-recent divorce from his ex-wife Barbra Streisand.

"I had always wanted to meet Elvis," Gould, 85, told the outlet of his meeting with Presley after one of the musician's performances at Las Vegas' International Hotel. "I was deeply involved in musical comedy. I was a chorus boy on Broadway — I was brought up and trained that way. So I asked if we could arrange for me to come and meet Elvis… and I got it."

The actor recalled that when he and his friend, the actor Joseph Walsh, Elvis was waiting for them along with his father Vernon and his manager, Col. Tom Parker.

"He said to me, ‘Why did you and Barbra break up?’ You’re two of my favorite people,' " Gould said. "I said, ‘Shut up, Elvis.’ "

Related: All About Barbra Streisand's Son Jason Gould

Gould and Streisand, now 81, married in 1963 after they met while working together on Broadway. The couple broke up in 1971 and share a son named Jason, 56.

"It’s all been written and everything has been said but… fame and fortune are not the answer," Gould told the outlet, as he recalled the breakup. "If there wasn’t peace and harmony, I was going to have a lot of problems… But the real question is not why we grew apart, but how could we have grown apart?"

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Gould last recalled his marriage to Streisand — and the reasons surrounding their breakup — during a 2020 appearance on CBS Sunday Morning in which he said they simply grew apart.

"Well, Barbra asked me at one point, because she’s still writing her book, she said, ‘Why did we grow apart?’ " he said at the time. "And I said my question would be, ‘How could we have grown apart?’ And the answer to that is that we didn’t grow together and the reason for that was because she became more important than us."

"Then I also said to her, 'We did great. We made it very fast and nobody has what we have. There’s you and me and our kid,' " he added at the time.

Related: Barbra Streisand's Life in Photos

Gould also shared during his recent Fox News interview that during his meeting with Elvis, he advised the musician to seek time away from his father and Parker, whom he says briefly left the room during their conversation. Elvis's relationship with the manager stood at the center of last year's biopic Elvis, which starred Austin Butler as the legendary rock musician and Tom Hanks as Parker.

"He said, ‘Hey, man, you’re crazy,’ " Gould told Fox News. "I said, ‘I ain’t crazy, Elvis. I’m scared just like you. Your daddy and the Colonel aren’t going to let us be alone for too long. You’re a cash cow to these people.' "

"Why don’t you come out and just be free, just be a free spirit?' " he recalled saying. " 'Leave Elvis here and come out and be free.' "

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