Prince Mongo

Robert Hodges kept the facts of his early life largely to himself. In public he insisted that he had been born on the planet Zambodia some 333 years earlier and had come to Earth as an ambassador. Wikipedia gives his year of birth as 1936 or 1937, and Memphis police gave his age at death as 89, but public records conflicted on whether he was 79 or 89.

He arrived in Memphis in the 1970s, and he first came to wider notice for the garbage themed art he displayed on the lawn of his house in the Central Gardens neighbourhood.

Away from the persona, Hodges was a businessman and property owner. He owned real estate around Memphis and had properties in Virginia Beach, Fort Lauderdale and Port Orange in Florida, and North Carolina. He operated a pizza restaurant on Highland Street, Prince Mongo's Pizza, and a club on Front Street called Prince Mongo's Planet. In the 1990s he owned Ashlar Hall, the landmark Midtown mansion that had been turned into a nightclub called The Castle, which became known as Prince Mongo's Castle. In his later years he flipped houses with a business associate, David Jensen. His properties, often decorated with mannequins on the lawn and toilets on the roof, led to repeated run-ins with code enforcement.

He entered politics in 1978, when he received the third most votes in the race for mayor of Shelby County. From then on he stood for mayor of Memphis as an independent in election after election, and occasionally for county mayor again, appearing on the ballot as recently as 2019. His best known result came in 1991, when he drew around 2,000 votes. In 1983 he announced that Ronald Reagan had endorsed him by telegram, a claim that was almost certainly untrue.

His campaigns combined real complaints, about corrupt politics and about Memphis city schools, with proposals designed to provoke: casinos and a prison on Mud Island, sharks in the Mississippi River and Memphis Harbor to deter escapes, and public hangings in Court Square at 3:33 in the afternoon. His recurring slogan was "Christmas Everyday". David Jensen said his runs were rooted in opposition to crooked lawmakers.

He drew national attention more than once. NBC's Real People featured him in 1980, and the History Channel's American Pickers profiled him in Memphis in the 2010s.

In public Hodges almost always appeared as Prince Mongo: barefoot, in a long white or silver wig, goggles and flamboyant clothing, sometimes with a rubber chicken attached to his jacket. He said he had been sent by the Zambodian spirits to save Memphis and protect it from natural disasters. Asked why he dressed as he did, he said it depended on how he was feeling that day. "I am myself. And I don't pretend to be a different person," he told Action News 5 in the 1970s.

Those close to him described a different side. Polly Agee, a longtime friend, said: "He was not as he appeared. He was so much more. He was a giver." She said he would show up with food at the homes of people he did not know because he had heard they needed help. In recent years he worked with Marie Pizano, a Memphis arts and culture advocate, who remembered his creativity, charisma and character.

On the evening of Monday 10 August 2026, Hodges was cutting a neighbour's tree limb that hung over his property on Crestwood Drive in East Memphis when, friends said, he lost his balance and fell from a ladder into the neighbour's yard. Memphis police responded to an ambulance call at about 7:40 p.m. His friend James Cella said he was conscious at first but stopped breathing; CPR was started and he was taken to Regional One, where he was pronounced dead. Police said there were no signs of foul play.

The Memphis Police Department confirmed his death to The Commercial Appeal and gave his age as 89. Tributes came from friends, business associates, his former lawyer Leslie Ballin and the wrestler Jerry Lawler, who had shared a 2009 mayoral debate with him. No funeral arrangements had been announced in the first reports.

Prince Mongo was one of Memphis's best known eccentrics, a fixture of the city's ballots, nightlife and local television for almost fifty years. For many Memphians he stood for the city's taste for the unusual and its affection for people who refuse to fit in. His long running candidacies poked fun at politics while giving voice to real frustration with it, and friends remembered a man whose kindness to strangers was as real as the costume was strange.