Baby, Let's Play House Part 14

He sat next to Elvis while Gene, Junior, and Bitsy occupied the backseat. They raced through the chilly night, Elvis singing and cracking jokes until he stopped "for refreshments-a p.i.s.s, a pop, and some barbequed pork," as Kanter detailed in his book. The restaurant, of course, was the Trio Club, the Brown family's roadhouse in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Maxine caught Elvis and Bonnie pining for each other, "not saying a word, but kind of smiling and looking sad at the same time." Both of them knew that life was about to change forever, as Maxine put it. He wasn't that big of a star yet, but "the Elvis Presley who left our club that night was not the same as the one the world grew to adore."

Back out on the road, Kanter wrote, "a souped-up Chevy pulled up beside us. Four men and three women were packed into the hot rod, and one of the girls yelled, 'Hey, Elvis!' Elvis slowed his Cadillac and lowered his window to call, 'Howdy, honey,' and Bitsy Mott warned, 'This ain't no time to stop for p.u.s.s.y, boy.'

"The ersatz cowboy driving the Chevy shouted, 'Drag you for a tank of gas, Presley!'

" 'Is he kiddin'?'

"Elvis grinned, stomped on his accelerator, and we zoomed from 40 to 90 mph. Elvis loved that. I was terrified, and he loved that, too."

They arrived at the Captain Shreve Hotel about five in the morning, and too soon, Kanter was awakened by shouts of "Elvis! Elvis!" coming from the street below. In just a few hours, he would ride to the Louisiana Fairgrounds with the young star to check the equipment for the evening. Bill Black drove the Cadillac, and Kanter sat in the back. When the car came to a stop, the crowd surrounded the Caddy and started rocking it. Kanter was scared stiff, but Bill just laughed. "s.h.i.+t, this happens wherever we go."

In town to see the performance was Kay Wheeler, Elvis's fan club president. Several months before, she'd organized a write-in campaign to bring Elvis to Dallas, Texas. "It was so successful-26,500 kids showed up-that we had to get the huge Cotton Bowl, the largest venue for an Elvis show." She was the only teenager, and the only woman, allowed on the field. The next day, she went to Waco to see Elvis's show at the Heart O' Texas Coliseum and got in trouble with Colonel Parker for telling the a.s.sociated Press that Waco was "the squarest town in America," since the spa.r.s.e crowd "sat on their hands and n.o.body screamed."

And in November, she'd traveled to Memphis, where she visited with Barbara Hearn at her house, the two of them lying on the floor and leafing through sc.r.a.pbooks, to Kay's delight. She also spent a day with Gladys, who told Kay she reminded her of herself as a young girl. ("You favor me a little, don't you, hon?") Kay thought Gladys seemed sad, but she didn't dwell on it long, because she was too excited-Elvis had Kay's framed picture by his bed. And Gladys had even offered to give her Elvis's white buck shoes, but Kay turned them down ("I didn't want his ol' stinky shoes in my suitcase"). She wanted the kelly green sport coat he had on in Dallas. "You'll probably have it before the night is over," he promised her suggestively, but that hadn't happened, and then Gladys couldn't find it.

Now, in Shreveport, where she was setting up a new branch of the fan club, Kay attended Elvis's hour-long press conference at the Youth Center. "I wanted to impress him-I knew I had the jet black hair and 'good behind' that Elvis liked," so she wore her tight white sheath dress with silver sparkles and white fur at the cuffs. Even though she stood in the back, Elvis, modeling the famous green coat, spotted Kay right off and stared at her hungrily as she answered a question about the fan club. A few minutes later, Cliff Gleaves approached her.

"Elvis wants you to come back to the hotel."

At the Captain Shreve, Cliff escorted her to what was obviously Elvis's bedroom. "Wait here," he said and then shut the door. She stared at the bed for a while, but after fifteen minutes, when Elvis still wasn't there, she lost her nerve. "I thought, 'I can't go through with this. I'm not this kind of girl. I'm a virgin. This is like something in a bad movie.' "

She got up and walked out into the hall, where Elvis's guys were hanging out in front of another room. Kay stuck her head in to see Elvis on the phone. There was a flurry of activity-someone was taking orders for sandwiches, and everybody was high on something or another, maybe just the excitement of the concert-but Elvis, unb.u.t.toning his s.h.i.+rtsleeves, beckoned her in ("Come here, come here, come here"). She was the only woman in the room, so she walked over and picked up his green coat and put it on, almost for protection. It was all sweaty, but she liked feeling him against her skin, even though the coat was so big that it dwarfed her. Elvis grinned at the sight of her in it.

"You look good in that," he said. "Do you want a sandwich?"

"No, thanks."

"Okay," he said, looking around the room. "Are we going to order?"

Somebody spoke up. "Elvis, what do you want on your sandwich?"

"Mustard, mayonnaise, pickles, and cat s.h.i.+t," he said, laughing at his own joke. All the guys laughed in unison, but the bad language turned Kay off. And as the time wore on and Elvis kept fooling around, she became more disenchanted. Finally, she just eased out the door.

That got his attention, and he chased her down the hall and into the stairwell. She was a little disgusted with him, and with herself, and now they paused by the window at the end of the stairwell and looked down at the street. "I thought, 'Well, I have him right here. Just me and him.' " But she wanted to say something profound, because she didn't want to be just another of the girls.

"Elvis," she said quietly. "What do you think life is all about, really?"

He was standing behind her, very close, his breath warm on the back of her neck. Now he turned her around, and she thought he was going to make a stab at answering her question, or maybe kiss her in that soft, romantic way. But Elvis was not in the mood for subtlety.

To Kay's astonishment, "He got really rough with me. He grabbed me and kissed me so long and hard I thought I was going to suffocate. He wouldn't get off my lips. Then he threw me against the wall and started grinding his pelvis, pus.h.i.+ng on me really heavy. It was exactly what he did onstage, his whole performance."

Except that Elvis was genuinely aroused and meant business, keeping Kay in such a hold she couldn't move. She wasn't just turned off now-she was frightened. It was too raw for a seventeen-year-old virgin. "I was not old enough for what he had in mind. And it really disappointed me, because I wanted moonlight and roses. It was one of the biggest letdowns of my life."

She didn't push him away, though, and soon someone started screaming, "Where's Elvis? Where's Elvis?"

Whenever Elvis's guys got separated from him, she thought, "It was like they lost their dancing bear or something. They all went nuts." But the emergency was only that the sandwiches had arrived, and Elvis coaxed Kay back to the room. She stayed for a few minutes, but her stomach hurt, and her head was swimming, and then she just slipped out and went downstairs and got a cab.

"I felt a little bit powerful as I walked out of that hotel. I'd pa.s.sed some girls, floozy little things, in the hall, and I presumed they'd been set up like I was. I thought, 'I'm not one of you. He'll remember me for not not doing it.' Because they were flinging their bodies at him en ma.s.se. It was just crazy, a mob scene." doing it.' Because they were flinging their bodies at him en ma.s.se. It was just crazy, a mob scene."

It had been even wilder at the show, Frank Page remembering they'd tried to protect Elvis by erecting a fence in front of the stage and setting the chairs back forty feet. But the girls, "nearly 10,000 of them, picked up the chairs and ran to the edge of the stage, so they defeated our purpose of trying to keep them back." Afterward, to get him out of the Coliseum unharmed, the Colonel sent a decoy out one door while Elvis escaped through another, the swarm following the wrong boy. Page, thoroughly shaken, had never witnessed pandemonium like that and hoped he wouldn't again. Ten thousand girls, screaming at the tops of their lungs, made "noise enough to peel paint," as Horace Logan put it. n.o.body could tell if Elvis was really singing or not, or even if the band was playing. But n.o.body seemed to care. The waves of screams washed through the Coliseum like an angry ocean. At the end, "Hoss" Logan, standing there in his sheriff's gear, a pair of real six-guns in his big western holster, would utter the now-famous phrase: "Elvis has left the building."

Barbara Hearn would sometimes stand inside the Audubon Drive house, looking out the window at all the fans. "I'd wonder, 'Why am I on this side of the gla.s.s?' It was a bit daunting at times." And it was becoming more so, and not just because of the fame. Sometimes she thought she didn't really know Elvis.

He'd called her one night, saying he'd been over to one of the West Memphis clubs to listen to music, and somehow met some boy she'd dated in high school. She hadn't seen the guy since graduation day, but Elvis went off about what all he was going to do to him if he ever saw him again. He treated Barbara like she'd committed a crime for ever having known the kid. Where did he get off thinking like that, when he had so many girlfriends that the newspaper ran rows rows of pictures? of pictures?

She tried not to think about it, though, because Christmas was almost on them, and she wanted them to have a nice holiday. No, an extra nice holiday. And she wanted her gifts to be special, too, even though she didn't have much money. One day they were out riding on his motorcycle and he pulled into a used-car lot and bought her a yellow Buick convertible to get back and forth to Memphis State. She didn't have the nerve to tell him, but it broke down all the time ("I never knew whether I was going to get where I was going"), and it just nickel-and-dimed her to death.

She thought a gold lame vest would be an appropriate Christmas gift, and she knew that he could wear it onstage. So she went down to the seconds department at Goldsmith's, where they sold remnants of material, and she bought the gold lame and three gold initials and some black taffeta for the lining, and asked her girlfriend's mother to make it for her. She wasn't sure what to get Gladys and Vernon, but she finally settled on a large, ornate gold Bible with color ill.u.s.trations. It was out of her price range, really, but she'd splurged because Elvis had had such a remarkable year, and it was truly a Christmas to celebrate.

June Juanico had been thinking about Christmas, too, though she hadn't actually seen Elvis since her strained visit in October. It was getting late in the year now, and neither of them had said anything about whether they would spend the holiday in Memphis or Biloxi, but surely he would call about it any day now, because they were practically engaged, even though she'd never accepted that ring he'd tried to give her. The only thing that worried her was that he was so jealous of all of her friends, wanting to "keep me right next to him, with his arm around me and show people that I belonged to him, and all this kind of c.r.a.p." It had a smothering effect.

But on Christmas Day, neither Barbara nor June sat at Gladys's holiday table. For the most glorious day of his most magnificent year, Elvis chose Dottie Harmony to be at his side. He hadn't even known her two months.

When June found out, she hit the ceiling. Elvis tried to calm her. "It was the Colonel's idea, baby! Honest! For the publicity. He said it was good for my career!"

She knew that Parker did did want him linked with actresses and dancers, and Elvis did like legs that went on for days. "But you don't invite a want him linked with actresses and dancers, and Elvis did like legs that went on for days. "But you don't invite a showgirl showgirl to spend to spend Christmas Christmas at your at your house house!" That was it for her. "If he cared for me, how could he expect me to swallow all these other women in his life? I was going to be his one and only, or I wasn't going to be anything." And now Elvis was saying he couldn't get married, not even after three years. He wouldn't dare do that to the Colonel. He had too much invested in him.

June felt something break inside of her.

And now Barbara would, too. She just kept saying it over and over: Dottie Harmony. A chorus girl. And for Christmas. That was a time for family and special friends, not a newly acquired Las Vegas showgirl.

"If it had been Elizabeth Taylor or somebody, I wouldn't have minded. But this really hurt me."

And there was more hurt around the bend. When Barbara gave Elvis his gold lame vest, he handed her an unexpected gift: a Sunbeam shaver. Her heart landed with such a thud that for a moment it knocked the breath out of her. She had gone to so much trouble with the vest, and she'd had to put his parents' gift in layaway, since she didn't have the money to buy it all at once.

"It was a pretty shaver, with rhinestones on the little stand and a quilted cover. But it was still a shaver, and certainly not the kind of thing he would have ordinarily gotten for me. It felt like he realized a day or two before Christmas, 'Oh, my goodness, I haven't gotten anything for Barbara,' and threw a few dollars at someone who went out and got it. I didn't need it or want it, and I never used it. I truly believe I had rather gotten nothing than that shaver. I still have the miserable thing, but it was an embarra.s.sment then and is still."

Elvis couldn't win for losing. All his women were either mad at him or breaking off their relations.h.i.+p. Nothing seemed to work. Just nothing. That Christmas, he was driving around, thinking about things, when he spotted Georgia Avgeris, the Greek girl he'd thrown gum wrappers at in high school. She was window-shopping, and he pulled the big Cadillac up next to the curb and got out to greet her.

He was so glad to see her, and no, he hadn't heard she'd gotten married last year. But wow, she looked great, and he hoped she was happy. He'd made a few records since he last saw her. Would she like to have some? He had them in the car.

"Gee, Elvis," she said. "Thanks, but no thanks. I don't have a record player."

Dolores Hart (left), (left), Elvis, and Lizabeth Scott enjoy a friendly game at Scott's home in Hollywood at the completion of Elvis, and Lizabeth Scott enjoy a friendly game at Scott's home in Hollywood at the completion of Loving You Loving You. "If there were one thing that I am most grateful for," says Hart, now a Benedictine nun, "it's the privilege of being one of the few persons left to acknowledge his innocence." (Courtesy of David Troedson/Elvis Australia) (Courtesy of David Troedson/Elvis Australia)

Chapter Twelve.

Twin Surprises.

At the start of 1957, Elvis found himself in a constant grip of anxiety. The Colonel had lined up a plethora of creative and career opportunities for him-a third had lined up a plethora of creative and career opportunities for him-a third Ed Sullivan Show Ed Sullivan Show appearance, and two movies scheduled just for that year alone-but Elvis's personal life lay in shards. appearance, and two movies scheduled just for that year alone-but Elvis's personal life lay in shards.

June would barely take his calls, Dottie considered her visit to be a disaster (Elvis was late coming to get her, girls held up banners at the airport that said GO HOME, DOTTIE HARMONY GO HOME, DOTTIE HARMONY, and the Presleys read this big gold Bible big gold Bible every single night), and Barbara was upset about . . . well, maybe a lot of things. She obviously hadn't liked her shaver, but then that's what Dottie got her, going down the list of "female gifts" that Gladys gave them when they went shopping. every single night), and Barbara was upset about . . . well, maybe a lot of things. She obviously hadn't liked her shaver, but then that's what Dottie got her, going down the list of "female gifts" that Gladys gave them when they went shopping.

Elvis had never meant the gift to be cold. In fact, he had extended himself for her with Hal Kanter on Audubon Drive. Knowing that Barbara had an interest in acting, and building on the conceit that the film was essentially his own story, Elvis had asked the director if Barbara might play his girlfriend. He wanted them to meet, he told Hal, and thought she would be good in the part.

But Kanter thought otherwise, telling Elvis she was lovely to look at but horrible to hear. "He said I had the worst voice he had ever heard," Barbara reports. "I just a.s.sumed the Colonel, who was very rude to me, did not want me around, that the thought of me working with his boy every day curdled his blood. But it was very sweet and naive of Elvis to see if it could be done."

To make it up to her, Elvis would wear Barbara's gold lame vest with one of Natalie's s.h.i.+rts on The Ed Sullivan Show The Ed Sullivan Show on January 6. He hadn't prepared her for it, so it was a wonderful surprise. on January 6. He hadn't prepared her for it, so it was a wonderful surprise.

"I said, 'There he is on Ed Sullivan Ed Sullivan, coast-to-coast television, and he's got on my little five-dollar vest.' I just loved it."

At the network's request, Elvis sang a gospel number, "Peace in the Valley," along with a version of "Don't Be Cruel" that was heavily influenced by rhythm-and-blues great Jackie Wilson, whose live show Elvis watched obsessively in Las Vegas. On the latter, the cameras cropped Elvis from the waist up-a brilliant tactical move on the part of the Colonel and Hank Saperstein, Elvis's merchandising king, to capitalize on his image as a s.e.xual terror.

At the end of the program, watched by fifty-four million Americans, the stone-faced Sullivan took time to deliver a character reference: "This is a real decent, fine boy . . . We want to say that we've never had a pleasanter experience with a big name than we've had with you."

Elvis knew he was the luckiest guy in the world. But he couldn't really enjoy most of the good things that were happening, because there was so much weighing on him now. On January 4, he'd taken his preinduction physical to determine his draft status, and four days later, on his twenty-second birthday, the Memphis Draft Board announced his cla.s.sification-1A.

As the Colonel explained it to him, it meant he'd probably be drafted within the next eight months. What Elvis didn't know was that his imminent service was precisely what the wily manager wanted, in part to morph Elvis's image from dangerous hooligan to all-American boy, hence Ed Sullivan's ringing endors.e.m.e.nt.

Elvis spent his birthday at home with his parents. He didn't feel much like celebrating, and he was leaving in two days to start work on the soundtrack for Loving You Loving You. One afternoon, he dropped by to see Dixie Locke, who'd recently married. Her last name was Emmons now. He and Dixie had so much history together that they could finish each other's sentences. But now that she seemed so settled and happy, he sometimes felt worse after he saw her. Emptiness was a terrible thing, a big blue ball that just swelled up inside you.

He made a joke about his relations.h.i.+ps years later. "I did Love Me Tender, Love Me Tender, and and Loving You . . . Loving Her, Loving You . . . Loving Her, loving anybody I could get my hands on at the time." But the trouble with love was that the cards were just so stacked against you. How did married couples stay together for most of their lives? Better to just stick with girls who were so much younger that they didn't really expect anything of you. loving anybody I could get my hands on at the time." But the trouble with love was that the cards were just so stacked against you. How did married couples stay together for most of their lives? Better to just stick with girls who were so much younger that they didn't really expect anything of you.

In fall 1956, Vernon went over to the local Oldsmobile dealers.h.i.+p where the family often had their cars repaired and serviced. As he was leaving, the owner, a man named Mowel, asked if his fourteen-year-old daughter, Gloria, could meet Elvis. Vernon said that was fine, and for Gloria to come on over anytime. often had their cars repaired and serviced. As he was leaving, the owner, a man named Mowel, asked if his fourteen-year-old daughter, Gloria, could meet Elvis. Vernon said that was fine, and for Gloria to come on over anytime.

On October 11, Gloria showed up on Audubon Drive and nervously rang the doorbell. She was shocked to see Elvis answer the door himself. Gloria was cute, sweet, and personable, and she knew music-she'd identified "Ruby, Baby," a recent hit by the Drifters, who Elvis loved, playing on the phonograph in the den. After her visit, Elvis invited her back another day. Soon, she was taking her friends Heidi Heissen and Frances Forbes, who were also fourteen, and Elvis began asking them over for evening swims at the house, or just to sit around and watch TV.

Frances, a pet.i.te dark-haired beauty, had been hanging out by the gate since she was thirteen. "He didn't pay any attention to me then, but when I was fourteen, he noticed me. Fourteen was a magical age with Elvis. It really was."

Fanatical in their devotion, the three girls followed him everywhere he went in Memphis. Elvis had an easy rapport with the trio and felt as if he could ask them what the other kids were saying about him and his music. They were his local contacts with the larger fan base, but it went deeper than that. "He was fascinated with them," in the view of Lamar Fike, who was starting to integrate himself into Elvis's entourage.

In no time, Elvis was inviting the girls to go to the Rainbow Rollerdrome, and by 1957, they became his constant companions, part of the group that went to the Fairgrounds to crash into one another in the dodgem cars and eat endless p.r.o.nto Pups. They also partic.i.p.ated in other outings around town, all of which seemed designed to make up for the friends.h.i.+ps and good times Elvis missed out on in high school. "They were just as nutty as fruitcakes, but they were fun," Lamar remembers. "He got irritated with them sometimes, but very seldom. All three of them were pretty cute girls."

As Elvis's attraction to them grew, they started staying for private pajama parties-just fourteen-year-old Heidi, Gloria, Frances, and their twenty-two-year-old host, holed up in his bedroom. "When you were in that room, you wanted to shut out the whole world for the rest of your life," Gloria says.

In an odd suspension of time and gender, Elvis became not only their age but also a teenage girl. After their swims, he'd wash and dry their hair, and they'd blow his hair dry, too. He'd tease them, say to Gloria, "Frances was jealous tonight because I was throwing you in the pool!" Then they'd all giggle, and he'd show them how to put makeup on their eyes the way he liked it, heavy on the shadow and mascara. It was s.e.xy, he said, and sometimes he'd apply the eyeliner himself. Then they'd lie on the beds and roughhouse and have pillow fights, Elvis tickling and kissing them until they couldn't take it anymore.

The girls insisted that nothing overtly s.e.xual happened inside Elvis's pink lair, though it came close on occasion, as Gloria remembered.

"We'd tickle, fight, laugh, mess around, but all you'd have to say is, 'Stop!,' and he'd roll over and quit. It would never be mentioned again that night. But next time, it would be the same thing exactly. You'd fight with him, kid around and scuffle. The next thing, he'd get serious and you'd just push him away. I think that if he really pushed, I would have done it."

No matter how Elvis defined his philosophy of rearing young girls, the relations.h.i.+p contained a strong erotic element and was reminiscent of the days when he invited several girls into his room at once on the Hayride. Now Elvis and the girls would sit on the bed yoga style, with Elvis in the middle, and he'd kiss each one. "Gloria is jealous 'cause I kissed Frances," he'd say, and then turn it around: "Frances is jealous 'cause I kissed Heidi." Eventually, they'd tire of it all, and Elvis would turn out the light, lying with an arm around two of them, with the third girl stretched out across his feet.

"Elvis was always kissing," says Frances, "and it was a good kiss, a real good one. He might be doing anything-playing pool, anything-he'd walk up and kiss you, or he might turn his cheek for you to kiss him. He did that in the car a lot. He was especially romantic when it was just you and him. He might talk to you about things that bothered him, and just like teenagers, you'd neck a little bit. Elvis was like a teenager somewhat-the things we did were things that kids do. They really were all very innocent. A lot of people didn't think so, but it was a different day and time."

Heidi, Gloria, and Frances were always the last fans to leave Audubon Drive. At three or four in the morning, Elvis would sit up and kiss each girl and say, "I love you, and I'll see you tomorrow." Lamar would drive them home, and they'd catch a few hours of sleep before getting up and going to junior high. "The amazing thing is that I never had one problem with any of the parents. Not ever. It was something I a.s.sumed would not happen, and it didn't."

Elvis didn't want his mother to know they'd stayed so late, and before Gladys got up, they were out and gone. But chances are she was well aware that they were there, and that she probably wouldn't have minded, given her approval of Jackie Rowland. She knew that Elvis, a boy-man, was looking for a child-woman he could mold into his idea of a perfect mate. Fourteen-year-olds were just the right age, as they allowed him to play the role of the older man who would teach them about life. If he could find one who had his mother's coloring, who shared her values, and who also somehow felt like his twin soul, she would hold him captive.

His friends.h.i.+p with the trio lasted through the early 1960s, about the time he met fourteen-year-old Priscilla Beaulieu.

On January 14, 1957, Elvis reported to Paramount Studios in Los Angeles, where makeup supervisor Wally Westmore fulfilled one of the star's lifelong dreams-to have his hair professionally dyed black. (The exact shade was "mink brown," so dark brown as to appear black on camera.) Aside from his stint in the army, when he was forced to revert to his natural hair color, never again would he completely change it back. Though he'd inherited his hair color from his father, now he looked more like Gladys. It bolstered their bond, their oneness. makeup supervisor Wally Westmore fulfilled one of the star's lifelong dreams-to have his hair professionally dyed black. (The exact shade was "mink brown," so dark brown as to appear black on camera.) Aside from his stint in the army, when he was forced to revert to his natural hair color, never again would he completely change it back. Though he'd inherited his hair color from his father, now he looked more like Gladys. It bolstered their bond, their oneness.

Finally, Elvis also looked like Tony Curtis, whose work he still studied. He met his early idol one day on the Paramount lot. Curtis still remembers it.

"On lunch hour, I'd go for a walk. One day, I went by this big camper, and the door opened, and there was Elvis. He reached down and took my arm and said, 'Mr. Curtis, won't you please come in for a minute? I've been a fan of yours ever since I was a kid. I want you to meet my buddies.' He introduced me to them one by one, and he said, 'What a joy, what an experience, Mr. Curtis, to finally meet you!' I said, 'Excuse me, please, don't call me Mr. Curtis. Call me Tony.' He said, 'Tony.' And I said, 'And what shall I call you?' He thought for a second, and he said, 'Mr. Elvis Presley.' "

In Elvis's view, the black hair was only one of several cosmetic improvements necessary to transform him to movie star perfection. He'd already had his teeth capped. But he'd always felt the bridge of his nose was too broad-with his darker skin tone, he thought it sometimes made him look Negroid-and he wanted a more refined profile. Some time between Love Me Tender Love Me Tender and and Loving You, Loving You, he went to Hollywood's Dr. Maury Parks, a favorite among the film elite, to streamline his nose, sand away his acne, and tighten the skin around his jawline. he went to Hollywood's Dr. Maury Parks, a favorite among the film elite, to streamline his nose, sand away his acne, and tighten the skin around his jawline.

Elvis would return to Dr. Parks in years to come. But at first he was skittish about any such procedure, and so he took George Klein with him, footing the bill for George's nose bob. Elvis had always liked Barbara Hearn's nose, so he brought along his favorite portrait of her and presented it to Dr. Parks as a model for George's new look. After the procedure, Elvis referred to George's proboscis as "Barbara's nose."

He might as well have used the Loving You Loving You ingenue, Dolores Hart, as an ideal, for the seventeen-year-old actress was the picture of fresh-faced innocence. ingenue, Dolores Hart, as an ideal, for the seventeen-year-old actress was the picture of fresh-faced innocence.

Born in Chicago as Dolores Hicks, she spent her early years in Los Angeles. Her father, Bert, was an actor, doing bit parts in films. And her uncle was the opera legend Mario Lanza, one of Elvis's favorite singers.

Hart's parents divorced when she was small, but to escape their bickering, the child wrote a letter to her grandparents in the Windy City, asking if she might live with them. She arrived on the train, alone, with a ticket pinned to her coat. "From the age of seven, I never wanted to be anything but an actress," she says, in part to a.s.suage her sudden mood swings: "I'm positive I'm somewhat manic-depressive by nature. I don't think there's anyone any happier than I am when I'm happy, or can take a nosedive quicker in the face of tragedy. I made a career of looking like an obvious neutral, rather than parading my feelings of being in the depths or at the heights."

She learned her craft in one of Chicago's elegant movie palaces, where her grandfather worked as a projectionist. The child often went with him to work, awakening him from naps every twelve minutes so he could change the reels.

Loving You, in which Hart plays Elvis's young love interest, was her first film. She won her contract after her remarkable lead performance in a Loyola Marymount University production of in which Hart plays Elvis's young love interest, was her first film. She won her contract after her remarkable lead performance in a Loyola Marymount University production of Joan of Lorraine Joan of Lorraine led to an interview at Paramount. She arrived in her school sweater and bobby socks, with her hair pulled back in a ponytail. led to an interview at Paramount. She arrived in her school sweater and bobby socks, with her hair pulled back in a ponytail.

Within two weeks, she was on the set, but as a scholars.h.i.+p student who hit the books hard, she hadn't kept up with popular music and had no idea who Elvis was, really. He was just a "charming, simple young boy with longer sideburns than most." But he had impeccable manners. When they were introduced, "He couldn't have been more gracious. He jumped to his feet and said, 'Good afternoon, Miss Dolores.' "

Elvis found her the quintessential shy virgin-she was such a delicate girl, so untouched by worldly experience as to seem almost unreal. But it was obvious that she lived her religion, and as a devout Catholic, she insisted her favorite childhood memory was of her baptism at age ten. With Elvis, she made it clear right off the bat that she would not entertain the idea of mixing work with romance, because she didn't think it appropriate.

Still, something in her responded to the primal beat of his music, and she found him both magnetic and thrilling. When he performed the musical numbers on the set, "I couldn't take myself away from him. Even if I wasn't in the scene, I still went to hear him sing, because he was just riveting. You were just dragged away-your soul just took you. He was so dynamic."

When they kissed for the cameras, they both felt a connection. Dolores blushed way back to her neck, and "my ears started getting purple," and even Elvis's ears turned red. Director Kanter called, "Cut," and the makeup crew rushed over. But Elvis and Dolores both laughed it off, knowing it would be a mistake for them to get involved.

In an intriguing bit of casting, veteran actress Lizabeth Scott played something akin to a female version of Colonel Parker, except that as Deke's publicist/manager, her feelings for him bounced from maternal to vaguely erotic. Their brief romantic scenes carried a kind of androgynous magnetism-he too innocent and pretty, she too strong and dominant-even as they also telegraphed something taboo for the late 1950s. Today they remain compulsively watchable.

Scott, born Emma Matzo in Scranton, Pennsylvania, was a pointed-bra blond whose Slovakian features spoke of an underlying cruelty. Like Lauren Bacall before her, she exuded a delicious sensuality that managed to be both icy and fiery hot. Off set, she was as captivated with Elvis as Dolores Hart, but for a different reason. "I've always thought that his eyes had been underplayed, and his pelvis has been overplayed. The shadows around his eyes fascinated me, and I can't tell you why. They were powerful, piercing, playful, and s.e.xy, but I wasn't aroused s.e.xually. I just saw saw all these things in his eyes." all these things in his eyes."

Elvis was fairly certain that he hadn't aroused her, because two years earlier, Confidential Confidential magazine had outed her as a lesbian with a very busy little black book. The husky-voiced Scott, who never married, sued the publication, but it was an enormous scandal, and the public viewed her as a deviant. Hal Wallis, who had signed her in 1945 at age twenty-two, kept her on the back burner for a while, but after magazine had outed her as a lesbian with a very busy little black book. The husky-voiced Scott, who never married, sued the publication, but it was an enormous scandal, and the public viewed her as a deviant. Hal Wallis, who had signed her in 1945 at age twenty-two, kept her on the back burner for a while, but after Loving You, Loving You, she disappeared from pictures for fifteen years, resurfacing in 1972 with the quirky British film she disappeared from pictures for fifteen years, resurfacing in 1972 with the quirky British film Pulp Pulp. Around that time, she spoke of her retirement, saying she'd never thought of it as such. "I simply decided there was more to life than just making films. The most important thing to me is my personal life."

Lizabeth tried to bond with Elvis, believing he was extremely intelligent, with a photographic memory, perhaps. But alas, "You couldn't have an intimate conversation with him because of his entourage." And so she tried a different tack. Seeing that the guys played with water guns on the set, Lizabeth joined in. "If anything, I had fun with him and his boyfriends, because I had a water pistol, too! So we water pistoled each other rather than verbalize."

Yet Elvis was somewhat scared of her, as it was the first time he had knowingly been around such an exotic woman. The notion of her s.e.xuality both t.i.tillated and confused him (he p.r.o.nounced her "unholy"), especially since Junior teased him unmercifully. "Are you gonna take her to bed tonight, Elvis?" Junior taunted, Cliff and Gene joining in raucous glee. "Don't worry," Elvis shot back nervously, trying to hide his discomfort. And he did invite her up to his suite at the Beverly Wils.h.i.+re. But Lizabeth wanted no part of it. She was a sophisticated, smart lady, and she knew the guys had put him up to it.

"They weren't of the same mettle that he was. He was just an ent.i.ty unto himself. It was like the halo just went all around him. What can you say? That was Elvis."

Deke's mascaraed eyelashes lent Elvis's character an air of gay desire, but no stories of h.o.m.os.e.xual dalliance or acting out ever surfaced about Elvis himself. In Hollywood, he invariably worked with actors, stagehands, and dancers who were gay, and when he had to be carried or lifted up overhead, occasionally one of them groped him. He didn't particularly like it, but it didn't spark his temper, either. Mostly, he chuckled.

Still, Byron Raphael, the Colonel's young emissary in 1956 and 1957, remembered that when Elvis first went to Hollywood, he was totally unprepared for his visit with rock-and-roll queen Little Richard, whose songs ("Tutti Frutti") Elvis had performed for several years.

A fellow southerner (born in Macon, Georgia, as Richard Wayne Penniman), Little Richard invited Elvis to his house after hearing that he had referred to him as "a friend of mine . . . [but] I never met him" onstage in the spring of 1956. On the surface, they seemed to be interracial twins-both wearing mile-high pompadours and makeup, and both melding gospel and rhythm and blues into a new art form.

Elvis was in complete awe of Little Richard, and Byron recalled that Elvis beamed when the piano-pumping sensation called the Colonel's office to say he was sending a limousine to bring the star out for a visit. Parker insisted that Byron accompany Elvis, who brought along Cliff and Gene.

When they arrived, two beautifully coiffed women with lavender skin and dazzling jewelry opened the door, and then welcomed them with ceremonial grace. Moments later, Little Richard, wearing what could only be called "a bright gold gown," as Byron put it, literally danced into the room. Elvis had never seen a black entertainer so wildly tricked out, not even in the seamier clubs of Beale Street, and "his eyes got wide as saucers," Byron said. Their host had powdered his face a ghostly shade of white and accentuated his dress with diamond earrings, gold chains, a ring on every finger, and a wig that snaked six inches toward the heavens.