Elvis had an awful case of survivor guilt, having lived when Jessie did not, and because Priscilla was young, and Elvis got emotionally “stuck” at a young age because of his trauma, Priscilla did not seem so much like a child to him, but more of a peer.  He could talk to her, and she was a good listener, and she could share secrets with him, too, that she couldn’t share with others.  In fact, they were bound by trauma, because of events in her young life, as well.

One of their most intrinsic problems, however, is that eventually she grew up and out of the role he had put her in.  He mentored her, yes, but he also made her over in an image that appealed to him, and that was a very complicated sexual puzzle.  He needed a union, or maybe I should say “reunion,” with his mother and his twin, and at first she was the perfect melding of those people, a woman-child. Then he tried to make her into other images, as well, including the seductress, a la Tura Satana. She even had Tura’s piled-high hair. 

You know, when you look back at Priscilla and the spot she was in, you have to think that her head must have spun.  Honestly. I don’t know how she kept her sanity, because the rules were always changing, and what he wanted from her continued to change, too. But though it took a long time, she finally became Priscilla, her own person.  She didn’t want to be his child or his mother—she wanted to be his wife, and she wanted a normal mate, which he could never be in a million years. 

I gained a whole new understanding of Priscilla in my research.  A lot of people find her cold and distant.  I can see why they would say that.  But if that’s true, she didn’t choose it. The circumstances of her life made her that way.  As I said, I got no responses from my attempts to interview her, and I have never officially met her, though I saw her at Colonel Parker’s memorial service.  I was surprised at how truly tiny she is.  But I have a lot of sympathy for her, even as I also understand how hurt Elvis was that she left. I could hardly blame her, though. There are no winners in this story. Not really. 

Of all the women, Linda came closest to taming him, I think.  She’s a smart gal, and she figured out very quickly that she had to be not just girlfriend, lover, mother, and nurse, but that she had to sass him back to keep him interested.  As both a beauty queen and a local girl who knew all the peculiarities that a southern man takes for granted and rolls up in a big ball of chivalry and chauvinism, she had a lot to offer him, and she could go toe to toe with him in a lot of ways. 

But he didn’t show her the proper respect after awhile, and that led to their downfall. A woman can be humiliated just so many times.  She said they missed their time, in that she was young, and he was not yet divorced when they met. But other than Ann-Margret, who has certainly stayed with an ill husband all these years, I can’t think of anyone who would have stuck with Elvis 24 hours a day like Linda did through his hospitalisations and his many close calls and his cheating.  We know now why he cheated, or rather his psychological need for female companionship round the clock, but even if she’d known that at the time, it wouldn’t have made it any easier for her.  He was very short-sighted to let her go—or to put her in a position where she needed a shoulder to cry on,  depending on whose story you chose to believe about their split. Opposite: Alanna and the Colonel

Ginger.  Well, like Priscilla, Ginger deserves more sympathy than she’s received, I think.  Again, like Priscilla, she doesn’t seem very warm.  But she also had her own family dynamic that could not have been easy, and let’s face it, she was quite young—just barely 20--when she met Elvis. He was twice her age, and then some, and they were in very different places in their lives in every way.  There are a lot of really sad elements in that relationship. I believe she cared about him, but I don’t think she was truly in love with him. 

I don’t think she was mature enough to know what that was, and I doubt that the wedding would have ever taken place.  She was there because he gave her the rush—she did look amazingly like the young Gladys, even to the down-turned mouth—and because her mother promoted the relationship.  He was not easy to be around much of the time in his last year. He was sick, and he was lonely, and he was often out of control and miserable for a variety of reasons.

And though she has not said this to my knowledge, I think he scared the holy heck out of her—trying to force her to stay at Graceland when she wanted to leave, shooting off a gun over her head and letting the air out of her tires—and she wanted to be with someone her own age who was healthy and whole.  He wanted her to mother him, and she wasn’t ready to mother him.  She was too tied to her own mother, and she was the baby at home, and that was her role. 

She has said she tried to keep him from taking so much medication, and that she thought  that down the line that he would curtail his usage even more.  But the irony of all this is that if Ginger herself had not been overly medicated for menstrual cramps on August 16, 1977, Elvis might not have died that day.  Was that her fault?  I don’t think so.  The nurse sent the medication to her on Elvis’s request, as I understand it.  And he would have died soon anyway.  He had too many factors working against him, including his inability or unwillingness to get healthy in his body and his mind.

EIN: Did your research clarify which of these women, all of whom played major, albeit different roles in Elvis’ life, was best for him?

AN:  He changed so much from era to era that I think you have to look at it that way.  In the early/mid-‘50s,  June Juanico was perfect for him.  She has such heart, and was really fun-loving, and he could blow off steam with her.  Gladys adored her, and June had a lot of wonderful wifely qualities.  In the late ‘50s, Anita Wood was awfully good for him.  She held him to a certain level of conduct, and there was a tremendous amount of strong emotion between them. In the ‘60s, it has to be Ann-Margret, who really was the love of his life.  In the ‘70s, certainly Linda, but Ann Pennington, who I interviewed, was also really good for him. 

Interestingly, she, Susan Henning, and Barbara Leigh all had a child.  He never met the children of Susan or Barbara, I don’t believe, but he did meet Ann’s little girl, and he was good with her—helped bathe her, and gave him a glimpse into normal family life.  That might have turned into a stable, healthy relationship, with a stepsister for Lisa Marie.  Ann is a cool woman. Elvis fans don’t know a lot about her, but she’s high on my list of favourites of all the women I interviewed.  You know, almost all of these women were really engaging, thoughtful, sensitive, and NICE.  Celeste Yarnall is another one.  And Regis Vaughn, Elvis’s prom date.  Show me a lovelier, more sincere, down-to-earth woman in the universe, and I’ll eat that whole book, cover to cover. 

EIN: Which other women would you include as being very important to Elvis?

AN:  I think Sheila Ryan was extremely important to him.  She made him laugh, and she’s affectionate and true and embodies a lot of fine qualities.  But she arrived in his life in the early ‘70s just as so many things were starting to go bad.  And he was really in the grips of destruction then, with his health failing and his spirit fading.  You would have had to be Herculean to have made it through that period with him.  And, of course, there were a myriad of women then, and Linda Thompson was very much on the scene.  Moreover,  I find it fascinating that Sheila and Ann Pennington were there simultaneously, and became exceedingly good friends and still care about each other today.  Now, those are remarkable women!   Except that there really ought to be a support group for the ‘70s ladies.  So many of them are still grieving for and about him. 

When you talk about women who were “very important” to him, let’s not forget those women who weren’t strictly girlfriends.  Reeca Smith was important to him, because she was one of the last, if not the last, of the 14-year old girls he chose to mentor and shape.  He thought she could have a career as a model, and he wanted to see her grow up with a chance for that.  He really extended himself to her.  Gave her a car, even though she wasn’t old enough to drive, for example, and bought her nice clothes. 

Now, he was 39 or so at the time, and her father was a little uneasy with the relationship overall, which is understandable. Reeca, too, was troubled by it once Elvis got really sick and she felt powerless to help him.  But again, Elvis also just loved talking with her, because he was comfortable being around young people, and they didn’t demand much of him, and he could be a hero.  He would have been very proud of Reeca.  She’s been through a lot, and has come out of it spectacularly.  And she’s a poised beauty with impeccable manners who can still fit into the coat he bought for her! 

EIN: Elvis and Sophia Loren.  Did your research uncover much about their meeting? AN:  It didn’t, no.  I wrote to her, but heard nothing back. But my impression is that it was really only a brief meeting at the studio, and that they charmed each other, and then went on their way, after the moment was preserved for posterity. Photo: Bob Willoughby/ Sophia Loren Archives)

EIN: Mary Ann Mobley mentions that she felt Elvis had a Madonna complex regarding Priscilla.  Did anyone else mention this theme and has any of your earlier research on Elvis pointed to this issue?

AN:  Yes, as he told Joyce Bova, once a woman has a child, he saw her differently.  She was a mother. In fact, that meant she was too much of a literal stand-in for Gladys, and hence it felt taboo for him to be with that woman sexually again. But I was surprised at what my research showed up.  We’ve all read for years that Elvis wasn’t interested in having relations with a woman who had born a child.  But as I mentioned, Susan Henning, Barbara Leigh, and Ann Pennington each had a child, and these were all sexual relationships. I know because I pressed the point home with them, in an effort to clear up this myth. So it turns out that Elvis was able to move past that hang-up with these women. 

I eventually came to the conclusion that Elvis was more turned off or frightened by the idea of having relations with a woman who had born his child, not just a child.  This goes back to when he and his mother were alone for months when Vernon was incarcerated, and then for months after his release when he had to go out into the state or beyond to find work.  But Priscilla has changed her story a little bit about their marital life after she found out she was pregnant.  I quote her about that in the book. Linda, by the way, said that hang-up of his was something they discussed, and it didn’t make her eager to have his child.  She feared he would leave her if she had a child with him.  And he probably would have done just that. 

EIN: It was interesting to read that Sheila Ryan was Elvis’ only “hippie” girlfriend.  Please tell us about this.

AN: Sheila was a really pretty girl, with a very winning personality and a sensitive heart.  She’d also been on the cover of  “Playboy.”  So naturally, he was attracted to her.  But she wasn’t the kind of glamour girl he usually liked. She wore jeans with holes in them before that was fashionable, and she wore pants in general, not dresses.  I think one thing that attracted him to her is that she was rather like Goldie Hawn, who he met while doing the  ’68 special.  He was a fan of hers from “Laugh-In,” and he liked that kind of zany, kooky personality with the chicken’s head haircut. Of course, both Sheila and Goldie are sharp women underneath all that. 

EIN: Priscilla was known to be worried about Nancy Sinatra.  How serious was Nancy’s relationship with Elvis?

AN: I don’t think it was a serious romance at all.  He found her attractive and they had a playful relationship with a strong sexual undertow.  But they were ill-suited for each other overall.   Of course, there was that whole back-story of her father and the Colonel, and the fact that Elvis and Frank captivated the girls of their generations, and Elvis’s “Welcome Home” appearance on Frank’s TV special, and Nancy presenting him with the lace shirts when he returned from Germany.

Add in the Tommy Sands connection and just lots of other stuff that put them in the same room, so to speak (including Frank’s criticism of Elvis when he started out), and Elvis and Nancy were bound to be more than curious about each other.  But, of course, she was one of his co-stars, and he did have a tendency to romance his co-stars, and they were paired together on screen just as he was learning that he was going to be a father.  He had very mixed reactions to that news—Priscilla intimates in her book that Elvis said he would support her if she wanted to abort—and a flirtation was a natural reaction for a man as immature as Elvis. 

EIN: A number of the Memphis Mafia have suggested Joyce Bova’s account of her relationship with Elvis is somewhat embellished to make out it was longer and deeper than it really was.  What is your view on this suggestion?

AN:  I had not read Joyce’s book before I began researching my own.  \And I remember when I was writing the book with Billy Smith, Marty Lacker, and Lamar Fike, that Lamar also downplayed Joyce’s importance in Elvis’s life.  But Sonny West and Jerry Schilling know a little more about it, and Joe Esposito talked to me about it.  Also, it’s sort of funny, but Joyce got in touch with Joe to check me out before she agreed to speak with me. I have talked to Joyce a great deal now—we have become friends—and I am convinced that Elvis simply did not talk about her all that much to others, but that she was definitely an important presence in his life for a number of reasons.  First, she is a knockout with an absolutely captivating personality, and second, she is a twin.  He was very intrigued that she was a twin because of his desperate need to communicate with Jessie Garon, and his sense of not feeling “whole” because his twin had died.  So he wanted to be around both Joyce and  her sister, Janice.  It comforted him. It may have also titillated him, as in Germany, he liked to be around a set of dancers—the Orkowski twins—in one of the clubs.  You see them in those famous Rudolf Paulini photographs, as on the cover of the book Private Elvis.

Anyway, I found it fascinating that when Priscilla and Vernon ganged up on him, he got on a plane and went to find Joyce. That’s how he ended up seeing President Nixon.  He went to Washington originally to find Joyce, not Nixon. He needed to escape his environment at home, where he felt pretty oppressed at the moment, and going to see a twin was, in a way, crawling back into the womb.  Anyway, he couldn’t find Joyce, and then flew to L.A. and got Jerry Schilling and had him fly back to D.C. with him to help him track her down. On the plane, he got the idea to write the letter to Nixon. No, that relationship with Joyce went on for awhile.  He wanted her to move to Graceland.  He cared about her a lot.

EIN: In Baby, Let’s Play House, I was surprised to read Jo Smith saying Elvis did not pay much attention to Lisa Marie.  Did anyone else confirm this?