Elvis and Ginger: Elvis Presley's Fiancée and Last Love Finally Tells Her Story (18 page)

“The state police have made an extra effort to make the road to the funeral more passable,” she said. Then, noticing Elvis in his robe and our breakfast in front of us, she gently reminded us of the time, and said it was quite a drive to the service.

This was enough to nudge Elvis into fast gear. We finished eating and, as various members of his entourage began checking in with him, I left so he could get ready.

It was cold outside. I put on my long white mink coat, then joined my family, waiting for Elvis. Before long, he stepped out of his room with a few books in hand, wearing a dark, high-collared coat and blue scarf around his neck.

My parents had driven their Lincoln Continental to Harrison. Now they offered it to Elvis, telling him they would take one of the rental cars. “That’s fine,” Elvis said.

Charlie, David, and Ricky took the backseat of the Lincoln while Elvis and I sat up front. With Joe behind the wheel, we pulled out of the parking lot and headed toward the Mt. Sherman Assembly of God Church.

The weather conditions were still treacherous. The ride was slow along the two-lane, ice- and snow-covered road and grew worse as we entered Newton County, where the area became hilly and the road more winding.

We finally reached the small town of Jasper, turned onto another narrow road, and began our ascent up the snow-covered mountain toward the church. The road looked so slippery that I couldn’t help voicing my concerns about being able to make it up to the church.

“If I can land my jet on that icy runway, I can also land on top of that mountain,” Elvis assured me.

Five slick, nail-biting miles later, we finally pulled into the small graveled parking lot of the country church. My grandfather had donated the land for this church, helped build it, and preached in it, too. Organ music was softly playing when we walked inside. Although we were fifteen minutes late, the minister had waited for us before starting the service.

It was a small church with only six pews on each side. We quietly took seats in the back. The Reverend Maddox stepped forward and began singing “How Great Thou Art.” There was a hint of nervousness in his voice until suddenly, Elvis began singing along, and then Charlie joined in. I was initially surprised that Elvis would sing, but he did it softly, not trying to take over the service, and the reverend’s voice grew in power as Elvis subtly nodded his head at him.

The Reverend Martin Villines and the Reverend Guy Jones, both friends of my grandfather, handled the rest of the service, with the Reverend Villines giving the eulogy. Near the end, Elvis leaned my way and, with his eyes fixed on my grandfather’s casket, said under his breath, “Son, you’re on your own.”

It was a line I remembered from the film
Blazing Saddles
. I wondered if he was trying to make me laugh. At times, Elvis dealt with tension by injecting humor, and in a strange way, hearing him say this did lighten my mood for a moment.

When the service ended, we stepped outside the church. Everyone was very courteous and polite. One of my cousins began speaking with Elvis as cars began to line up behind the hearse. Elvis continued talking with her, which prompted my mother to mention that it was time for us to go.

Before returning to our car, Elvis quickly mentioned to my mother, “Mrs. Alden, you know this church reminds me of the church I went to when I was a little boy.”

We then drove the two miles to the cemetery for a short graveside service.

After it was over, Elvis once again was kind and gracious with everyone, taking time to speak with a few relatives and telling one of my cousins that the weather reminded him of his days in the service in Germany.

We returned to the Ramada Inn, where we gathered our belongings and Elvis changed back into his jeweled robe. My parents were going to drive the Continental back to Memphis, but Elvis asked my mother if she’d like to fly back with me and my sisters. My mother accepted the invitation when my father said he didn’t mind driving because it was only a six-hour trip home and someone had to bring the car back. My brother decided to accompany him. Once we were back in Memphis, the JetStar would return for my sister-in-law, nieces, and the others.

Elvis had my mother ride with us on the way to the airport and took a seat across from her when we boarded the plane. During the flight, the two of them began conversing about various things. I heard him tell her at one point that his favorite cousin, Bobbie Jane, had died around the same time as my grandfather.

I was startled by this revelation. Had Elvis chosen to go to my grandfather’s funeral instead of his own cousin’s? He’d never said a thing about it to me! My mother, siblings, and I told him how sorry we were. Elvis also mentioned that he’d like to take a vacation to his home in Palm Springs, California, and invited my mother, sisters, and me. I was thrilled. It would be wonderful to see him in a relaxed atmosphere after his hectic schedule.

Unfortunately, my mother had to work and Terry couldn’t come. But Rosemary was between jobs. “I’d love to go,” she said, and I was glad she and Elvis would have a chance to get to know each other better.

I thanked Elvis once we were alone again at Graceland. His tremendous act of kindness in attending my grandfather’s funeral, especially given all of the effort it had entailed, would forever hold a special place in my heart.

True to his word, Elvis immediately planned our getaway to Palm Springs for January 4. This left little time for Rosemary and me to pack.

Somehow we managed to get together our clothes and return to Graceland for the trip. I had imagined we’d be flying to Palm Springs on the JetStar, perhaps with an aide or two and a bodyguard along for the ride. However, when we arrived at the airport with Elvis, I saw the
Lisa Marie
ready to go.

Charlie; Lamar; Joe; David, and his wife, Angie; Ricky; Al; and a few others were waiting for us on the plane. I couldn’t believe Elvis traveled with this many people on vacation! Then again, I reminded myself, Elvis always did things his own unique way, and grand gestures seemed to be the norm with him. He also seemed determined to surround himself with people, bringing a little bit of home with him on the road.

It was Rosemary’s first time on the
Lisa Marie
and Elvis gave her the grand tour. This would also be her first trip to California. Rosemary was more audacious and outspoken than Terry or I. She didn’t seem the least bit intimidated by either new experience. I also quickly learned that, if anyone could match wits with Elvis and Charlie, it was Rosemary.

When Charlie appeared with drink and cigarette in hand, firing off jokes, Rosemary kept up with him joke for joke. I loved having her with us and watching her cut up with them. Rosemary really knew how to make Elvis laugh, and it made me happy to see him so relaxed and comfortable with my big sister.

We landed at the Palm Springs airport near dawn. The glitz of Las Vegas was nowhere in sight, only the serene desert with spectacular mountains in the distance. We exited the plane and the group divided, most going on to a hotel while Elvis, one of his aides, Charlie, Rosemary, and I rode to Elvis’s home on Chino Canyon Drive.

I loved the house. It was a low, sprawling, Spanish-style white stucco home with a roof tiled in a warm terra-cotta color. The property was surrounded by a black iron fence.

“Not much yard,” Rosemary said as she noted the lack of grass.

Elvis laughed. “That’s why I had some of the rocks painted green.”

Excited to show us the house, Elvis led us down a hallway to the right. We passed a front bedroom and stopped outside a smaller room with a couch and bar inside. Elvis turned to Rosemary. “Which room do you want?”

Rosemary glanced at Charlie. Then, looking pointedly at the room with the bar and sofa, she said, “Charlie, this one’s yours.”

We entered the master bedroom at the end of the hall. Like the one on the
Lisa Marie
, this one was decorated in blue, apparently one of Elvis’s favorite colors. Elvis then led us back toward the entryway and into a living room with a fireplace and large windows.

Continuing through the room, Elvis took us outside to a free-form pool surrounded by a patio. Viewing the calm landscape with its backdrop of mountains, Elvis put his arm around me. As we stood there together for a few moments, quietly absorbing the serenity around us, I was deeply content.

Back inside, Elvis led us to a den with couches, pinball machines, and a television. When Rosemary and I both complimented the bright, multicolored carpeting, Elvis laughed and said, “The carpet was a gift from the Mafia.”

Was he joking? Like everyone, I’d heard stories that the Mafia controlled a lot of what went on in Las Vegas, but I didn’t really know anything about that. Still, it made sense to me that Elvis might have at least met some members of the Mafia because everyone from fans to fellow entertainers sought out Elvis’s company, if only to be seen with him. It certainly wasn’t out of the realm of possibilities that someone in the Mafia had given Elvis the carpet as a gift to impress him. On the other hand, I’d never overheard any conversations or seen Elvis involved in any activity that would lead me to believe he was actively involved in the Mafia in any way, and I never would.

•   •   •

Elvis had brought his books to Palm Springs. I’d brought mine, too, and I’d adopted his habit of making notes in the margins and underlining text that I found interesting or wanted to understand better. I still never felt my beliefs as a Christian were being tested, only that Elvis was trying to introduce me to different ways of thinking and exploring different ways of looking at the universe.

Eager to have Rosemary share what we were reading and discovering, Elvis invited her to join us in the bedroom and gave her a few books as well. The three of us read for a little while, but Rosemary wasn’t used to Elvis’s sleep patterns and returned to her room before too long to rest.

Even on vacation, Elvis needed some help going to sleep. A little while after Rosemary left us, an aide brought in what I assumed was a sleep packet. I decided it had to have been prefilled back in Memphis, since no doctor or nurse was staying with us here in the Palm Springs house.

That afternoon, Elvis and I were awake but still sitting in bed when there was a knock on our door. It was Rosemary. She came in, saying, “Elvis, your lock just got taken!”

Rosemary told us that she’d been awakened by female voices outside, shouting, “Elvis!” She’d looked out her window and had seen women gathered by the driveway gate, removing what looked like a large, unlocked padlock from it.

I couldn’t believe Elvis’s fans already knew he was here—or that they’d be that daring. It wasn’t clear to me if any bodyguards had arrived at the house yet, but Elvis didn’t seem worried.

He thanked Rosemary and shrugged off the incident as if he’d encountered similar acts many times before. I actually thought it was kind of funny at the time and didn’t feel Elvis’s safety was really at any risk.

From watching Elvis perform onstage, I had seen firsthand how much his fans wanted a piece of him—a scarf, a ring, and so on. With Elvis’s singular celebrity, which he had been experiencing for over twenty years, I knew that he was used to this kind of behavior from people. He understood it was just a way for his fans to try getting closer to him because they loved him that much. Most of the time, he seemed to accept their attention as a compliment rather than any real threat to his safety.

•   •   •

Just as they had at Graceland, the members of Elvis’s entourage congregated in Palm Springs. Elvis’s stepbrothers and Al alternated between staying at the Palm Springs house with us and in a hotel, catering to Elvis’s needs. I rarely saw the bodyguards and was unsure where they were staying, but when they were at the house I suspected they gathered in the den.

I knew what Charlie and Joe did for Elvis, but I couldn’t figure out Lamar’s role. The few times I’d been around him, he was plainspoken and direct, and Elvis usually bounced jokes off of him. Finally I asked Elvis, “What does Lamar do for you?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Remind me to ask him later.”

Sure enough, when Lamar came to say hello the next time, Elvis looked at me with a grin, then back at Lamar. “Lamar, remind me to ask you something.”

Looking perplexed, Lamar said, “Okay.”

I smiled at Elvis, feeling I had the answer to my question. It seemed Elvis liked Lamar for entertainment purposes and was just generous in including Lamar whenever he went places.

I wouldn’t get to know these men much better during our time here as they continued to mainly speak with Elvis when stopping by our room to greet him. However, during that time I did get to know some of the comical nicknames Elvis gave a few of his employees and friends. He sometimes called Charlie Hodge Slew Foot. Lamar Fike was Lard Ass because of his weight. In private, Elvis told me he called his aide, Al The Atheist and that his bodyguard Dick “had the personality of a rhinoceros.” Despite his generosity and habit of joking around with these men, the black humor of these nicknames made me wonder if he was completely happy with some of them.

For instance, one evening, Rosemary rushed into the bedroom to announce that she’d been sitting in the living room when David’s wife, Angie, came running in, looking terrified, with David in close pursuit. David had been carrying what Rosemary recognized as a dog training stick.

“Lamar was in the room, too,” Rosemary said, “and Angie was trying to hide behind him.” Apparently David and Lamar had exchanged strong words.

Rosemary was also worried because there were some guns lying out in the open close by on a table. She was afraid someone might really get hurt.

“I want David in here now,” Elvis said, and yelled for David to come into the room. Clearly angry, Elvis asked us to step outside while he talked to David. I went to Rosemary’s room with her. A little while later, Elvis called us back in, looking embarrassed and shaking his head. He said he couldn’t understand Ricky, Billy, or David sometimes because “they’re on different wavelengths.”

Occasionally, I would see that the guys weren’t all that pleased with Elvis either. Even though Elvis, Rosemary, and I were relaxing, it was still work as usual for them and a little resentment would show itself from time to time. When Elvis was hungry, for instance, he would usually ask me to tell one of the aides what he wanted. One time when Al was on duty, I saw him seated in another room and gave him Elvis’s order. Al rolled his eyes, stood up, and walked into the kitchen without saying a word to me.

Al’s reaction surprised me. Was it because it was me asking him to do something or because he was mad at Elvis for some reason? Or was he just tired of his job? I remembered the time Al had come to my house and told my family that he wasn’t overly happy with his job at Graceland and worked mostly to support his mother.

Rosemary had a similar experience once, when she walked into the kitchen and heard Al and Ricky lightly bickering over which one had to reheat Elvis’s food. Neither one wanted to do it. Elvis often wanted his meals reheated, typically after getting caught up in conversations and letting his food get cold. It didn’t seem to be a difficult job, but I guess for some of them, it was trying their patience.

•   •   •

Just as he did at Graceland, Elvis chose to relax by staying inside and reading or watching television rather than going anywhere, hanging out by the pool, or socializing. It would have been nice to leave the house, even just to take a ride around and tour the area, but I understood that Elvis had to be tired after his tour and then going straight on to my grandfather’s funeral. Besides, for Elvis, going out in public was never an easy task; as the padlock incident had proved to me yet again, everyone wanted to get close to Elvis.

The only exception to this was our trip to see Colonel Tom Parker, Elvis’s manager, who had a home nearby in Palm Springs. One afternoon, Elvis told me that the colonel’s wife, Marie, was very ill and he wanted to visit her. We arrived at the colonel’s home and as I followed Elvis to the front door, I noticed a number of statues of elephants in all different sizes.

“Why do you have so many elephants?” I asked when the colonel stepped outside to greet us.

“An elephant never forgets,” he said. Then, smiling, he added, “I want Elvis to buy me a ring with an elephant on it.”

I couldn’t tell whether he was joking or not, but decided he must be. The colonel and Elvis began to chat. As we walked around the side of his home, he showed me his backyard. Carousel horses sitting atop poles rose from the shrubbery surrounding a pool. We followed the colonel inside, where Elvis told me he would be right back. He and the colonel left me while they visited with Marie in another room. I wondered how long Marie had been ill, and thought how nice it was of Elvis to see her. They returned a short time later, and Elvis said good-bye without lingering to socialize. I didn’t know the details of their long history at that time; from our visit, I couldn’t tell if he and Colonel Parker were close. So far, their relationship seemed to be mostly centered around business.

I accepted his choice not to socialize much with Colonel Parker and some of the others along with us, and didn’t push Elvis to do otherwise, figuring when he felt ready, he would do so. It was just nice being with him in a different environment and it was great having Rosemary with us as well.

•   •   •

As I became closer to Elvis, getting to know him way beyond the image of the superstar, there still were constant little reminders of who he was. On January 6, Rosemary and I were in Elvis’s room with him when he got a phone call from Colonel Parker. After listening for a few minutes, Elvis hung up, looking stricken.

“Frank Sinatra’s mother just careened off a mountaintop,” he said.

Dolly Sinatra, eighty-two years old, was one of four people killed when their Learjet took off from Palm Springs and crashed into the San Gorgonio Mountains. She was heading to Las Vegas to see her son’s opening show at Caesar’s Palace.

Elvis was using dark humor in the face of tragedy, but I could tell the accident upset him. When he mentioned wanting to offer one of his planes to Frank Sinatra, it struck me that, among entertainers at this level, there must be a certain camaraderie. Elvis felt comfortable offering help to Frank Sinatra in the same way I would offer to help if something happened to one of my friends or neighbors.