The Secrets Out About Presley’s Love-Life

Some of the girls in Presley’s life, from top to bottom Venetia Stevenson, Barbara Long, Anita Wood, the old faithful home town girl and movie startlet Yvonne Lime.

“ANYTIME I GO OUT with a girl a few times I wonder what kind of a wife she would make. I think it’s pretty natural for a guy, after he goes out with a girl a few times to wonder how he’d feel about being with her the rest of his life.”

A character named Elvis Presley is credited with having mouthed the above words. And though what he said makes a lot of sense where the average Joe from Kokomo is concerned, when applied to Sir Swivel Hips Presley, it becomes as ridiculous and out of character as a Yogi Berra critique of Spengler’s Decline Of The West.

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What Presley, or should we say his press agent, is trying to convey in the above statement is the fact that the Ole Houn’ Dawg yawler is just an average kid looking for an average gal with whom to share an average vine covered cottage.

To put it more bluntly: Elvis Presley wants to get married.

What’s stopping him?

Well, it seems that this poor, underprivileged, rich kid just can’t seem to find a girl worthy of himself.

“Always in the back of my mind I wonder if a girl is interested in me or in Elvis Presley,” says he. “I’ve gotten better able to tell, but it’s still pretty hard. Some girls are pretty good actresses you know . . . It will probably take a little time to find . the right one.”

Now anyone hearing the above words might be inclined to feel sorry for this child of destiny who seems to be having all sorts of trouble trying to find a girl who’ll love, honor and cherish him for himself alone. But the actual truth is that Presley is not only not looking to get hitched, he’s actually running like a bunny from anything that even resembles a marriage gleam in a young lady’s eye.

Just recently, in fact, while making the movie Kid Galahad Presley was playing footsie with a cool charmer named Connie Stevens. It certainly was no secret as just about any columnist who could spell “Presley” and “Stevens” itemed the romance.

One even went so far as to head the story, “Connie Stevens has said ‘Yes’ to Elvis!

“This is the hottest rumor to come out of Hollywood this year . . . and by the time you read this Connie Stevens may already be Mrs. Elvis Presley.”

Someone close to Elvis put it this way, “They’re at the stage now where he calls her at least five times a day and she spends weekends with him on location.”

Said location was the San Jacinto Mountains and it’s a well known fact that Connie actually spent more time there than she did at home. Every free moment Elvis had he was making with the sweet words to Connie. They went round and round and during the course of the romance Elvis even met her family.

It really did look like Elvis had finally found the right girl.

But it was not to be.

When the picture was finished, so was the romance.

Elvis went back to his Tennessee cronies for some wild boozin’ and brawlin’ and Connie got solace from an older man, namely, Glenn Ford.

Now certainly, even someone with Presley’s mentality must realize that a chick like Connie Stevens wasn’t after him for his loot or his fame. Connie’s a gal with a bright future of her own. And as far as money is concerned, she has plenty in her own right.

Tuesday Weld is another doll who went the romance route with the King Of The Rock ’n Rollers. But she too found that the moment things even look like they’re getting a little serious you can’t see Elvis for dust.

There’s nothing wrong with a guy wanting to stay a bachelor. Nobody’s knocking it. But when a guy is constantly mouthing off about getting married and telling the world about his quest for Mrs. Right, then it becomes wrong.

Elvis has said on more than one occasion, “After three dates with a girl I know if she’s using me or if she likes me for myself.”

Coming from Elvis, this is ridiculous. Through his whole career he’s done nothing but “use” girls. A quick look at his background shows that Elvis has played footsie with more chicks than Noah had animals. And, up to now, he never cared who knew it.

The Pelvis first appeared on the scene back in August of 1954 when he recorded a song called That’s All Right. A local disc jockey gave it an airing — and Elvis was on his way.

The next stop was a fifteen minute radio show called Louisiana Hayride, where he sang doughnut commercials.

About this time rock ’n roll was beginning to catch on with the sharpies and zoot suiters, so it was only natural for them to choose as their hero an entertainer who very closely resembled their own kind.

Elvis filled the bill. He was undoubtedly the loudest, most uncouth acting, and most sexy singer on the scene. The rock ’n rollers nominated him for their idol and his election was a land slide.

Every time Presley appeared, his movements oozed just a little more sex, until before long he was acting more like a second rate stripper than a singer And even though stripper play strictly to adult audiences, many of them wouldn’t dare go through the gyrations and contortions Presley has employed.

A cop who caught one of his early performances in Los Angeles remarked, “If he ever did that on the Street, we’d arrest him.”

“I ain’t being vulgar,” said Presley at the time, “I’m just jumpin’ with the beat, ’cause jumpin’s in me. How in the pea-pickin’ world kin I help if I go wild when I sing? That’s the way I feel.”

This could be, and this would even be alright if he confined his sexy feelings to the stage. But it seems that Elvis also felt that way when he wasn’t singing because he was having a wild time smooching his teen-age bobby sox fans from one end of the country to the other.

Everytime one of his bobby six brigade puckered up and asked to be kissed, Elvis puckered up and obliged.

This uninspiring bit got started when a gal, after getting Elvis’ autograph asked for a kiss, too. So Elvis kissed her. And he kissed her in a way that any self respecting parent would hope their daughter was never kissed before.

Hearing about this, femme fans everywhere began asking for like treatment. And Presley, never the bashful type, obliged.

Certainly all this adoration was because his name was Elvis Presley, but it didn’t seem to bother him then.

Then there was the Charleston newspaper gal who was sent to interview the sexy shrieker. At one point in the interview Presley up and bit the babe’s hand. When asked why, he said, “I was only trying to be friendly, like a puppy dog. If you want to get ahead you’ve got to be different.”

Kissing a girl here and there and biting another is probably nothing to get excited about even if the gals were under age, but that was only the beginning.

And if mothers were upset about Presley smooching their daughters they must have become outraged when he segued into his new kick.

It started down in Lubbock, Texas where Presley had just finished an undulating show that still had most of the female teen-agers wriggling.

Making his way down the bandstand steps and through the fans hovering about him, Elvis dropped into a chair for a few minutes rest, then, picking up his cronies, he headed for the nearest exit.

“Oh Elvis,” screamed one of the bobby soxers, “wait for me.”

He turned and saw a pretty young bobby soxer dashing after him.

When she caught up to him she pulled her blouse off her shoulders, revealed a low cut bra and asked, “Would you please autograph me?”

Older and wiser entertainers may have hesitated having a three quart bare bosom thrust at them for a signature. But not Elvis he grabbed the pen and signed. Elvis, on the righty and Presley on the leftie.

Torso-graphs

This chick was the first to have her torso so inscribed but she was, by no means. the last. As a matter of fact one doll went so far as to bare enough of her chest for Presley to have inscribed the entire Gettysburg Address. But to his credit it must be said that he did no more than write his name.

These gals only gave Presley writing room because his name was Elvis Presley and because he was a rich and famous entertainer but that didn’t stop him from making with the torso-graph.

And then there was the model who asked to be introduced to Elvis while he was appearing at the New Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas.

When they met, she said “hello.” Elvis said nothing but he grabbed her hand, started nibbling on her fingers, kept going up her arm and didn’t stop until he was nuzzling her ear. It wasn’t exactly a “How do you do,” but the gal got the message.

Later on that night Presley invited her to his room and, to put it in the gal’s own words. “He took my breath away. Then everything else . . . I barely had time to get my shoes off. Elvis may be only a boy—but what boy. Now I know what he means when he sings Love Me Tender. It went on for hours until Elvis suddenly realized he had another show to do. Popping into his clothes he asked me to wait until the show was over.”

Once again Elvis used his position to take his love and once again it didn’t bother him.

Experience like the above qualified Elvis for the big leagues and when he returned from the army he made his presence known among the dolls of Hollywood.

Presley’s first picture when he returned from the service was G.I. Blues. Juliet Prowse was his co-star. Another singer named Frank Sinatra had the inside track with this gal but the INSIDE STORY is that this didn’t bother Elvis at all. As one columnist put it, “Elvis is right in there wooing and cooing just as though Sinatra didn’t exist. One week-end Juliet spent with Elvis in Las Vegas, another she spent with Frank — no one is sure where.”

Where she went with Frank and what she did is of no consequence here. But the fact that Elvis got into the act proves that the army hadn’t changed the hip swiveler.

The gal who probably knows Elvis better than any other is a pretty Southern belle named Anita Wood. They grew up in Nashville together. And though she has been romantically linked with him time and time again, nothing has ever come of the romance.

Even while he was making time with Connie Stevens he was seeing Anita on the side.

“It was plain that he considered Anita someone very dear,” itemed one correspondent, “On the set they were as playful as kittens. He teased her, cavorted with her, broke up over private jokes they shared. She’d chase him. He’d chase her. He’d overtake her with a hug and a kiss. It was all very breathless and touching.”

All very breathless and touching indeed!

But Anita went back to Nashville without a ring on her third finger left hand. She knew Elvis wasn’t the marryin’ kind and, as we said before, she knows him better than any other girl.

Further evidence that Elvis is not thinking of settling down can be seen in his quick retort to the mother of a debutante from Pasadena whose name was romantically linked with Presley’s. The mother announced that Elvis had asked her daughter to wait for him until such time as he could make her permanently his.

Now a guy who really was serious about “finding the right girl” would have ignored the remark. Who knows, she may have been the right one. Instead M. Presley snapped, “I got 25 girls I date regular. She’s just one of the girls.”

Does that sound like a guy who wants to get married. It sure doesn’t. Any fellow with a harem of 25 lovlies certainly isn’t looking to get tied up with just one.

Elvis’ secret attraction to the fair sex, then is very simple. By constantly harping on the fact that he can’t find a girl to love him for himself alone he appeals to the mother instinct in the female.

And anyone who knows anything about females knows that this is the fastest route to the boudoir.

Up to now this system has worked very well for old bump and grind Presley. But the truth of the matter is that Elvis has no intention of getting married until he is too old and too exhausted to totter into bed.

He made this abundantly clear in an early and unguarded interview when he said, “Why buy a cow when you can steal milk through the fence?”

And certainly when it comes to “stealing milk” Elvis has no peer.

—By CHARLES HAZARD

It is a quote. Inside Story MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 1962

 

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