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That night, a newspaper photographer came out and took a picture of Elvis at the organ. Barbara sat near him, holding Gladys’s little dog, Sweetpea. “I look so sad and bedraggled because I had been working hard all day while Elvis was showing off his temper downtown.”

The next day, the charges against Elvis would be dismissed, while the other two men would be fined. And there was other news: Later that afternoon, June Juanico would arrive from Biloxi for a visit.

Barbara had learned of June from the newspaper. She’d picked up the Memphis Commercial Appeal one morning to find Elvis’s remarks from the RCA press conference about the two girls he was seeing, along with a big, splashy story about the other women in his life. Once the shock wore off, Barbara took it in stride. “It was really neat that he had named me, but that was the first I’d heard of June.” The paper carried a picture of her “own sweet self,” of course, along with several rows of photos of Elvis’s other dates.

“One was a stripteaser from Las Vegas, and another was a lady wrestler. My family said, ‘Well, that’s just where you belong, isn’t it, Barbara? Right up there with the stripteasers and the lady wrestlers.’ ”

Kay Wheeler and Elvis, first meeting, backstage at the Municipal Auditorium, San Antonio, Texas, April 15, 1956. She taught him her original dance, the “Rock & Bop,” and headed his first national fan club. (Courtesy of Kay Wheeler)

Chapter Eleven

Showgirls and Shavers

Just as Elvis had stayed in constant touch with Barbara through the filming of Love Me Tender, he had also heavily romanced June, sending her a lovesick telegram on August 21, 1956: “Hi, wioole [widdle] bitty. I miss you, baby. Haven’t had you out of my mind for a second. I’ll always be yours and yours alone to love. Dreamed about you last night. Love ya. Yea, uh-huh. EP.”

As if for proof, June had barely arrived on Audubon Drive when Elvis wanted to take her to his room. They’d been in there together countless times, but this one was different. Elvis closed the door. “I told him no, no, no,” June remembers. “I got up and said, ‘Keep the door open. I’m not going to stay in here with the door shut.’ ”

And so their relationship remained unconsummated.

June’s visit coordinated with Elvis’s rehearsal for his second appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show at the end of October. For days, she sat on the floor, enthralled at being surrounded by Elvis and the Jordanaires, the vocal backing group he used in concert and on records. She and Elvis often harmonized in the car on such songs as “Side by Side” and the old hymn “In the Garden.” Now, in rehearsal with the Jordanaires on “Love Me Tender,” she felt free to jump right in. She’d hang on to Gordon Stoker’s ringing tenor, and if Gordon stopped and she kept on, “Elvis would just look at me and grin.”

Before leaving for New York, she and Elvis saw a rough cut of the movie with his parents. Elvis found it difficult to watch his performance, but then it was so hard to keep up with all the whirling emotions of fame. Variety, the show business trade paper, had just declared, “Elvis a Millionaire in 1 Year,” based on the projections of his income from the movie contracts, records, song publishing, merchandising, and concerts.

While June was still visiting, Elvis came home with a “big ol’ box of cash from the bank in tens, twenties, and hundreds. He sat on the floor and he said, ‘June, would you like to see a million dollars?’ And he threw it up in the air.” Gladys and Vernon walked in, and Vernon held his head. “Are you crazy, son?” he said, and scrambled to pick it all up.

June wondered for a minute if she should grab some, but she knew it wasn’t the right thing to do. One reason Elvis liked her, she thought, was because she wouldn’t take anything from him.

The money had probably been a test, a suggestion from Parker, who often left people alone with large amounts of cash to see if he could trust them. June, who despised Parker and thought he schemed to keep her and Elvis