Baby, Let's Play House_ Elvis Presley and the Women Who Loved Him - Alanna Nash [142]
In his book, Say Kids! What Time Is It? Stephen Davis, whose father, Howard Davis, was the show’s writer-director, recounts numerous stories of Judy’s wild behavior and numerous romantic liaisons. “She loved sex—she slept with everybody,” lamented Chief Thunderthud’s Bill Lecornec.
Clarabell was especially shocked. “I would go out on weekend appearances with her,” said Bob Nicholson, “and while we got along fine, she would just as soon tell a store manager to go fuck himself as she would look at him. She had stars in her eyes and thought she was bigger than he was.”
And she was. In 1956, she earned a Tony nomination for her performance in the play Pipe Dream, which landed her on the cover of Life magazine.
Jailhouse Rock was Judy’s second film, and she appeared to be poised for a long career. But over the Fourth of July weekend, with filming just finished in mid-June, she and her husband were killed in a car crash near Billy the Kid, Wyoming. One story said she’d been cut in half.
Elvis was devastated. “It really, really upset him,” says Lamar. “He broke down and cried, sitting up in the bathroom at Graceland.”
“Nothing has hurt me as bad in my life,” Elvis told the newspapers. “I remember the last night I saw them. They were leaving on a trip. . . . All of us boys really loved that girl.”
On July 4, Elvis, clearly distraught, showed up at George Klein’s house early in the morning. It was so awful about Judy. He’d just saved her from one serious accident, when she’d run into a door, putting her arm through the glass. He’d managed to grab it, keeping her from falling through.
Then, changing the subject, Elvis mentioned he’d been watching this tiny blonde, Anita Wood, the replacement for Susie Bancroft on Wink Martindale’s WHBQ Top 10 Dance Party. George said he could get him an introduction.
That was Thursday. On Monday night, Elvis had his first date with his next serious girlfriend.
Elvis and Anita Wood embrace as she steps from a plane at Memphis Municipal Airport, September 13, 1957. She had been in Hollywood preparing for her first movie role. Elvis had given the nineteen-year-old a friendship ring the previous week. At some point, she would dye her hair black for him. (Robert Williams/the Commercial Appeal, courtesy David Troedson/Elvis Australia)
Chapter Fourteen
Nipper Dreams
Anita Wood was nineteen years old, wore her hair in an appealing blond bob, and was in all ways a perfect southern sweetheart. She had grown up in Jackson, Tennessee, where she developed a spunky personality, as well as a soft, lilting accent that rolled the rs off the end of her words (“teen-agah”). It sounded cultured, though, so it didn’t get in the way of her deejay work. And Anita was not only pretty and pert, with dimples at the ready, but she was also talented and poised. She’d cultivated her singing voice and knew how to perform on camera. She also had a strict code of ethics, which Elvis was soon to learn.
Instead of calling her himself for their first date, he’d asked Lamar to do it that Saturday, after her dance party show. Elvis wanted to see her that night.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I already have a date tonight.”
Lamar couldn’t believe it. He went, as Anita remembers it, “ballistic.” But she’d given her word to Jimmy Omar for that night.
“You mean you won’t break a date to go with Elvis Presley? Are you crazy?”
No, she wasn’t crazy, but she also really wasn’t an Elvis fan, though as a disc jockey she played his records, and she’d grown up with Cliff Gleaves.
“Well, I don’t believe Elvis would like that if I did that to him.”
Anita thought she’d never hear from Elvis after that, but Lamar called again for Monday night, and this time she said yes.
She wasn’t sure what she was getting into, though.
She’d grown up innocent and sheltered with stern parents, and since they wouldn’t allow her to date, she’d never had a serious boyfriend.