Baby, Let's Play House_ Elvis Presley and the Women Who Loved Him - Alanna Nash [178]
She was a girl on a mission, then. Photographs show that she had taken it to such extremes, in fact, that after she read that Elvis was smitten with Debra Paget, who everybody said she favored, she began wearing her hair in the exact style of Paget’s in Love Me Tender, replete with long ringlet.
It wasn’t that Priscilla happened into a situation whereby she was invited to meet Elvis, then, but according to Currie, an Airman First Class assigned to the 497th Reconnaissance Technical Squadron, she approached him at the Eagles Club. As he related in Suzanne Finstad’s biography, Child Bride: The Untold Story of Priscilla Beaulieu Presley, it was about five o’clock, and he’d gotten a hamburger at the snack bar and taken it to the last table in the farthest corner so no one would bother him. Then he saw the door open and Priscilla enter. He’d barely gotten a bite down when she began walking toward him.
“Hi,” she said, “I understand you know Elvis.” Currie was deflated. A married man who valued his wife and family more than anything, LaVern Currie Grant was also a sex addict, a fellow, as Finstad quoted him, “just in overdrive when it came to sex . . . I craved it all the time.” He had no compunction about fooling around on his wife, and he had already seen Priscilla at the club and wanted her. He had hoped she wanted him, too.
But he played along, wondering how he could work it to his advantage.
“Sure do,” he said.
“Well, I sure would like to meet him.”
“So would a lot of other girls, but sit down and we’ll talk about it.”
Currie, a part-time manager of the Eagles Club, ran a weekly variety show called “Hit Parade” for the Air Force. He’d gotten to know Elvis through Cliff Gleaves, who Elvis had just brought over to Germany. Cliff, a sometime rockabilly singer, harbored dreams of becoming a stand-up comedian and promised Currie an introduction to Elvis in exchange for work.
Once Cliff moved in with Currie and his wife, Carol, he and Currie often frequented a swimming pool, where Currie, a photographer, liked to take pictures of beautiful women. And there, says Lamar Fike, is where Currie and Cliff both met Priscilla, after she had been in Germany for about a week and a half.
“Currie was taking pictures of her,” Lamar says. “Cliff described her to Elvis, and Elvis told Cliff to have Currie bring her over.”
No matter precisely how Priscilla and Currie first began talking about Elvis, everyone agrees on how she looked the night Currie and Carol picked her up for the drive from Wiesbaden to Bad Nauheim. She had on a blue-and-white sailor outfit—a middy blouse with a wide skirt over a crinoline—and white socks. It was Sunday, September 13, 1959.
Captain Beaulieu, who had met Currie and knew his commanding officer, had given his approval as long as Priscilla would be chaperoned. He reminded the Grants that she had classes the next day at the H. H. Arnold American Military High School, sponsored by the U.S. military, and that Priscilla should be home by midnight.
She was nervous on the drive, but when they arrived at the house in Bad Nauheim, Priscilla drew on all her experience as Queen of Del Valle Junior High and transformed herself into a model of sophistication and mystery.
The Grants passed by the predictable group of fans gathered at the gate and brought Priscilla into the house through the front door. Vernon was there, of course, as was Minnie Mae, and Lamar, and Elisabeth. They ran into Rex in the hall and introduced him to Priscilla.
Elvis was in the living room, wearing a red sweater and tan slacks, sitting leisurely in an armchair, a cigarillo dangling from his lips. Priscilla, who had waited for this moment since she was ten, stood tentatively behind Currie until he reached behind and took her hand. Then he pulled her up beside him. “Elvis,” Currie said, “this is Priscilla—”
Currie had started to say more, but before he got it out, Elvis was on his feet.