Baby, Let's Play House_ Elvis Presley and the Women Who Loved Him - Alanna Nash [227]
Almost every night she made quick trips to the drugstore to buy more packs of film. She was certain that the clerk knew what they were up to, and Priscilla would blush as she approached the counter, paid, and then hurried back to Graceland. There Elvis would direct her as he might any starlet. She’d wear her schoolgirl uniform to seduce him, or pretend to be a teacher coming on to a student, or a secretary pleasuring herself. Eventually, they worked up to include another girl, a hairdresser Elvis knew, for simulated lesbian sex. And in time, they moved up to videotape.
Watching two women together isn’t an unusual fantasy for men—there’s a purity to it, since nobody but a woman knows what a woman wants. But involving a teenage girl is more than just imposing artifice. It’s a bent use of power and control, something akin to slavery, or human bondage. It’s also a bit sadistic.
But Priscilla says she didn’t mind doing it—it brought them closer, she thought. “I was ready to indulge him any way I could.” And that included carrying a small, pearl-handled derringer in her bra, or in a holster around her waist, since Elvis had taken to always carrying a gun under his coat. Before she graduated, she’d sit in class and daydream about how surreal it all was. “While my classmates were deciding which colleges to apply to, I was deciding which gun to wear with what sequined dress. I was tempted to say to Sister Adrian, ‘Oh, by the way, Sister, does gunmetal gray go with royal blue sequins?’ ”
Almost every night, Elvis gathered a group to go screen movies at the Memphian, renting three or four and watching them until daybreak. As was his habit, he also let in a few fans who waited outside the doors. One evening, he was surprised to see an old love there. June Juanico was in town for the WIBC, the women’s national bowling tournament. Her friends goaded her into stopping by Graceland, the “surprise” Elvis so wanted to show her six years before. The gate guard, most likely one of his uncles, recognized her name and told her she could find him at the theater that night.
Her heart raced as she peered through the glass doors at the Memphian, and she pounded hard on the thick metal in hope someone would let her in. A man came, and she was flabbergasted when he said, “You’re June, aren’t you? I’ve seen pictures of you at the house. I’ll tell Elvis you’re here.” June grabbed his arm. “No,” she pleaded. “If you don’t mind, let me just go surprise him.”
Elvis was one of the most famous men in the world now, and he lived in a different universe than the one they’d shared in the 1950s. With his streamlined features, tailored clothes, and razor-cut hair, he hardly looked like the same person. It took all the nerve she could muster, but she made her way down the aisle.
“I went in the row behind him and I tapped him on the back, and as he turned around and looked at me, our eyes just locked. He got up and put me in a death grip. Joe Esposito ran over because he thought someone was hurting him. But Elvis was holding on to me. Priscilla was sitting next to him, and she just kept her eyes glued to the screen. She was very gracious. But when I got back to my girlfriends, I said, ‘If y’all want to buy some makeup in Memphis, Tennessee, you ain’t gonna find any, because Priscilla’s got it all on her face.’ ”
Just after the Fourth of July holiday in 1963, Elvis returned to Hollywood to make Viva Las Vegas, his best MGM picture since Jailhouse Rock. The plot revolved around Elvis as Lucky Jackson, a guitar-playing race-car driver whose life is upended after meeting Rusty Martin, a swimming instructor with show business aspirations.
With the casting of the delicious and dynamic Ann-Margret, Elvis found the first costar who could match him in looks, musicality,