Baby, Let's Play House_ Elvis Presley and the Women Who Loved Him - Alanna Nash [237]
He also became close on Live a Little, Love a Little with Celeste Yarnall, who says, “He made me feel like I was the only woman in the world.” (Courtesy of Celeste Yarnall)
With his 1972 separation from Priscilla, Elvis’s health began to fail. That June, hardly resembling himself, he rode his motorcycle around Memphis with twenty-year-old dancer Mary Kathleen Selph. She was killed in an auto accident the following month. (Dave Darnell/the Commercial Appeal)
In 1974, a year before their three-month romance, JoCathy Brownlee met a seemingly dazed Elvis at the Memphian Theater. (Courtesy of JoCathy Brownlee Elkington)
Late in life, Elvis still looked for young girls to mentor. One of the last was fourteen-year-old Reeca Smith, who hoped to become a model. “I think she is a wonderful girl, and I have great intentions,” Elvis told her father in late 1974. (Courtesy of Reeca Smith Gossan)
The night Elvis met model-actress Mindi Miller in 1975, he persuaded her to give up her life in Rome to be his girlfriend. He’d had a premonition she would know him. (Courtesy of Mindi Miller)
Elvis hugs Shirley Dieu, Joe Esposito’s girlfriend, on vacation in Hawaii, March 1977. “He always told me he wanted someone who would love him like I loved Joe,” she says. (Courtesy of Shirley Dieu)
Elvis’s relationship with twenty-year-old Ginger Alden was the source of much of his frustration in his last year. (Robin Rosaaen Collection)
After Elvis’s passing, Linda Thompson (shown here in October 1977 on the set of Hee Haw), went on to enjoy her own show business career, particularly as a songwriter with composer and record producer David Foster. (Alanna Nash)
One reason Elvis may not have tried very hard with Raquel was because since October 1963 he had been seeing Gail Ganley, a dancer from Kissin’ Cousins. One day the brunette was in the middle of rehearsing a dance number when suddenly there was a hand on her shoulder. For a moment, it stunned her—not because of who it was, but because he looked remarkably like her former boyfriend.
“He had a blond wig on, playing the part of the twin, and he said, ‘Hello, there,’ in this beautiful low voice, ‘I’m Elvis Presley. What’s your name?’ By the second week of shooting, he made it known that he was very interested and he wanted me to go out with him.”
Gail, much like Barbara Hearn before her, bore a great resemblance to Elizabeth Taylor. Whether she reminded Elvis of his younger days in Memphis, he was like a teenager in his pursuit: Gail had been knitting a sweater on the set, and she returned to her chair one day to find it unraveled. Then after she filmed a scene in which she had to be barefoot, Elvis came up and said, “I couldn’t stand it anymore. I have to tell you that I hid your shoes.”
As usual, he had one of the guys invite her to the house, but it scared her, and like Raquel, she turned him down, making up an excuse of having to attend a bridal shower. The next day, she thought better of it and brought a box of See’s candy to the set, giving it to one of the entourage to take to him. Elvis invited her to his trailer.
“Did you think about me last night?” he teased. After that, she gave in.
The first time she came to the house, they just watched television, and he kissed her good night like a gentleman. Gail was relieved. She’d had only the one boyfriend. But she had a history of a different kind—she was the last of the Howard Hughes starlets, and she’d just sued the mysterious billionaire over her unfulfilled contract. When Hollywood columnist Harrison Carroll showed up on the Kissin’ Cousins set to interview her, Elvis was enthralled. In fact, it made her more attractive to him, as in a roundabout way, it linked her to Debra Paget, in whom Hughes took a personal interest. But it also made Elvis nervous—was she going to talk about him next? Soon, however, he got over it.
Their first night in the bedroom, he made no attempt to undress her. Instead, they talked and cried