Baby, Let's Play House_ Elvis Presley and the Women Who Loved Him - Alanna Nash [255]
Early in 1966 Elvis changed California houses again, moving to 10550 Rocca Place in Bel Air. As with the Bellagio Road house, his landlord was Mrs. Reginald Owen, the wife of the esteemed British character actor. The modern ranch-style home allowed more privacy for Elvis and Priscilla, though Marty and Charlie, who was no longer working with Jimmy Wakely, would live there, along with Jerry Schilling and his fiancée, Sandy Kawelo. By now, a number of the guys, including Joe, Red, and Alan, had their own residences in Los Angeles.
Even with the new house, Elvis now wanted to spend his weekends in Palm Springs or Las Vegas, primarily for bacchanals. He didn’t seem to care what toll his extremes might take on his relationship with Priscilla, who was often left at home.
“He was way too out of control,” says Joe, “whether he was making movies or later, being on the road and touring. The most important things to him were one, his onstage singing, which he loved more than anything in the world, and two, women. He just loved to be around women.”
One time, Joe remembers, they went to Las Vegas to hang out for a few days, and ended up staying six weeks. “Every night we were out chasing showgirls, partying with them all night, going to all the different lounges, seeing all these great acts, and finally going to sleep in the morning. Then we’d wake up in the afternoon and start all over again.
“We did this for such a long period of time that Elvis started getting nosebleeds. The doctor said, ‘You’re just not resting enough. Your body is telling you to slow down.’ So we rested for a couple days and started over again. Twice, we left Vegas and we were a hundred miles out, and he said, ‘What are we going home for? There ain’t nothing to go back to L.A. for. Shit, turn around and go right back.’ That’s just the way he was. He was very compulsive about that.”
In Palm Springs, the guys found their female companions by trolling the streets, using Elvis as bait, and always coming back to the house with carloads of women. “We talked, smoked grass, drank, went for late swims, and even had orgies,” Joe wrote in his memoir. One night, everyone was out at the pool. Charlie, Red, Sonny, and Joe were splashing around with several girls they’d met earlier that night, and Elvis laid on the lounge chair with one of his guests. After awhile, they quietly slipped off to his room.
As things got livelier around the pool, Red came out of his swimming trunks, and in no time, bathing suits were flying around everywhere, guys chasing girls, and girls chasing guys. Elvis heard the commotion and came out to investigate, wearing only a towel around his waist.
“Come on in!” they yelled.
“You guys are having too much fun,” Elvis answered, laughing.
Then he noticed that the girls were nude, and while he took it all in, Joe wrote, Red sneaked around in back of him and pulled off his towel. Elvis, though oversexed, had always been surprisingly modest—even prudish—about showing himself to women, and he stood there in shock for a second, and then, embarrassed, jumped in the pool. When he finally got out, he wrapped a towel tightly around his midsection and went back to his room for the rest of the night.
More and more, Elvis seemed pulled between the quests of hedonism and heaven. In Palm Springs, where the girls revolved with more frequency than the women in L.A., he was freer to indulge his new habit of preaching to party guests. Joe saw it as just another game he liked to play. This one was “master instructing the multitudes.”
One late night in Palm Springs, almost everyone had been smoking marijuana, including Elvis. He asked Joe to turn off the television, and he launched into his discourse, emphasizing each key point with a cane he used as a staff.
This was a pattern that had quickly worn thin with the guys, especially as Elvis would open the Bible and say, “You gotta hear this!” As Elvis began to pace and read, the guys would groan good-naturedly, knowing what was coming. “Verily I say unto you, except ye be converted