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Through the years, Susan has been tasteful in describing the relationship, using words such as sensuality, and passion, and saying only, “you can use your own imagination about two people who are in love.”

But now, for the first time, she forthrightly states, “It was definitely a physical relationship” and offers such information only to clear up a falsehood that has permeated Presley lore since the 1970s: that Elvis would never have sex with any woman who had borne a child. He was usually squeamish about intimacy with anyone who had given birth, but the more complicated truth was that Elvis did not desire sex with any woman who had borne his child, which effectively killed any chance he might have had for a happy marriage of many issue with anyone, not just Priscilla. He couldn’t really explain it, but he knew it had something to do with Gladys and Jessie, and beyond that, he didn’t want to talk about it.

In any case, Susan did not need to worry. Her fair coloring would have separated her from both Gladys and Priscilla in Elvis’s mind. And on at least a subconscious level, it was a plus: Her Scandinavian heritage would have reminded him of one Ann-Margret Olsson.

Elvis’s ability to build walls and compartmentalize his relationships—husband, father, philandering sex star—was never stronger than during the time surrounding what is now commonly referred to as “the Comeback Special,” in part because he was so frightened and in need of emotional succor.

He spent Easter with Priscilla at their new rental house on Camino del Norte in Palm Springs, and then two weeks later, the couple celebrated their first wedding anniversary at home in L.A. with a catered party from the Deli Restaurant. Elvis sent Priscilla a bouquet from Sada’s Flowers in Culver City, but his card—“Love, Elvis”—was anything but effusive.

Elvis wanted a family, but he was conflicted about Priscilla’s role in it. It was as if in birthing Lisa Marie, she had served her function. And Priscilla knew it. She had already started becoming her own person and building a new life—taking dance lessons, using the pseudonym “C. P. Persimmons,” and softening her look, letting down the beehive and throwing out the hideous black eyeliner. She needed to get away from everything that symbolized the suffocating lifestyle she had led as Elvis’s overly made-up concubine.

That same day as the Presleys’ anniversary, May 1, Colonel Parker took a meeting at his office at MGM with executives from NBC and the Singer Sewing Machine Company, which would be the show’s sole sponsor. “Would TV serve to refurbish that old magic, the sort of thing that gave old ladies the vapors and caused young girls to collect the dust from Elvis’s car for their memory books?” TV Guide would ask.

That was the question on everybody’s mind that day, though no one spoke of it in precisely those terms. Parker told fifty-year-old Bob Finkel, one of four executive producers under exclusive contract to NBC, that he wanted the special to follow a Christmas theme, in effect, casting Elvis as Bing Crosby or Andy Williams. The producer said he’d like to explore other options but broached the subject gently. Parker said Finkel could push the creative margins, as long as Elvis sang a Christmas song to close the program, and that they controlled the music publishing throughout. Later, he would have more specific ideas.

The Colonel suggested that Finkel stop by and meet his client, and the executive producer made his way over to the star’s trailer on the lot. He was stunned at what he saw. Elvis was in a declining period, yes, but “most stars had trailers that were a half a block long. Elvis’s was like a little Andy Gump. It didn’t seem to bother him, either. We shook hands and talked, and I said I was happy about the show. He looked at me very carefully and I guess made a judgment, and the next thing I knew we were in business.”

Having appointed himself Parker’s keeper and chief distracter, Finkel knew there was no way he could produce and direct