Baby, Let's Play House_ Elvis Presley and the Women Who Loved Him - Alanna Nash [289]
“Well,” she said, though she felt a little sheepish, “there’s also the fact that you’re married.”
Now he was indignant. “What does ‘married’ have to do with this? I just want to be with someone I can talk to. You should realize that with you I would have to be a perfect gentleman. And that’s a promise.”
And so she caved, she wrote, “like a freshman congressman confronted by Tip O’Neill.”
Joyce was too nervous to actually enjoy her cheeseburger dinner with Elvis and the guys in his suite on the twenty-ninth floor of the International, but Elvis was intrigued with her—the fact that she was a twin, that she worked on Capitol Hill, and that her father was a cop. And so he asked her questions almost the entire time until she left at 5 A.M., when he had Gee Gee Gambill take her down and put her in a cab for her room at the Dunes.
When she returned for a second dinner a few days later, she asked him point-blank, “Why me?” His answer: “Trouble is . . . it’s been a long time since I’ve felt so comfortable with a woman.”
It made her dizzy. But that couldn’t be true, could it? Elvis Presley? She didn’t know what to think, especially when he asked her to stay in Vegas a few more days.
“Believe me, I would love to, but the Congress of the United States doesn’t recess for me.” Before she left, he kissed her for the first time and asked for her home phone number. She scribbled it out quickly and put it in his palm, and he replaced it with a small diamond ring, a perfect stone set in finely wrought gold. “So you won’t forget me,” he said.
A week later, he called her at 2 A.M. He wanted her to come back to see him. Right then. And when he heard her sister was at the door, he seemed delighted. “Put her on,” he said. “I want to meet her.”
On their first night together, Elvis gave Barbara Leigh a gold medallion of Jesus, shown here on a chain around her neck. Their faith made up part of the bedrock of their relationship. (Courtesy of Barbara Leigh)
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Girls, Guns, and the President
In October 1970, Elvis and Priscilla were back in Hawaii again, the Colonel having held Alex Shoofey’s toes to the fire for the perk. Vernon and Dee, the Espositos, the Schillings, and the Gambills all came along at their invitation. Elvis had nothing scheduled until his return to the International stage in January, and while he’d once told Jerry that one of the most important lessons in life was being able to cope without anything to do, he was looking forward to the time off.
Although there was always much to interest Elvis in Hawaii for either work or play, after his huge fight with Priscilla there, the locale no longer seemed the paradise it once had. He never seemed to go anywhere else on vacation, one of the guys pointed out, and someone suggested that they all just continue their holiday in Europe. The Colonel always had some excuse why Elvis couldn’t perform there, so if he were going to see any more of the Continent than Germany and France, he needed to do it on his free time.
They made a plan to return to the mainland, where they could pull some strings and expedite passports. But when the Colonel caught wind of the idea, he squelched it immediately, arguing that Elvis’s rabid European fans would be insulted if he visited as a tourist before ever appearing in concert.
As usual, Elvis relented and accepted Parker’s suggestion to go to the Bahamas for two weeks instead. The Colonel had contacts there, he said, and they’d love the gambling and the deep-sea fishing. But the sea was too choppy for the latter, and the trip was largely a bust: Rain and hurricane winds kept them virtually trapped at the Paradise Island Hotel, where Elvis sat in with an Irish band, the Witnesses, and resumed fighting with Priscilla. The group returned home earlier than expected.
On October 30 gossip columnist Rona Barrett ran into Elvis at the blackjack tables, a girl on each arm. Her November 6 column carried a most candid item: “Everybody is commenting on how good Elvis Presley looks these days while he’s having fun at the International.