Baby, Let's Play House_ Elvis Presley and the Women Who Loved Him - Alanna Nash [335]
That same spring, Elvis met twenty-four-year-old model-actress Mindi Miller through Ron Smith, who later became well known for establishing the Celebrity Look-Alikes firm. Ron was another of Elvis’s friends who promised to be on the lookout for girls, and ran into Mindi at a Hollywood disco called the Candystore. Elvis had just broken up with Linda Thompson, Ron told her, and invited her to a party at the Holmby Hills house. But when Mindi arrived, she found only Elvis’s guys, who proceeded to screen her as their boss’s potential new girlfriend.
At five foot eight, Mindi was tall like Linda, and shared a beauty pageant background, but she was also smart, poised, and utterly unimpressed with celebrities, having come from a family of performers. But meeting Elvis was something that intrigued her. She’d seen him driving on Sunset Boulevard sometime before in his Stutz Blackhawk, with his slicked-back hair and EP glasses, and she had a premonition she would some day know him. However, that night, when the guys gave Elvis the signal and he strode into the room in a tennis hat, she didn’t even recognize him. It was a funny bit of business that broke the ice.
From the beginning, they settled into a natural groove. He looked at her in astonishment when she turned down a ring (“I’m sorry, I wasn’t raised to take an expensive gift from a man like that”), and he was more impressed when she said no to a car, though later she did accept a Trans Am.
They spent the first night together without even kissing. Mostly, they laughed and talked, and even sang a little bit, both of them, Elvis launching into his new song “T-R-O-U-B-L-E,” just as if he were onstage. (“He just sang his little heart out.”) They discussed mystical matters, particularly numerology and “how everything in the Bible is a dividend of seven, the highest spiritual number that there is,” and he gave her a set of his favorite little books so they could talk about them on the phone.
Mindi shared his open mind and fascination with such subjects, and she could tell how desperate he was for a real connection. But he was upbeat with her, even when he eventually told her that, “When I die, there will be certain people that I will contact and be in touch with beyond the grave.” He also told her he was afraid of the dark, and thanked her for not laughing at him.
At 7 A.M., as she was leaving, he put on a karate demonstration for her with the guys and asked if she’d like to learn the discipline. “I’d love to,” she replied. “But I won’t be here. I’m moving back to Rome.” Elvis was shocked. “What do you mean? You don’t live here?”
She explained that most of her work was in Europe, and that it only made sense for her to live there. Elvis turned to the guys and told them they could go, and then he asked Mindi to come back upstairs to the bedroom.
“Listen,” he said. “You know I would like to see you again. Do you have to move back to Europe?”
“Well, I don’t have to, but I just came back to close up my apartment and sell my car. Everything is packed and ready to go. I’m supposed to leave in three days.”
“No,” Elvis said, shaking his head. “You can’t. I won’t let you.” Then he called downstairs to the guys: “Make sure you get her number and address. She’s coming on the next tour.”
“Look . . . Elvis,” she said. “I’ll be very straight with you. I have no intention of staying here, but if I did, it would only be to be your girlfriend.”
“Fair enough,” he countered. “You’re my girlfriend.” But he had to be honest, too.