Baby, Let's Play House_ Elvis Presley and the Women Who Loved Him - Alanna Nash [346]
In March 1977, Elvis took a party of thirty, including new girlfriend Ginger Alden (right) and her sister Terry, to Hawaii. While there, he vowed to make big changes in his life. (Robin Rosaaen Collection)
Chapter Thirty-Four
Breathe!
Ginger.
In rock-and-roll mythology, she is the girl who let him die, knocking the world off its axis. Like his mother, her name sprang from the seventh letter, “G.” Gladys and Ginger, bookending his life. One watched too closely, the other not at all.
She was born November 13, 1956, the very year that Elvis rose to national fame. Ginger couldn’t remember a time when he didn’t loom large in her consciousness. She got her first glimpse of him at perhaps the age of three, when her mother, Jo LaVern Alden, an inveterate Elvis fan, took her down to the fabled Graceland gates and excitedly instructed her to peer through the bars.
Then, at five, she met him. One of his uncles invited the Aldens to join them on an outing at the Fairgrounds, and Ginger had ridden with Elvis on the Pippin, holding tight on the metal bar as the roller coaster made its death-defying dips and turns.
“Elvis was so kind and cordial,” Rosemary, then 12, remembers. “He shook hands with each of us and patted Ginger on the head.”
Ginger was five foot nine now, far too statuesque for that sort of treatment. But the night the grown-up Ginger met him, Elvis seemed to be in no hurry to see any of the Aldens, and kept them waiting for hours while he practiced karate. Finally, the three sisters were led upstairs to meet him, where he received them in Lisa Marie’s bedroom.
“I know this sounds funny,” Ginger admits, “but when Elvis entered the room, I thought trumpets would sound.”
He entertained them in his usual fashion—taking them on a tour of the house, singing, and reading aloud from his favorite books. “It turned out to be a truly wonderful evening,” Ginger later recalled. By one account, she spent the night, a chaste one.
The next evening, Elvis took her up in his plane for what was supposed to be a quick flight to see the Memphis skyline.
“Have you ever been west?” Elvis asked her.
Ginger shook her youthful head, and suddenly they were on their way to Las Vegas with chaperones Patsy and Gee Gee Gambill. Though she was twenty years old, Ginger seemed incapable of making a single move without her mother’s input. She phoned home for permission, and the couples stayed overnight, returning the next afternoon.
Eight days later, Elvis asked her to join his west coast tour, and sent his JetStar to bring her to San Francisco, where he would play the Cow Palace. But first, there was a minor matter to resolve. Linda had accompanied Elvis to Reno, Nevada, and Eugene and Portland, Oregon, for the opening dates, along with Larry Geller’s new wife, Celeste, and sister, Judy.
While Ginger occupied a room on the floor below the suite, Elvis told Linda she looked as if she weren’t feeling well. Maybe she should go back to L.A. to rest, he said. When Linda replied that she felt just fine, Elvis launched into Plan B, and called Larry into his bathroom. He was shaving.
“All right, listen,” he said, looking into the mirror at the curve of the razor, and then glancing over at Larry. “Here’s what’s happening. You’ve got to tell Celeste and Judy they can come on tour anytime they want, but I’m sending them back to L.A. now with Linda on the JetStar. I’ve met someone else. She’s here now, but don’t tell them what’s up.”
Judy thought it was odd, because the next date was Anaheim. Why didn’t Elvis wait until L.A. to send all the women home? It didn’t make sense. But she just shrugged her shoulders. “You did what the King asked.”
Elvis, meanwhile, told his girlfriend of four-and-a-half years that he was flying out to Vegas right after the