Baby, Let's Play House_ Elvis Presley and the Women Who Loved Him - Alanna Nash [428]
Finally, I express my gratitude to everyone who in some way helped to make this book a reality: Lew Allen; Louise Alley; Betty Amos; Troy Atwood; Phillip Barber; Piers Beagley of the Elvis Information Network; Tom Bearden; Jean Beaulne; Steve Binder; Anita Wood Brewer; Michael Brohm; Maxine Brown; Gary Brumburgh; Jeff Burak, Time Inc.; Connie Lauridsen Burk; Trevor Cajiao; Meridel Carson; Imelda Lopez-Casper; Marshall Chapman; Cher; Petula Clark; A. J. Craddock; Yvonne Craig; Tony Curtis; Colonel Eugene Desaulniers; James Dickerson; Martha Ebberman (aka Ann Raye); Barbara Eden; Kevin Eggers; JoCathy Brownlee Elkington; Randy Erdman; Colin Escott; Lamar Fike; Bruce Fretts; David Friend; Lea Frydman, of the Web site Elvis Presley News; Gillian Gaar; Judy Geller; Larry Geller; Chris Giles; Larrian Gillespie; Meg Grant; R. M. Dolores Hart, Pr., O.S.B.; Andrew Hearn; John Heath; Susan Henning; Norma Horvitz; Nick Hunter; Wanda Jackson and Wendell Goodman, Wanda Jackson Enterprises; Joey Kent; Kevin Kern, of Elvis Presley Enterprises; Rich Kienzle; Marty Lacker; Paul Lichter; Maureen Mackey; Michael McMullan, the Commercial Appeal; Larry McMurtry; Rex and Elisabeth Mansfield; Diana Magrann; Constant Meijers; Mindi Miller; Mary Ann Mobley; Herbert C. Moretz; Norma Morris; Kevin Neal; Judy Nettles, Reference Department, Eudora Welty Library, Jackson, Mississippi; Chris Noel; Sally O’Brien; Frank Page; Patti Parry; Jacque Carter Parsley; Cynthia Pepper Pazillo; Jeanne Pellicani; Ann Pennington; Siouxzan Perry; Pallas Pidgeon; Michael Radovanovic; Paul Richey; Bryan Ritter; James V. Roy; Tura Satana; Karen Schoemer; Bob Shatten; Ross Sibert; Bill Sloan; Billy and Jo Smith; Sister Barbara Spencer; Michael Streissguth; Feifei Sun; Marshall Terrill; Linda Thompson; Tanya Tucker; Richard Weitze; Raquel Welch; Al Wertheimer; Kathy Westmoreland; Jan Willis, Director, Lee County Library, and Betty Cagle, of the Mississippi Room Collection, Lee County Library, Tupelo, Mississippi; Rodney Woliver; Ginny Wright; Celeste Yarnall; Fran Zichanowicz; Belle Zwerdling.
I also thank Ginger Alden Leyser for her e-mail correspondence.
In the years since Elvis Presley’s death on August 16, 1977, scores of people have contributed to my knowledge of his life, his music, and his career, many of whom, particularly Bill E. Burk and Alan Fortas, have passed on. However, both the quick and the dead continued to be guides as I readied my manuscript.
On the day that Elvis died, my father, Allan Nash, came home, stood in the door, and fixed me with a look that was more of a directive than anything else: “Now you have something to write about.” Pop passed on in 2005, but his spirit occupied the second chair at the computer as this book took form.
Allan Nash and Elvis Presley were both iconic figures in my life, and in a way, they will always be entwined. Most people would never think of the two in the same sentence. But my tall, erudite, father—always commanding in an impeccably tailored three-piece suit—and Elvis, who looked resplendent in a custom-made jumpsuit, had many of the same invisible tattoos beneath the skin.
Pop, born in 1917 as a contemporary of Gladys and Vernon Presley, grew up in Paris, Tennessee, 138 miles northeast of Memphis, to a rural family that counted two sets of twins among its ten children. Fiercely independent, he went by his middle name, but the fact that his first name was Jesse, and that his birthday was January 9—only one day off from that of Elvis and the lost Jessie Garon—resonated with me from the day in 1956 that Elvis first became a presence in my life.
In many ways, my father, to whom music and poetry were second only to family, inspired this book. I thank him and my mother, Emily Kay Nash, for both my musical and journalistic education, and for realizing that rock and roll was every bit