Baby, Let's Play House_ Elvis Presley and the Women Who Loved Him - Alanna Nash [89]
She had prayed he would be there. Just eleven days earlier, on April 12, when he played the Armory with Faron Young and Wanda Jackson in her hometown of Albuquerque, New Mexico, Nancy waited outside the stage door after his second show with her friend Carla Singer, a classmate at St. Vincent Academy, a Catholic girls’ school. The two stood there with a swarm of other girls about their age, and when Elvis came out to give autographs, Nancy prided herself on being the first one he kissed. The next day, the Albuquerque Tribune ran a front-page story about Elvis smooching St. Vincent girls, and Carla, who also got a kiss, was immediately expelled for bringing bad publicity to the school.
It was a life-changing moment for both of them. In time, Nancy began imitating the singer, becoming perhaps the first female Elvis impersonator. (“If anyone did it earlier, they would have to prove it to me.”) She combed her hair into a modified ducktail, thickened her eyebrows and lips, added sideburns, and built up her shoulders, turning one of her father’s jackets into Memphis cat clothes. Then, curling her lip, she strummed a cardboard guitar and lip-synched the words to “Heartbreak Hotel.”
Known today as Nancy Kozikowski, an internationally acclaimed artist whose paintings, tapestry designs, and weavings can be found in museums, public buildings, and private collections, she was captivated as a child by the idea of what it would feel like to be Elvis onstage. The next year she got kicked out of St. Vincent for “edging on subversive,” and at the talent show at her new school, Washington Junior High, the kids got so caught up in her performance that they forgot she was a girl. She was amazed at how electric the connection felt.
“Because I had seen him perform so closely, it was like I was him. The girls screamed. It sort of surprised me.” Moreover, she was stunned at the power that even an imitation of Elvis could have over young kids. “It was scary. It didn’t occur to me that an imitation would even begin to do anything more than simply amuse people. But they went wild.”
However, Nancy had returned from Las Vegas with more than just the inspiration for her act. While checking into the Desert Inn, she saw a friend from Albuquerque, and since her pal had a Brownie camera, Nancy suggested they go looking for Elvis. The New Frontier was right across the street, and they saw him immediately, leaving with Bill Black and Gene Smith. He posed for pictures with them, and Nancy reminded him of that earlier kiss, which earned her another. Elvis was happy to see such a youthful face: “Vegas was where people went to get away from their kids.”
She ran into him on several occasions (“He was always nice and flirty”), and one morning, at the Last Frontier Village penny arcade, he was all by himself, killing time. They hung out together, just having fun, popping quarters in the arcade booths. In one, they made a sound recording, a talking record (“Hi . . . ummm,” “Hi. Aren’t you going to say my name or anything?” “Ummm, Okay. Hi, Elvis. What are you doing here?”), and then they stuffed themselves into the twenty-five-cent photo booth, taking pictures together and alone.
Nancy’s enraged boyfriend (“the original Fonz, long hair, leather jacket”) would later burn all but one, but the image that remained was a beauty—a black-and-white portrait of a hollow-jawed Elvis, a creature of the Vegas night who looks as spooky as Dracula himself.
By the time she left Las Vegas, Nancy had received a bouquet of Elvis kisses, more than a dozen in all. “Very nice and sweet. He was not a letch.” Besides, “I was only thirteen and thought he was too old for me.”
Elvis was in the lobby of the New Frontier one afternoon when