Baby, Let's Play House_ Elvis Presley and the Women Who Loved Him - Alanna Nash [91]
Elvis made his way over to her, flirted, asked her name, and said he wanted to take her out. But unlike millions of women who swooned at the very sight of him, Joan didn’t find him attractive and politely demurred. Elvis, his ego wounded, complained to Colonel Parker.
“He went back like a sick little puppy and told everybody at the hotel that I turned him down. He said, ‘Your Miss Sahara and Miss Nevada USA won’t go out with me.’ ” An hour later, Colonel Parker showed up with Milton Prell, along with Stan Erwin, the entertainment director, and Herb McDonald, the publicity director.
But as Miss Sahara, Joan was off-limits. “They weren’t allowed to ask me to go out with anyone—not even sit with somebody. But Colonel Parker said, ‘Why wouldn’t you?’ And I said, ‘He’s a nice man, but he’s just not my type.’ ”
The Colonel offered an insincere smile and narrowed his eyes.
“Elvis is a gentleman. You don’t have to worry about him.”
“I’m not worried about that,” Joan replied. “And I’m very capable of taking care of myself.”
Herb McDonald then got on his hands and knees. “Please, Joan. Please go out with Elvis for the publicity we’ll get.”
Still, she refused, saying she didn’t want to lead him on. Finally, Milton Prell, consort of gangsters and all manner of Vegas power, made his plea.
“Joannie, we’ve done everything you’ve asked. We haven’t made you sit with anybody, or do anything you didn’t want to do. Please go out with Elvis.”
At last she relented, but only as a favor. “Okay, okay, all of you. Tell him to ask me again and I’ll do it.”
Elvis went back with his tail between his legs, and this time he talked about motorcycles—someone told him Joan found them sexy—and he offered to rent one and take her for a ride. But even that fizzled. “We had a flat tire and ended up in a Cadillac.”
They drove up to Sunrise Mountain. Elvis just wanted to see the lights of the city, he said. Joan had heard that one a hundred times before, and when he put the car in park, she continued to sit in the corner, not wishing to give him the wrong impression. Elvis was running out of tactics now, and so he started singing to her. When she still didn’t scoot over close, he said, “You obviously aren’t a fan of my music.”
“I like to play the cello with my father,” she replied, and exasperated, Elvis cut to the chase. He asked her where she lived, and she told him she had an eight-by-forty-foot house trailer. He asked her to show it to him. “No way,” she told him. She wouldn’t allow anybody in her trailer. More than that, she didn’t let anybody get to know her, because she was underage. “I’d lied and said I was twenty-one because I was working at the Sahara.”
But Elvis wore her down, as he knew he would. Still, his evening didn’t go as planned.
“He was sitting on my couch and kissing me, and then he started to do a little more than kissing. I told him, ‘No, no, no,’ but he didn’t take no for an answer. So I pushed him backward, and he fell off onto a square Formica table.”
Elvis hit the corner of it as he fell. Suddenly, he was lying on her floor moaning, “I can’t move!” For a terrifying moment, she thought he’d broken his back.
Joan panicked. “I didn’t know what to do! I thought, ‘Do I call Colonel Parker? Do I call the Sahara? What do I do?’ But he said, ‘Don’t do anything. Just let me lie here.’ ”
The next day, Elvis and the Colonel showed up at the Sahara “with every record that Elvis ever made. The Colonel said they were from his private collection.”
Joan Adams would have a chance to add to that collection in another thirteen years. By that