Baby, Let's Play House Part 32

Elvis always made time for the pint-size performer, particularly after she got upset with him one day. She had already met Priscilla and found her "cla.s.sy and quiet, but a lovely person." But watching Elvis kiss all the girls confused her, since he'd told her that he and Priscilla would eventually marry.

"How can Elvis kiss and be nice to the other girls on the set when he is supposed to be with Priscilla?" she wondered.

One day he invited Donna to lunch in his dressing room, making sure he had the Mexican food she enjoyed from Del Taco.

"Little sister, I can see something's bothering you. What's going on?"

She told him. Elvis took her question seriously.

"Well, you know, sweetheart, the Lord wants you to love everybody as your brothers and sisters. But really, we are in love in love with one person, and for me that is Priscilla." with one person, and for me that is Priscilla."

Looking back, she says, "The King of Rock and Roll explained the whole love thing to me over tacos and cheeseburgers in his dressing room for an hour. If that's not something to remember, I don't know what is."

On one of his days off, Elvis went with the Colonel to see the recently completed memorial to the U.S.S. memorial to the U.S.S. Arizona, Arizona, which Elvis had helped fund with his 1961 benefit concert. Parker had designed an enormous bell-shaped wreath for the occasion, with one carnation for each of the 1,177 men who died there, and an admiral gave Elvis and his party a special tour on his private boat. Jerry Schilling remembers standing next to Elvis at the rail as they looked down through the water at the sunken ship. They were both surprised to see oil from the engines still bubbling up to the surface. Elvis was visibly moved. "Those guys are still down there," he said, speaking very softly. which Elvis had helped fund with his 1961 benefit concert. Parker had designed an enormous bell-shaped wreath for the occasion, with one carnation for each of the 1,177 men who died there, and an admiral gave Elvis and his party a special tour on his private boat. Jerry Schilling remembers standing next to Elvis at the rail as they looked down through the water at the sunken ship. They were both surprised to see oil from the engines still bubbling up to the surface. Elvis was visibly moved. "Those guys are still down there," he said, speaking very softly.

He couldn't get it out of his head and talked about it when he got back to L.A. But when Suzanna Leigh returned home, all she talked about was Elvis. One woman in particular hung on every detail. Suzanna was among a group of film stars, including Deborah Kerr, to be presented to Queen Elizabeth. Nervous, Suzanna walked up to Her Royal Highness and curtsied, but before anything else could happen, the queen gushed forth: "Do tell me all about Elvis Presley. . . . What we all want to know is whether he is going to come over here."

Queen Elizabeth was not the only British subject eager to meet Elvis. On August 27, under heavy secrecy and security, the Beatles made a visit to Perugia Way. In a sense, their visit was anticlimactic-at first, the Fab Four seemed too awestruck to speak. Elvis, clad in a red shirt and gray slacks, was sitting on the couch, his leg constantly twitching, while the Beatles nervously came and sat cross-legged in a semicircle on the floor. "There was a silence, and they were looking up at him, no they were gaping gaping at him," remembers Larry Geller. "He out-eclipsed everyone, and they knew it." Finally Elvis stood up and said, "If you guys are just going to stare at me all night, I'm going to bed." at him," remembers Larry Geller. "He out-eclipsed everyone, and they knew it." Finally Elvis stood up and said, "If you guys are just going to stare at me all night, I'm going to bed."

That broke the ice, and then Elvis, John, and Paul picked up guitars in the den and played three songs, "Memphis, Tennessee," "Johnny B. Goode," and "See, See Rider," with Elvis on ba.s.s. Elsewhere in the house, Ringo, Marty, and Billy shot a bit of pool, while the Colonel, Beatles' manager Brian Epstein, Alan, and Joe spent the evening playing roulette and shooting c.r.a.ps. Larry, hoping to talk with George about metaphysics, followed him outside, where the quiet Beatle smoked a joint by himself under a tree. The next day John, who had famously remarked that "Before Elvis, there was nothing," told Marty it was the best night of his life. Paul would later call it "odd."

Just before they left, Elvis took the Beatles in the back of the house to show them a gift from the Colonel, a large wooden sauna, stationed outside his bedroom. Larry went along. "We all walked through this long hallway up to the sauna, which had a little gla.s.s window. Paul looked in, and he turned to Elvis, and he said, 'Who's that?' We opened the door, and there was a fourteen-year-old girl, huddled down in a fetal position. She jumped up, and screamed, and lunged at Elvis, and someone pulled her away. Elvis said, 'Don't hurt her! Don't hurt her! She's only a fan.' He was so protective. It was really beautiful. But no one ever figured out how this girl got into the house. It was impossible, with the security."

As the quartet went to get in their cars, a fan took a picture of the swirl of activity in the driveway. Several of the wives were there-Patsy Lacker, Jo Fortas, Joanie Esposito, and Jo Smith, pregnant and in maternity clothes. Later, it turned up in a magazine with the headline, "The Night Elvis Shared His Women with the Beatles!"

"Jo laughed like crazy," says Billy Smith. "She saved that for a long time."

After they were gone, Elvis turned to Larry. "Man, I really liked those guys," he remarked, though at thirty, he wondered if his time had come and gone. Out at the gate, the thousand or so fans shouted their allegiance, chanting, "Elvis, we love you!" or "The Beatles! The Beatles!" Elvis couldn't quit thinking about it. "That was quite a battle out there with the fans." And then a pause. "I guess it was a tie, huh?" Larry knew he felt self-conscious. "I think you won, Elvis," he said. Elvis brightened. "Do you really think so?"

He burned to be back onstage again, and he envied that about the Beatles even more than their chart dominance. The year before, the quartet had paid homage to him by putting the Bill Black Combo on their U.S. tour, where Elvis's friend Jackie DeShannon was also an opening act. Now Bill, Elvis's first ba.s.s player and one of the architects of his original Sun sound, lay dying of a brain tumor, and would succ.u.mb that October at age thirty-nine.

Despite the Beatles' prominence in the music world-and the fact that Elvis's record sales were down 40 percent from 1960-that fall, the Colonel renegotiated his RCA contract on considerably improved terms. The new agreement guaranteed $300,000 against a 5 percent royalty, with 75 percent going to Elvis, and 25 percent to the Colonel.

Even RCA was amazed at his longevity, according to Joan Deary, the label's first female executive, and an employee for more than forty years. "In the very beginning, they thought he'd have a tremendous rise, because he did go up like a rocket. But most artists who go up like a rocket come down the same way. I don't think in a million years they expected that he would go on forever the way he did."

To keep up musically, he continued to expand his knowledge of current acts, listening to folk music, primarily Peter, Paul, and Mary, Ian and Sylvia, Odetta, and interpretations of the songs of Bob Dylan, whose voice proved too shrill for him. But mostly he spent his free time plunging deeper into the escape of mysticism. In October construction began on the Meditation Garden just beyond the swimming pool at Graceland. Marty Lacker's sister and brother-in-law, Ann and Bernie Grenedier, designed it after the Self-Realization Park, with stained-gla.s.s panels, Italian marble statues, and a fountain with underwater light formations.

According to Larry, during the Christmas holidays, Elvis took a bigger step on his path to enlightenment, finally dropping acid under Sonny's controlled supervision.

It was a group trip, of sorts, and began with everybody sitting around the conference table. Elvis split up some tabs-Lamar got his own 750 milligrams-and soon, when Jerry looked at Elvis, he had morphed into a child, first a plump, happy boy, and then a big, chubby baby. Everybody started laughing, and the next thing Jerry knew, he was sitting on the floor in Elvis's closet, eating dates hand over fist.

Priscilla, who had never shown much interest in Elvis's cosmology, joined in. But suddenly in the middle of a mellow trip, Larry wrote in his memoir, If I Can Dream, If I Can Dream, "Priscilla began sobbing. She fell to her knees in front of Elvis and cried, 'You don't really love me! You just say you do!' Elvis . . . tried to convince her she was wrong, but nothing he said worked. Next thing we knew, she was saying to Jerry and me, 'You don't like me.' When she started telling us that she was 'ugly,' I worried she might be having a bad trip." "Priscilla began sobbing. She fell to her knees in front of Elvis and cried, 'You don't really love me! You just say you do!' Elvis . . . tried to convince her she was wrong, but nothing he said worked. Next thing we knew, she was saying to Jerry and me, 'You don't like me.' When she started telling us that she was 'ugly,' I worried she might be having a bad trip."

She snapped out of it, though, and later Larry, Priscilla, Jerry, and Lamar walked around outside, talking openly and unashamedly about how much they cared about one another. They were all exhausted then, and called it a night, but not before Lamar tried to dive into the hood of the 1964 Cadillac limousine, thinking it was a swimming pool. ("The black was so deep.") On his trips to California, Elvis continued to visit Sri Daya Mata, who tried to help him attain self-control and work toward the highest spiritual existence through meditation. He read her book, Only Love, Only Love, and kept it close around him, as Billy Smith remembers. "He called her 'Ma,' which I guess was short for 'Mata.' But Priscilla used to say she looked like Gladys. So maybe that was part of it, too." and kept it close around him, as Billy Smith remembers. "He called her 'Ma,' which I guess was short for 'Mata.' But Priscilla used to say she looked like Gladys. So maybe that was part of it, too."

Elvis found another little sister in Deborah Walley on his next picture, MGM's Spinout, Spinout, which went into preproduction in February 1966. The lightweight musical comedy again spotlights Elvis as a race car driver, this time fronting a band in his spare time. Deborah, best known for her iconic teen movies ( which went into preproduction in February 1966. The lightweight musical comedy again spotlights Elvis as a race car driver, this time fronting a band in his spare time. Deborah, best known for her iconic teen movies (Gidget Goes Hawaiian, Beach Blanket Bingo), plays his androgynous drummer who vies with Sh.e.l.ley Fabares and Diane McBain for his attention.

The bouncy redhead had not particularly wanted to work with him, being a Beatles fan, not an Elvis fan. (The camps rarely overlapped.) But when she first met him on the set, he was so captivating ("like getting hit with a tidal wave of charisma") that she immediately changed her mind. By the time the film was over, Elvis had become one of the most influential people in her life.

"We had a very close relationship, a spiritual relationship," the late actress said. "I really have to say he changed my life."

He had been studying new books of late, going down to Gilbert's Book Shop at Hollywood and Vine and buying The Changing Conditions of Your World The Changing Conditions of Your World by J. W. of Jupiter, and by J. W. of Jupiter, and Billy Graham Presents Man in the 5th Dimension. Billy Graham Presents Man in the 5th Dimension.

His thirst for spiritual knowledge was almost unquenchable now, and he was eager to talk about it with anyone who would listen. It was all new to Deborah, who had grown up in the Catholic church. Her earlier experience "was a turn-off . . . I was not on good terms with G.o.d. It was a void of not feeling one way or the other."

She had lunch with Elvis in his trailer every day, and he took her for motorcycle rides on the back of his Harley. Just as Larry Geller mentored Elvis, "In a kind of odd way, Elvis was a guru to me, and I was a very eager pupil." The guys made light of it ("Whew! He spun her head around like Linda Blair in The Exorcist, The Exorcist," Lamar said), but Deborah was profoundly grateful.

"I think Elvis found in me an empty vessel into which he could pour all the knowledge that he had acquired. We talked about Buddhism, Hinduism, and all types of religion. He taught me how to meditate. He took me to the Self-Realization Center and introduced me to [the teachings of Paramahansa] Yogananda. We talked a lot at either my house or his house . . . eating big bowls full of ice cream."

One day when she was at the house, he showed her Priscilla's picture. He told her that they were going to get married, but "he didn't talk much about her," and she couldn't say that he sounded like a man in love.

When the picture wrapped in mid-April 1966, Elvis got behind the wheel of his new customized Greyhound bus, and the usual caravan of cars followed him for the drive home. They traveled by night and slept by day. When they checked into the Western Skies Motel in Albuquerque, New Mexico, he asked the guys to carry in his heavy Sony Betamax video machine, one of the early models.

"Every time we'd stop, Elvis would have the video recorder taken off the bus," Marty remembers. "He'd sit up there and watch s.e.x tapes." Some were the ones Alan had commissioned for him in L.A. Others were of Priscilla wrestling in bed with another girl, both clad only in bra and panties. And still others were of girls he went out with once or twice.

They'd barely checked into the motel when Elvis called Marty's room.

"Have someone go out to the airport and meet this girl coming in from L.A."

"What's she doing here?"

"I called her before I left and told her to meet me here."

Marty let out a groan. "We had to stay four d.a.m.n days while they played around with the video in the room. We were all p.i.s.sed off, because we wanted to get home to our families."

Elvis had been in a foul mood since they left L.A., with two pieces of news weighing on his mind. The first was professional: Hal Wallis had opted not to renew Elvis's contract past their next picture, Easy Come, Easy Go, Easy Come, Easy Go, scheduled for the following year: "It's not so much that Elvis is changing, but that the times are changing. There's just not the market for the no-plot musicals that there once was." scheduled for the following year: "It's not so much that Elvis is changing, but that the times are changing. There's just not the market for the no-plot musicals that there once was."

In a way, Elvis was relieved. But Wallis was the producer who brought him to Hollywood. He remembered how excited he had been when Wallis first came calling. He was still a kid then, bursting with ambition, eager to learn, and even more pa.s.sionate to show what he could do. Back then, when he lay on the pillow at night, he dared to dream of winning an Oscar some day.

The Colonel certainly wasn't one to soothe over hurt feelings, but he pointed out that Elvis's new MGM contract, while backing off from the $1 million hallmark, called for four films at $850,000 each, with the profit partic.i.p.ation raised to 50 percent. Elvis didn't talk with Priscilla about it, other than to say that Wallis had bailed. In her view, "He insulated himself from his own feelings. Whenever he was scared, or doubtful, or guilty, he'd say, 'I can't feel that way.' " can't feel that way.' "

However, his second disappointment was harder to dismiss, for the larger ache was the news that Ann-Margret had become engaged to actor Roger Smith. He knew they saw each other, but he had refused to believe it was serious. He'd told Marty, "Roger calls her, and she goes out to dinner with him, but there ain't nothing there."

They had parted some time before, as pressure mounted from Priscilla, her father, Colonel Parker, and even Vernon to follow through on Elvis's implied promise of marriage. It was building again, especially as Priscilla was about to turn twenty-one. There was also the fact that "Elvis never would have had a superstar as a wife," Joe says. But Elvis couldn't quite shut down his feelings or even tell Ann-Margret to her face, and so he did nothing.

It confused her. She thought about the time when her parents were living with her in her one-bedroom apartment on Canon Drive. Her landlords were a Danish sea captain and his wife by the name of Jorgensen. Elvis had met them, and after Mr. Jorgensen pa.s.sed away, Elvis suggested they go see Mrs. Jorgensen on her birthday, to try to cheer her up. "He was just so sensitive and considerate, and he knew about honor, and manners, and respecting your elders, and being civilized," she would say. So where was he now?

Marty and Joe ran into her on Sunset Boulevard one day when she was out riding her motorcycle. Marty blew the horn, and she pulled over.

"What the h.e.l.l is wrong with your boss? One minute we're in love, and the next minute I don't hear from him again. He won't even take my calls."

But as time pa.s.sed, she was able to rationalize it: She was independent and wouldn't take orders from anyone, and Elvis required slavelike devotion. For so many reasons, then, as Ann-Margret puts it, "Both of us knew that no matter how much we loved each other, we weren't going to last."

Lamar believes the truth is that Ann-Margret shut Elvis down because of his commitment to Priscilla, and that she never intended to marry him. On the other hand, Larry thinks that when she couldn't get a commitment from Elvis, she began dating Roger with an eye toward a reliable future, even though she and Elvis still occasionally saw each other. Either way, says Lamar, when Elvis learned she was engaged, "He got real upset about it."

More than forty years later, Ann-Margret refuses to talk about the relationship in depth, other than to say that she and Elvis found something deep and primal in each other that she still feels compelled to protect. Whether she is also shielding the feelings of her husband and Priscilla, who she never mentions by name in her autobiography, she seems to grieve for Elvis like a recent widow. When she went to make Tennessee Williams's The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond in 2007, the cast and crew were told that no one was to make a reference to Elvis while she was on the set. And in 1994, when television interviewer Charlie Rose pressed her for details, she teared up: "Our relationship was extremely special. It was very strong, and very serious, and very real. We went together for one year. And he trusted me, and I do not want to betray his trust even in death." in 2007, the cast and crew were told that no one was to make a reference to Elvis while she was on the set. And in 1994, when television interviewer Charlie Rose pressed her for details, she teared up: "Our relationship was extremely special. It was very strong, and very serious, and very real. We went together for one year. And he trusted me, and I do not want to betray his trust even in death."

He was home for several weeks in May 1966, but the bad mood hung on. When soul star James Brown, in town for a performance, repeatedly tried to reach him by phone, he was told each time that Elvis was asleep. Elvis sent his guys on alone to the show and screened movies at the Crosstown Theatre.

At the end of the month, he traveled to Nashville for his first nonsoundtrack recording in more than two years. He had a new producer now, a thirty-year-old Georgian named Felton Jarvis, who'd made a name for himself with rhythm and blues.

"I'd just come to work for RCA. Elvis came in to record, and Chet Atkins said, 'I'm going to carry you over to Elvis's sessions. Elvis likes to record all night long, and I don't like staying up like that. Y'all are about the same age. Maybe you and him'll hit it off and become friends.' And that's exactly what happened."

They spoke the same musical language, and Elvis seemed rejuvenated, eager to get into his contractual task of delivering two singles, a Christmas song, and a religious alb.u.m during the four-day sessions. The religious recordings, highlighted by the presence of the gospel group the Imperials, would win him his first Grammy and count among Elvis's proudest achievements.

Jerry Schilling was surprised at the depth of intensity Elvis poured into his performance. On the t.i.tle hymn, "How Great Thou Art," he sang as if he were standing before his savior, his voice trembling with emotion. When he finished, he was hunched over, nearly to his knees, shaken. A hush filled the room.

"I've never seen a performer undergo the kind of physical transition he did during that recording," Jerry wrote in his memoir. "He got to the end of the take and he was as white as a ghost, thoroughly exhausted, and in a kind of trance." As Jerry continued to watch, "He happened to look up, he saw me looking back at him, and a beautiful smile spread across his face. He knew I'd seen something special."

But in the next days, Elvis's spirits started to sag, and Felton booked a second session starting June 10. By then, though, Elvis had a cold, and for two days, he refused to go to the studio, holing up at the Albert Pick Motel, then a near fleabag that the Colonel recommended to save money. Red made demo recordings, trying to approximate Elvis's voice and tone, and brought them back for him to hear. Finally, on the third day, Elvis made an appearance at the studio but rushed through three songs in thirty minutes.

Two weeks later, he was back in L.A. for Double Trouble, Double Trouble, costarring the eighteen-year-old British actress Annette Day. Elvis took a shine to her, and when he heard she didn't own a car, he surprised her with a '64 Mustang. The problem was that it was Jerry Schilling's car, and Jerry had paid for it himself. But Elvis gave him a Cadillac convertible to make up for it. costarring the eighteen-year-old British actress Annette Day. Elvis took a shine to her, and when he heard she didn't own a car, he surprised her with a '64 Mustang. The problem was that it was Jerry Schilling's car, and Jerry had paid for it himself. But Elvis gave him a Cadillac convertible to make up for it.

Double Trouble, set in the English discotheque scene, might have taken him across the pond for location shooting. But instead, as on set in the English discotheque scene, might have taken him across the pond for location shooting. But instead, as on Fun in Acapulco, Fun in Acapulco, he stayed home. In some ways, the film mirrored his private life: His pop-singer character romances two women but throws over an exotic temptress (Yvonne Romain) for Annette, cast as a seventeen-year-old heiress. The script included the line "Seventeen will get me thirty," words similar to those he uttered in earnest during his wild Louisiana Hayride period. he stayed home. In some ways, the film mirrored his private life: His pop-singer character romances two women but throws over an exotic temptress (Yvonne Romain) for Annette, cast as a seventeen-year-old heiress. The script included the line "Seventeen will get me thirty," words similar to those he uttered in earnest during his wild Louisiana Hayride period.

Charlie Hodge could see that Elvis was bitterly frustrated not to be going to England: "Everyone else was shooting their pictures outside this country in different locations. He was the only one that wasn't leaving town." It was especially galling, in Charlie's view, since in the early 1960s, Elvis "honest to G.o.d, kept Hollywood alive." But the Colonel wouldn't hear of it. Recently, in fact, he had turned down an engagement in j.a.pan, saying the star was booked through 1969.

Then came more bad news. The day after he reported to MGM, his uncle Tracy, Gladys's r.e.t.a.r.ded brother, pa.s.sed away. Elvis always had a soft spot for him-Tracy's oft-repeated saying was "I got my nerves in the dirt"-and his sudden death was only one in a series of sad family events.

Early in 1966 Elvis changed California houses again, moving to 10550 Rocca Place in Bel Air. As with the Bellagio Road house, his landlord was Mrs. Reginald Owen, the wife of the esteemed British character actor. The modern ranch-style home allowed more privacy for Elvis and Priscilla, though Marty and Charlie, who was no longer working with Jimmy Wakely, would live there, along with Jerry Schilling and his fiancee, Sandy Kawelo. By now, a number of the guys, including Joe, Red, and Alan, had their own residences in Los Angeles.

Even with the new house, Elvis now wanted to spend his weekends in Palm Springs or Las Vegas, primarily for baccha.n.a.ls. He didn't seem to care what toll his extremes might take on his relationship with Priscilla, who was often left at home.

"He was way too out of control," says Joe, "whether he was making movies or later, being on the road and touring. The most important things to him were one, his onstage singing, which he loved more than anything in the world, and two, women. He just loved to be around women."

One time, Joe remembers, they went to Las Vegas to hang out for a few days, and ended up staying six weeks. "Every night we were out chasing showgirls, partying with them all night, going to all the different lounges, seeing all these great acts, and finally going to sleep in the morning. Then we'd wake up in the afternoon and start all over again.

"We did this for such a long period of time that Elvis started getting nosebleeds. The doctor said, 'You're just not resting enough. Your body is telling you to slow down.' So we rested for a couple days and started over again. Twice, we left Vegas and we were a hundred miles out, and he said, 'What are we going home for? There ain't nothing to go back to L.A. for. s.h.i.t, turn around and go right back.' That's just the way he was. He was very compulsive about that."

In Palm Springs, the guys found their female companions by trolling the streets, using Elvis as bait, and always coming back to the house with carloads of women. "We talked, smoked gra.s.s, drank, went for late swims, and even had orgies," Joe wrote in his memoir. One night, everyone was out at the pool. Charlie, Red, Sonny, and Joe were splashing around with several girls they'd met earlier that night, and Elvis laid on the lounge chair with one of his guests. After awhile, they quietly slipped off to his room.

As things got livelier around the pool, Red came out of his swimming trunks, and in no time, bathing suits were flying around everywhere, guys chasing girls, and girls chasing guys. Elvis heard the commotion and came out to investigate, wearing only a towel around his waist.

"Come on in!" they yelled.

"You guys are having too much fun," Elvis answered, laughing.

Then he noticed that the girls were nude, and while he took it all in, Joe wrote, Red sneaked around in back of him and pulled off his towel. Elvis, though overs.e.xed, had always been surprisingly modest-even prudish-about showing himself to women, and he stood there in shock for a second, and then, embarra.s.sed, jumped in the pool. When he finally got out, he wrapped a towel tightly around his midsection and went back to his room for the rest of the night.

More and more, Elvis seemed pulled between the quests of hedonism and heaven. In Palm Springs, where the girls revolved with more frequency than the women in L.A., he was freer to indulge his new habit of preaching to party guests. Joe saw it as just another game he liked to play. This one was "master instructing the mult.i.tudes."

One late night in Palm Springs, almost everyone had been smoking marijuana, including Elvis. He asked Joe to turn off the television, and he launched into his discourse, emphasizing each key point with a cane he used as a staff.

This was a pattern that had quickly worn thin with the guys, especially as Elvis would open the Bible and say, "You gotta hear this!" As Elvis began to pace and read, the guys would groan good-naturedly, knowing what was coming. "Verily I say unto you, except ye be converted and become as little children," he started. Then he interrupted himself.

"Jesus!" Elvis exclaimed. "This is unbelievable. Listen! 'But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged around his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea!' "

Suddenly, as if called to deliver the sermon on the mount, Elvis jumped up on the coffee table, pointed his cane at the heavens, and still holding the Bible, began spouting words he never heard at the a.s.sembly of G.o.d church: "And Jesus said, 'Woe ye motherf.u.c.kers!' "

"With that," Joe recounted, "we all fell out laughing, including Elvis, once he'd realized what he'd said. Everyone was rolling on the floor. Someone lit up another joint, and that was the end of Bible cla.s.s for that night."

The Colonel, who had w.a.n.gled a free home in Palm Springs out of the William Morris Agency, encouraged his client to spend his weekends there, so that he might keep a closer watch on him. In September, Elvis signed a one-year lease on a modern home at 1350 Ladera Circle. It made the Colonel happy, but they spent almost no real time together, and Elvis carried on the same as if Parker were a thousand miles away. He'd started to hate the old codger, whose bad back and ma.s.sive weight-he tipped the scales at around three hundred pounds now-necessitated that he walk with a cane. When Elvis was particularly displeased with Parker, he'd do dead-on impersonations of him to the guys, and then hang his cane over his erect p.e.n.i.s in a not-so-subtle message.

The two had words in September over a letter Hal Wallis sent the Colonel saying he was concerned about Elvis's appearance. Wallis cited feedback from film exhibitors who watched Paradise, Hawaiian Style Paradise, Hawaiian Style and reported that something must be "radically wrong" with Elvis, as his hair was too black and fluffed up and resembled a wig, and he just didn't seem like himself. He certainly didn't fit the profile of a navy frogman, his forthcoming role in and reported that something must be "radically wrong" with Elvis, as his hair was too black and fluffed up and resembled a wig, and he just didn't seem like himself. He certainly didn't fit the profile of a navy frogman, his forthcoming role in Easy Come, Easy Go, Easy Come, Easy Go, which was to begin filming at the Long Beach Naval Station on October 3. which was to begin filming at the Long Beach Naval Station on October 3.

Elvis didn't much care, and while he slimmed down for the part, he was short-tempered on the set and fought with director John Rich, whom he hadn't liked when they worked together on Roustabout Roustabout.

One day Elvis and Red got a case of the giggles during a scene, and Rich, angry at what he interpreted as unprofessional behavior, threw the entire entourage off the set. Elvis was livid, as he already believed that the picture, which featured a yoga cla.s.s and the song "Yoga Is As Yoga Does," mocked his interest in Eastern philosophy. His paranoia over the Colonel was such that he believed-incorrectly, according to screenwriter Allan Weiss-that Parker had planted it in the script. In later years, he told Larry Geller he regretted doing the scene and should have stood up for himself. Instead, he blew up at Rich and Wallis about the entourage.

"Now, just a minute," he told the Paramount bra.s.s. "We're doing these movies because they're supposed to be fun, nothing more. When they cease to be fun, then we'll cease to do them." But he should have said it years earlier. Easy Come, Easy Go Easy Come, Easy Go was his last picture for Wallis, and none of his seven remaining films for other studios would live up to his expectations. was his last picture for Wallis, and none of his seven remaining films for other studios would live up to his expectations.

Wallis refused to give him his release from the picture until just before Thanksgiving, which Elvis uncharacteristically spent with the Colonel in Palm Springs before heading home to Memphis on his retooled Greyhound.

Just outside of Little Rock, Arkansas, around Forrest City, Elvis heard his buddy George Klein spin Tom Jones's new "Green, Green Gra.s.s of Home" on his WHBQ radio show. The country weeper, which Elvis turned down when Red brought it to him the year before, now struck a nerve, especially the line "And there to meet me is my mama and papa." Elvis stopped the bus at a pay phone and had Marty ask George to play it again. "Soon, he was stopping at every pay phone. George played that thing three or four times in a row, which he wasn't supposed to do."

When they got to Graceland, the guys unloaded the bus, and as Marty started to leave, he went in the hallway to see if Elvis needed anything. He was near the front door, next to his parents' bedroom, kneeling on one knee, his head in his hands, sobbing. Larry was standing over him, trying to console him.

"Elvis, what's wrong?" Marty said.

"Marty, I saw my mama."

"What do you mean?"

"I walked in the door, and I saw her standing here. I saw her, man."

Elvis went upstairs to his bedroom, which had recently been redecorated in a black-and-red Spanish motif, with two television sets embedded in the green Naugahyde ceiling. The effect of the room was oddly womblike, with an amniotic calm. More and more, Elvis demonstrated a need for just such an atmosphere. Whether his "vision" of Gladys was simply triggered by hearing the song or by what psychiatrists call hallucinations of bereavement, where individuals believe they have actually seen someone who has died, Elvis required time for himself. He stayed upstairs for days, refusing to come down.

In early December, he had recovered enough to gather the gang at the Memphian nearly every other night, screening Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, After the Fox, After the Fox, with Peter Sellers, with Peter Sellers, Fantastic Voyage, Fantastic Voyage, and and Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round. Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round. Then to torture himself, he slipped in Ann-Margret's remake of the John Ford cla.s.sic Then to torture himself, he slipped in Ann-Margret's remake of the John Ford cla.s.sic Stagecoach Stagecoach.

He'd actually been thinking of all things western lately, including horseback riding, as he had two films coming up-Stay Away, Joe, and and Charro! Charro!-in which he would probably be required to ride. Just before Christmas, it turned into his latest obsession, and he went on a shopping spree for riding accoutrements and, finally, horses. He would be a gentleman farmer, he thought. By the end of the year, he would have an entire stable of horses and start clearing the area behind Graceland for a riding ring and a barn.

"My happiest memories of Elvis are the times-there were few of them-when he dropped that wall, when he became the person he might have been without all the pressures," Priscilla says.

One such time was the day he bought horses for everyone at Graceland. "I can still see him out there in the dirt, in his jeans and heavy coat and cowboy hat, going around, writing everybody's name on the stalls ('Daddy's,' 'Priscilla's,' 'Mine') with a red marking pen-watering the horses, blanketing them. He looked so satisfied, so . . . simple."

Two of the horses were bays, and soon he would buy a black quarter horse named Domino as a Christmas present for Priscilla. But on Christmas Eve, he had another gift for her. He walked into her ornate bathroom-dressing room while she was brushing her hair and bent down on one knee and presented her with a small black velvet box. Inside, from Harry Levitch's jewelry store, was a ring of twenty-one diamonds, one for each year of Priscilla's young life.

"Satnin'," he said, "we're going to be married."

It wasn't the most romantic place for a proposal, but then it was more of a directive than anything else.

"I told you I'd know when the time was right. Well, the time's right."

He didn't really want to marry her at all, according to Sonny. "There was still love there, but the intensity was gone. But he'd given his word to Priscilla's father, and when it came to her being twenty-one, he asked Elvis to fulfill his obligations. Elvis resisted for a while, and then [Major] Beaulieu spoke to the Colonel. The Colonel went to Elvis and said, 'You can do one of two things: Marry her or break it off. You can't continue to live with her, because things will get out.' "

That New Year's Eve, Elvis held his annual party at the Manhattan Club. But when he got there, he couldn't find a parking place, and after circling around a few times, he gave up and drove home. While his guests enjoyed a catered dinner to the music of Willie Mitch.e.l.l and his band, Elvis sat at Graceland, restless and dissatisfied, his foot going a mile a minute.