by Ginger Alden
• • •
Late on the afternoon of January 18, just a week or so after returning from Palm Springs, Rosemary and I decided to see a movie near Graceland. I briefly considered asking Elvis to join us, then dismissed the idea as impractical. From my parents’ description of their movie-watching experience with Elvis back in the 1960s, I knew Elvis usually rented a whole theater if he wanted to see a film undisturbed, without drawing the attention of fans. Besides, I hadn’t heard from him yet that day, so I figured he was still asleep.
As Rosemary and I were leaving for the movie, I asked my mother to tell Elvis where I was if he should call. We were getting out of our car at the theater when Steve Smith, one of Elvis’s aides, intercepted us and said Elvis wanted us to skip the movie and go shopping for my family. This was something I didn’t quite understand. For a moment, I wondered if Elvis had done this because he didn’t want me to see a movie on my own. But why would Elvis feel that way?
I looked at Rosemary. I didn’t want to abandon my plan with her. This really put me on the spot and I didn’t know what to do. Elvis had made another of his grand gestures and I appreciated that he was thinking of my family. However, he really didn’t need to buy them anything else. Now Steve was standing in front of me, expecting me to go with him. Do I tell him, “No, thanks, we’re going to the movies?” I had a strong feeling that Elvis would be offended by that.
I turned to my sister. “Do you mind if we see the movie another time?” I asked.
Rosemary shrugged. “It’s okay,” she replied. The two of us then followed Steve to Goldsmith’s Department Store.
Once inside, Steve told us that Elvis wanted us to buy mink coats for our family—and for ourselves. Me, too? Elvis had already given me beautiful coats! However, knowing Elvis as I did by now, I felt certain that if I didn’t select something as he’d requested, he would only bring me back to the store.
I picked out coats for my mother, Terry, and my sister-in-law, then chose a simple black mink for myself. Rosemary found a less expensive fox fur coat she liked, but since it wasn’t a mink, she asked Steve if it would be okay.
Steve called Elvis from a phone inside the store, then relayed to Rosemary that Elvis had said “only minks.” She put the fox coat back and selected a mink.
We followed Steve to Graceland and carried the coats upstairs, where Elvis was in his pajamas and seated on his bed. We laid the coats in front of him.
He looked over our purchases approvingly. As if Elvis hadn’t already been generous enough, though, he said, “There isn’t one for your father or brother.”
I thought he was going to take us back to a store, but Elvis walked over to a closet by his bathroom and began browsing through it. Pulling out a sheepskin coat and a long, brown mink, he laid them among the others. Then he stepped into his loose blue jumpsuit, pulling it up over his pajamas, and secured his black studded belt around his waist. Finally he put on a pair of shiny black boots and tucked his Magnum 57 inside the belt.
“Let’s go to your house,” Elvis said.
I quickly phoned home to tell my parents we were on our way to see them. An aide gathered the coats and piled them into the Stutz. Elvis slid behind the wheel and Rosemary and I climbed inside the car. We left Graceland with bodyguards following in a separate car.
Driving down a two-lane country road near our home, Elvis told us he had noticed another car following ours for quite a while. With no streetlights, it was pitch-black out; I supposed he’d seen the headlights behind the bodyguards’ car.
Elvis suddenly pulled over to the side of the road. I looked back nervously and saw the headlights from the bodyguards’ car. Sure enough, another car was behind that one. Both cars pulled over behind ours.
Before the bodyguards could exit their car, Elvis jumped out of ours and began walking briskly toward the car in question. Worried for his safety, Rosemary and I turned around and tried to see what was happening through the back window of the Stutz.
In the headlights, I saw the figure of a man walking toward Elvis. The bodyguards stepped between them. When the stranger innocently showed them a pen and paper, Elvis politely gave the man his autograph and returned to our car.
As he eased into the driver’s seat, Rosemary asked him, “Aren’t you afraid to do that?”
Elvis pointed to the gun inside his belt. “Why do you think I carry this?”
At my home, Elvis surprised my family with their new coats. They stood in our den, quite stunned, and almost in unison, said, “Elvis, you shouldn’t have done this!”
A look of complete contentment suddenly graced his face. “I wanted to,” he said.
Pleased by their reactions, Elvis was in an upbeat mood, and later asked Terry to play something on the baby grand piano in our music room. She chose a classical piece, “Toccata,” by Aram Khachaturian, which she had performed in the Miss America pageant.
We gathered around the piano and Elvis stood beside Terry, carefully watching her hands on the keyboard. I was glad Elvis was now getting to see the musical side of my family.
“Toccata” wasn’t the easiest piano solo to play and Elvis applauded when Terry finished, telling her that he thought she was extremely talented. He then sat beside her on the piano bench and began playing and singing “Unchained Melody.” To see Elvis having a good time at our home warmed my heart. His love of music and his enjoyment of family were all the more evident during moments like these. I longed to share many more days like this with him.
The next evening, Elvis called to see if Terry, Rosemary, and I would like to spend the night at Graceland. Terry was out with her boyfriend, but Rosemary said she’d love to come. Although I had driven to Graceland many times before, this time Elvis said he was worried about me driving after dark, so he sent someone to pick us up.
Since our time together in Palm Springs, Elvis and Rosemary had enjoyed kidding around with one another. I tended to be more reserved, but both of them had a wicked sense of humor.
That night, the three of us were sitting in Elvis’s bedroom watching television when Elvis jokingly made an off-color remark.
Rosemary brightened. “Could you imagine if you acted like that in some of your movies?” she quipped.
Elvis laughed. Rosemary then suggested the opening sequence for a new film, one that would be nothing like most of his All-American, apple-pie musicals. “It opens on the gates of Graceland,” she began, “with peaceful music playing in the background and birds chirping. Faintly, in the distance, you hear the roar of a car engine getting closer and closer, and suddenly your Ferrari comes smashing through the closed front gates. You get out with a cigar in your mouth and walk inside. The maids are all cowering. Going upstairs, you find Ginger chained to a wall saying, ‘Elvis, don’t hit me anymore!’”
Elvis thought the idea of him playing a bad guy on film was hysterical. The three of us joked around, putting different twists on the story, changing the ending of the movie each time to make it and Elvis’s character more outlandish.
We just sat around talking and laughing, and when Elvis heard Rosemary wasn’t dating anyone steadily he asked, “If you could go out with anyone, who would you like to go out with?”
“Well, I like Burt Reynolds,” Rosemary said.
Elvis winked at her and said, “That can be arranged, you know.”
My sister, a woman of many words, was suddenly speechless.
We continued clowning around for a while. Then Elvis put on a tape of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and after we’d finished watching it, Elvis told Rosemary she could sleep on the bed in his dressing area.
When we woke that afternoon, Elvis decided to drive Rosemary and me home. We left Graceland with his aide Steve. As we pulled into our driveway, Elvis noticed some dust on my Cadillac.
“You shouldn’t let it get dirty,” he said. It was only a little dust but I didn’t want
Elvis to think that I wasn’t appreciative of my gift or a person who wouldn’t take care of it so after that, a couple of times when I thought the car looked slightly dusty, I washed it in our driveway before going to Graceland. At home, we visited with my parents in the den, where at Elvis’s request my mother brought out her large family Bible again. Elvis pointed out a few new things he had discovered. He dissected the word Genesis, saying “Genes-is,” and jotted down some notes. He also underlined verses and shared his thoughts with us on the meaning behind them.
When we started getting hungry, Elvis sent Steve to get some food for everyone from McDonald’s while he continued talking with my family. After a little while, he wanted to play the piano, so we all moved into our music room.
Our kitchen table wasn’t large enough to accommodate everyone, so when Steve returned, my mother brought some plates into the den. Elvis and I sat beside my parents on the sofa.
While we were eating, Elvis said he’d like us all to live closer to Graceland. This was the first time I’d heard him mention the idea since our flight from Palm Springs.
“I’m worried about Ginger driving back and forth to see me,” Elvis said, “and I’d like her to have her own room and phone.”
Still addressing my parents, Elvis added, “As you get older, you don’t need the burden of a house note hanging over your heads. You should be able to retire, play golf, or do whatever you want. I’d like you to look for a house close to Graceland.”
My parents clearly didn’t know what to say to this offer, but they politely thanked him. Despite Elvis’s enthusiasm for buying them a house, I think the idea didn’t seem real to them. They had worked their whole lives to own a modest home. They hadn’t been living in Elvis’s world, where you could buy mink coats, new cars, or three rings on a whim.
In addition, the friction in my parents’ marriage hadn’t improved. This affected my siblings and me, naturally, since they’d been going through difficult times for quite a while. However, I kept this to myself, not wanting to violate my parents’ privacy, and hoping that things between them might somehow improve.
It was getting late and Elvis said he would like to stay over at our home. The fact that he felt comfortable enough to want to do this meant a great deal to me, but I knew my family had to be panicking, thinking as I was, Where would he sleep?
There was a king-size bed in the room Terry and I shared, but my mother had been busy decorating the rest of the house and had yet to buy curtains for the bedroom window. She had pinned a large sheet to the wall in order to cover the window.
Luckily, Rosemary jumped in, offering Elvis her room. She asked if he’d like to see it. He stood up and Rosemary and I walked him down our hallway.
Rosemary’s room was decorated in tune with the 1970s. She had affixed crackled mirror squares to one wall, and her bed’s headboard and a dresser, both dark wood, had detailed sections covered in red velveteen. She’d chosen red for her curtains and bedspread, too, and a swag lamp in the corner glowed a soft red.
Looking at Rosemary, Elvis said, “Your room looks like a brothel,” then said he was kidding. He didn’t mind that, but Rosemary’s bed looked too short—his feet would probably hang off, he said. Next, noticing her television in the corner, Elvis asked what kind it was.
Rosemary walked into the room and turned it on. “It’s a good one.”
It was a black-and-white television set. When Elvis saw that, he said, “You need a color one.”
Despite our embarrassment about the sheet covering our bedroom window, Terry said she would stay with Rosemary and Elvis could sleep in our room. It was the only choice. My father soon went off to bed, but Rosemary, Terry, my mother, and I stayed up talking and reading with Elvis in the den.
Later, the doorbell rang. I looked out our front window and saw Al standing on our porch. To my surprise, he was holding a brand-new color television set. Now I put the pieces together: Steve had earlier made a call from our house, and Elvis must have arranged for this then.
Al carried the TV into Rosemary’s room, took the old one and left. Rosemary thanked Elvis, expressing her utter disbelief. I smiled, knowing exactly what my sister was feeling.
As everyone grew tired, my mother brought out a blanket for Steve, who said he’d sleep in the recliner. My mother said good night to us, and when she left the room, I knew she felt as I did, that she could trust Elvis as a gentleman, and that I would never engage in anything inappropriate under my parents’ roof.
Rosemary and Terry headed to Rosemary’s room, and Elvis and I went into mine. I had been alone with Elvis many times before; still, it felt awkward sleeping with Elvis in my bedroom at home.
When we got up that afternoon, Elvis said he had a recording session in Nashville and wanted me to go. I dressed and gathered some clothes. Before leaving home, Elvis told my family it was the first time he had spent the night in someone else’s home in a while.
“I feel like I have a family, because you’re as nutty as I am, and I feel no jealousy here,” he said.
I wondered if Elvis felt there was some jealousy at Graceland, either directed at him or between members of his family and staff. I would never fully know what he meant, nor would I ever ask. I was just glad that my house was a place where he felt comfortable.
• • •
We flew into Nashville and settled into our hotel. I stayed in my bedroom while Elvis went into the living room area of our suite and began lightly rehearsing with a few others. I heard someone strumming a guitar. Elvis began to sing, and then everything fell quiet suddenly.
Shortly after that, Elvis came walking into my bedroom, rubbing his throat. He told me it was beginning to feel sore.
I felt sorry for him, knowing how concerned he always was about losing his voice. I wasn’t aware of anything that was going on behind the scenes. I didn’t know what he was supposed to be recording, how important it was, or who was waiting on him, and Elvis hadn’t told me. But that was okay: I knew the quality of his singing mattered to Elvis in every song. That’s just who he was.
He talked with his staff. A doctor came to see him, and we spent the next couple of days reading and watching television together in his room, hoping his throat would feel better.
At various times, Elvis told me that he didn’t want to record if his voice wasn’t perfect. Finally, he said he was afraid to continue and ended up canceling the session. We flew back to Memphis. With three weeks off before touring again, I hoped he’d have time to recuperate fully before his next round of performances.
CHAPTER 17
Back at Graceland, Elvis stayed upstairs, as usual, and tried to be extra protective of his voice. Instead of reading to me as he often did, he let me take over and read to him over the next few days so he could rest. Others still came and went, visiting with Elvis upstairs as they usually did, but now Elvis made a point of speaking softly, taking extra measures to care for his throat. Before long, luckily, Elvis was feeling and sounding much like his usual self.
The rings Elvis had given me in Las Vegas were a tad large on my fingers, and Elvis had noticed that I’d been wearing tape wrapped around the bands to hold them on. One evening, he told me that he wanted to know my correct ring size and mentioned that he’d asked a local jeweler to come over and measure me. Before long, the jeweler walked into Elvis’s bedroom and introduced himself as Lowell Hayes. Lowell measured my finger, he and Elvis shared a friendly visit, and before long, Lowell left.
A short time later, I went into the bathroom. When I returned to Elvis’s bedroom, I discovered that he’d propped a magnificent necklace with the letters TLC, all in diamonds, on my pillow. Once again, he’d aimed the overhead reading light on it to make sure it sparkled. I was blown away. I had noticed these tender loving care necklaces worn by women in his family, female band members, and a girlfriend or two of certain entourage members. This one was unique though; it look
ed larger than the others and the only one I’d seen made with all diamonds.
I was deeply moved by this beautiful, singular expression of Elvis’s affection. He fastened the necklace around my neck, telling me, “I had this made especially for you, Ginger.”
Having this necklace meant that I’d been truly accepted as a part of Elvis’s inner circle. Although I had felt this sentiment from him for a long time, I was happy now to have something that would signal this message to the people around us. Turning back to him, I told him how much I loved it and thanked him.
Elvis smiled and winked. “I don’t give these out to just anyone,” he said.
• • •
I continued to spend a lot of time at Graceland, but one afternoon, my niece Amber asked me to take her to a local hamburger restaurant, and I suddenly realized that I had been so focused on Elvis that I had neglected seeing my friends or hanging out with my family.
Wanting to spend some time with Amber, I happily picked her up and we went to the restaurant.
As we were finishing eating at a back table, I noticed a woman at a nearby table stand up and fold a newspaper she had been reading. I glanced at the front page of her paper when she walked by and was startled to see a picture of someone who looked remarkably like me!
I hurriedly paid our bill and raced out of the restaurant with Amber. We headed straight to a nearby store. There, lined up on magazine racks beside every cashier stand, was the National Enquirer with a large black-and-white photo of Elvis and me, captured on tour, gracing its cover.
I was shocked. Me, on the cover of a national paper? Tabloid or not, I was awestruck and thought it was a nice picture of the two of us, too. I purchased a copy and rushed home to show it to my family, figuring they’d get a kick out of seeing me on the cover with Elvis.
Because I had devoted most of my free time to seeing Elvis, I’d barely gone out much on my own. Naively, I had thought that any pictures snapped of Elvis and me on tour or in a car, coming from and going to Graceland, were just being taken by Elvis’s fans. Being in the media spotlight was something new to me, especially because we honestly hadn’t been out that much in public yet.
