by Ginger Alden
• • •
Of course, Elvis’s death made worldwide headlines. Everything Elvis had ever done became the substance of stories run in every media outlet imaginable.
I had known Elvis was a big star, of course, but after we fell in love and became intimately involved, I had mostly stopped paying attention to his celebrity and had begun to see Elvis the man, rather than Elvis the famous entertainer. Now I realized that the scope of his fame was beyond what I or anyone else could imagine. The shock, loss, and interest surrounding the news of his death wasn’t something I had seen since the deaths of the Kennedys and Martin Luther King Jr.
Even knowing this, losing Elvis was nothing like that for me. I was experiencing grief on the most fundamental and intimately personal level. I had lost the man who had turned my life upside down and had become my friend, teacher, protector, and lover—the man I had loved deeply and planned to marry.
I was no longer the same young woman I’d been that first night I accompanied my sisters to Graceland. My whole being—physically, emotionally, and spiritually—had become intertwined with Elvis. To me, his death was no news story. This was my life being torn apart.
Yet, my house continued to be flooded with phone calls from voracious reporters who insisted they needed to get a story now. No matter what I was going through personally, they all saw me at the center of the story. I took cover in my bedroom in a futile attempt to hide.
At one point, my mother came into the bedroom, looking exasperated. She said that two men, from two separate tabloids, were on our front porch and almost getting into a fistfight over who deserved an interview with me. The hungry lions Elvis had warned me about were right outside my door, and this time, Elvis couldn’t fly over in his car to protect me. I felt so sorry she was having to deal with this.
I certainly had no plans to give any interview and was hurt that they were even out there. Then my mother told me that one of the men had said Linda Thompson was giving him an interview, and that Linda was saying she might have saved Elvis if they’d stayed together.
This hurt and I was horrified. How could anyone say such a thing? And how cold, self-serving, and egotistical it would be if she did! From what I’d seen, no one could have claimed to have saved Elvis that day.
The reporter told my mother that, if I didn’t give an interview, they were going to print Linda’s story. I was furious. Elvis had stopped seeing Linda and she certainly wasn’t there on the day he died. To me, it had seemed that Elvis had died instantly. Not even the world’s greatest heart specialist could make a statement like hers!
I asked my mother to turn the reporters away. One of the men told my mother he’d be back in a little while to see if I would change my mind. I felt terrible. In the midst of this horrible tragedy, I suddenly had this going on? I thought and thought about things, slowly becoming more conflicted and anguished over whether to give an interview. My mother and I were way out of our depth and I was extremely upset. My family and I had no experience with this sort of thing.
Feeling like I had a tiger by the tail, my tears slowly turned into anger again. This was what I was up against now. Some kind of story was going to be put out there, and I couldn’t let Linda say something like this without a response. When the reporter returned, I agreed to give the tabloid an interview at an upcoming date.
I slept fitfully. The next morning, everything hit me hard. Extremely depressed, I got up and went into our kitchen. My mother was making breakfast and I sat down at our breakfast table, put my head down on my arms, and began crying inconsolably.
Later, turning on the television, I learned that two teenaged girls had been killed and another injured when a drunk driver ran his car into a crowd gathered on Elvis Presley Boulevard. This tragedy only added to the horror of it all. It seemed like the entire world was spinning out of control.
That afternoon, I slipped into a black dress and headed for Graceland with my family and our friend Cindy. We arrived a little before the funeral services were scheduled to begin. A few people were already inside and we exchanged hugs and hellos.
All of the folding chairs that had been in the living room now faced Elvis’s casket, which was again positioned at the entrance to the music room. My family and I sat in the dining room, watching people arrive.
Before long, I recognized the actress, Ann-Margret, who had been romantically linked with Elvis years earlier in Hollywood, when they had appeared in a few films together. She was there with her husband, Roger Smith. I also noticed the actor George Hamilton, who had been friends with Elvis, and Colonel Parker, who was wearing a baseball cap and puffing on a cigar. Dr. Ghanem, Elvis’s doctor in Las Vegas, was there as well.
Close to 2 P.M., we entered the living room. Never one to call attention to myself or to try to put myself front and center, I decided to sit about six rows back from Elvis’s casket. Aunt Delta, Dodger, Vernon, and Sandy sat on the front row. Priscilla and her family took seats behind them.
After a while, Lisa appeared by our row, came over to me and sat in my lap, seeking her own kind of closeness and comfort. I put my arms around her and she visited with us, talking with Amber and Sandy’s daughter.
The services soon began with a eulogy from the comic Jackie Kahane. Rex Humbard, a television evangelist, spoke, and then the Reverend Bradley led the sermon. Kathy Westmoreland, the Stamps Quartet, and a few others sang.
It was a beautiful ceremony. Afterward, each row of people was instructed to file past Elvis’s casket. As I walked toward the front, I struggled to hold back tears.
I had made it a point to never say good-bye to Elvis when leaving Graceland in the time we had together. Now, looking at him for the last time, I forced myself to whisper good-bye under my breath.
I turned to Vernon, Sandy, Dodger, and Aunt Delta, hugging them, then returned to my seat. When the service was over, Joe approached my family and me, instructing us that we would be riding in the fifth limousine behind the hearse. I wanted to think that Joe was just trying to do his best to get everyone to the mausoleum and putting them in whichever car he could, but, when Elvis was here, he had always moved others around to keep me at his side. Now that seemed forgotten. It was a small slight, but it stung. It seemed I had become insignificant, the exact opposite of how Elvis made me feel.
When I walked out of Graceland, I saw multiple white limousines lining the driveway and would later learn there were sixteen in total. Our limousine driver opened the doors to our car. I got into the front with my mother, while the rest of my family and Cindy climbed in back.
We sat, waiting for all the limousines to fill. Then Vernon, Sandy, Lisa, and Priscilla walked out and got into the first limousine. Before long, the pallbearers, George Klein, Gene Smith, Jerry Schilling, Charlie Hodge, Lamar Fike, Joe Esposito, Billy Smith, and Dr. Nichopoulos, exited the house, carrying Elvis’s casket.
As the men took a few steps toward the hearse, suddenly a huge branch broke from a tree and landed in the yard not far from them. I shuddered, thinking how eerie that should happen at this moment.
The procession slowly made its way down the driveway with a police motorcade flanking the hearse. As the hearse passed through the gates, nearby police officers saluted.
Turning onto Elvis Presley Boulevard, we began the three-mile journey toward Forest Hill Cemetery. Elvis would be laid to rest inside a crypt there, in the mausoleum. The scene before me played like some bizarre television reel, with tens of thousands of fans lining both sides of the boulevard, many of them openly crying.
This got to me, and I turned my focus to the floor of the limousine. When I glanced up again, for some reason, my attention suddenly focused on one woman in the crowd as she quickly snapped a photo and then put her camera down. Then it hit me as we passed her. It was Caroline Kennedy. I couldn’t believe that, with the multitude of people lining the street, I had looked up right at that moment and she was part
of the crowd, no different from any of the others, it seemed. And yet, at that moment, we were actually connected through experiencing a historic death: Caroline and her father, and me and my fiancé. Hundreds of flower arrangements, in all shapes and sizes, covered the lawn at the mausoleum. The hearse came to a stop, and my family and I waited in our car while the pallbearers removed the casket and carried it inside.
When I entered the mausoleum, every seat looked filled in the small area. Vernon, Lisa, Priscilla, and a few members of Elvis’s immediate family had been secured seats. I looked around as others came in. Like me, they, too, had to stand wherever they could.
Again, I felt invisible.
A nice man kindly stood and graciously offered me his seat. The ceremony was brief, with the Reverend Bradley saying a few words. Afterward I followed the others outside. I didn’t realize that Vernon and a few others had remained. No one had told me what to do.
Everyone waited outside until Vernon had exited. I had an empty feeling as we drove away and returned to Graceland, where food and beverages had been set up in the kitchen.
Who could eat now? I wondered. Then I saw Priscilla walk through the kitchen, as well as Linda Thompson. A fragment of a story Elvis had once told me suddenly flashed in my mind. The story was about a man who passes away and then watches from heaven as the numerous women he left behind gather at his funeral. I couldn’t help but think Elvis must be getting a kick out of seeing this.
I walked into the dining room and saw Vernon seated at the table. He motioned for me to come over and I went and sat beside him.
Vernon showed me a photo someone had recently given him that had supposedly been taken at the time of Elvis’s death. The picture showed what looked like a figure, wearing a white robe, standing among the clouds. The face in the photo was indistinguishable and Vernon seemed to be pondering the significance of the picture, as if it held some hidden spiritual meaning. I knew how he felt. I, too, wanted to believe in something to make sense of this tragedy.
By the time my family and I arrived home from Graceland after the funeral, a reporter from one of the local papers, the Commercial Appeal, was camped out on our front porch. He wanted to know if I would grant him an interview.
After hearing that Joe had said he was the one who had found Elvis and after being treated as if I were just another mourner throughout the course of the day, I was alarmed that the truth would be twisted. As shattered as I felt, I decided to speak with the reporter for a few minutes so that history would not be rewritten by others who had their own agenda. Afterward, the reporter asked whether I had a picture of Elvis and me together. Thinking of the nice picture Elvis had given me, the one taken in Hawaii with the two of us smiling, I gave it to him.
A few days later, my interview was printed in the Commercial Appeal. Joe, Vernon, and a few others had also given interviews. Vernon acknowledged my engagement to Elvis, and Joe said that I had been the one to find Elvis in the bathroom. Their statements momentarily relieved my unease. Their honesty was a small comfort, but it was important to me.
On August 21, Elvis’s will was filed with the Shelby County Probate Court in Memphis. He had named Lisa, Vernon, and Dodger as his beneficiaries, with Vernon named executor of the estate, along with the National Bank of Commerce and Joseph Hanks, their accountant.
People later would ask me if I’d expected to be included in Elvis’s will, but that had never entered my mind. Yes, I had witnessed him sign it, but it looked like a will from 1976 that Elvis was re-signing in 1977 with the new date just before he hurried off on a vacation with me. Why would he have altered his will to include me before we were even married?
Elvis and I were both young and enjoying each other. We thought about life, not death.
The same day the will was read, Vernon called my home and said he wanted my mother and me to come to Graceland so he could talk with us. I was nervous driving over. I was still a little intimidated by Vernon. On top of that, it would feel strange to walk back into Graceland, knowing Elvis was gone.
One of the maids greeted us at the front door. Inside, Vernon was seated at the dining room table. He leaned over, trying to look at me from the head chair.
“These damn chairs,” he grumbled as my mother and I joined him. “Linda Thompson picked these out, and they’re so high you can’t see over the back of them.”
Once we were seated, Vernon took a deep breath and looked directly at me. “Ginger, I know how much Elvis loved you,” he said. “I know he wanted more children and you to be their mother.”
My eyes stung and I was having difficulty swallowing, much less speaking. I nodded, appreciating his acknowledgment of my bond with Elvis.
Vernon glanced down for a long pause before he continued. “I’m sorry, but I’m gonna have to ask you for your credit card back,” he said then.
I certainly didn’t mind handing the card over. Still, I wanted to make sure that Vernon remembered I’d hardly used it. I had always been wary of spending Elvis’s money freely. That wasn’t how I was brought up.
“Mr. Presley,” I said when I found my voice, “you know I mainly used this card for identification when writing a check.”
“I know, Ginger,” he said, “but Linda went out and charged a lot when Elvis broke off with her.”
Enough said. I quietly handed over my credit card.
“I know the Cadillac Seville you have is still in Elvis’s name,” Vernon said once he’d tucked away the card, “but I’ll go ahead and have the title transferred over to you.”
“Thank you,” I said, startled. Having driven the car all these months, I hadn’t given a thought about it still being in Elvis’s name.
“The contract has already been signed to have the pool put in at your home,” Vernon continued, “and we’ll get that under way as soon as possible.”
After another pause, he turned his focus to my mother. “Mrs. Alden, I know I’m goin’ against Elvis’s plans and wishes,” he said. “We didn’t get the mortgage paid, so I’ll have my attorney Beecher Smith send the papers and payment book on your house back to you. I’m sorry, but at the moment of Elvis’s death, my power of attorney was stripped away.”
I was shocked. I could tell by the look on my mother’s face that she was, too. She looked as if a bomb had been dropped.
“You are behind on two payments and you’ll have to make those up,” Vernon added flatly.
My mother sounded near tears. “But, Mr. Presley, there is no way I can keep up the house notes by myself and pay the mortgage company to catch up.”
“Well, when we get the pool in, maybe, Mrs. Alden, you can sell it and get more money for it,” Vernon said.
Vernon had just admitted that Elvis wanted the home paid for. As I looked at my mother sitting there, my heart broke a second time, this time for her.
I was still trying to process what was happening here when Joe appeared from the kitchen, said a quick hello, then told Vernon they needed to hurry, as there was more business to be done.
It hit me that I had been here for a few minutes, yet not once had any of us talked about how much we all missed Elvis and how terrible it felt to be at Graceland without him being there.
I felt like I’d been strapped onto some sort of conveyer belt and Joe was moving things along. If this was “taking care of business,” it wasn’t being taken care of in the right way this time.
In a state of twisted emotions—loss, confusion, anger—I stood up in a daze as my mother and I said our good-byes to Vernon and Joe, walked out to the car, and drove away from Graceland. The hopes, dreams, and plans Elvis had been sharing with me up until five nights ago had vanished. It was being made clear to me by many around him that I was on my own.
My mother and I were silent on the ride home from Graceland. I looked over at her from time to time, my eyes getting misty. Elvis had been talking about buying a new home fo
r my family since January, and had promised my mother that he would help her. I couldn’t believe that something he’d wanted to do so badly, something that we all thought had been taken care of—including Elvis—hadn’t been done at all.
Looking at the predicament my mother was in now, I wanted to ask God why, on top of me losing Elvis, was this happening to her?
Since my father had been paid his equity in the house, she held the mortgage and he was paying his own rent on an apartment. This meant that making the house note payments as well as paying her other bills would be a terrible financial burden on my mother. At the same time, she didn’t want to sell the house. We had to live somewhere.
The next day, my mother called the collections department to explain her situation. She wrote a letter and sent in a payment, concerned about foreclosure. A nice man who worked there told her if there was anything he could do, he’d be glad to try. He was kind enough to waive the late fee charges. The mortgage company was going to let her pay partial payments for a few months, until she caught up.
• • •
My depression deepened as the days slowly passed. I cried often and wouldn’t leave the house. My mother slept with me some nights as our family continued trying to process the tragedy.
We received odd calls during this time. One lady told my mother she was Gladys Presley and would watch over Lisa and me. Going from one extreme to the other, I even got a death threat. My mother did her best to protect me, fielding calls or refusing to answer the phone altogether.
I began to heed Elvis’s lessons and started meditating as I searched for answers to the many questions I had about my life. Why had Elvis and I met? What was the meaning of what I’d experienced with him? And why would I experience this amazing relationship, only to have it disappear almost as quickly as it had materialized?
