A wife, a few infatuations, a thousand adventures: Elvis Presley’s whirlwind love life

One wife, some infatuation, thousands of adventures, millions of broken hearts. This is how the troubled and discussed love life of Elvis Presley. A complex figure that of the «king of Rock and roll», told now in Baz Luhrmann’s film Elvisin theaters since last Friday and starring Austin Butler. A story from an unprecedented point of view or that of the singer’s manager, Colonel Tom Parker (played by Tom Hanks). Elvis’ ex-wife, Priscillawhen he premiered the film she started to cry without being able to add anything else, for the emotion. Although the betrayals that Elvis inflicted on her before and after the wedding have become legend.

In the early successful years, on tours and shows around the United States, Elvis was always accompanied by a bevy of young girls, mostly minors. His lifestyle did not change even when he met Priscilla Beaulieu, the one who would become his wife. The first meeting took place on 13 September 1959 in Friedberg, Germany, where the singer did his military service in the third armored division and where Priscilla had followed her stepfather, a career soldier. He was 24, she was ten years younger. He he courted her for over seven years, but in the meantime he did not stop indulging in various distractions. “Every night,” as said actor Gary Lockwood who met the singer on the set of Blondes, redheads, brunettes in 1963, “the gates of Graceland, Presley’s home in Bel Air, or the various hotels where he was, were opened, and rivers of beautiful women entered” carefully selected by his most trusted men. The parties had a foregone conclusion: Elvis took the girls to bed, “even three at a time”. Flirting with is always from that era Rita Moreno, now an 89-year-old actress. Elvis was struck by his beauty, they went out a few times, but it didn’t go very well: “He was sweet, but boring,” Moreno said.

The marriage between Elvis and Priscilla took place on May 1, 1967 at the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas. In his book Elvis Presley: A Southern LifeJoel Williamson tells that the two they had sex for the first time only on their wedding night. Their only daughter, Lisa Marie Presley, was born exactly nine months later, conceived on her honeymoon in Palm Springs. Years later, Priscilla would say that things were going well between her and Elvis at first and that their life was very passionate, even though Elvis needed to experience more and more daring things due to the influence of drugs.

After the birth of Lisa Marie, however, Elvis confessed to his wife that he could not be attracted to a woman who had had a child: he felt like he was making love to his mother. Priscilla was no longer the child she had lost her mind for, so his interest in her had faded. The marriage became tormented, marked by continued betrayals of Elvis and its crescents oddities. Among the various legends is the one according to which the singer, lost in love for Ann Margret, he thought of having his wife killed with karate shots. The killer was supposed to be his martial arts instructor Mike Stone but the bizarre plan turned out to be unworkable and then Elvis would start administering to Priscilla small doses of poison. Two books have been published in the United States on the attempt to kill his wife and Priscilla has sued the two authors in court, claiming that they are pure lies. What is certain is that Priscilla, tired of having to put up with her husband’s excesses, at one point she said enough. The separation took place in 1972, divorce the following year. Despite this, the two remained in civil relations, she remained close to him even in the last period before her death and still today, at the age of 77, she retains fond memories of the time spent together.

After the farewell to his wife, already devastated by drug and drug abuse, overweight and lost in his “King” delusionsElvis bonded with the actress Linda Thompson, met in 1972 at a private film screening in a movie theater in Memphis. Soon after Linda, just twenty-two at the time, moved with him to Graceland, the singer’s palace. The relationship went on for over four years, and ended for the same reasons that his marriage to Priscilla was wrecked: Elvis’ repeated betrayals and oddities. In the book A little thing called lifepublished in 2016, Linda Thompson said she tried to ignore Elvis relationships for a long time: “I was so desperately, devotedly and blindly in love with him that it was impossible for me to deny him anything ». Linda left Graceland shortly before Christmas 1976 (she married decathlete Bruce Jenner five years later, now known as Caitlyn Jenner after a journey to change gender). The King of Rock’s last love affair was with the twenty-one Ginger Alden, beauty queen and model. She was the daughter of a general that Elvis had met during his military service. The two officially got engaged and went to live together. It was Ginger who found Elvis dead, struck down by a heart attack at the age of 42in the most sumptuous of Graceland’s many toilets on August 16, 1977.

Other stories of Vanity Fair that may interest you:

• Elvisall the reactions of the Presley family to Baz Luhrmann’s biopic
• Elvis, the biopic lands in Cannes
• The passionate kiss of Kaia Gerber and Austin Butler on the Cannes red carpet