Elvis and Ginger: Elvis Presley's Fiancée and Last Love Finally Tells Her Story (21 page)

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.

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 looked 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.

I soon realized I was now of interest to the press. One day, I was at home and planning to take a drive with my family when I noticed a strange car parked on the street in front of our home with the engine running. A man was sitting inside it. Who was this? Was this a photographer or a reporter?

Just in case, my sisters and I donned sunglasses before walking to the car to make it more difficult for someone to tell who was who. Sure enough, the car followed us.

My dad randomly drove around for a while, but eventually had to stop and get gas. The car that had been following us pulled up at the gas station, too, and the driver got out. He approached our car and peered into the backseat.

“Which one is Ginger?” he asked.

Determined to protect my privacy, my sisters and I pointed at one another. The man walked away, not looking too happy. I was glad he couldn’t hear my heart thudding against my rib cage. I knew we wouldn’t be able to keep this up for long though as the word was definitely out: I was with Elvis.

On the night of January 26, I was watching television with Elvis in Lisa’s bedroom. He left the room at one point and was gone for long enough that I looked to see where he was.

I found Elvis talking on the phone in his bedroom. I returned to Lisa’s room and watched some more television, then heard a commotion as others came and went upstairs, speaking in private with Elvis.

It wasn’t like him to avoid me. As more time passed, I started to feel odd and began worrying that something might be wrong. When Elvis finally returned to Lisa’s room, he took my hand without saying a word and led me into his dressing area.

I was all the more puzzled as he guided me toward a black chair in front of his bathroom window, where Elvis asked me to sit down. As soon as I was seated, he knelt before me with one hand behind his back.

“Ginger, I’ve been searching for love so long,” Elvis said, “and never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I would find it in my own backyard. I’ve been sixty percent happy and forty percent happy, but never a hundred percent. I’ve loved before but I’ve never been in love. Ginger, I’m asking you: Will you marry me?”

Elvis brought his hand out from around his back. In it was a small, green velvet box.

Nearly overcome by emotion, my voice quavered. I was glad I was sitting down because I wasn’t sure my shaking legs could have supported me. “Yes,” I managed, holding on to the beautiful words he’d just spoken.

Elvis placed the box in my hand, which was now trembling. Inside it was the most magnificent ring I had ever seen, with a huge center diamond surrounded by six smaller ones.

I kissed Elvis, feeling my eyes brim with tears. He delicately took the ring from the box and slipped it onto the ring finger of my left hand. It was a perfect fit.

Now I remembered the jeweler, Lowell, Elvis had called to the house to measure my finger. I realized he must have planned this then.

With a hint of nervousness in his voice, Elvis asked me to hold up my hand so he could see what the ring looked like. Commenting on how beautiful it was, he said, “God will come through me and tell me when the time is right for our wedding. Are you ready? Can you cope with my lifestyle?”

“Yes,” I answered, still naive but ready to do whatever that entailed.

“There will be a lot of people jealous of you,” Elvis went on, “but you should always be a lady, and if negative things are ever said, just bow out gracefully.”

“I will,” I said, clueless at that bright moment in our lives as to just how deep and biting those jealousies would become. I was also unaware of how close some of the people around Elvis were to the other women in his past, and how loyal they would remain to those women. I only knew that I loved Elvis and hoped his feelings for me were as deep as what I felt for him. I was willing to wait to marry until the time felt right to Elvis, and intended to leave it all up to him. But, for now, having a ring on my finger made me realize that he was as deeply committed to our relationship as I was. We were going to build a future together and I was never happier.

When we walked out of his bathroom, I was surprised to see Charlie and Billy Smith standing in Elvis’s bedroom. I blushed, knowing they must have been in on the secret and were waiting for us to come out and tell them our news.

Beaming, Elvis said to me, “Show them the ring.”

I was proud to, and in such a daze, my hand almost rose on its own.

Elvis took hold of it and shook his head. “Boy, oh boy,” he said.

Charlie and Billy hugged and congratulated us. Then Charlie presented us with a small backgammon set and said, “This is a little engagement gift.” This was so sweet of him, and I hugged him again.

Shortly afterward, Elvis’s stepbrothers, Ricky and David, entered the room to give us their hugs and congratulations as well.
Everyone knew!
The overwhelmingly cheerful response was comforting, but I wondered if these men would ever really accept me as Mrs. Presley, or if they felt that Elvis getting married might bring some change in the dynamics of their relationships with Elvis.

Every few minutes, Elvis would tell me to hold up my hand so everyone could see the ring. I think I was still in a state of shock because each time he did this, I had trouble keeping my hand from trembling.

After everyone had finally left us alone, Elvis and I sat on the bed. He asked me to raise my hand several more times, so he could look at the ring again.

“It looks like a car headlight,” Elvis said proudly at one point.

“I think it’s beautiful,” I countered, leaning over to kiss him. I was so overwhelmed, I couldn’t take my eyes off the ring. At first I was dying to call my family and let them know, but then decided it would be fun to do it in person.

Elvis wanted others in the house to see the ring and know we were engaged. He called for Aunt Delta and the maids to come up. With each new arrival, he proudly again asked me to hold out my hand, even aiming the overhead reading light so the ring gleamed and sparkled, giving them a better look. Each one enthusiastically congratulated us.

It wasn’t until after Elvis’s death that I would learn the center diamond in my engagement ring was the diamond from his custom-made TCB ring, which Elvis always wore onstage. The jeweler, Lowell Hayes, had made it for him and years later he described on his website how this engagement ring came to be. Elvis had called him at one o’clock one morning telling him that he wanted Lowell to make an engagement ring for me with a diamond that looked like the one in the middle of Elvis’s TCB ring. Lowell protested, saying he didn’t have a diamond like that, but Elvis called him back half an hour later and said he had to have the ring that very night and pleaded with him to make it.

Lowell reported that he’d called diamond dealers in New York then, but they all reported that nobody could get a diamond of that size on such short notice, since the diamonds were kept in vaults overnight. Once Lowell had delivered the bad news to Elvis, though, he had pondered the problem some more, and realized they could use the diamond from Elvis’s TCB ring and find another to replace it later. Elvis was thrilled with that idea.

Lowell had driven to Graceland to collect the ring and went back to the jewelry shop to remove the diamond and make a mounting for it. He centered the TCB diamond and added three diamonds on either side of it, then drove back to Graceland to present the ring to Elvis—all on the same night. When I heard this story, I was once again reminded that the rules in Elvis’s world were a lot different from the rules governing everyone else.

•   •   •

It had been an extraordinarily unforgettable night. By the end of it, I had come to believe with certainty that all of the things Elvis had been saying to me about us being soul mates and us having a future together were absolutely true. I was committed to Elvis heart and soul.

The following afternoon, I woke eager to share my news with my family, but there were a few more people to announce it to at Graceland first. Elvis and I went downstairs to show the ring to his grandmother. Dodger was sitting in bed when we entered her room. When Elvis told her we were engaged, she took my hand in hers, smiled sweetly at Elvis, and said she was happy for us.

Elvis was still as excited as he’d been the night before; now he wanted to show his father the ring. I followed him out the back door. I hadn’t seen that much of Vernon at Graceland. He usually spoke to Elvis by phone and I felt nervous about his reaction to our news. He was a nice man, but from the little I’d been around him, I knew Vernon could be blunt. I was slightly intimidated by him. What if he didn’t like the idea of me being Elvis’s second wife?

For whatever reasons—mostly due to the chilly weather, the fact that we’d been touring, and Elvis’s preference for his bedroom—I had never actually been in the backyard of Graceland before, though I hadn’t really thought about that until now. We walked through a pasture behind a racquetball court, and I saw some horses in the distance before entering Vernon’s property through a gate in the fence surrounding his backyard. Elvis had built a two-story white house with black trim for his father on Dolan Drive, which ran along one side of the land surrounding Graceland.

After Elvis showed Vernon the ring, his father embraced us both and congratulated us. I immediately felt relieved. I didn’t sense that Vernon was really surprised, though, which made me wonder if Elvis had spoken to him at some point about giving me a ring.

As he had earlier with me, Elvis told his father that God would tell him when the time was right to set the date. We visited for a bit. Before long, however, Elvis said to me, “Let’s go see your parents.” I was happy and couldn’t wait to tell them the news!