Elvis and Ginger: Elvis Presley's Fiancée and Last Love Finally Tells Her Story (31 page)

I froze beside him, frightened, scanning the grounds.

Then I noticed his cousin’s kids and their friends playing off to one side of the house. One of the teenagers had a plastic gun and was chasing the others.

I told Elvis this and, as relief swept over him, he started to laugh. I did, too. I knew the fear of intruders was always with him, and I was glad this time nothing was amiss.

Elvis stood on the porch with me for a few minutes, his robe gently blowing in the wind, a cigar between his lips and a machine gun in his hand, as we caught our breath. Then I noticed one of the pink tour jeeps, filled with fans, slowly making its way up the driveway.

“Elvis, the jeep is coming,” I said.

He turned around and quickly headed back inside. Following him, I closed the door, knowing as the jeep passed by, they now had a postcard-tranquil vision of the mansion.

Elvis’s next tour would start on June 17. My sister Terry was relinquishing the Miss Tennessee crown at that time, and the director of the state pageant had asked her to invite Elvis. When she mentioned this to him, he thanked her but declined, saying he didn’t want to detract from the pageant. He had been unaware that his own tour was starting on that date anyway, since others handled his schedule and travel arrangements.

I knew I wouldn’t have another chance to see Terry in her crown, so I asked Elvis if it would be all right if I missed the first day of his tour to attend my sister’s ceremony. He understood that I wanted to support her and arranged for me to join him after the pageant.

While Elvis flew to Springfield, Missouri, for the start of his ten-day tour, I traveled to Jackson, Tennessee, with my family. We watched Terry give up her crown, and it was a bittersweet moment.

Afterward, I flew into Kansas City, Missouri, on a Learjet, which Elvis had chartered for me, to join the tour.

The CBS special would be Elvis’s first since his
Aloha from Hawaii
satellite show, and filming began on June 19 in Omaha, Nebraska.

•   •   •

Al Schultz, the husband of comedian Vicki Lawrence, had been hired to do Elvis’s makeup for the CBS special. I watched Al apply it in the dressing area of Elvis’s bathroom before departing the
Lisa Marie
. Of course, I had never seen Elvis in base makeup needed for television, and when he stepped out, I thought it looked a little caked on, pasty and thick. Elvis looked much better without it. I really didn’t know much about television and stage makeup. Maybe this much makeup was necessary for the camera.

Elvis was in a good mood, but I could tell he was quite nervous. By the time the show started, however, his movements were slow and he seemed hazy at times. I guessed that the doctor must have prescribed Elvis something to help calm him down, which would explain why Elvis was acting so sluggish. I rooted for him, as always, but it wasn’t one of his best performances.

The following show in Lincoln, Nebraska, was better. Elvis was in complete control. Filming picked up again the next night inside the Rushmore Plaza Civic Center in Rapid City, South Dakota.

Vernon and Sandy were along on this tour. In South Dakota, we were ushered into a backstage dressing room. The three of us sat on a couch, watching while Elvis was filmed accepting a plaque from the mayor. The plaque was being given to him in honor of this being the first concert ever held in the city’s new auditorium.

Elvis normally didn’t like to wait backstage long. I could tell he was hot in his jumpsuit by the way he’d started to perspire. A young Native American girl then presented Elvis with a medallion of life from the Sioux Nation while we were all waiting for the show to begin.

In the distance, I could hear the crowd chanting as they eagerly awaited Elvis, but his focus was on the young girl. His face lit up. He had such a soft spot for children. Elvis kept complimenting the girl, trying to put her at ease, and gave her a kiss.

When Joe told Elvis it was time to get ready for the show, I could tell Elvis felt like Joe was rushing him, which he didn’t like. “When I’ve got something to do,” he said, “I’ll be there when I get there.”

Elvis could have simply walked away after getting his award, but he stood there, continuing to focus on the Native American girl. He wanted to see that she was given something in return, and finally asked an aide to make sure she received one of his scarves.

Elvis’s show went well that night. At one point, he walked to the side of the stage and introduced his father. He mentioned how he had missed Vernon not being able to be on tour because he’d been sick for a while.

Elvis then began walking toward me. I noticed a gleam in his eye and got nervous. Raising his arm, he pointed his finger at me.

“I’d like you . . . I’d like you to say hello to my girlfriend, Ginger,” he announced. “Ginger, stand up, honey.”

Shyly, I stood up, blushing furiously amid the clapping and whistling. Elvis quickly said, “Sit down, Ginger. That’s enough for her.”

A wonderful feeling swept over me. He had introduced me to the world!

Elvis then broke into the song, “Hurt,” and I silently began pulling for him, as there were certain notes he liked to reach in various songs. He hit his notes that night and I thought he did a magnificent job.

After Elvis’s death, there would be some fans who would question why he didn’t take this opportunity to introduce me as his fiancée during this time, despite my engagement ring, but I understood. First and foremost, Lisa didn’t know about our engagement yet, and he wanted her to be prepared. Elvis had made some people close to him aware of it back in January, but that was the private Elvis.

In addition, Elvis was a professional entertainer. He knew our announcement would have huge publicity consequences, and being very protective of me and our relationship, I knew he wasn’t ready to have the press focus on me even more. I didn’t think twice about any of this that night. I was simply thrilled that he’d introduced me on camera.

Occasionally, the crowd was particularly rowdy, and I always worried that a fan might get hurt. I’m sure some did, especially those who pushed to the front of the auditoriums to grab one of Elvis’s scarves, but I was never really afraid for my own safety. I was, however, worried that an especially enthusiastic fan might accidentally hurt Elvis, since I’d seen him get scratched before. One time, near the end of a performance, someone threw something onto the stage and the object struck Elvis in the head.

Stunned, Elvis immediately went into a defensive karate stance. “What is it? What is it?” he shouted toward those of us who were seated onstage and to his security.

Everything happened so quickly, I wasn’t sure if the audience even realized he was upset.

I then heard some voices yelling, “Frisbee!”

After the show, I raced to the limousine and climbed into it. A few minutes later I saw Elvis, enveloped by his entourage, moving quickly toward the car. He had just reached the limo when I heard a loud thud that made me jump.

Elvis had hit the car window with his fist. The limo doors flew open and everyone quickly piled inside as Elvis fumed, “That damn Frisbee was so close to my eye, and when it hit, it hit hard, man. I almost walked offstage.”

Elvis and the guys began discussing what had happened, and I learned that the security guards had found a teenage boy who threw the Frisbee. The boy had attached a note inside it.

Felton, one of the soundmen, had told Elvis that the boy apologized, but it would take Elvis a while to calm down inside the car. Although it was an innocent act on the boy’s part, I knew how concerned Elvis was about safety, and understood how something like this really scared him. Once again I was reminded of how vulnerable Elvis was despite all of his security, and of how aware he was of that, too.

After a show in Des Moines, Iowa, we flew into Madison, Wisconsin, and landed in the early morning hours. Elvis, Vernon, Sandy, and I took a limousine with a few staff members from the airport to a hotel.

As we stopped at a red light, we all suddenly noticed what looked like a fight breaking out at a nearby Skylane Standard gas station. Two young men were picking on another man. Elvis lowered the window and watched for a moment.

Before any of us could stop him, Elvis opened the door and jumped out of the car. The bodyguards followed in close pursuit. Elvis had yet to change; still wearing his stage suit, he walked smack into the middle of the fight, assumed a karate stance, and said something to the young men.

I watched anxiously along with Vernon and Sandy. Not surprisingly, the men looked completely baffled to see none other than Elvis Presley standing in front of them! In a minute, everyone was smiling and shaking hands.

When Elvis rejoined us in the car, he was still keyed up and talked about the fight he’d prevented. Soon, though, he went on to talk about other things, as if he had just done his good deed for the day. Elvis knew he could affect people, and I think he truly felt his best when he was helping others.

•   •   •

Elvis decided he’d like my family to see his last couple of shows, so he flew them in to join us in Cincinnati, Ohio. Terry was busy with our friend Cindy and couldn’t make the flight. When my mother and Rosemary arrived and Elvis saw just the two of them, he asked where Terry was.

“She couldn’t come,” I told him, and explained why.

Elvis wasn’t pleased by this. Due to Terry’s commitments as Miss Tennessee, he hadn’t been able to get to know her as well as he had Rosemary. He called Terry at home and said, “Get your girlfriend and I’ll have a plane bring you.”

He chartered a Learjet out of Nashville to pick up my sister and Cindy in time for them to see his show. I was touched that seeing my family meant so much to him. But I wasn’t surprised: Family, I knew, meant a lot to Elvis.

We were staying at the Netherland Hilton. That evening, a few hours before Elvis’s show, his mood plummeted because the air conditioner in his room wasn’t working. He wasn’t happy with the food he’d ordered, either.

A little while later, I went into my room to get ready, and my mother and Rosemary came in to visit with me. I was setting my hair and talking to them from the bathroom when the bedroom door suddenly flew open.

“Where’s Ginger?” Elvis demanded.

Quickly stepping from the bathroom, I asked, “What’s going on?”

Elvis was gone. My mother and Rosemary looked stunned. “I don’t know, but Elvis looked quite upset,” my mother said.

I heard the voices of people running down the hall. Someone shouted, “Which way did he go?”

I peered into the hallway and saw the bodyguards running. Obviously, Elvis had somehow escaped them. But why? What was he trying to do, and why had he been looking for me?

I sat in my room for a little while, worrying. Before long, the phone rang. It was one of the bodyguards. “Elvis wants to see you,” he said. Apparently, Elvis had left the Hilton and checked into a nearby hotel.

I went downstairs, where I ran into one of Elvis’s fans. He asked me to pose for a photo. I was then escorted to the new hotel.

When I saw Elvis, he said happily, “We have air-conditioning now.”

I hated thinking that he’d gotten himself so worked up before a performance, and I was relieved to see that he seemed to have calmed down and was in a better mood. However, because the new hotel didn’t have enough room for all of us, Elvis announced that he wanted to return to Memphis after his Cincinnati show.

During the performance that night, I left my chair behind the soundmen to race quickly to the restroom with Rosemary. When we returned, we tried reentering through the door we had exited, but it had locked behind us.

I could hear Elvis start to introduce his band and began to get nervous. What if Elvis wanted to introduce me to the audience, but this time I wasn’t there? I was panicked, thinking this might throw him, sure that he would be concerned about what had happened to me if he suddenly saw that I was missing.

Luckily, Rosemary and I found an unlocked door and I made it back to my chair without Elvis noticing. I was glad I did, too, because Elvis went on that night to introduce his father, me, and my family, as well as a British fan club.

On our flight back to Memphis, Rosemary told Elvis about us getting locked out. He was relaxed after the show and just thought it was funny.

“I would have stopped the G-damn show and looked for you,” he declared.

After a brief stay in Memphis, Elvis decided to bring more of his family on tour with us, and Patsy and Jo Smith boarded the plane. I hadn’t been around Patsy much because she was typically working out back whenever I was at Graceland, and I had rarely seen her in the house. However, later my mother said Patsy had knelt down in front of her on the plane, telling her she was glad to meet her, because she had heard so much about her. This was nice to hear.

During Elvis’s show in Indianapolis, he introduced his father and then me, saying, “I’d like you to say hello to my girlfriend, Ginger. She is something to stare at. That’s it. That’s enough, Ginger!”

Introducing Terry as Miss Tennessee, he went on to present the rest of my family as well, saying, “and her mother and her sister Rosemary. And, Rosemary, ya know, you just stay put,” he joked, referring to us being locked out during his previous performance. “They’re a very lovely family and I love them,” Elvis added.

He introduced some of his family that night as well, calling Jo his “assassin,” and saying, “Patsy works for my dad and she’s as nutty as a fruitcake.”

Once back on the
Lisa Marie
, my mother said Patsy had chatted with her on the shuttle bus. And, when she stepped from it to board the plane, Patsy had walked beside my mother, putting an arm around her.

Once again, I was touched by these small gestures of warmth and acceptance. It was nice to think that some of Elvis’s family was beginning to recognize us as part of his life now.

Back in Memphis, thinking of my mother once again, Elvis brought up the subject of her home. He wanted to speak with my mom, so I called her at work and handed him the phone.