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| Movie Mirror, September 1978 |
Since his humble beginnings in 1954, Elvis has been the target of gossip magazines and society-wide persecution.
When he became famous on a national level in 1956, several "associations of concerned parents" took steps to have "Presley prevented from corrupting American youth" on the grounds that "his effeminate swaying and uncontrollable drug use" were "damaging the fragile hormones of teenagers."
One such "concerned parent", a former Army intelligence, wrote in 1956:
"I wasn't at the Elvis Presley concert last night in Memphis, but I sent informants to the venue. They gave me the image of the evil that Presley does to youth. At one point, two teenagers appeared displaying the singer's autographs on their abdomens and thighs. We know very well that from the age of 11 sexuality can be awakened easily by any gesture or action, psychologists and psychiatrists have assured me of this. I also have reports that many of the singer's fan clubs hold meetings that end up turning into huge orgies. From these testimonies I would say that Presley is a drug addict and a pervert, possibly a sex offender."
For Elvis, it had become normal to hear, see and read such nonsense already in the first two years of his career, especially when it came to his relationship with Natalie Wood, which was admittedly temperamental. Their fights and comebacks made the headlines of gossip magazines, which still demonized Elvis for his style, even asking if the Devil had not sent him to corrupt the youth.
But the "sexual feats" and wild stories increased once he joined the army in 1958. In less than two years, Elvis had "created a veritable harem in Europe", with tens of thousands of women in his bed and a scandalous relationship with a 14-year-old girl (Priscilla), who, innocently (???), was at parties where the majority of the audience was adult, male and wealthy.
At one point, some publications even held contests in the singer's name, where they offered a night of sex with Elvis to the winner. The magazines at the time of his return to the US still invested in defamatory articles that bet on Elvis' insecurity regarding his popularity.
One of them, Top Secret, which claimed to be specialized in unearthing sordid truths about the stars, even ran an edition telling that Elvis stole Juliet Prowse, his co-star in "G.I. Blues" (1960), from none other than Frank Sinatra.
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| Movie magazine covers from 1956-60 |
In the 1960s, history would repeat itself. In magazine columns, all the female stars who played with him, in leading roles or not, ended up in his bed. The thinly veiled dislike of Joan Blackman, co-star in "Blue Hawaii" (1961) and "Kid Galahad" (1962), made headlines for many years, even into the 1970s. In 1977, Midnight Globe magazine published an article describing their secret romance for two years and why Blackman finally rejected Elvis' advances, who, at the time of the end of the romance, in mid-1963, was already in a serious relationship with Priscilla.
Although they said they were against the deviant way in which Elvis wanted to "indoctrinate" the youth, all these magazines were always focused on him and what happened around him, even if their headlines had only half truths or, sometimes, none at all.
Established actresses such as Barbara Eden (Flaming Star, 1960), Hope Lange (Wild In the Country, 1961); minor actresses such as Stella Stevens (Girls! Girls! Girls!, 1962), Irene Tsu and Marianna Hill (Paradise Hawaiian Style, 1966) - in these magazines, no one could match Elvis' charm. Even Dodie Marshall (Easy Come, Easy Go, 1967), who couldn't care less about Hollywood - or Elvis, for that matter - had "fallen under his spell". There were sordid stories after sordid stories.
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| Movie magazine covers from 1957-60 |
But of course, the biggest gossip arose when Elvis worked with the "female Elvis," Ann-Margret (Viva Las Vegas, 1964).
Their attraction to each other was clear and instantaneous, history doesn't deny that - nor does Ann. However, both knew that that romance would not last long, probably only while they were filming and, who knows, one occasion or another soon after. It is clear that the Colonel's visible anger and the fact that Priscilla started to be photographed in black clothes and sunglasses on the streets contributed significantly to the fact that the gossip magazines created enough material for endless publications about this and the "affair".
The years passed, Joan Freeman (Roustabout, 1964), Shelley Fabares (Girl Happy, 1965, Spinout, 1966 and Clambake, 1967), Julie Adams (Tickle Me, 1965), Mary Ann Mobley (Harum Scarum, 1965), Sue Ane Langdon (Frankie and Johnny, 1966) and Anette Day (Double Trouble, 1967) had been "seduced by the uncontrollable Elvis Presley". In part, these factoids were some of the biggest reasons that led the Colonel to force Elvis to marry Priscilla.
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| The "sordid romance" between Elvis and Ann-Margret was still explored well into the 1970s; in 1979, he had not just started her acting career, but her sexual life too |
On May 1, 1967, a quick ceremony in Vegas cemented the marriage of Elvis and his "teenage bride" Priscilla. The Colonel's plan to smooth things over with the wedding backfired and the gossip magazines were not forgiving. There had to be a reason for it that wasn't simply love - and indeed there was.
When Lisa Marie was born, on February 1, 1968, exactly on the day that Elvis and Priscilla's marriage completed nine months, the magazines had a click: "Of course! They got married because Priscilla was already pregnant! It's a scandal! Print that!" For all the trappings of a media factoid as such, perhaps this has a grain of truth - but so what?
If before getting married Elvis was already "the" stud, he surpassed himself after it. Even with Priscilla in Graceland definitely, the press always saw women leaving the mansion in the wee hours of the morning and looked for everything to try to put him in the headlines of their tabloids.
If there wasn't something at the time, like his "secret romances" with Joan Blondell (Stay Away Joe, 1968), Ina Balin (Charro!, 1969) or Mary Tyler Moore (Change of Habit, 1969), the press would find an ex, a child that could have been his, an aggression, a moment of madness. In fact, when Elvis fell and suffered a concussion while filming "Clambake", it was the first time the media spoke of his death. In 1971, some magazines reviewed the case and even spoke of a rush to the hospital to resuscitate him - which never happened.
From 1968 to 1970 the tabloids abandoned these "side girls" and gave Ann-Margret a break, focusing instead on the target of the moment: Nancy Sinatra. As the daughter of who she was, the alleged "Mafia boss and part-time singer Frank Sinatra" (according to those magazines themselves), she was an interesting addition to the sordid media stories.
Suddenly, Elvis and Nancy were having an affair; Frank Sinatra was furious; Priscilla wanted a divorce! The media invented following the wave of what it created. Priscilla, of course, believed some of these tabloids, as everyone knows of the big fight she had with Elvis and the ill will she displayed, as well as visible jealousy, when accompanying him to Nancy's Vegas shows in 1969 and 1970.
The "scandal" with Nancy didn't work for the magazines, so they went back to the old Ann-Margret case and managed to tie her to Frank Sinatra, to see if it caught fire.
During the 1970s, the main gossip magazines emphasized the rumor of how Elvis had stolen Ann from Frank Sinatra in 1964 and how that would have led to a tense relationship between both singers - a "fact" denied by an event in 1970, which for not being disclosed ended up collaborating for such rumors.
As it turns out, Sinatra personally asked Elvis to record "My Way" to help promote it in the US, as its greatest success was in Europe. Elvis answered his friend's request and recorded his version on June 10, 1971, but unfortunately it would never be released in his lifetime (it would only become public in 1995).
In addition, magazines saw on the horizon another chance of defamation when they bought and publicized the story of an alleged son of Elvis with one of his mistresses.
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| Cinema Scene, November 1970 |
But if there was a time when gossip magazines were extremely mean to Elvis and several other artists, it was the 1970s. Elvis was on the cover practically every month in that decade, mainly due to facts and rumors coming from the Graceland employees themselves. , members of the Memphis Mafia and their relatives.
Accusations that he had paternity lawsuits filled the tabloid pages. Accidents, hospital visits, overdoses, the need for resuscitation, were the headlines - all with no basis in truth.
In January 1971, magazines already announced his divorce as certain, due to the rumors they created. When he was photographed driving home his teenage secretary, Mary Kathleen Selph, on June 30, 1972, on the streets of Memphis, she was automatically elevated to the status of his mistress. The fact that she died in a car accident about a month later caused wild plots to be created.
Elvis and Priscilla broke up in December 1971 and separated unofficially in July 1972, at which point they were no longer seen together, just as Mary Kathleen was dying - "who would have ordered it?", asked the tabloids.
By October 1972, the gossip magazines were already aware of Elvis and Priscilla's imminent divorce, through Graceland officials, and began to create around it. Some journalists managed to photograph Priscilla kissing a man (probably Mike Stone) and this added to the list of factors why the marriage would be at an end. The magazines' accusations ranged from paternity suits to Elvis' abusive use of drugs and his way of treating his wife, given as "violent and aggressive" in these publications. From then on, the stage was already set for the most pathetic and outlandish stories.
Even before the divorce was made official, some magazines already presented Linda Thompson as his new girlfriend - and indeed she was - and Lisa's stepmother. Publications took their marriage for granted once the divorce was finalized on October 9, 1973.
Lisa, on the other hand, had her luck changed in July of that year. Movie Life magazine published that, with the separation of the parents and without an agreement on who would have her custody, Elvis' daughter would be up for adoption. This infuriated the singer, who even protested at concerts, but his anger ended up being sold by magazines as "an attempt to curtail the right to share public information".
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| Movie Magazine covers from 1972-73 |
From 1974 to 1977, the gossip magazines seemed to be interested in either marrying Elvis to as many women as possible or his death - whichever sold the most. In March 1974, Linda Thompson had already prepared her trousseau and the details of the party, according to some publications; other tabloids preferred to say that she was not the lucky one, but an "unknown girl that only we know who she is!". Different magazines even invested in a sordid event that would have occurred around the legendary show on March 20, 1974 in Memphis, an alleged overdose and need of resuscitation - the third time this was news, all false.
In September of the same year, the new scandal surrounding Elvis was the rumor that he had abandoned Linda and promised to marry Elizabeth Taylor; famous for her numerous marriages, the actress had recently divorced actor Richard Burton, with whom she would get back with the following year and divorce again, this time definitively, in 1976.
If Liz was no longer an option, the magazines exaggerated it even more. To explain why Elvis had suddenly appeared with Sheila Ryan in September 1974, they invented, in April 1975, that Linda was heartbroken after having discovered a sex scandal involving Elvis, where a teenager was allegedly seriously injured trying to have sex with him in an unconventional way.
More outrageous weddings followed in the tabloids of 1976. The simple breakup of Cher and her first husband, Sonny, in 1975 was enough to spark the rumor that she was going to marry Elvis. In fact, this hoax was maintained by many magazines until 1979, when one publication said it had proof that he and Cher were lovers for seven years.
But in September 1976 the tabloids found a competitor for Cher, when they published that someone close to Elvis had confessed that he was going to marry actress Cybill Shepherd, who was a relative newcomer at the time.
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| Movie magazine covers from 1974-80 |
From 1977 to 1980, gossip magazines focused on spreading rumors as unfounded as some in the book "Elvis: What Happened?". At that point, Elvis had already died seven times - counting the real one, had ten children out of wedlock, been married twenty-odd times and the most outrageous "fact" of all: he had a clone! The article was released, oddly enough, by the Official UFO magazine, which until then was a respected ufological publication, in September 1978 and even a photo of the clone was added to the cover of it.
Through "reliable archives never revealed", gossip magazines focused this three-year period on telling how Elvis and Priscilla had remarried in 1977 for two reasons: Lisa's happiness and a new baby, which was kept away of media awareness - even with so many "true stories" it uncovered - and so Priscilla wouldn't have appeared in public with Elvis for some time.
In 1979, a tabloid published a letter that it said was written by Elvis a few days before his death, which revealed plans for their reconciliation. That would certainly cheer up some fans who weren't aware of the real facts - and some still aren't - and Elvis' temper. As much as he could have wanted to, the Southern pride in his veins would keep him from going back and accepting living with the woman who had hurt him more than anything in the world.
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| Movie magazine covers from 1976-80 |
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THEY'RE ALL JUNK!
As seen above, Elvis was the target of much gossip and slanderous rumors in his lifetime. Obviously he wasn't the only one targeted by these sensationalist tabloids, but the singer was always present in one way or another. Living like this, running away from false statements and without being able to give satisfactory explanations to the public was - and is - the life of many artists. Being an emotionally charged person, this must have been extremely difficult for Elvis, especially when he was slandered with low blows involving the people he loved most.
However, the only time that he had the courage and the freedom to express what he felt about these publications, during the August/September 1974 season closing show in Las Vegas, on September 2nd, Elvis made clear how that hurt him, how the gossip of people connected to him or close to him was harmful to his mental health and relationship with everyone, and he sent a message:
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We at EAP Index support this "rant" and reiterate: These gossip magazines are all junk!
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Original article: EAP Index | http://www.eapindex.com
Factual research: Google
Photos: Elvis InfoNet (here and here)
Factual research: Google
Photos: Elvis InfoNet (here and here)
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