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aconflagrationofmyown · 2 years ago

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Origin of the Hollywood Hullabaloos Biker Gang

A Sarge & lil Mama Oral History (Elvis Presley fanfiction)

NOTE: Below are excerpts from Chapter Nine of the “Presley’s Remembered”, a project taken on by the youngest of Elvis and Elaine’s children, compiling interviews, recollections and anecdotes of their famous parents from the early days of their marriage till their late father’s death. In some instances the children interviewed the friends and acquaintances themselves, in other cases they utilized published memoirs and diaries, as well as interviews given on talk shows, radio and to official biographers. The sentiments below are included for their reminiscent value, they do not reflect the opinions or convictions of the Presley family, nor their endorsement as a perfectly accurate portrait of a very public family whose most private motivations were known to them and them alone.

Warnings: PG-13 at the worst? hinted mention of infidelity, the mob, cuckolding bets and a sickening amount of fluff

Billy Smith (cousin): There was this idea, Elvis pitched it to us but I’m pretty sure it was Elaine’s idea but, anyway, the idea was to start a motorcycle club, right? Like, that’s, that’s all there was to it, which sounds silly now in retrospect because it became such a, well, such a big thing ya know? But initially it was just Elvis Presley standing in his backyard in LA saying: “what if we made a bike club and only invited people we like?” And of course everyone immediately became supportive and worked really hard to be likable, you know, to guarantee an invite to be a member. A member of this club that didn’t even exist yet.

Red West (entourage): Oh yeah the bike club. You know how that started, right? It was nothin, I mean -nothin! Elaine and Thumper were already bikin’ through the Hollywood hills, down the canyons and all that whenever Elaine was in town. It’s what they did when Elvis wasn’t home and Elaine wasn’t on set with him. Sidecars and the crowd of kids strapped in and just crusin’. Probably kept the woman sane havin’ somethin’ she could sorta do on her own, get the uh, uh, ya know the uh, -any disgruntlement out. But it became pretty obvious Elvis wanted in on it. He got so excited by this idea Elaine had of him startin’ a whole club, and I remember he came tearing into the den at Hillcrest house to tell Elaine about it and, uh, Elizabeth was there, and uh, Elaine she, she listened to him real patient and animated like always -she always was that way for him you know, humoring him I think- and after he finished with all the details she just said, “that’s brilliant E!” and told him they oughta invest in, in uh, in some specialized leathers if they were gonna do it properly. And he said side cars for the babies too, like that was new, and she said “of course” and then you’ve EP tearing back outside to get the stuff ordered. And let me tell you, he was on cloud nine till he called Ann to tell her about it, and instead of the, the, the excitement, I guess, that he was expecting from her too, she was really miffed. Ann kept saying she and Elaine already had that and he needed to find another hobby. It was like stickin’ a pin in a balloon, man, it went from the only thing he cared about to being worth nothin’. Took Elaine like, like a week or more to build him back up. Those days they, they were kinda rough on him, little things really hit him hard at that time. Elaine -she was the only one to realize how, fragile I guess, fragile he was. Yeah. But of course, in the end, she cheered him up and now ya have the Hollywood Hullabaloo Club and it’s legendary.

Ann-Margret (co-star): Well now, I don’t want to overstep, overshare anything but you are right, it was very private at first, just me and Elaine going on joyrides with the kids. The kids got a little stir crazy in LA, more than they did in Memphis, you see. Elaine was very conscious that they needed to get out and be outside and there were concerns that in LA it wasn’t as safe for them to do so. So she had these custom made sidecars -trailers, is what they really were- and we’d pile them in and go out into the hills or sometimes south to the desert and just, get some sunshine and some wind in our faces. It was very special to me, that companionship with her, I felt it was very -healing, for the both of us. And I think, well, I believe it helped me feel forgiven. That she would share that -share herself- with me, and I found myself seeking her company more and more. Elaine was really a wonderful person to enjoy things with, she didn’t have to say a lot but you were never in doubt about whether she was engaged or not, she was always engaged. In the smaller things just as much as the large, and those rides were really simple and joyous, and I was a little selfish, I suppose, about them. She was very much herself on them, she was doing them for her own enjoyment, her children’s, it was one of the few times I saw her be abrupt with photographers or even fans. She really carved out that time for enjoyment and I had seen that, recognized that. But since I didn’t have the tact that she had, I just went ahead and told Elvis that those were special to her. And I guess that suggested his addition would detract from that, because it would, it would have suddenly made it more -in a bad way. I think he knew how much she gave to him, how much of herself, and how much she allowed him to have his own things and not encroach, she was so rarely jealous, really seemed to understand he was a force of nature and one person couldn’t hold all that attention. So I think he wasn’t so much sulking over not being wanted, as he was struggling with trying to mimic her, and be ok with her having her own thing. And he just wasn’t built like that, he needed all of her most of the time, and that’s just, that’s just how it was.

Jerry Schilling (entourage): first off I had to find someone who would make those massive pull behind wagons for the kids. And they had to be real safe, obviously, and it was a feat of engineering, Elaine designing them and making them exist. I’ve never seen Elaine throw money at something like she did those side cars. That’s not including the legal bribes either. And those ones lasted for about five whole months and then EP up and says it’s gonna be a whole gang and there’s gotta be more. This time lots of little side cars instead of the two large ones that Miss Ann and Miss Elaine were using before. So, with the bike club they just sorta divvied the kids up between everyone and there were some of the folks like the Cooke’s who had kids of their own. So it was a big production but the end product was such a blast, it was worth it. I mean it just went to show that EP really didn’t want to do much of anything without hauling his family along, just wasn’t compelling to him without them. And the gang grew from there.

Barbara Stanwyck (co-star): Oh god, the Hollywood Hullabaloo -god those were good times. It got to where I used to look forward to the parties and the dinners, because those Presley’s were masters at hospitality, but the biker gang? Oh that was madness and the most childish thing I’d engaged in -in forever. I didn’t have much of a childhood, been on the grind since 13, and the idea of having something so silly and fun and wholesome and just doing it, appearances and logistics be damned? God that was, that was everything and I know I wasn’t the only one who went in a little timid and then became rabidly devoted to our group. Hollywood’s culture was changing back then, and there were lots of rivalries and splits between the old guard and the new and serious actors and entertainers and it could all get a little mean and sore. But in the bike club? All that went away, you were with people and it humanized your rivals and your exs and turned you all into kids for a minute. I know a lot of rifts got healed through that, just as many wrecks of motorbikes happened too, but I’d say it was worth it.

Elaine Presley (when asked by her daughter): it was on the set of Roustabout, I believe, when Barbara piped up and told Elvis she knew how to ride. There was this brief break between filming one day and you should have seen how fast he tossed her onto his bike and drove off to prove it. Giddy in a cloud of dust and the whole movie set squawking about when they’d be back. She handled it like a champ, and I made a metal note she was gonna be invited, I could tell by his face that she was the sort we were looking for

Marlon Brando (actor): Hollywood can get so insular, so claustrophobic with all these cliques and pretentiousness and such. Drains your life away, and in between projects that can be a very down time. I was contemplating not even staying in the city for breaks when I heard about this lady who had succeeded at making a judge pass a law legalizing these motorcycle carriages. It was so she could bike with her kids. All five or six of them. A lotta kids. And my first thought was: she is either the worst mother or the most devoted one on earth. And I was curious about the mechanics of it. And so I asked around and heard from Sinatra that it was Elvis Presley’s wife. Which made sense, that’s where the money to throw at judges came from but I’d never heard anything that gutsy about her before that. I mean really, there were the rumors about Cooke but that was the usual shit. By far, the most I heard about her was the betting pool at the Coconut Grove where they had a pool over who could cuckold Elvis Presley first. And other than that, it sounded like she was good at making bacon and babies, right? I had this opinion of them (the Presley’s) that they had no idea what they were in for in this town. There was this contempt and lecherous fascination everyone in the industry had for them -and they were so generous and gracious about it. I really had some contempt for them, for what I thought was their naïveté. Until the thing about the bike carriage. I realized that Mrs Presley must’ve been sorta ingenious, or else hired someone clever, and I sure wished I had a mother who cared to take me along like that, you know? I just kept thinking of those carriages, kept thinking how it had to be an avid motorcycle fanatic to design them and so I stopped by the shop that made them. Asked who designed them. They said Elaine Presley. I went to Hillcrest House. I wanted to meet someone who liked motorcycles and kids that much. I mean, she had to be a good sort of person with those interests, right? Course then it was, it was like meeting human sunshine. Heavily pregnant sunshine. Elaine showed me around the garage, or the kids did is more like what happened, gave me a tour and she said how her husband would be bummed he wasn’t there to meet me. And I didn’t mind him, I mean I would have liked to meet him, and sure there’d been the business of Rita and him before the marriage. But that was water under the bridge, she’d used him to make me jealous, all there was to it. She said he was sweet, actually that’s my word. Boring is the word by Rita used. It had me thinking about him back then, it’s like, shit, he was a baby, you know? And the women they ate him up, used him like Rita did, used him like a bull. Made sense why he wanted to be married so bad, have someone who wasn’t in it to eat him up. But uh, my interest was in the woman who made those sidecars. In parting Elaine said I was welcome to swing by again, that I really had to meet “her boy”. I realized she meant Elvis Presley, he was her boy, and that made sense. That's how it felt it should be. So I ended up opening my big mouth and assuring this sweet girl I’d swing by again in a day or two. And of course all the kids watching me swear to their mother, I had to come back. That’s how I came to be -embroiled- in the scheme.

Lamar Fike (entourage): Yeah, yeah she’d be puttering around in the garage a lotta afternoons, before dinner but after the market and sports games. She’d be under a bike or two and the kids would be passing her wrenches and she’d be drilling them on their times tables. Homeshcoolin’ ‘em while changin’ oil, it was the craziest, loveliest thing I’d ever seen. Course the kids were so responsive to it, she’d give ‘em little rewards when they got numbers right, let ‘em tighten a screw or whatever. And it taught ‘em a lot about life and putting in the work for all the fun they then went and had on the road with their mama and Thumper. They saw her getting dirty and frustrated sure, they also saw her stick with it, finish a job. And keep coming back even though she coulda passed it onto me or anyone else. And yeah, sometimes EP would come home from the studio a little early and find her out there and he’d just lay down right next to her, get his nice Hollywood clothes all filthy, passin’ her stuff and askin the kids ‘bout their day. Course then the kids they’d go through the times tables or the spelling or everything all over again, whatever she’d had ‘em just rehearse and whatever they were whining about doin’ with her they’d get all excited to show him. The progress that they had made, they liked showin off for him. He liked workin’ out there with her, so much so sometimes you’d have to leave ‘em be, clear the garage out, ya know. He found that attractive about her, the kerchief in her hair and the grease and shit, he didn’t mind, probably got in trouble for ruinin’ his clothes but he liked playing with her like that. He liked her like that. And yeah, one day Marlon Brando just sauntered through, pulled along by young Jesse who was showin’ him everything and Elaine really actin’ sorta star struck. She wagged her finger at me when escorting him out, I remember she said “don’t you tell on me, Lamar!” -and I thought it was the cutest thing as all she’d done was be nice to him, she was just real loyal and scared of hurtin’ EP. Course they all became friends later.

Ann-Margret (co-star): The angriest I’d ever seen Elaine was after my phone call with Elvis. She actually drove to my house in her rare spare time and to use an Elvis' turn of phrase, she lit into me. She said I was really insensitive and stupid for discouraging him about the club and that I’d made him feel burdensome and like she, Elaine, was trying to get away from him in the few days he had to be with them. Which we both knew I hadn’t meant it that way, but of course that’s how he took it and she had a right to be mad. I just didn’t expect her to be as angry as she was. I truly hadn’t seen her temper to that degree, had once doubted its existence. She was very even keeled about annoying or hurtful things, I mean she found out about the affair and just sorta shrugged, for god's sake. I thought that would be the ultimate test. But no, no this is what sent her fury skyrocketing, she really was so sensitive to him being wanted by them and never feeling like he crashed in on his own family when he came back. Even though that’s exactly what he did. He was a huge disruption every time he returned but that’s not how husbands should be, that’s now how homelife is done, so she simply forbade it from being taken that way. And I realized then just how much she loved him, not only would she give up every shred of indepence for him, she told me that if I ever slipped up like that again and made him feel unwanted by either of us, she’d make sure I never saw them again, or could ever even get in contact. I remember really thinking she was gonna jam the firepower up my tush a few times that conversation. It was like a Chanel No. 5 scented tornado and it shook me up good. I never tried to stick up for Elaine Presley again, she said she could do it herself, so I let her. Before the month was out, there was a biker gang and we had matching leathers and a name and over a dozen new additions. There was nothing serene about those rides ever again, but it pulled Elvis out of a terrible funk that I blamed him for, and she didn’t. And that was the difference. She just changed the atmosphere till Elvis Presley could glow again, whatever it took. For the mid 60’s it was the Hollywood Hullabaloos and she invented them for him.

Red West (entourage): Ok but you know why she did it, right? Elaine liked it quiet and she liked it all small and private but she knew with EP wanting in that she couldn’t let Marlon Brando into the girl gang and not her husband, right? Like, she knew that. It was so funny the night she told him at dinner that Brando had come to the house and she’s all “actually it was me he wanted to see” and EP is like an excited puppy all wanting details and he got about fit to burst with excitement over the idea of Brando joining the gang and then it was like, a switch went off in his brain. He went all pale and quiet, smile went away. You could tell he was visualizing his wife on a bike with Marlon Brando. I thought he’d break the table top he got so angry by this mental image he hadn’t even admitted to. It was hilarious. And Elaine you know, she never argued with him. He was so jealous of her, and she never argued like a lotta broads would have. He would be irrational and she’d say “ok”. Then suggest a loophole. Always worked, and the loophole was him bein’ in too. Startin’ a whole gang. Thumper hated the idea, told EP the same and it deflated him, man. But I’m tellin’ ya, Elaine knew if she was going to get what she wanted then she had to bring him along, let him in on the action when he was on his free time. Became a big ole deal after that, remembered as his bike club and stuff, but nobody remembers it was ‘cause Elaine Presley was a clever broad and wanted to go riding with her friends.

Elizabeth Mansfield (family friend): We were at the table and after his initial excitement you could see Elvis pondering the logistics of Marlon Brando taking a liking to his wife and right about when he started to idly push his food around on his plate Elaine pipes up casually and says “his voice is sorta annoying, though.” and Elvis snaps “whose?” and Elaine goes “Mr. Brando’s! His voice doesn’t seem to match the rest of him. But I guess I’m spoiled.” The rest of the dinner was spent with Elvis defending Brando’s dialect.

Jerry Schilling (entourage): ok, no, no it wasn’t just sidecars ok? This was an entire procession of bikes and trailers and stuff, eventually we’d take these massive packed dinners Elaine prepared ahead of time and we’d have the most luxurious picnics and bbqs up in the hills and sometimes there was even camping overnight, if enough of the security made it with us. Elvis and Elaine had already done a lot of riding up there themselves, just goin’ on dates up there long before Thumper and Elaine took to it when he was gone, so E and E, they had all these areas scouted out and would even say this area is good for camping or this one’s got a creek or there’s a good tree to relieve yourself behind. Course with how all over each other they always were, we used to joke there wasn’t much country around that they probably hadn’t used for coupling. Every tree ya pissed against ya had to wonder if it’d seen action.

Barbra Cooke Womack (wife of Sam Cooke): Some of my last, carefree memories of Sam before his death were from that summer when they started the Hullabaloos. We weren’t really good bikers, Sam collected cars, that was his hobby, but being a biker wasn’t the chief requirement for the gang. If you were bad at biking they gave you a helmet and called it a day. Elvis would say “you know where the accelerator is right?” and Sam would shoot back “It’s the break I’m worried about” and Presley would say “that’s no way to live”, and Sam would laugh and that’s the sorta attitude they were looking for. Had to be carefree. And really, it pulled Sam and I outta the depression we’d been in after the loss of our son. (Mr. and Mrs. Cooke’s two year old son drowned in their swimming pool the previous year.) Elaine’s still got a picture hung at Graceland of her and Sam and Elvis and Anne all jiving on a plank of plywood. They’d have these dance offs and the kids were judges, and they’d dance it out on this minuscule square of wood that they hauled up for the grill. Because yes, they hauled a grill up into the hills. Yeah, anyway, one of my favorite pictures is that one, the two teams facing off, Sam and Elaine versus Elvis and Ann, and behind them our daughter Andrea and their girl Ella putting on their best juror faces. Good times.

Ella Presley (daughter): Yes, Andrea and I, with Barbra (Stanwyck) sometimes advising us in matters of technical form, would judge these contests very seriously. Very serious business I’ll have you know, really, really took it gravely. And the parents, they tried to keep it serious for us, that is, as long as possible. Then it would just turn into all out jollification and everyone would start grooving.

Ann-Margret (co-star): they’d be blaring Solomon Burke and Chuck Berry and Otis, we’d get down to anything with a beat, and invariably the kids would end up joining in. Or Elvis would forget he was supposed to be facing off against Elaine and just end up cuddling up to the competition. Like, hey man we have high stakes here, burgers are at stake!

Marlon Brando: What was that -the uh, the Chuck Berry song, Elvis would always grab her and they’d just start swiveling together in perfect unison, ‘most playfully erotic thing I’d ever seen against the glow of a sunset on the hills. The kids were used to it. H-how’s it go? Something uh, something like uh-

Daisy Mae Presley (daughter): Mhmm, yeah, a staple was “You Never Can Tell” by Chuck Berry and daddy loved grabbing mama and acting it out. They weren’t broke teenagers when they married but he was obviously trying to relate to it.

Marlon Brando: uh, how’s it go, it’s uh, uh, (sings mumbling) “It was a teenage wedding and the old folks wished ‘em well,”…yeah, that one. Swiveling, the both of em, in the middle of the campsite. A free show, it was crazy.

Ella Presley (daughter): Jesse and I had some tournaments too, later on. And there was wrestling as well, I remember daddy would get into it with anyone, and then all the kids versus him and Jerry or him and Marlon. Just dancing was something the family did, came natural, that urge to move. Something about a bonfire and twilight brings it out of anyone I think, twilight -you could be anywhere at twilight. You can go back home in your mind.

Jackson Presley (second son): Actually, come to think of it, I’m pretty confident my first memory was sitting on a bike. In mama’s lap, had to be, and looking up at this rustling blob of pink. I later learned the blob was a massive bougainvillea vine and my dad was trying to climb the thorny thing to get back one of my sisters' hair bows. What? Oh, no, I-I don’t know if he was successful. The thorns make me doubt it but, he was stubborn ya know, so if he hadn’t gotten it I bet we’d still be there. So yes, I guess.

Marlon Brando (actor): I ended up liking Elvis, and Elvis’ family, infinitely more than I uh, I anticipated. Not really news is it? (chuckles) I did swing back by Hillcrest House and I got fed the best meal of my life and I got to watch the kids all interacting and I got to watch this famous couple interacting, and something about it really satisfied me. It was holy chaos everywhere, all the time, with a center of peacefulness at its core. Those were genuine, happy times, everyone was still putting effort into being a unit, in their family. Really the glory days of Elaine’s showmanship of you're going to base your judgments about motherhood on the children’s presentation and mental well being. I think if she got a medal, it should be for what she did in the 70’s, to hold them all together, but if you’re thinking of what is now remembered as that classic family, those were the years. Picture perfect, even when you got on the inside, and I wanted inside. You bet I did. Probably because there was always this wicked little undercurrent to keep things interesting, to keep that marriage’s integrity. I saw that, and I liked it. They were best friends, Elvis and Elaine, and the camaraderie floated down to their kids and to the rest of the gang. And I kept coming back for more. And soon I found myself and my precious bike saddled with a sidecar and a Presley child in it, spending my Los Angeles autumn’s getting a sore back from camping on the ground. No one else coulda made me do that, you’d have to pay me and even then, I dunno. But I did it for free, gave my free labor even, over five years, whenever they were in town.

Daisy Mae Presley (daughter): I got Marlon, always. Or almost always. Probably demanded him and raised hell unless I got him, I just really liked his personality. Everyone in the Memphis Mafia was so scared of pissing daddy off by somehow risking us or hurting us, God forbid. So they always drove like pussies when they had us, and there was no fun in that. And Rosalee was always a scaredy cat, so she was with daddy and I got Marlon. Used to ribb Rosalee about how daddy drove like a maniac and so she was always choosing the scariest ride but she always insisted she felt safer with him. And of course she was. We all were. I just didn’t care for safe, ha. Of course, now it’s notorious that a monster joined and was carting Jesse around for a whole summer before we learned he was Nevada Cost Nostra.

Elaine Presley (being asked by a reporter on the street): There were never mobsters in the bike club, Mr. Corleone himself owned nightclubs and his methods were unorthodox, that’s it. He was an entrepreneur. I met his wife once. I don’t I trust my children to mobster or thugs

Daisy Mae (daughter): He was totally a mafia guy. Like a real Italian mafia guy. He helped mama with the FBI wire taps at Graceland for the divorce case, his level of contacts were insane. Oh I…maybe I shouldn’t of said that I-

Marlon Brando (actor): Daisy was a unique kid even back then, never fit in with her sisters, acted like one of the brothers and was fearless. Pretty obsessed with her dad’s attention even back then, but she was always trying to earn it by being a daredevil just like him. It took about two years but once he realized I’d rather die than hurt one of his kids, Elvis gave the go ahead and Daisy and me, we’d take jumps and go over the dunes, catching some much air. The hypocrite was already doing it himself with Rosalee in the sidecar the whole time. But hey, he -he was protective, and the kids knew they were special, loved, all ya can ask for as a kid. That, and uh, that and your own motorcycle chauffeur, I guess.

Ella Presley (daughter): We knew things had really changed when it went from family drives and Mama and Tamale (the nickname the Presley children gave to Ann Margaret) taking us out, to daddy piling us all in the caddy and taking us to get leathers made. We had gear before, mama used to pack us in so well that we’d probably have survived a nuclear attack besides a wreck. (laughs) But yes, we got to stylize our own helmets. I got a plain black one and brought it back and painted it, because that’s what mama did with hers. Mine had like this flower crown of pink flowers on black, very hippy, according to Daddy. I was six, ok! And there wasn’t some gritty aspect to motorcycles in my mind, I’d grown up seeing mama on them in her skirts and lipstick, jewels hanging onto her ears for dear life when she picked up speed. A painted flower crown on my helmet seemed very fitting to me, alright? Give me some slack here.

Daisy Mae (daughter): Ella really had no idea about being badass and all that biker stuff that I don’t ever remember even talking to Marlon about but, sorta like osmosis, I got the general vibe that we were hot stuff. At five years old. (Rolls her eyes) But Ella, Ella was all pink and black like mama. And daddy was cooing and thinking it was the cutest thing. Then, then daddy had mama’s leather pants monogrammed. And Ella wanted that too. He melted on the floor in horror when she asked.

Barbara Stanwyck (co-star): so when this thing got serious, really got off the ground, that whole family turned out looking sharper and more coordinated than the Von Trapps. A lot groovier, too. And then came the kicker, Elaine had these leather trousers that, being Elaine, they looked phenomenal on her stems, and a cheeky EP monogrammed on the back pockets. Picture it. An initial per ass cheek, dark pink on black. Looked like a spanked butt, and of course her husband loved it, I’ve never seen him take such public appreciation for vulgarity on her like that, but who can blame him? You’ve seen the pictures, she’s scorching hot in them, and they’d save her from roadburn so, all was good. Till Miss Ella pipes up and says she wants some, too.

Ann-Margret (co-star): Always like mama that one, and watching and imitating her to a Tee. And most of the time it pleased Elvis endlessly, but this time, you could see him connecting the dots of his little girl being just like her mama who was his wife who he was so rabidly hungry for. And he barked that no way in hell could she get those leathers. And of course the poor little dear had no idea where she’d gone wrong. So he immediately chased her as she ran upstairs crying, making amends by helping her repaint the sidecar to look exactly like her mama’s bike. But no monogrammed leathers.

Billy Smith (cousin): EP got me this gorgeous, macho beauty of a motor, all bronze and black and masculine. And I couldn’t wait to take it for a spin up in the hills, outrace ‘em all. Then the day of the first outing I went outside and saw I got saddled with a pink and black little sidecar hooked up to my bike and just like that, my Isle of Man dreams were over.

Marlon Brando (actor): I got pretty excited about this, uh, this whole thing, I was itchin’ to go. Didn’t get what all the fuss was about. I’d seen Elvis hanging around the house, I could see Elvis going a million miles a minute wanting to get on with it but then he’d have to have it picture perfect, so the outing would get canceled till the cars got swapped with the bikes till they matched, the colors, the aesthetic had to please him and it would take a big reshuffle and -all that. I got pretty sick of it, like -when’s this gonna begin? Day before we had been almost ready, then someone forgot the gramophone and that caused a lotta commotion and by the time it was solved the rain had come. So the next morning, we swear we are all going, hell or high water. It’s happening, we were all burned out on making it perfect, just wanted to joy ride, right?

Barbara Stanwyck (co-star): I’ll never forget that morning everyone was loading up and mounting their bikes and Elvis pauses by Marlon’s and starts showing this funny look on his face the longer he inspects the sidecar and Marlon’s bike.

Ann-Margret (co-star): I saw him reach out his hand and sorta thumb at the orange stripe on Marlon’s fender, it didn’t go with Daisy’s purple sidecar, you see.

Barbara Stanwyck (co-star): and then Marlon, in a voice he usually saved for the stage snarled- “leave Papa’s bike alone, Mopey” and Elvis just -obeyed. It was the funniest thing ever, he used Elaine’s nickname for him and Elvis didn’t bat an eye.

Ann Margaret (co-star): E clutched his hand to his chest like he’d been burned by the metal and went and got on his bike without another word. We actually made it out of the gates that day. The rest was history.

Finis~

Thank y’all so much for reading! This was an entirely new style of storytelling for me and I’d really love to hear your thoughts and get your suggestions if there are other topics you think might be interesting to be explored in this way. My very big thanks for sweet Christi for holding my hand through this and giving her feedback.

One of the things that interests me with this whole series is painting a dichotomy between the vulnerable and intimate voyeurism we get to experience with the one shots, verses how this couple is perceived by their associates and the world at large. It just makes it more real for me and I hope it did for you.

Also, as a side note, you may have noticed I tried to keep some of these individuals as rather unreliable narrators, their prejudices or existing recollections of Elvis’ real life being a bit… biased… one way or the other. I suppose I keep outing myself on who I’m not fond of in the MM. oops

Xoxoxo 🌹 Marina

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