Modern Screen (Jan-Dec 1960)

Disgrace at Graceland (Continued from, page 29) Elvis filled Vernon's life to overflowing as a son — but there is still that God-given need for a loving wife and a real home life which Elvis knew his father missed terribly. He knew it from the time his father met and began dating Dee in Germany. And Elvis knew it was serious when Dee came to Graceland for a visit when he and his father and grandmother returned home after his formal discharge from the Army. Then on Elvis' two -week vacation at Graceland, before he was to return to Hollywood, it happened. Elvis had met Dee Elliott in Germany and again when she came to visit at Graceland. Elvis liked her, and realized how much she meant to his father, but try as he would, he still could not think of this attractive young stranger as his mother. In April, Vernon Presley had announced that he would marry Dee, that they would wait till Elvis was free to serve as best man, and then they would have the church wedding that his bride-to-be always dreamed of. All this registered on Elvis, but something in him did not believe it. When he finished his Hollywood chores, he was so anxious to get home that he overcame his fear of flying and took a jet to St. Louis, rented a car and sped on from there, his mind on nothing but two weeks of solid rest. It did not occur to him that he was now free, that the moment he walked in the door plans of three months' standing would go into operation. It did not occur to him until he looked at his father and realized that all the talk had meaning, that the marriage would take place, and that he could not go through with it. "I'm sorry," Dad Vernon Presley knew his son very well. It was hardly necessary for Elvis to say a word. "I'm sorry, Dad," was the best Elvis could do. And Vernon Presley understood and said only, "It's all right, son. Don't worry. Everything will be all right." The next day Vernon Presley drove to Huntsville where his bride-to-be and her three children were staying. There, Vernon and Dee took out a wedding license July 3, and were quietly married by Circuit Judge Harry L. Pennington that very night. Meanwhile, in Memphis, Elvis was staying up late and sleeping all day to try to drive away the hurt and loneliness in his heart. On July 4 — a holiday he and his mother and father had always enjoyed together, he remembered back through the years of his happiness with his parents and could not restrain the tears. He slipped away from his friends, got on his motorcycle and drove to Forrest Hill Cemetery, where his mother, Gladys Presley, is buried. There he knelt and prayed. He prayed that his father really understood that he wished him happiness and wished him love. He prayed that Dee Presley would understand that he wished her well as his father's wife, but could never accept her as his mother. He prayed fervently that Graceland, his mother's house, a house he thought of as almost holy would never be disgraced . . . That no one would misunderstand why he had not gone to the wedding. And like so many prayers that come truly from the heart, Elvis' was answered, before it was spoken. For Dee Presley had already opened her heart to Modern Screen. It had occurred a week before Elvis came home, a week and a half before her wedding. "I only hope," said Dee Elliott, "that when Elvis gets married he finds a girl who loves him as much as I love his father." Dee had never talked to a reporter before (EDITOR'S NOTE: to this date Mrs. Presley has given no other interviews) and seemed anxious to tell the world of her love. "After we told Elvis of our plans to marry," said Dee, "he took me out to the cemetery at Memphis to visit his mother's grave. When I saw him looking so sadly at his mother's grave it just made me cry. I wondered if I could ever be an adequate stepmother." "I understand about being left alone without a mother. My own mother died when I was only four years old. The only thing I can remember is kissing her in her coffin. "My father remarried and I grew up under the guidance of a very sympathetic stepmother. It took her a long time to win me. It will take me a while too." How did it come about that the former wife of an Army sergeant, ex-trainee nurse and hotel hostess found herself caught up in a romance with Vernon Presley? Actually, stated Dee, the story went back to an early fall morning in 1958 in Bad Nauheim, Germany, when she accepted an invitation to attend a morning coffee party given by Vernon Presley's mother. At that time Mrs. Elliott was living with her husband, the sergeant, who was on assignment to Germany, and Vernon Presley had taken up quarters at Bad Nauheim while his son completed a tour of Army duty at Friedberg, a picturesque town not far from Bad Nauheim. First meeting Well, that was their first meeting, but this time there was no flash of lightning to indicate love at first sight. It was nothing like that. Mrs. Elliott's own restrained comment on their introduction: "When I met Vernon I liked him immediately." Bad Nauheim is a fair-sized resort city, but the American Army colony is not so large now and there were other occasions when the two were thrown together. Mrs. Elliott's first marriage had withered long before she met Vernon Presley, she said. "My husband and I had decided on a divorce sometime before, but we hadn't made any announcement to our friends," she said. "We would have separated long before, but I had my three sons, aged 4, 6 and 7, to think of, and I didn't want them to be without one parent as I had been," she explained. At any rate she and the sergeant decided to call it quits and she returned to America and filed for a divorce. Her next meeting with Vernon came in the summer of 1959 when he returned to his luxurious home at Memphis for a two-month visit before returning to Germany. Mrs. Elliott, chaperoned by one of Elvis' aunts, was a welcome guest at Graceland during part of his stay in this country. By the time this visit ended a real romance had bloomed and their life had been set on a course that would inevitably lead to the altar. In the fall of 1959 they were together again, this time in Germany. Mrs. Elliott flew to Bad Nauheim and spent four months in Europe, much of it spent as a guest of Elvis' grandmother. She was on hand at Washington tw | months later when Elvis made his tri umphant return to America after h:' Army duty in Germany. Vernon, accompanied by his son, me Mrs. Elliott in the Capital, and it was £ j this point that the press spotted her an began to speculate in print about the pos ' sibility of marriage. From then on Dee's life was transformer j from the tranquility of a private existenc to the turmoil of dodging into shadows t< escape the spotlight beamed on the Pres-j ley family. She divided most of her time betweei Huntsville, Alabama, where her brother iJ employed at the Army's missile center! and Graceland. At both points she waJ chased by the curious public and thu more curious press. False reports But her very reluctance to meet witH the press and share the public spotligh; led to many false reports being circulated about her, she says. "They (the newspapers) have even got ] ten my religion wrong," she said. "The\l refer to me as a 'former member of tha Church of Christ.' This is not true. I love] the Church of Christ and I am still arj active member. "There were even reports that I lova wild nightlife, and that's just pure non-1 sense. Both Vernon and I are teetotalers."' she said. "I didn't know any reason that Elvis] shouldn't accept me. I love him just be-] cause he's Vernon's son. I can only pray] that someday he will have learned tcj love me too." And possibly Dee's prayer is being an-j swered more quickly than even she hacfl expected. For soon after the wedding Elvis said. "The reason for me not going is nothing personal. If I went, it would be made intc a big thing — like a personal appearance of mine. I was going, but I got to thinking What I thought was, if they could be married without any clamor, it would be better for all of us. "Daddy's getting married doesn't bothei me one bit. "Daddy was with my mother for 26 long years. He never left her side as far as I know. Now she has passed away and he is all alone. "If he can find happiness in some way, I'm all for him. All of the time he was in Germany with me, he was a miserable unhappy, broken man. "She (Mrs. Presley) seems to be a pretty nice, understanding type of person. She treats me with respect just as shej does Daddy. "She knows she could never be my mother. I only had one mother and that's it. There'll never be another. As long as she understands that, we won't have any trouble. "Daddy has got some pretty horrible letters since this thing came out. But he ismy father and he's all I've got left in the. world. I'll never go against him or stand in his way. "He stood by me all these years and sacrificed things he wanted so that I could have clothes and lunch money to go to school. "I'll stand by him now — right or wrong.'' And that ends the story. On July 16 Vernon and Dee Presley announced their secret wedding, and the world registered shock that Elvis had stayed away. But the world did not know that three thoughtful, loving, considerate people were doing their very best to bring happiness to each other. END Elvis stars in Paramount's G. I. Blues.