Chapter Eight - Marriage and Divorce
From 1977 book My Life with Elvis
By Becky Yancey

Becky Yancey was the private secretary of Elvis for nearly thirteen years and a friend of Priscilla for many years. Her firsthand account of events comes accross as an interesting and credible source. In this excerpt we get the perspective of a real insider, what really went wrong between Priscilla and Elvis.

Elvis's Graceland family is good at keeping secrets, but no secrets were kept any better than plans for his marriage to Priscilla.

Priscilla had been Elvis's girl for one third of her life, including the nearly five years she lived with him at Graceland. Some people thought they might never marry. Many Elvis watchers were not even aware in 1967 that Priscilla was still at Graceland.

But a surprise announcement on May 1 made the world very much aware that "Cilla" (Elvis's pet name for her) was still very much his best girl.

Priscilla Beaulieu had become Mrs. Elvis Presley in a double-ring ceremony at the Las Vegas Aladdin Hotel.

I was one of the few--even at Graceland--who weren't caught by surprise. I had typed the abbreviated guest list of fourteen people a couple of days earlier. I later wrote a check for nearly four thousand dollars for Priscilla's ring--a three-karat diamond surrounded by twenty smaller diamonds.

Elvis bought the ring from Harry Levitch. Levitch and his wife, Frances, flew the ring to Las Vegas and were in the wedding party.

The Levitches were in select company. Joe Esposito and Marty Lacker, who did Elvis's accounting work, were dual best men at the ceremony. Gee Gee and Patsy Gambill and George Klein and his future wife, Barbara Little, were also there. Most of the Memphis Mafia and their wives or girlfriends were conspicuously absent. They hadn't been invited.

They were some of Elvis's closest friends, and their feelings were hurt. Alan Fortas telephoned me five times on the day Graceland officially learned about the wedding.

"I just don't know why Elvis didn't tell me, why he didn't invite me," Alan groused. "I should have been at the wedding. I'm one of his best friends."

I didn't feel slighted because I wasn't invited. I realized that Elvis couldn't fly everyone to the wedding and couldn't make a big announcement beforehand. His wedding would have become a circus. And there were other reasons why the boys weren't invited, which I'll go into later.

The plans were so secret that Priscilla's parents didn't even tell her youngest brothers, Jeffrey, eight, and twins Tommy and Timmy, five.

Priscilla later said Elvis was disappointed that Grandma couldn't be at the wedding. He had always promised her, "Grandma, when I get married you'll be there." But when he offered to have her flown to Las Vegas, the seventy-six-year-old lady wasn't up to making the trip. Grandma cried about it.

Elvis flew Priscilla's parents and her sister, Michelle, thirteen, and brother Donny, seventeen, from Major Beaulieu's new post at Fort Ord, California, to Palm Springs, where Colonel Parker has a home, two days before the wedding. The youngest boys stayed at home with a maid. "Their flight was a wedding present from Elvis," Priscilla said. "I think Mother was happy to get out of the house for a few days. One of my brothers had just gotten out of the hospital, the washing machine went out, and the plumbing wasn't working right when they left home.

"Of course they were happy for me. They were starting to wonder, because Elvis and I had been dating for years."

How did Elvis propose? "It was very relaxed," Priscilla said. "He just told me about the ring one day and asked if I wanted to marry him. 'More than ever,' I told him."

Although not quite as simple as the proposal, the wedding was relatively uncomplicated and modest, considering who the bride and groom were.

Holding off the rush of newsmen and fans as long as possible, they signed for their license around three-thirty on the morning of the wedding, in the Clark County, Nevada, Clerk's office.

At 9:41 a.m., in the private suite of Milton Prell, the principal owner of the hotel and an old friend of Colonel Parker's, Judge David Zenoff, justice of the Nevada Supreme Court, began reading the marriage ceremony.

The thirty-year-old groom, wearing a black brocaded coat and vest and dark pants; and his twenty-year-old bride, in a traditional white wedding gown, promised to "love, honor and comfort" each other. Priscilla did not use the word obey. Eight minutes after the ceremony began it was concluded.

Michelle was her older sister's maid of honor when Elvis slipped the ring on Priscilla's finger. Priscilla gave a plain gold band to Elvis. He later lost the ring on the grounds at Graceland and it was never recovered.

Elvis and Priscilla cut a six-tiered wedding cake. Decorated with red and pink hearts studded with pearls, it had been finished only minutes before the ceremony.

As they sat down later with more than eighty guests at a champagne breakfast and reception featuring everything from oysters Rockefeller and suckling pig to southern fried chicken, a band played "Love Me Tender" and other songs Elvis had made famous. Colonel Parker hosted the event, and for once the press was welcome.

Priscilla bought her wedding gown in California for about three hundred dollars. She laughed later about stories in fan and gossip magazines that said she had designed the dress.

She didn't, although she had a few alterations made, such as adding a six-foot train. The gown was made of plain white organza, trimmed in seed pearls, with lace sleeves. A double-tiered crown of rhinestones held a three-quarter-length tulle veil.

After the wedding they flew back to Hollywood. There Elvis spent two days finishing work on a film before he and Priscilla returned to Memphis.

They had a reception for their friends, relatives, and employees on returning to Graceland. It helped ease some but not all the hurt feelings among those who had not been invited to the wedding.

The new bride and groom wore their wedding finery and had a new cake to cut. There was a formal receiving line. Tony Barrasso, an accordion player from the Memphis area, circulated among the crowd playing requests and a band provided dance music. It was no surprise that many of the gifts opened at the reception were silver.

A huge buffet was provided by Monte's Catering Service, and butlers roamed the Blue Room (which later became the trophy room), refilling glasses with champagne before they could become half-empty. At one time I was in a group of about a dozen people who were standing at the bar talking, and each of us had his or her own bottle of champagne.

Guests arriving for the shindig drove past hundreds of adoring fans at the gate and up the torch-lit drive to the front door, where men were waiting to park the cars.

If there was anyone who didn't have a good time, it must have been Elvis. He was obviously finding it hard to loosen up.

Although he was surrounded by his closest friends and his family, many people had been invited for business or professional reasons. The gathering wasn't restricted to Elvis's usual comfortable crowd, and his actions showed it. Elvis drinks an occasional rum and coke, but I didn't see a drink in his hand all night. He just walked around or sat on a sofa looking as though he couldn't wait for the party to end.

Priscilla was her usual vibrant self. "You look beautiful, Priscilla," I said as I approached her in the receiving line.

"You think this is beautiful," she laughed, raising a glass of champagne. "Wait until I've had a couple more of these." But she probably didn't have two more drinks. Like Elvis, Priscilla is a conservative drinker.

We paid for the night of fun on the next day. Although almost everyone showed up for work, hardly anyone got anything done. When Mr. Presley finally wandered into the office, his eyes were sunken and red-rimmed. He was pale. He said he had fallen asleep in the bathroom.

I didn't know that you're not supposed to drink water after drinking too much champagne. So I drank about half a gallon before someone mentioned it to me. By then it was too late. I sat around the rest of the day feeling bad until Jerry picked me up at quitting time.

Dee and a friend, Mrs. Charles E. Kyle, gave a shower for Priscilla at a Memphis restaurant a few days later, and she received presents about like those that any other bride would receive. I gave her Corningware.

At the reception in Las Vegas, Prell had given Elvis and Priscilla expensive white-gold watches with diamonds in the faces. After the divorce, Priscilla mailed hers to Patsy Gambill as a gift.

Fans mailed thousands of gifts and cards to Elvis and Priscilla. Priscilla asked the secretaries to keep all the cards because she was going to paste them in a scrapbook. They were still sitting in a cardboard box in the office when Priscilla and Elvis were divorced.

Many of the gifts mailed by fans were taken inside the house and used. Others were given away.

Some people around Elvis were worried that the marriage would damage his swinging image. There was no need to worry.

Many of Elvis's female fans are married and have children or grandchildren. They were thrilled when Elvis married. And most of his teen-aged followers were understanding. Priscilla was barely out of her teens herself, and as Elvis's young wife she was someone with whom many of the young girls could identify.

We received letters from many of the girls pledging their continued loyalty to Elvis and condemning any fans who deserted him now that he was a married man.

There were a few, of course, who reacted less gracefully to Elvis's marriage.

On May I when it was learned that Elvis and Priscilla were married, the telephone lines at Graceland were jammed with calls from the news media and fans.

Most fans just wanted to talk about Elvis's marriage to someone at Graceland for a few minutes. Quite a few cried over the telephone, even some of the men. It was an emotional time.

One girl was screaming and bawling when she called. She was so hysterical that it was a couple of minutes before I could understand her. I knew, of course, what she was upset about, but I didn't know what to do when she screeched that she was going to commit suicide.

"I'm going to kill myself," she bellowed. "If I can't have Elvis, I don't want to live. I'm going into the bathroom and slash my wrists."

I finally calmed her down enough so that she would listen to me.

"You really love Elvis so much that you're going to kill yourself?" I asked.

"Yes. I do. I love Elvis and I'm going to kill myself," she blubbered.

"Well, if you love someone, you want them to be happy, don't you?"

"Yes," she sniffled after a moment. The weeping had begun to subside to soft whimpers.

"Well honey, that's why Elvis got married--so he can be happy," I said. There was a short silence. My God, I thought, I'm getting through to her. I think it's going to work. Then I jerked the receiver away from my ear as she wailed:

"But I want him to be happy with me!"

The girl finally agreed that it wouldn't be an act of love to saddle Elvis with a suicide on his conscience. She said she would try to carry on, but she would never marry.

An older woman who called was less easy to sympathize with.

Her voice dripped poison as she snarled, "He would have never married that woman if she hadn't let him get her pregnant."

"You have a nasty mind. Elvis doesn't need fans like you," I said, and hung up.

When Priscilla returned to Graceland as Elvis's wife she was the mistress of the mansion. It wasn't long before the intensely masculine surroundings that had for so many years characterized Graceland began to show a feminine touch.

Priscilla was careful, however, to do her redecorating with consideration for the tastes of her famous husband. As much as possible she worked around favorite pieces of Elvis's and incorporated his things into her over-all decorating. The house had been cluttered with all sorts of little trinkets, things that Elvis had bought and presents from fans. The Presley clan doesn't like to throw things away.

One of the most incongruous touches was the dainty crocheted doilies, lovingly knitted by fans, mailed to Elvis and placed on tables by the maids. They were out of place among the expensive, masculine furnishings.

Priscilla got rid of the doilies and the mismatched ash trays and table lamps. She gave away boxes of knick-knacks and cleared the attic of junk that had been stored there for years.

She was still a teen-ager when she told me one day that a wife should never overlook her husband's tastes when decorating, especially when doing the bedroom. "The bedroom for a husband and wife should never be too feminine. It's better for it to be more masculine," she said. "It's important to please the man. Elvis would never be happy with anything pink and lacy," she said. "And I couldn't be happy living with him if he's not happy."

When she was changing the decor at Graceland, Priscilla didn't depend on exclusive shops or put everything into the hands of any of the several fine decorators doing business in Memphis.

The blue drapes for the living room and dining room were bought at the Sears Roebuck and Company store in Memphis. She made selections from the same furniture stores that employees shopped at. A chair she picked out for $125 was a twin to the chair Jerry and I had purchased for our home. She wasn't extravagant with her decorating, yet her taste was good. Her decorating style was traditional. At Priscilla's direction, china cabinets were bought for the dining room to hold their silver.

The kitchen was carpeted, new cabinets were built, and a new stove--a gift from Mr. Presley--was installed. Priscilla picked out half a dozen pictures of food and cooking utensils, a new clock, and other smaller items to give the kitchen a more homey look.

Her dressing room and bath were done in both pale and deep pink.

Priscilla was reasonably cost conscious in decorating Graceland, but she loosened up when she undertook the job of beautifying their homes in California.

At the time of his marriage, Elvis had the homes at Graceland, the ranch in Mississippi, and his house at 1174 Hillcrest in Trousdale Estates near Los Angeles. Soon after the marriage they moved from the Trousdale Estates home to a luxurious new house at 144 Monovale in Holmby Hills.

Elvis paid $400,000 for the fashionable home, and they rapidly invested another $200,000 in decorating and furnishings.

Elvis had several homes at various times, and those that Priscilla shared with him were filled with antiques, which she developed a love for. In California, Priscilla had help from professional decorators.

Of course, she had domestic help in California as well as in Memphis. Although she cooked a few favorite dishes for Elvis and fixed his breakfast now and then, she usually let the maids do the cooking. She was satisfied with planning the menus.

A few days after the reception at Graceland, Elvis and Priscilla flew to Palm Springs in California.

Elvis had just finished making Double Trouble, with John Williams and Yvonne Romaine, and had to return to the West Coast to begin work on Clambake, with Shelley Fabares. Much of the new film was shot on location.

Consequently, the first days of Elvis's and Priscilla's married life were not that much different from the years they had been dating. The only difference was that this time Priscilla was sitting at home in California waiting for Elvis instead of in Memphis.

But she didn't complain. She was used to Elvis's home-again, gone-again routine.

"Sure, I wanted to go with Elvis when he would leave for location to work on a new movie or go on the road for a series of performances," she admitted to me one day. "But I understood that I had to make adjustments. Elvis had to learn to live with his work, and so did I."

It's true that Elvis was away from Priscilla for long periods, but there were other times when they lounged and played together for days at a time.

They were like honeymooners when Elvis was home. They would ride out to the pool on golf carts to sunbathe, and the maids would follow with soft drinks and a telephone. They sometimes talked baby talk to each other when they didn't notice someone else was around.

At other times they vacationed in fun-spots like Hawaii, the Bahamas, and Aspen, Colorado.

The Bahamas trip was a last-minute decision; they already had passports for an excursion to Europe when they changed their minds. Priscilla laughed about the Bahamas trip when she told us that Elvis was almost turned away from a posh gambling casino there because of improper attire before someone recognized him and loaned him a necktie.

It was probably on the trips that the first signs of strain began to show in the marriage.

The guys and their wives went with Elvis and Priscilla on vacations. Elvis, as usual, paid the bills and bought whatever equipment was needed, such as skiing gear for Aspen.

Priscilla complained more than once in my presence that she didn't get to spend any time alone with Elvis. "Somebody's always there, everywhere we go," she grumbled. "A bunch of guys and their wives are always around. We never have any privacy."

I was having coffee in the den one morning not long after that, when Priscilla walked in to get a cup of tea. As she dipped the teabag into the boiling water, she turned to look at me and said, "After Elvis finishes filming Blue Hawaii, he's going to rent a bungalow with a private beach so we can have a vacation." She smiled. "Just the two of us."

It would be the first time since their marriage, she added, that she would be alone for more than a few hours with her husband.

Elvis and Priscilla went to Hawaii. So did the boys and their wives. There were about a dozen people. Priscilla's cozy little family holiday was spoiled.

I didn't see her for a few weeks after they returned, but I heard from others that she had been upset and had quarrelled with Elvis about it. Soon afterward the guys and their wives started moving out and getting their own apartments.

Eventually only Joe Esposito--whose wife, Joanie, was one of Priscilla's closest friends--Charlie Hodge, and one or two others were left. Both Joe and Charlie met Elvis in the Army and they had been with him as long as any of the Memphis Mafia. Joe is one of the brightest, hardest-working members of Elvis's circle of guys. Charlie is from Decatur, Alabama. He was Elvis's shadow on stage and off when they are on tour. He blew Elvis's hair dry before performances; and during performances it was he who handed Elvis the scarves that were tossed to fans. Charlie saw to it that Elvis had water when he was performing, and he clowned around during the breaks in the music.

The guys were shifted to the sidelines and it seemed at last that Priscilla had taken a permanent place as the focus of Elvis's home life.

It was obvious that some of the guys and their wives blamed Priscilla for causing them to lose their meal-ticket buddy. Several were still smarting over the snub at the wedding.

They didn't have to feel defeated long. Elvis began bringing the guys back, one by one. Soon the old crowd was around, and although a few of Elvis's older buddies were missing, there were new faces to take their place. Alan Fortas didn't come back to work for Elvis after the ranch was sold, and is now in business for himself in Memphis. He and Elvis remained good friends.

There were other strains on the marriage, problems that are typical and all too familiar to celebrity families.

Like other famous Hollywood stars and entertainers before him, Elvis was finally slapped with a paternity suit. He beat it, and Priscilla stood beside him, but it couldn't have been a happy time for either of them. More about the suit later.

As early as 1969 the movie magazines and gossip columns were printing stories that Elvis and Priscilla were splitting up or had already secretly separated.

Every time that Elvis was seen with another woman, whether it was an actress he was co-starring with, a business associate or a friend, the rumors would start about another love in his life. It just wasn't true.

Girlfriends for Elvis and boyfriends for Priscilla didn't show up until the marriage had already begun faltering.

The total lack of privacy that destroyed any chance for true emotional intimacy between husband and wife was one factor in the weakening of the marriage. And Priscilla needed companionship to make up for the days and weeks when Elvis was away. Although she made friends easily enough, she and Elvis never moved with the Hollywood crowd. Their friends were his buddies from back home and their wives or girlfriends. Priscilla was sometimes very lonely.

In the office one day she was idly thumbing through fan mail. But she wasn't looking at the letters and pictures. I could tell something was bothering her. Finally she looked up at me, the fingers of one hand still toying with the stacked letters: "Do you know, Becky," she said, "marriage seems to change everything. People seem to forget about the other person's needs after they've been married for a while. They don't do things because they want to any more, or because its fun, but because they have to or they're expected to. Elvis and I were so happy together before we got married. It's more fun being a girlfriend than a wife."

I didn't know what to say. I just stammered something about marriage being the way it was supposed to be when two people were in love,

Priscilla didn't seem to be listening. She continued shuffling through the letters, a faraway look in her eyes.

Priscilla was developing a need to become an individual in her own right. She enjoyed being photographed and being the center of attention. But she wanted to be more than an extension of Elvis and a rich ornament. She wanted to be important.

Mike Stone made her feel important.