They were being two of the best stars in the planet in 1956. Elvis was presently a main recording artist and was about to launch a movie job with his debut in Appreciate Me Tender. Natalie experienced already been given her very first Oscar nomination the calendar year before for Rebel Without having A Cause, together with James Dean. Though The King was now acquiring a status for being a ladykiller, it was the teenage woman who pursued him and established up their 1st day.
Natalie questioned her Rebel With no A Lead to co-star Dennis Hopper to introduce her to the 21-yr-old rock and roll star.
She instructed the San Francisco Information: “I noticed his photograph in the paper prior to he obtained quite common and I appreciated his eyes. I imagined then I just experienced to go out with him. He’s truly excellent and the most completely serious boy I’ve ever met. He’s a real pixie and has a wonderful tiny boy excellent. He’s very courteous and polite and so sweet! He’s the nicest boy I know. A excellent dancer – and he sings all the time to me. All the girls in the nation are in love with him – so why need to I be any unique?”
Elvis dazzled the teen by obtaining out an complete cinema on a day, some thing he would continue to do for the rest of his lifestyle.
Like Me Tender was filmed in late summer 1956 and a besotted Natalie had two hand-produced shirts sent to Elvis on-set. They ended up a matching pair, one particular in purple velvet, one in darkish blue velvet. The King can be seen wearing the latter in legendary photographs from his historic concert at the Mississippi-Alabama Fair and Dairy Present on September 26, 1956.
10 many years after leaving his hometown as a boy, Elvis had returned as a enormous star and gave two concert events, sporting the blue shirt for the afternoon show and the pink 1 in the night. Natalie had Hollywood costume seamstresses make them and both shirts bore labels marked the Warner Brothers Studio wardrobe section label, Natalie’s title and the day they had been created, September 1, 1956.
On November 1, Elvis flew dwelling to Memphis soon after filming the Ed Sullivan Television set display in New York.
Natalie travelled to meet him there. Aside from his apparent singing and dancing for her, The King shared just one of his other terrific enjoys and took her driving on his new Harley-Davidson bike.
In the evening they were pictured jointly at a glamorous celebration at the Lodge Chisca. One publication ran a shot of the smiling pair saying it “is just about specified to fracture the hearts of a great number of teenage American ladies.”
Natalie planned to invest some times with Elvis and his family as the start out of a new and probably significant partnership.
Sad to say, one particular lady stood in their way.
Natalie’s sister Lana recalled in her e book Natalie: A Memoir by Her Sister: “They met, and Elvis flew Natalie to his relatives in Memphis. They had been to be long gone almost a week, but just two times into the great experience, Natalie termed. ‘Gladys has wrecked everything,’ Natalie stated, referring to Elvis’ domineering, jealous mom. ‘I never have a likelihood. Get me out of this, and quickly.’
“It was agreed that Mother would call Natalie back and inquire her to appear residence due to the fact of some household crisis. Natalie’s romance with the king of rock fizzled out.
“‘God, it was awful,’ she told me afterwards. “He can sing, but he can not do a lot else.'”
A unique aspect of the photo was painted by Ray Connolly, writer of Being Elvis: A Lonely Lifetime: “Natalie wore a quite flimsy nightgown around the home. Gladys was like, ‘Not in my property!'”
Lana also remembered Natalie describing how Elvis, who had a notoriously close romantic relationship with Gladys, would sit on his mother’s lap: “They have been very affectionate, and it bothered Natalie. She identified as and requested our mom to make up a story about why she experienced to occur household.”
Gladys was also pressuring Elvis to fall Natalie, believing she was a “gold-digger.”
It was all above, and the upcoming time Natalie was requested by the press if points were critical with Elvis, she claimed: “Not right now.”
Their paths pretty much crossed a couple yrs later on when Elvis was offered the guide job of Tony in West Side Story. Seemingly, his supervisor Colonel Parker was not joyful about a tale based on street gangs and so the star politely declined.
Several years afterwards, Natalie’s co-star Rita Moreno discovered her individual affair with Elvis in Rita Moreno: A Memoir: “My delight in dating Elvis hinged entirely on one particular simple fact “I understood that no a person could probably make Marlon Brando much more jealous.”
The actress experienced uncovered women’s underwear at her then-boyfriend’s property and engineered general public dates with Elvis to get her revenge. Brando apparently “threw 3 chairs.”
Moreno mentioned in 2011: “I desired to get even, so I went from one sort of king to yet another. I dated Elvis, who was completely lovely and had a fantastic form of facial area, but was not appealing. It lasted for three days.”