Daily Quote About Elvis: Connie Stevens

Elvis always loved Connie Stevens’ voice. He was a big fan. In one of those “home recordings”, made sitting around in Elvis’ various houses, you can hear him going on and on about an album that his girlfriend Anita Wood was apparently asked to make (this was in the late 50s, right before he shipped out), and you can hear him getting anxious about the material they were going to give to her. He wanted to make sure it was right (“if they’d let ME pick it …”), that they gave her stuff like Connie Stevens’ stuff. This is a transcript of an interview Connie Stevens gave in 2005 about her relationship with Elvis. They dated briefly, and remained friends (a common pattern in Elvis’ life. He never lost anyone, or at least he did his damndest to keep connections alive.) Out in the world, there is barely any evidence that these two were attached. Of course they were connected through their years in Vegas, but there aren’t a million photos of the two of them out and about, on dates, etc. Because Elvis never went out. He stayed at home. He did not circulate in Hollywood. He did not socialize outside of his home. He didn’t go out to dinner and the movies. He didn’t take a girl out for an ice cream soda. If Elvis wanted to date a girl, one of his guys would come pick her up and drive her back to Elvis’ house where there would be, of course, 20 guys all hanging around. That was the date.

The image of her going on tour dates with the group of guys and then telling Elvis she needed to go to mass, and Elvis making sure that happened … hahahaha.

This is a transcript, so some of it may sound awkward, as transcripts do, but it is full of feeling (and some amusing stories).

How did I first meet Elvis? I think he called me is what happened. Joe [Esposito] could tell you more about this than me. I think he called me. He said, “Come on over, we’re having a party.” I didn’t believe it was him at first but it was him, all by himself, on the phone. And so I went to that old Hollywood house there that was a lot of fun. Pool tables, lot of people around. The best was hearing Elvis actually sing. Actually sit there and to become part of that group was – of course, I was such a baby and so naive – my little bow and my crinoline petticoats. So I was wide-eyed, very bewildered for a long time. He made me very comfortable though, and he loved my voice, the sound of my voice, and for the life of me I can’t think of the song – but he had me singing this thing every 5 minutes and he’d say, “Ohhh!” and all the boys would go, “Oh my God, Oh my God!” and he’d say, “Did you hear that? Did you hear that? Do it again, do it again!” He’d play and sing. So those are the nice memories that you harbor in your heart for a long time.

This is the first time I’ve ever talked about Elvis. I think those of us who loved him in a very very special deep meaningful way have refused to talk about him. We let a lot of people who don’t even know him do that, and sit on the sidelines, and the true story of course can be told by the people that were closest to him.

I think I was one of the few girls who said, “I don’t care, I want to go to the movies tonight!” We would mostly – there was a shyness about him … He was almost afraid, in a way. I know this is going to sound very strange, but he was afraid of a large crowd, being there by himself. And so we finally went – he listened to me long enough and we went to Grauman’s Chinese and I thought, “I’ll never put this guy through this again.” I remember Joe giving him some money, putting money in his pocket, and he was nervous as hell. And we went out in the car and he wore his favorite cap and we ran out of gas, too, by the way, and he was just panic-stricken. “Don’t worry, we’ll push this car!” And we pushed the car to the gas station and we missed the beginning of the picture because there were too many people who would recognize him going in, and we missed the end of the picture. I can’t remember the picture. But that’s why I can’t remember it – I didn’t see the beginning, I didn’t see the end – and I thought, “I’ll never put him through this again.” And sure enough we got out, we got into the car, and we were going home, laughing about the whole night, and he went to reach for his favorite cap, and it was gone. So it was typical of people wanting a piece of him all the time. And those of us who didn’t want a piece of him, we wanted a part of his heart, a part of him, even though I didn’t see him for a lot of years, I think we saw each other on and off – maybe about two years. And I never spoke about him. I denied it.

So I think it gave him a comfort level that he knew that there was … I took pride in it, that there was gonna be one girl who had nothing to say but nice things, because I really cared about him. I cared what happened to his life.

Consequently, we reattached many times later. Especially in Las Vegas. I probably have a lot to thank to him because I remember – I just didn’t want to do a lot of the things I was aksed to do at the studio, and I wanted to branch out. My agent at the time, Stan Kamen, world-famous agent, who always had an eye. He would come up to Vegas and he said, “You know, you’ve got to go to Vegas” and I’d say, “Oh, I’d be scared to death” and I think it was because I believed Elvis and he told me, always told me that I had a sound, and that I should just sing, just sing for the people, they just – it’s the sound, the sound of the voice. It gave me the courage, so when somebody else said it in Las Vegas – “Come on, just stand up there on the stage and put a Hawaiian lei around your neck and sing a couple songs and just talk to the people” I trusted that instinct. And of course I worked there for 12, 15, 20 years after that. We would oftentimes cross paths.

You know, you never know what the other person is thinking. All I know is that I would get flowers, I would occasionally speak with him on the phone, and I remember this one incident. I started going with Bill Medley, one of the loves of my life, as well as Elvis at that particular time as the years went by and we were driving around one night and we got to talking about Elvis, how much we really cared, how worried we were about his isolation and so forth. I said, “Let’s go steal him. We’ll put a hat on the guy, we’ll put a mustache if we have to, and you and I will take him to places that had become our haunts at night” cause you can’t go to sleep if you’re performing in Las Vegas, so you find other things to do. And so I called Joe and I said, “Got this crazy idea. Bill and I want to come up” and he goes, “Yeah! That would be great! I’ll sneak you up the back elevator, we won’t say a word until he’s actually there”. We were so excited. I said to Bill, “We got him!” So we made all these plans, we had so many friends who were gonna meet us and surprise him, and we were just gonna hang out at some pizza parlor or something like that, and – like I did with Bobby Darin – until 7 o’clock in the morning, just sit there and talk about our lives and talk about where we had come from, and how we were gonna watch out for our families – because we all grew up together.

We went up there and there was the usual thousand people there. And we waited around and I’ll never forget Elvis’ face. He walked in the room, cause Joe had said, “Hey, Connie’s here’ and he walked out and he was smiling and he saw Bill, he saw me, and for a split second he went, “Wait a minute … This is kind of my territory” and then he went, [does Elvis gesturing at her and Bill being together] “No. This is good. This is really good, you guys. Wow. That’s perfect.” And so we told him what we wanted to do and he said, “Wow, that’d be great! This is gonna be fun!”

He never went. By the time the karate started and the thousand people just trying to get a piece of him … It was our night, too, and we were in love at the time, and we said, “We’ll see ya, babe, we love you” and he said, “I love you guys. I love you guys.” And I never saw him again.

That was pretty late in the game.

He had a strange fear and I don’t know what that fear was. He had a fear. In the lifespan of things, maybe it was because … I think that Elvis’ gift, outside of his great talent, was his purpose of intent. Or his intent of purpose. Intent of purpose. If he were talking to you, he was really talking to you. If we were singing a song, we just didn’t pass it by and somebody could get his attention. He would just lock into whatever he was doing. If he were giving a kiss, he did that with that kind of intensity. I think that he was afraid, in a strange way – I’ve analyzed this over the years – but maybe, I don’t know, maybe his daughter or Joe could tell you, but maybe it was that he couldn’t do it with everybody, and that his honest nature was “That’s too many for me to take on at once.” I don’t know.

Because I’ll tell you one thing. This is really funny. I was married twice. Several guys in my life that might as well have been marriages, but my dad – his choice for me was Elvis. And he always said, “That is the boy that you had the most in common with. And you don’t even know it.” I remember him going to the house, and my father would be out there watering the yard, and I’d be gathering up things and next thing I know we were an extra hour because he’d be out there with my dad, just talking about life, talking about stuff, whatever they were talking about. My father was a musician so of course they had that to talk about. And the last time I think my dad saw him before we ended our relationship – he used to tell Elvis, “That hat looks so great on you.” He’d say, “Wear it in the movies!” Elvis would laugh, “I can’t wear this hat in the movies!” It was a pea cap. “I’ll look like a jerk!” And so as we were walking out the driveway, Elvis went over and put it on my dad’s head and he says, “You look just as good in that, Teddy.” It was really cute. Whatever they talked about, they really clicked on another level than “Hey, I’m taking your daughter out.” And I think that that’s the way he was. And those of us who knew him well will tell you that. I mean, he was intense. He had such a curiosity about the world, about religion. I was a Catholic girl with the patent leather shoes and I would go away with these guys, this troupe, and I’d say, “Elvis, I have to go to mass on Sunday.” And Elvis would say, “Well, okay.” And Lamar was assigned to me to take me to mass. He’d wait outside. And then I’d go to mass and then Elvis’d say, “Did you pray for me?” I’d say, “Yeah, I prayed for you. I prayed for all you guys.”

And I found that their camaraderie was special, that it was genuine. They appreciated not only him or what he could do for them. They loved the crap out of him. They loved him. He was a guy’s guy. And he could laugh with the best of them, he could spar with the best of them, joke with the best of them, drive with the best of them, play football. The guys used to play football on my street in the little park. I used to think it was because I lived around there, but probably not.

He was just so intense about living his life. So that when he lost his life, I don’t think I’ve ever gotten over it. I miss him. I miss him in the world, even though I didn’t see him that much. Because I always wanted the best for him, and he was an Upper. He was an Upper to me. He never forgot that you had two children or what their names were, or where you worked last, or what you did last. He saw what you did, he was a purposeful young man in every way.

He had a freshness and such an aliveness because of his passion. His passion for life withstood so many bad lines because he was saying it for real, and you can’t deny that. A lot of actors who – when you watch those old films – I mean, we are saying some stuff that … people laugh at today … but if you said it with purpose and with passion and belief, they believed you somehow.

I’m not an expert on Elvis’ life. I was a bystander that really loved him and have always.

I think he was the handsomest guy I had ever seen. I mean, it is a tossup. Now Bobby Conrad will kill me if he hears this because he was pretty hot himself. But he was just so beautiful, and he had eyes – mischievous eyes that darted around the room. So he had the facility of talking to you but if he darted one way or the other, that person was included, big-time. He could grab them all in at the same time, and I noticed that right away. I was riveted like everybody else.

So when he called me, that’s why I didn’t believe it at first. Then I was glad I went.

I love “Love Me Tender”, I love some of the gospel things. As I recall, one of his favorite singers was from the Ink Spots, and one thing that he did tell me – he just loved the sound of somebody’s voice that could get a bass timbre. I remember later on through the years – Eddie Fisher by no means was a favorite singer – but one of the things that Elvis did say to me once was, “He’s got a real beautiful bottom to his voice. He should use it more.” This is like 20 years later or so and for Elvis to pick that up and to still be talking about that – I thought that was very interesting.

I was playing at The Flamingo. You know, I was under contract to The Hilton as well for about 9 years, so I was only home 8 weeks a year. That gives you an idea, at that particular time. And I hit like a meteorite in Las Vegas. I was there a lot. I had a popular show, changed it all the time, and Bill was also under contract – the Righteous Brothers, they were in the Lounge. And for some reason, it always seemed that they would book us all at the same time. I had a feeling later that we were of a certain group, that they knew could capture you one way or the other, because if you were going to the Hilton Organizations, those were the hot shows. And the few times that I was loaned out, same thing: I would get flowers, “How you doing?” or a phone call. We’d touch base.

And then it became infrequent. I was sorry about that and didn’t know why, because our lives just spread apart, but you know, our daughters are just a few days apart, which is kind of ironic. [They’re actually a couple months apart. Ah, memory.] I don’t even know if a lot of people know this, but the girls used to go to the same baby park, where the nannies would sit there and talk while we were sleeping till noon after working til 2, 3 o’clock in the morning. And they looked very very much alike when they were little tiny babies. And one time, Elvis’ nanny picked up Joely to take her home! And mine went running, “Wait, wait, you’ve got the wrong one.” So one of these days I think Joely and Lisa Marie should get together. I think they’re just two days apart.

That’s another thing we had in common, seeing the baby, and seeing him happy for a while, was important, cause I was as well. It was like Our Team. You know, when you are devoted and you have something in common like that, you always root for each other. And I would hope that he felt the same for me.

He was very special, and one of the things I knew instinctively was that he was on his way to somewhere that he probably couldn’t be captured, and shouldn’t be captured, because he was so special that he needed to be in the world, and that I was just one of many that were going to come along to love him. He was a purposeful young man, he really wanted to entertain the world, and he was at a time – the timing was right – he was innocent in a way. Blossoming innocence, and he was yet to achieve what I think his full potential was, frankly, as a human being. And frankly, I’m sure Bill and I have talked about this many times: I, for one, am sorry that I didn’t reach out more, because I think at the end of where his life ended was when we should have been there more. And I’ve often regretted that, but as what happens with a very big star – you have a tendency to think that they’re okay, they’re surrounded – which he was most of the time – But instinctively we all feel we should have been there a little bit more for him.

He was one of the loves of my life. I could have spent a lifetime with him. I knew it was never to be so I was content to have that, and that’s probably why I haven’t spoken, because I was content to have that little part in his heart that was real, when there were just so many.

It was just interesting that my dad said, “That was the one.” I said, “Oh, get outta here, you just loved his cap.” And he was very upset about that, he said, “No. That was a man’s man.” And that, from my father, who was the biggest influence of my life, the handsomest, the most charismatic man, besides Elvis, and the few that I have met in a lifetime – I know charisma when I see it – and my father had it, a great deal of it. For him to say that, it made an impression on me. So I’ve often thought, “Oh gosh, I should have just reached out a little bit more, and just been a part …”

Because we all know nothing is forever anyway, except true friendship.