Watch CBS News

The Women Who Love Elvis

"He was a magnificent kisser," remembers June Juanico, Elvis Presley's first girlfriend. "He said, 'Who taught you how to kiss?' And I said, 'You know, I was just getting ready to ask you the same thing.'"

June was just 17 years old in Biloxi, Miss., when Elvis swept her off her feet. "It did not get to the heavy petting point," she tells CBS national correspondent Hattie Kauffman. "When you've that attracted to someone and you're kissing them, you know, you just really bite."

But her boyfriend wouldn't be bound by Mississippi: Elvis had the world to conquer, and June wouldn't come along for the ride.

Wanda Jackson was asked to join him on one of his first tours. "I had never heard his name. They weren't playin' his records yet in Oklahoma where I lived," the singer remembers. "So when he came in, well, naturally, I was kinda awed. He was a tall, good-lookin' guy, dressed very sharp."

They couldn't help it. Soon, they were sweethearts. "He just asked me if I'd be his girl. And I said, 'Uh, yeah, sure.' So he took a ring off his finger and asked me to wear it around my neck," Wanda remembers.

But Wanda knew that with so many women ecstatic over him, Elvis might not be faithful.

It was on the set of "Girl Happy" that Elvis met his new co-star, Miss America, Mary Ann Mobley.

"I walked on to the set. Elvis got up and he came to me, and he said, 'Hi, I'm Elvis.' Like I didn't know!" Mary Ann recalls.

She says they did not become boyfriend/girlfriend, which meant they were free to simply have a blast. "The sets were always fun. There was no 'Wait a minute, how do I look?' 'Wait a minute, where's the mirror?' No star drama, no drama at all."

"I would have paid them to go to work," Mary Ann jokes. "I was Princess Shalimar, does that tell you?"

While they didn't have a romance, Mary Ann did get an on-screen kiss from The King. "Oh it was wonderful!" she remembers.

In his later years, Elvis had an off-and-on relationship with one of his backup singers, Kathy Westmoreland. She says he always introduced her as "the little girl with the beautiful high voice."

"But when I turned 30, he said, 'Kathy how old are you today?' '30.' He said, 'Oh my Lord, I'm gonna have to introduce as 'the old women with the beautiful high voice' from now on. But if he could see me now at 62, still talking about," Kathy says.

She still wears the necklace Elvis gave her. She has other souvenirs, too, including some she's not so fond of: the underwear his female fans threw on stage.

"I have a chest of drawers in my storage full of ladies' underwear. I hated it and just put 'em in boxes. Anyway, they're in a drawer," she says.

Despite the screaming, panty-throwing women, and all the girlfriends, Elvis married only once, to Priscilla. They divorced four years before he died. Thirty years later, his sweethearts still pine for the King.

Says Wands: "When you hear him, it just brings back something special in everybody's memory."



Several of Elvis' sweethearts will be at Graceland joining hordes of fans already there to celebrate, 30 years after his death.
View CBS News In
CBS News App Open
Chrome Safari Continue
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.