“We were like kindred souls right away”: Linda Thompson remembers life with Elvis
‘The King’ liked them young, and as romantic as his songs made him out to be, he definitely moved on quickly.
Elvis Presley’s divorce wasn’t even finalised when he swept pure southern sweetheart Linda Thompson off her feet, and her memories of their relationship gave the world a new picture of Elvis, a man she revealed to love guns and karate.
It was during an in-memoriam interview on Larry King Live in 2002, on the 25th anniversary of Elvis’ death, that songwriter and actress Linda Thompson dove through her memories and shared a rare portrayal of her four-year relationship with the troubled pop star.
The pageant girl had just won Miss Tennessee when she was invited to attend a private movie screening with ‘The King’ and his entourage in Memphis. At just 22, and “a good Southern Baptist girl”, she revealed an initial standoffish behaviour since she believed the star, 13 years her senior, to still be married.
“You know, I grew up in Memphis, and I grew up listening to his music and going to his movies,” she told Larry King, so she was pretty incredulous when he hit her with the “Honey, where have you been all my life” line and pulled the ol’ stretch and yawn move while the movie was playing.
Elvis finally cleared the air, saying, “’Honey, you know I’m not married any more’, to which I responded, ‘No, I didn’t. But, you know, I’m sorry that it didn’t work out for you, but you should have married a Southern girl’.” Her memorable honesty struck a chord with the star, “Because only if you grow up in the South do you understand that culture completely…We were like kindred souls right away”.
The star was bold and called her at four in the morning, the same night they met, to invite her out the next day, and he immediately introduced himself to her father, and flew her out to Vegas to be with him. She passionately described his gentlemanly ways, his southern gallantry, and how his public and private personas often contrasted: “He was a very dichotomous human being, very paradoxical, she said.
“On the one hand, you know, he had this raucous image, and he did have a raucous sense of humour, irreverent sense of humour. But he was very pious on another level and very puritanical”.
This duality couldn’t have been better captured than by his approach to faith: “He also was on a spiritual quest to find out how other people of other faiths lived their lives,” she added.
“And he used to wear an Egyptian ankh, a star of David and a crucifix around his neck. And when people would say are you confused, he would say, ‘No, not at all. I just don’t want to miss heaven on a technicality’,” recalled Thompson, while confirming the star “lived very biblically”, his religious non-monogamy matching his relationship style, which soon became too much for the then-model to bear.
Much like Priscilla Presley, Thompson left her relationship because she wanted a more normal life. In 1976, a few months before Elvis’s death, “after four-and-a-half years of the yo-yo back and forth of other women, up all night, sleeping all day, the drug abuse, you know…I just realised that I probably was never gonna be able to help him the way I wanted to help him,” she offered.
Thompson still maintained a touching relationship with Elvis’ daughter, Lisa Marie Presley, who was the one to call her about his death. Her rare remarks about Elvis don’t hide the respect she still holds for the legend who accompanied her young years, and who wouldn’t.
