A Little Thing Called Life

by Linda Thompson

  “Watch me,” I said.

  My clothes were packed. My suitcase was at the ready. Now I just had to muster all of my strength and self-possession and leave the man I loved.

  “I told you, you can’t leave,” he said, growing agitated. “You can’t leave me. I love you. I didn’t kiss her, she kissed me.”

  When I didn’t immediately capitulate, and he realized from my demeanor that I might really leave him, he snapped. He pushed me in the direction away from the door. My suitcase was behind me, and I tripped over it onto the floor, landing on my backside. I wasn’t physically hurt, but I started crying, my sobbing audible and cathartic. Elvis stood there, momentarily stunned that he had pushed me down, I think. Then he began studying me. A bemused look overtook his expression, and then he started laughing.

  “Why are you laughing?” I choked out through my tears. “I’m really mad. I’m crying here! Why are you laughing at me?”

  “Honey, you just don’t have a face meant for crying,” he said. “Your beautiful face is always smiling, so when you cry, your little eyes get all red and swollen.”

  “That just hurts my feelings even more,” I said.

  “Look at your little face,” he said. “Go look in the mirror when you’re crying. You look comical. Your little eyes get swollen and red like little pitiful pig eyes, and you get this red runny nose. C’mere, baby.”

  He sat right down on the floor with me and started petting me, teasingly, and loving me. Even though I didn’t want to be won over so easily, I couldn’t help myself. He snapped me right out of my anger. Just like that, I almost forgot why I was mad in the first place. Almost.

  “Look, I was half-asleep,” he said, his voice gentle now. “More than half-asleep—hell, I was out of it. I didn’t even realize what was going on, honey. She was kissing me. I’m sorry. Honey, I’m so sorry. Keep your bag packed. We’re leaving for tour in the afternoon, and I want you with me.”

  When we got on the plane later that day, I remember going straight back to our queen-sized bed in the back of the plane, getting undressed to rest, and Elvis holding me, spooning, and repeating, “I’m so sorry, Ariadne. I love you so much.” That is a particularly sweet memory. One thing I can say about Elvis is that he never hesitated to apologize to me when he felt he was wrong. Not everyone finds apologizing so easy to do.

  Still, the painful realization that had been growing within me for more than a year had finally arrived: My fairy tale was ending. (I’d even encouraged Elvis to perform and record the Pointer Sisters’ song “Fairytale” in 1975 because it perfectly captured my disillusionment.) While I’d been unhappy for quite a while, this transgression showed that I was no longer able to ignore it. No matter how much I loved Elvis, I did not want this existence to be forever. In the beginning, as we all have a tendency to believe, I’d thought that love would conquer all, but now a new thought occurred to me—maybe we sometimes have to choose ourselves over love.

  I really felt like I was withering; that, like Elvis, I was dying a slow death. While he was destroying his physical body, it was also killing my spirit. I was fighting a losing battle against Elvis’s drug use. Time and again, I had seen him go to the hospital and clean up, only to come out and return to his previous level of pill consumption within no time at all.

  Much as I had when I’d left Elvis for a few hours during his “sleep” diet, I found myself thinking about who I was away from him, about who that person was and who I wanted her to be. More than anything else, she had her own intuition, intelligence, and clarity of vision that allowed her to make up her own mind, even when it differed from Elvis’s drug-distorted reality. She had great strength and resilience. And she had an incredible amount of love to give, enough to not only nurture her future husband, but also her children, and in return for this love, she deserved respect and fidelity. I thought about my four years in college—I knew I was capable of, and honestly deserving of, so much more. I began to crave broader horizons for myself. It dawned on me that I had to want more for my own future, rather than allowing my relationship with Elvis to define the parameters of my world.

  And when I looked at all the pieces of myself that I had given up on Elvis’s behalf, increasingly I saw that staying with him would demand a sacrifice that I was unwilling to make. I’d always known I wanted to be a mother, but I could not bring a baby into my life with Elvis. When I was with him, I had to be up all night, watching Elvis, which meant sleeping during the day. What would happen to my child while I slept? It struck me that, really, he was like my baby. His hours, and his attitudes, didn’t promote the healthiest situation for marriage, and certainly not for motherhood. As much as I loved him, I knew I wanted more—and motherhood was just the start.

  So I consciously began weaning myself off Elvis, figuring out how to leave. He was addicted to drugs, and I was addicted to him. I couldn’t bear to rip the Band-Aid away all at once. Not when I still had a heart full of dreams leftover from the beginning of our romance, when we’d spoken often about marrying and having a family together someday. And so I decided to take baby steps away and exert more control over my own life and schedule. I began spending small increments of time away from him. I knew we both needed an opportunity to prepare for life apart.

  One night during one of the 1976 tours, I accompanied Elvis back to our hotel suite, as usual, after he was done performing. But rather than wanting to kiss and cuddle or watch TV, he was feeling tired and decided to take his sleeping pills right away. I’d become very accustomed to entertaining myself while Elvis slept, keeping an eye on him while I read or wrote poetry. But on this night, I found myself growing restless. Finally, I approached the bed and leaned down over Elvis’s face, perfect in its repose. I reassured myself that he was sleeping peacefully and would not wake up for hours. Then I dared to slip out of the room, telling myself that it would be okay because I would be nearby and would come back to check on him. I actually wandered down to the hotel bar, where some of the guys in the band and entourage were unwinding. The guys were surprised and happy to see me “out of my cage.” It felt so strange not to be monitoring Elvis’s every breath, so I didn’t stay long. I didn’t really drink anyway, but that Diet Coke tasted like a little bit of freedom.

  On another tour that year, this time in El Paso, Texas, I woke up before Elvis, as usual, but on this swelteringly hot day I did something remarkable: I went down to the hotel pool in the daytime. As I walked around the concrete patio to where the guys sat drinking beer, the sun was hot on my skin. I turned my face up to the sky, luxuriating in the warmth. I was very aware of how alive I felt, with an extraordinary lightness of step. I felt like I was playing hooky from the darkened bedroom where I normally would have been sequestered, even on such an inviting afternoon.

  I pulled up a patio chair and joined the band members, whose beer bottles dripped with condensation in the heat-soaked air.

  “She’s alive in the daytime,” David Briggs, Elvis’s keyboard player, joked.

  “That I am,” I said. “And it feels good.”

  After a while, the temperature became almost too much for me, and I found myself feeling parched, but there was nothing to drink down by the pool but beer.

  “I think I’ll try one of those,” I said, pointing to the bottles in the ice bucket.

  “Watch out, she’s joining the band,” David joked, handing me a beer.

  I never drank, but the cold bottle felt good in my hand. I took a curious sip.

  “Ugh, it doesn’t taste good, but it’s cold and wet,” I said.

  David, bass player Jerry Scheff, and the other guys laughed when they saw the look on my face. I never quite acquired a taste for the bitter brew, but I drank down that entire beer. I do believe it was the only time in my life I’ve ever had a whole beer.

  What a fun afternoon that was in El Paso. I felt so alive and energized, being outside in the sunshine. I realized how much I had missed being able to call my own shots and assert my own independence. It
dawned on me that I had missed something as simple as daylight. I actually enjoyed the company of these other guys. Their lifestyle was seemingly more normal than that which I had become accustomed to. I even found myself somewhat inexplicably attracted to David Briggs, with whom I’d forged a friendship. David was the antithesis of Elvis in many ways. I found his laid-back humor and attitude refreshing. He made me laugh, which I needed at the time.

  Being out in the sunshine reinforced the decision to leave. There is life after Elvis Presley, I thought. It was a bittersweet realization. I wasn’t going to fool myself into thinking I could ever feel that same way about anyone ever again in my life, but I’d be able to live life on my terms. Since the day we met, Elvis had occupied every corner of my heart, so it came as something of a relief when it finally dawned on me that I really could go on. For the first time in four years, I began to understand how much in life I had to look forward to.

  As I imagined life without Elvis, I knew I needed to start my own career, so I exhumed my longtime dream of being an actress. I’d planted the seed for spending more time in Los Angeles to pursue my own projects the previous year, when Elvis was in the process of selling his Monovale home. Elvis had always been very supportive and appreciative of my talent as a comedic actress, and he was happy to hear that I felt ready to begin going on some auditions.

  “I think maybe I’ll rent a place in L.A., just for when I’m coming out to read for parts, instead of staying in a hotel,” I said.

  “Yeah, why don’t you do that?” he said. “Rent an apartment, and then when I need to come out, we’ll have a little place to stay.”

  The first place I rented was on Holman Avenue in West Los Angeles, near the Mormons’ Los Angeles Temple. It was a fairly spacious two-bedroom apartment, which was quite modest compared to what Elvis was accustomed to, but he had no problem staying there with me and even helped me to make it homey.

  “Let me give you some furniture,” he said. “I’ve got all this stuff in storage. Let’s put it in your apartment.”

  So he and I had a variety of items taken out of storage. Of course, the furniture from his luxurious Holmby Hills mansion was too big for my little apartment, but we made it work. And then, when the lease was up after the first year, I rented another place around the corner on Eastborne Avenue. Elvis had me outfit both apartments especially for him and his needs, putting foil and a black velvet bedspread over the bedroom windows and sliding glass door to completely block out any light, and stayed with me at both locations several times.

  “I’d really like to start doing some television,” I had declared to Elvis as I began to make my bid for independence from him.

  “Well, if you want to do that, you should meet Aaron Spelling,” Elvis said. “He’s producing every good show on TV.”

  And it was true. At the time, Aaron Spelling was doing Starsky & Hutch and was just about to cast Charlie’s Angels before going on to produce all kinds of hits, from Love Boat and Dynasty to Beverly Hills 90210. Elvis had actually met him taking the train cross-country to L.A. He called about getting me in to see Aaron Spelling, which meant that the meeting happened right away.

  I flew out to Los Angeles, staying at my apartment on Eastborne Avenue, to meet with Spelling, who was very encouraging and gracious to me.

  “I’m doing this show called Charlie’s Angels,” he said. “Let me set you up for an audition.”

  Now, I didn’t even have a Screen Actors Guild (SAG) card, but I ended up testing for Charlie’s Angels because Aaron Spelling had recommended me to his casting agents. I was such a novice that I didn’t really understand what a significant opportunity this was, and so I didn’t have enough sense to be nervous. The day of the audition, I wore this beautiful black leather Gucci pantsuit Elvis had bought for me, which I still have. It was made up of black leather pants and a black leather jacket, all with red piping along the edges. I was super skinny, so it fit me perfectly. Dressed like a rock star, I strolled in like it was no big deal.

  Of course, looking back, I have a good laugh when I imagine the ABC executives catching sight of this Southern bumpkin in her black leather outfit, and them thinking: What is she doing here? Who is that anyhow? Who’s her agent? She doesn’t have an agent. What?

  I didn’t get the part, of course, because a big network show couldn’t take a chance with an unknown actress who didn’t even have a union card. But Aaron Spelling sent a message around to all of his casting people that he had a new girl in town, Linda Thompson, and to please consider her in whatever came up next.

  Sure enough, Spelling came through and I got my first role on his show The Rookies, which was enough to launch me on my way in Hollywood. I got my SAG card and started doing a bit of acting here and there throughout the rest of 1976. This new independence gave me a burst of optimism about my life. For months I’d been exploring what life after Elvis would feel like; now, for the first time, I started to understand what life after Elvis would look like.

  Complicating this newfound sense of optimism was that, as much as I feared to admit it, Elvis’s condition appeared to be deteriorating. One day when we were back at Graceland for a few days before leaving on tour again, Elvis was so out of it he could barely speak. I had only a short time at home, so I wanted to take a little break to see my parents. I approached the side of the bed, where Elvis lay heavily sedated.

  “I’m going to go see Mama and Daddy for a little while,” I said.

  It took him what felt like five minutes to muster his reply.

  “When … are … you … coming … back … ?” he slurred.

  “I’ll be back in around thirty minutes,” I said.

  “I-I-I n-n-need another sleeping pill,” he said, again taking an agonizingly long time to form the words. He tried to lift his head to reach for his pill bottles but was unable to coordinate his movements to do so. He couldn’t even lift his head off the pillow. I moved the bottles so they were beyond his reach. I didn’t have it in me to watch him poison himself anymore.

  “You don’t need another sleeping pill, honey,” I said. “You’re asleep. All you need to do is close your eyes and put your head back on the pillow. You’re straining your neck trying to lift your head. Close your eyes. I’ll stay here with you until you fall asleep.”

  “No,” he argued. “I need another sleeping pill, goddamnit.”

  I hovered by his bed, concerned for him, but also losing my patience. All I wanted was to go see my mom and dad. I could literally be there and back in thirty minutes. It was like having a newborn baby and trying to get it to go back to sleep. But this was a grown man. I wanted to leave, but I didn’t want him to try to get up while I was gone and injure himself. I sat there with him as the minutes dragged past. He kept fighting the sleep that was tugging at his consciousness and arguing with me for more pills. Finally, I became so exasperated that I couldn’t maintain my composure anymore.

  “I’m slowly watching you self-destruct, and I’m helpless,” I said. “You’re torturing me. You’re torturing yourself. You’re killing yourself, just as surely as that gun would. You are dying before my eyes. And you are hurting the people who love you.”

  I was shocked at myself. As soon as the words had left my mouth, I regretted them. I felt nervous and guilty, wondering if I’d hurt his feelings and what he would say.

  His eyes were closed, but a big wide grin erupted on his face. Slowly he opened one of his eyes and peeped at me, as if he were thinking, I finally got her to break. He was barely conscious, but he was grinning from ear to ear. Looking at me out of the corner of his beautiful eye, he had a mischievous smile on his face. If he could have pulled himself together enough to laugh, he clearly would have.

  “Okay, Mommy,” he said. “I’ll go back to sleep.”

  He closed his eyes and his breathing deepened as he drifted off. I didn’t get up right away. I was rattled, and I sat there for a long moment, watching the face I adored, the man I loved so much. Moments like these were the
terrible inverse of how I’d once stayed awake to study him sleeping because I was marveling at his beauty and the sheer wonder of Elvis Presley lying beside me. I still did, and knew I always would, adore Elvis, but now I studied him at night in order to keep him alive. I was tired from being up all the time with him, taking care of him, and making sure he didn’t die. All I’d wanted was the simplest thing—to see my mom and dad for thirty minutes—and I couldn’t even have that little break for myself.

  It was easy to see that his health and control of the situation were unraveling. Even Elvis knew. For someone who lived in such denial, he could be remarkably self-aware.

  “What do you think your greatest flaw is?” I once asked him.

  “I’ll only say this once, probably, but I do know it,” he said. “I’m self-destructive. I have a self-destructive streak. But don’t you worry about me, honey. I’m going to live to be in my eighties.”

  There was his delusional way of thinking again; even though he recognized his self-destructive nature, he thought that he could handle things. He could deal with it. He could conquer it. He would outlive us all.

  Misplaced as his self-confidence was, his self-destructive impulses were exacerbated by the fact that, after Elvis had rather unceremoniously fired his longtime bodyguards Red and Sonny West, they decided it might be time to write what some described as a vengeful book, containing information about Elvis’s drug abuse, which they knew he wouldn’t want them to talk about publicly. They’ve since said they published a tell-all because they thought it would help him. And maybe that’s the truth. Maybe they hoped it would encourage him to realize how out of control he’d gotten and inspire him to take care of himself and stop his self-destructive behavior. Instead, knowledge that the book was imminent sent Elvis into a spiral. He was hurt, feeling that they’d betrayed him, humiliated that they’d turned on him, embarrassed by what he knew the book would contain, and fearful of how his fans would react.

  By the time the book was released—in the United Kingdom in May 1977 and in the United States in August 1977—I would no longer be in Elvis’s life. But I still cared about him deeply, and it was painful for me to know how devastated he must be. It also bothered me that some inaccuracies had been put out into the world. Such as the inclusion of the story of Elvis’s midnight trip to the funeral home, but written so that I’d been right there on the eerie tour with the guys. They’d written the scene indicating that I was walking through the funeral home, expressing dismay in the cutest little Southern voice, when in fact, no, I absolutely was not inside the funeral home, but rather nervously waiting in the car for the whole macabre incident to be over with.