Priscilla Beaulieu — who lived in West Germany with her mother, siblings, and stepfather, who was stationed in the Air Force there — first encountered Elvis Presley’s music three years prior, when she was 11.
“When we met, I was an impressionable 14-year-old. He was 24,” Priscilla wrote in a 1985 essay for People. She also called him “handsomer than he appeared in films, younger and more vulnerable looking with his GI haircut.”
“Even though I was 14, I was actually a little bit older in life. Not in numbers. That was the attraction,” Priscilla explained.
Priscilla said they met at a party held by one of Elvis’ friends, Currie Grant, who was in the Air Force. That’s why she was allowed to attend the party in the first place.
Of the night before Elvis went back to the US, Priscilla wrote, “It was March 1, 1960, the night before Elvis was to leave Germany to return to the States. We were lying on his bed, our arms around each other. I was in a state of complete despair.”
“Would I ever see him again, be in his arms the way I had been nearly every night for the past six months? I could not bear the thought of the night ending and us saying goodbye for what I thought would be the last time. I wept and wept,” she continued. “For the two days after Elvis left, I locked myself in my room, unable to eat, unable to sleep.”
“One request that he asked, that I not be teary-eyed. So, you see me smiling here. There are other pictures where I am down and looking away,” she said.
Elvis and Priscilla emerged from the house at about 11.10 am on March 2, 1960, to what appears to be no more than a few fans. Reports describe, “An incredible barrage of hysterical fans ... in the garden, on the doorstep, on the wall.”
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