Falling in Love with a King [Elvis]

Chapter 4 - A Shocking & Tempting Proposition

"Elvis, have you seen the paper?"

A newspaper was shoved into my face as I sat in front of a mirror as Stacy, the makeup person hired for the press conference, and a pretty little thing with blonde hair in a swirled bun, was evening out the toner or whatever it was called that hid the infirmities on one's face. I had some, which I didn't mind, but they insisted on covering them.

"What am I lookin' at, Tony?" I asked as I stared at a jumble of small articles on the page. Tony looked at it. "Oh, wrong page. He flipped it over and there was in big black letters, Elvis Presley to Reporter's Rescue. That title popped out, yes, but who wrote it popped out even more. I looked at Tony, surprise in my blue eyes.

"I knew you would be interested in this." He pointed to the story. "That new female reporter friend of yours wrote a whole story about how you stopped the press and went to her rescue. She made you out like some kind of knight saving a damsel in distress."

As Stacy finished up and another gal, a cute brunette named Patricia, came to fix my hair, I started to read through the article. A smile tugged at the corner of my mouth at the kind words Daisy wrote regarding my going to her rescue and her summation of my character after she wrote the answers to my interview questions. What a kind gal, saying all that about me.

"Are you seein' this as a bad thing, Tony?" I asked my manager as I felt my hair being combed through and styled with oil.

"No, I think that this is great for your image. People love you and now they will love you more when they see what good thing you did. It was out of the ordinary, but good. I'm really hoping that this girl is going to be here today."

There was no point in lying. "I hope that, too."

"For more than one reason."

He winked and I said nothing to that, knowing it to be true. I couldn't get that woman's image out of my head since we said goodbye the week before.

"All done, Mr. Presley," said Patricia and I looked into the mirror and smirked. I noticed both Patricia and Stacy react to that by blushing. How fun it was, to play up the girls' reactions. I really tried not to let my head get too big when I hear girls scream that I'm gorgeous. Honestly, I didn't see it all that much, but I knew that all I needed to do was smirk and they would either scream or blush or go crazy.

"Thank you, ladies," I said and stood up, standing a few inches taller than both of the women. I straightened my black suit jacket and headed out with Tony and started to hear all the reporters and others making a commotion in the press area, a ballroom with a podium stood up at the front. I would be sitting with my co-stars Lizabeth Scott, Wendell Corey, and a new face: Dolores Hart. What an honor it was to work with such great people. I had met them in the first reading of the script about a month before. I met the director Hal Kanter a little before that, half-a-year after he called me and said that he would love nothing more than to have Elvis Presley play the lead role in his next movie. I was flattered and took the part, on Tony's advisement of course.

I came up to the entrance to the podium and stood out of sight. I already could see that my co-stars and director were already seated. An announcer called my name and the whole room erupted in cheers and claps. I took a deep breath and walked out—I always got nervous before these press conferences and before concerts. Cameras flashed in my face, so much so that I saw spots in front of my eyes. How was I supposed to see if Daisy was somewhere in the audience?

I waved and smiled as I sat in my chair, and the crowd quieted down. As questions about the movie were asked, I scanned the crowd of maybe 200 reporters. Maybe 250. I didn't know that there were so many in the area. A lot of them were probably from out of town.