Author Alanna Nash's book is about Elvis Presley and the many women who loved him during his lifetime. INSIDE EDITION speaks to Nash and to actress Linda Thompson, who was once involved with the King.
"He was a man who had thousands and thousands of women throwing themselves at him at every moment of every day," says Linda Thompson, one of Elvis's great loves. Linda lived with him for four years right after his divorce from Priscilla. But she says loving Elvis wasn't easy.
"Elvis loved women and women loved Elvis," she says,
Linda, the mother of reality star Brody Jenner, says Elvis was often unfaithful, and he admitted it!
"He would say, 'You know what, I'm just not gonna lie to you, there was this girl that was around but honey, it just made me appreciate you more.' "
"He could not be satisfied with just one woman, he wanted a woman at home and then he wanted the freedom to have women on the road," says author Alanna Nash.
In a new Elvis biography, Baby Let's Play House: Elvis and the Women Who Loved Him, Nash chronicles the King's insatiable appetite for beautiful young women. It's a staggering list.
There was Ann Margaret, his co-star in Viva Las Vegas. "Ann Margaret loved him dearly and deeply, and he felt absolutely the same, but he was already promised to Priscilla," Nash explains.
But marrying Priscilla didn't stop his roving eye. When they divorced in 1972, Elvis embarked on a dizzying whirlwind of affairs; there was actress Candice Bergen, singer Nancy Sinatra, movie icon Natalie Wood, and a young Cybill Shepherd.
"Cybill Shepherd found him interesting, but too much of a boy...he was a man-child, he never grew up. She got tired of it pretty quickly and moved on," Nash says.
Sadly, none of the King's many loves could save him from his untimely death, a tragic drug overdose at age 42.
Linda says she learned the devastating news in a phone call from Elvis's daughter Lisa Marie.
"Lisa Marie was 9 years old, she called me and she said, 'Linda, it's Lisa!' And she said 'My daddy's dead, my daddy's dead,' and I just said 'No, no!' and she said, 'Yes he is.' "
If Elvis had lived he would have celebrated his 75th birthday on January 8, 2010, and Linda has no doubt he'd still have that devilish charm: "If Elvis were still alive today, he'd still be laughing and still be making jokes and hopefully be aging as gracefully as the rest of us are trying to," she says.
