We sometimes get information about things that happened many years ago. That is true of a relationship between Linda Thompson and Elvis Pressley.
In the 1970s, Linda had been dating Elvis Presley and the relationship ended just before the king died when he was 42 years old. She is now talking about the relationship and why she left.
Elvis Presley was responsible for giving music to the world that they will never forget. As far as entertainers are concerned, he was in a class of his own. It wasn’t just his music, it was his very presence.
Some of the songs that helped to make Elvis Presley famous included Jailhouse Rock, Love Me Tender, and Hound Dog. He was also in movies that elevated his popularity, such as ‘The Trouble with Girls’, and ‘Viva Las Vegas’.
Over the years, there were many people who were close to Elvis but his ex-girlfriend, Linda Thompson, was one that stuck with him even after they split until the end. She is now talking about why she left Elvis and what happened in those days before he died in August 1977.
Linda Thompson was born on May 23, 1950. At the time, Elvis was already busy working on his music in high school and winning talent shows. They wouldn’t meet for another 22 years.
When Thompson was only a child, she already was very fond of Elvis Presley’s music. She grew up in the same area as Elvis of Memphis, Tennessee, and felt a connection to him from a young age.
When he came out with the hit song, Heartbreak Hotel, Linda knew that he was the one for her. She remembers sitting at the breakfast table with her parents when she was six years old, letting them know that she was going to someday marry Elvis Pressley.
As a teenager in Kingsbury High School, Linda had earned some beauty contests. She was named Miss Shelby County and won the Miss Mid-South Fair crown the next year.
She went on to win many more, including Miss Okra, Miss Liberty Bowl, and others. In 1970, she was named Miss Tennessee and was third place in the Miss USA pageant.
Linda managed to cross paths with Elvis shortly after he separated from his wife, Priscilla Presley. He had married her and they had a daughter together, but their marriage didn’t stick.
Shortly after separating from Priscilla Presley, Elvis was at a private screening and met Linda Thompson. He approached her, saying: “Well, hello honey!”
Thompson thought that he was still married, so she didn’t give it much thought and said that she was just happy to meet her idol. When the film started, Elvis came to sit next to her but she still thought he was married. She would learn the truth soon.
She said that during the movie, he ‘started pulling the old yawn, put the hand around the seat’ move on her. He told her that he had been separated since the end of the year and that they were getting divorced.
Thompson said: “All, well I was sorry to hear that but you should have married a southern girl.”
It wasn’t long before the two were dating and over the next four years, Linda would experience much while being by his side. She said that she was always a fan but she didn’t think that he would become what he is today.
Linda ended up moving to Graceland and at that point, she started to notice the ‘self-destructive’ lifestyle of Elvis.
In her book, A Little Thing Called Life, Thompson wrote about the pair and how the relationship was very special.
“Ours was a complete relationship—when the need arose, we got to be everything to each other. He was almost sixteen years older than I and so it was natural for me to sometimes be the little girl, with him playing the daddy. More often than not, though, I was the mommy, and he was the baby,” Linda Thompson writes. “Sometimes we were lovers, sometimes we were brother and sister. Sometimes we were best friends. We were all things to each other at one time or another. And Elvis was always, always everything to me.”
The last couple of years that they dated, Linda saw his health going downhill. He was taking sleeping medication and mixed with ‘other things’ at times.
She would sit by his side to make sure that he fell asleep and sometimes she would even wake up to make sure he was breathing during the night. She admits that it was exhausting.
She said: “I was a young girl but it was still exhausting when you’re not sleeping. And also just emotionally exhausting because this is a person that I loved more than my own life and watching him slowly self-destruct and not being able to do anything about it.”
In 1975, she found him struggling to catch his breath in bed after he was hospitalized for some ‘tests.’ He was then taken back to the Memphis hospital. He was suffering from liver problems associated with prescription medication.
Elvis had purchased a home near Graceland for Linda but she couldn’t stick with it for very long during that difficult time. After Elvis was treated at the hospital again, Linda went to Los Angeles to focus on her career.
She struggled to deal with his downward spiral of self-destructive behavior but they continue to stay in touch. She said: “I had this haunting feeling, I just thought, I don’t know if anybody’s going to take care of him the way I did.
“I felt very attuned to his habits and his needs. When you’re with someone for that many years and that closely living with them, I felt very attuned to his habits and his deeds and I thought, nobody else is going to do that.”
A few days before Elvis died on August 16, 1977, Linda had tried to reach out to him. It would be the last time they spoke. When she called Graceland, a good friend of Elvis, Charlie Hodge, answered the phone.
Linda wanted to ensure that Elvis was fine and asked Charlie to go check on him. She said he was a little impatient with her, just saying: “He’s fine honey. He’s asleep.” She asked him just to humor her and go check on his breathing.
After Charlie checked his breathing, Linda said what would be the last time she said anything to him. She said it through Charlie, saying: “Just tell him that I called and I love him and I was checking on him.” He said: “I’ll let him know. That’ll make him happy.”
Linda was at her apartment in Los Angeles when she received a call that Elvis was found unconscious on the bathroom floor and rushed to the hospital. He would pass away at the hospital.
We don’t often get to hear the behind-the-scenes story, such as this. It really is amazing to hear how she lived her life in those fateful days.
