My Aunt Dated Elvis Presley—They Were Inseparable

"Elvis just died! Elvis is dead!" my friend Robin's mother screamed out the back door as we played on the swing set in her yard. I was 10 years old and knew it was time to go home.

My mother was quiet when I told her the news—she'd been ironing and the TV wasn't on. Elvis Presley had been to her house, dated her sister, and ate dinner with her mom. It was quite a shock.

Before there was Priscilla—whose namesake movie comes out November 3—there were many other women, including a petite young brunette in Louisiana: My aunt, Carolyn Bradshaw.

My aunt was a legend at our family reunions, with my older cousins pestering her to tell us about Elvis again.

"What was he like?" "Did you meet his parents?" "How long did you date him?"

Even as a kid, I could see why any guy would like her. She was the epitome of glamour with her hot-rolled auburn hair, long lashes, and curvy figure. She'd laugh, roll her eyes, and indulge us, once again.

Carolyn was born in Arkansas, the last of 11 children, and moved to Louisiana as a teen with her mom and older sister Jo (my mom). She was much more interested in beauty contests, acting, and singing than she was in school and, to her mother's dismay, soon became part of the Louisiana Hayride, a live radio show broadcast from Shreveport.

There, she met and performed alongside such budding stars as Tennessee Ernie Ford ("cute, funny, very genuine"), Hank Williams ("not very communicative"), and George Jones ("one of the sweetest people in the world"). Heady stuff for a 17-year-old girl from a cotton farm.

She was fond of reminding us that she wasn't just Elvis' girlfriend, she'd also had her own career. One of her songs, "The Marriage of Mexican Joe" shot to the top 10 in 1953. But all we wanted to hear about was Elvis.

They met in 1954. "Some of the girls were telling me about him, this new kid on the block and I was thinking, who is this upstart? And then I met him," she told me. "I'd never seen anybody like him. He had a cute half-grin and these sleepy eyes, and he laughed a lot. I was so struck by his looks, that I probably didn't hear the first fifteen things he said to me."

Within a month, they were dating. Not everyone was impressed. My mom would later tell me: "That guy was so full of himself." And my grandmother wasn't wild about it either. Musicians were unpredictable and fickle, she'd say.

"Mom didn't care for him in the beginning," Carolyn remembered. But when he "snarfed up two of her biscuits in a matter of seconds and whispered to me, 'Does she have any more?' she began to warm to him. She saw him then, I think, as more like one of her own sons. After that, she'd even smile a little when I'd mention him."

"El" (as she called him) and Carolyn became inseparable; touring, singing, and hanging out together. "When we'd travel to shows in Texas or Arkansas, El and I would sit in the backseat and sing gospel songs at the top of our lungs," she recalls. "The guys in the front would plug their ears and we'd just die laughing."

"One time there was a movie I really wanted to see," Carolyn said. "We were in the theater but he could never sit still. He had this restless energy—always moving—so finally we just left. But usually, he was an ideal date, respectful but very affectionate. And a great kisser."

She met his parents one night at the Hayride and could tell right away that he hadn't told them about her. His mom, Gladys, was quiet and didn't smile much and Vernon, his dad, shook her hand absently. He was staring around the stage in awe.

It didn't bode well for their future. And neither did rumors of other women.

Alanna Nash, an award-winning journalist who's written four books about Elvis, wrote about Carolyn in her book, Baby, Let's Play House: Elvis Presley and the Women Who Loved Him.

"When Elvis met Carolyn on the Louisiana Hayride in 1954," Nash told me, "he was just coming into his regional fame, but women were already losing their minds over him, both for his exotic looks and his magnetism onstage."

"It was Carolyn he most had eyes for," she continued, "because she epitomized his three romantic ideals: virginity, his obsession with beauty queens—she had won the 1954 Louisiana state title of "Petite Miss Physical Culture"—and tiny brunettes with china doll faces.

"Physically," Nash said, "she was the prototype for Priscilla. But even though he asked Carolyn to go steady, Elvis was a comet streaking across the sky, and there was no one woman who could hold him. Ever."

While Carolyn never confronted him about rumors of other women, it hurt just the same.

"We never officially broke up or said goodbye," she said. "El was just gone all the time on tour. Right after he appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, I was playing a concert with Johnny Horton in Odessa. When the curtain opened there was only six people in the audience.

"El was playing nearby and that's where everybody was," she continued. "So we gave the people their money back and all headed over to the high school field house to see Elvis.

"We went backstage but he was swarmed by girls. He couldn't even get out. We tried to get his attention but there were too many people. That's the last time I ever saw him."

She still has fond memories of him though, as being a good ole country boy at heart.

This summer my aunt and I went on a two-week road trip around Virginia. Carolyn is 86 now and never lost her desire for adventure.

When I marveled at her ability to pack light and be ready on a moment's notice, she credited her days on the road with the likes of Elvis and other singers.

"I was always packed when the boys in the band were ready to roll," she said. "They never had to wait on me. I was too excited to be on the road with them, so I was usually ready before they were."

"There's a saying in show business," she said. "Always leave them smiling."

Courtenay Rudzinski is a freelance writer based in Houston, she has been published in HuffPost, Insider, The Sun, Well+Good, and Next Tribe.

All views expressed in this article are the author's own.

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