By: Alanna Nash
Source: Ladies Home Journal
June 21, 2008 - 4:49:09 PM
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Linda Thompson was born May 23, 1950 in Memphis, Tennessee. Linda won several beauty pageants, including the 1972 Miss Tennessee USA title. In July of that year she began a relationship with the recently separated Elvis Presley and immediately moved in with him at
Graceland for roughly three and a half years.
In 1981, Linda Thompson married former Olympic Games Gold Medalist, Bruce Jenner with whom she had two children. Bruce divorced Linda in 1983 and she appeared in a few motion pictures and made a number of guest appearances on different television series.
In 1991 she married composer David Foster. With her new husband's help, she began writing lyrics for some of his compositions, notably the song 'No Explanation' for the 1990 film, Pretty Woman. In 1992 they were nominated for a Grammy Award and an Academy Award for Best Song for their composition of the song 'I Have Nothing' sung by Whitney Houston in the 1992 motion picture, The Bodyguard.
In August 2007, Alanna Nash interviewed a number of Elvis' female co-stars, family members, and friends for a Ladies Home Journal article titled 'The Women Who Loved Elvis'.
One of these articles was with Linda Thompson.
This is not the complete interview, as it had to be kept short for the magazine and now the balance will be kept for use in Alanna's new book to be published in time for Elvis' 75th birthday in January 2010. This book will be the first comprehensive look at Elvis purely from the female prospective. (More about this below).
Interview with Linda Thompson by Alanna Nash
Elvis was a very tender soul. He had such a good heart. We literally bought out a pet shop one night. Elvis paid for about 20 dogs, just gave them out to his friends. And we kept this chow, little Getlow. He was a beautiful dog, but Elvis was going to get rid of him because we read an article that said chows turn on their masters 80 percent of the time. Elvis said, 'I don't want to have to be worried about leaving this dog with you, or come home and find you have to have plastic surgery'. But I said, 'Oh, give the little fella a chance. He may turn out all right'. So I raised him, and he turned out to be as gentle as a kitten. He was our sweetheart. But he had a congenital kidney ailment. I don't know if that made him so lethargic he didn't feel like being mean, but he had a wonderful disposition.
Linda Thompson and Get Lo
Linda Thompson and Get Lo
About three o'clock one morning, Getlow was acting really strange, so we had a doctor come over. He said, 'I don't think the dog will make it through the night'. So Elvis leased a Learjet and flew Getlow, my girlfriend and me, and the doctor up to Boston to a special clinic for kidney dialysis. We left him up there for about three months. But he didn't live long after that. He was only about a year old. We were on tour when he died, and we were coming home on his plane when they told us. Elvis just cried.
Get Lo at the Animal Medical Center
Get Lo at the Animal Medical Center
I was with him for four and a half years, from 1972 to 1976. He surrounded himself with people whom he loved and trusted, because he was so secluded from the world, and so sheltered. But a lot of people got very greedy. I think that's one reason Elvis felt lonely at times, he realized that even if they cared about him, they still lost sight of him as a human being. He would get depressed because he felt people didn't love him for being the simple person he was. They forgot about him as just a regular person with feelings like all of us.
I think it's a terrible thing for people to say they couldn't imagine Elvis growing old. Everybody has that right, even if they're a sex symbol. He wanted to live to be an old man. He wanted to see Lisa have children, and he wanted to see his grandchildren. He had no idea he would die so young.
Elvis and Get Lo on stage
Elvis and Get Lo on stage
One morning at about seven we were lying in bed, and I felt something wasn't right. His breathing was strange. I shook him, and I said, 'Honey, are you okay?' And he said, 'I can't get my breath!' He had pneumonia. I called for the nurse, and she brought some oxygen over, and we had to rush him to the hospital. I stayed with him for two and a half weeks. Whenever he went to the hospital, I went to the hospital. So it was 'we' went to the hospital.
Elvis needed more love and care than anybody I've ever met. Probably more than anybody in this world ever has. Because he was who he was, and what he was, and yet he had come from obscurity, from Tupelo, Mississippi, and poor parents. And he did enjoy having a mother image around him. But I think it's wonderful if you can be all things to each other. And he and I were. He called me 'Mommy'. And he was like my father at times. And we were like brother and sister at times, and we were like lovers at times. It was a full, rich relationship. For a long time, we didn't need anybody else, really. I truly, truly loved him, and I wouldn't have cared if he were John Doe. I loved him as a human soul. He was really a wonderful person. We often thought it would be fun to just go away and live in a little shack on a farm and just forget fame and fortune and all the craziness that goes with it.
Alanna Nash working on new book Alanna Nash working on new book
In August 2007, journalist and biographer Alanna Nash interviewed a number of Elvis' female co-stars, family members, and friends for a Ladies Home Journal article titled 'The Women Who Loved Elvis'. Now she's turning the idea into a book for Harper Entertainment, to be published in time for Elvis' 75th birthday in January 2010. Nash reports the book will be the first comprehensive look at Elvis purely from the female prospective. 'For all his maleness, Elvis was a very woman-centered man, because of his closeness with his mother', she says. 'It was women he could really talk with, and from whom he drew much of his strength. The book will look at a number of his relationships, both platonic and romantic. And part of it will consider how his status as one of the greatest sex symbols of the 20th century informed his stage act and his interactions with the opposite sex'.
Published with the permission and co-operation of Alanna Nash.
05.06.2008, 11:48
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