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By far the best study of Elvis Presley I have read. ‘The King’ emerges more clearly from this mosaic of his troubled love life than from any linear biography to date ... Impressively researched, written – and felt.”

—Philip Norman, New York Times bestselling author of John Lennon and Shout!

Thirty-two years after his death, Elvis’ extraordinary physical appeal, timeless music, and sexual flamboyance continue to fascinate, titillate, and excite. Though hundreds of books have been written about The King—one of the premier sex symbols of the ‘50s and the prototype, in all his sex-and-drugs excess, for all the rock idols who came after him—no book has solely explored his relationships with women and how they informed
his art and life. BABY, LET’S PLAY HOUSE (On Sale January 5, -2010; Hardcover: $27.99; ISBN: 9780061699849), named after the 1955 song that was his first to hit the national charts and his mother’s favorite Elvis recording, does just that.

Based on exclusive interviews with the many women who knew him in various roles—lover, sweetheart, friend, co-star, and family member—veteran music writer Alanna Nash’s fascinating new book explores Presley’s love affairs with, among others, Ann-Margret, Linda Thompson, Sheila Ryan Caan, June Juanico, Barbara Leigh, Joyce Bova, and Cybill Shepherd, as well as his friendships with actresses Raquel Welch, Barbara Eden, Mary Ann Mobley, Yvonne Craig, and Celeste Yarnall. The book also spotlights important early girlfriends (Regis Wilson, Carolyn Bradshaw, Wanda Jackson, and Barbara Hearn) and the women who dared turn him down (Cher, Petula Clark, Karen Carpenter, and Tanya Tucker).

Nash presents Elvis in a new light: a charming but wounded Lothario who bedded scores of women but seemed unable to maintain a lasting romantic and sexual relationship. His problems, rooted first in the death, at birth, of his twin brother and his unhealthily close relationship with his mother, and later in his reliance on prescription drugs, drove him to channel much of his emotional and sexual energy into his performances which defined the erotic dreams of his generation. While fully exploring the most famous romantic idol of the twentieth century, BABY, LET’S PLAY HOUSE pulls back the covers on what Elvis really wanted in a woman, and was tragically never able to find.

In BABY, LET’S PLAY HOUSE, Alanna Nash:Offers the most comprehensive female viewpoint of the life and career of Elvis Presley, through interviews with Elvis’s girlfriends, lovers, and co-stars, as well as female family members, record company executives, and platonic friends.

Examines how both the death of Elvis’s twin, and the extremely close bond he shared with his mother, set him up for remarkably close, yet ultimately doomed relationships with women.

Presents, in a bombshell of reporting, never-before-published legal information about Priscilla Presley’s lawsuit against Currie Grant, the man who introduced her to Elvis. Grant challenged the fairytale myth Priscilla cultivated; he has claimed that Priscilla (at fourteen) set out to meet, bed, and marry Elvis, and he dispels the myth of Priscilla as the virgin bride. His claims were met with Priscilla’s allegations that Grant tried to force himself on her. Nash examines both sides of the story and the subsequent legal settlement.

Dispels a number of myths, including the story that Elvis would never been intimate with a woman who had born a child.

Includes recently discovered letters from the 1938 prison file of Vernon Presley, Elvis’s father, including one from Gladys Presley, who pleads for Vernon’s early release (“I have a little boy three years old. Please send [my husband] home to his wife and baby.”)

Examines the two categories into which Elvis separated his women: the girls at home (virginal innocents to be protected and molded into his ideal of young womanhood), and the girls on the road (sexually eager fans, showgirls, and strippers).

Packed with 70 photographs, many of which have never before been seen by the public, BABY, LET’S PLAY HOUSE is a stunning, intimate look into the hidden thrills, fears and needs of the most iconic performer in rock n’ roll. Advance reader’s copies will be available in the coming weeks; please be in touch if you are interested in receiving a galley. Attached, you’ll find Alanna Nash’s Ladies’ Home Journal article that inspired BABY, LET’S PLAY HOUSE, along with some additional information.

In conjunction with this new book from Alanna Nash, Elvis Express Radio will be bringing you 'BABY LET'S PLAY HOUSE - WOMEN IN SONG' which will air Wednesday 6th January.


About the Author

Winner of the 2004 Country Music Association Media Achievement Award, Alanna Nash is the author of six books, including The Colonel: The Extraordinary Story of Colonel Tom Parker and Elvis Presley (winner of the 2004 Belmont Award for the best book in music), Dolly: The Biography, Behind Closed Doors: Talking With The Legends Of Country Music, and Elvis and the Memphis Mafia. She also co-edited Will the Circle Be Unbroken: Country Music in America, for which she won another Belmont Award.

She has written about music for such publications as Vanity Fair, People, The New York Times, USA Weekend, TV Guide, Playboy, Entertainment Weekly, Ladies Home Journal, and Reader’s Digest, where she was a contributing editor from 2004 to 2008. Nash, whom Esquire magazine named one of the “Heavy 100 of Country Music,” was the first journalist to see Elvis Presley in his casket. She lives in Louisville, KY.



2009/10/28 Harper Collins - www.elvis-express.com / www.epgold.com