Book reveals Elvis' relationship with women

Elvis Presley died in 1977. He was remarkable for many reasons, chief among them the fact that his music had altered the world's history and culture. Also, there was the oddity of his age: Presley was among the nation's few 42-year-old teenagers.

"He never really grew up, and he always resorted to teenage activity," said Alanna Nash, whose "Baby, Let's Play House: Elvis Presley and the Women Who Loved Him" is a 609-page exploration of how Presley's lack of emotional maturity impacted his art and his life.

"He wanted to be around 14-year-old girls, because he felt like a 15- to 17-year-old boy," Nash said. "With those girls, he wasn't challenged. He was idolized and he spoke their language. This is a man who ate burgers and fries his whole life, when he could have had anything. And he was terrified of full-grown women."

In Nash's book, Presley is often revealed as a frightened and immature person who appeared to all the world as a dashing rock 'n' roll lothario. Though Nash doesn't spare intimate details of his love relationships, the end result is as troubling as it is titillating.

"I knew some people would find this book very explosive," she said. "In many ways, it's contradictory to the way the faithful like to view him. And if you just open it up to certain passages instead of reading all the way through, it may seem sensational. But when people read it with an open mind, I think they understand him better. I know I understand him better now. Mostly, I wanted people to understand his suffering."

Baby, Let's Play House makes clear that Presley didn't suffer in the opportunity department. He moved through scads of women in his 42 years. But the only truly adult relationship he seemed to have was with actress Ann-Margret, and the only love of his life was his mother, Gladys, who died when Presley was 22. Much of Nash's book finds Presley engaging with female fans who were much too young for respectability's sake.

In the late 1950s, agent-in-training Byron Raphael often procured girls for Presley, took them to his bedroom and ushered them out later. In the book, Raphael recalls finding Presley asleep in his underwear with three young girls in his arms, his own record playing in the background.

"With some of the younger ones, he'd be like the tooth fairy, slipping hundred-dollar bills in their schoolbooks," Raphael told Nash.

Still, the Presley in Nash's book doesn't come off as predatory so much as lost, as he seeks to protect and mold young girls into womanhood (as was the case with wife Priscilla Presley), all the while enjoying unhindered dalliances on the road.