Elvis Presley met Linda Thompson on July 6, 1972, at a late-night movie screening at Memphis’ Memphian Theater.
Linda was 22 and Miss Tennessee Universe. Elvis was 37 and separated from Priscilla. Linda later remembered Elvis arriving in a black cape despite the sweltering Memphis summer. She joked that he looked like Dracula, and said their shared sense of humor helped them connect almost immediately.
What followed became a four-and-a-half-year relationship, with Linda spending much of that time living alongside Elvis and traveling with him. She also became close to Lisa Marie, whom she first met when Lisa was about four years old.
But Linda was also there as Elvis’s life became increasingly difficult.
She later recalled seeing prescription medication beside his bed early in their relationship and realizing over time how serious the problem had become. When Elvis was hospitalized, Linda said she stayed beside him with a hospital bed placed next to his.
Linda Thompson Talks About Life With Elvis
Yet Linda’s memories were not only dark.
She described Elvis as extraordinarily funny, affectionate and generous, saying he loved to laugh even during difficult moments. She also remembered the loneliness underneath his fame, saying people around him sometimes forgot that beneath “Elvis Presley” was simply a human being with ordinary feelings.
By late 1976, however, Linda wanted something different. She later said she wanted marriage, children and a more normal family life, while Elvis’s prescription-drug problems and infidelity had become increasingly difficult for her to live with. They separated around Christmas 1976.
Elvis died only about eight months later.
Linda has repeatedly said she did not leave because she stopped loving him.
For four and a half years, she experienced both sides of Elvis Presley: the larger-than-life superstar everyone wanted and the lonely man behind the closed doors of Graceland.