There are thousands of books about Elvis Presley. They cover the records, the films, the money, and the tragedy. But almost none of them can answer the small human questions people actually wonder about. What did he smell like? What was he like up close? Only a handful of people on earth could ever answer that, and one of them has been quietly telling fans for years. Her name is Linda Thompson, and she lived with him for four and a half years.
She was 22 and had just been crowned Miss Tennessee when they met in 1972 at a Memphis cinema. Elvis was 37 and newly separated from Priscilla. She stayed with him until 1976, moving into Graceland and, by her own account, spending almost every hour of every day with him. As she has put it, she was one of maybe three people who ever knew him that intimately: “I knew every facet of his being.”
Linda Thompson Remembers Elvis Presley [1980]
So, the smell. Fans have asked her this at Graceland events for years, and her answer is always the same and always specific. “He smelled of Neutrogena soap.” Not aftershave, not cologne. Original Neutrogena, the plain amber bar you can buy in any chemist for a few pounds. “He only used the original Neutrogena soap,” she said. “So he always had that essence of that clean, fresh smell.” Then, being Linda, she looked out at the crowd and added: “Their sales are gonna go up, aren’t they? You’re welcome, Neutrogena!”
The other question fans always ask is what it was like to kiss him. Her answer has become genuinely famous among Elvis fans because it is so oddly perfect. “Kissing Elvis was like plunging your lips into two soft, sweet marshmallows.” She has expanded on it at Graceland since: take two big fluffy marshmallows, put them together, and imagine the softness and the sweetness of that. “Because he did have the softest and sweetest lips.” She has also mentioned, with a straight face, that he always had good breath.
Linda Thompson Remembers Her First Kiss With Elvis Presley & Their 4.5‑Year Romance
Then there are the food stories, which are the funniest thing she tells. Everyone knows about the peanut butter and banana sandwich. Linda knows how to make it properly — the banana has to be ripe, and you have to mash it. But she surprised a room full of fans by telling them she never once saw Elvis eat a whole one. He only ever wanted a couple of bites.
The bacon-and-eggs story is better. One night, he asked her to go downstairs and cook him breakfast. She made him three eggs and four rashers of bacon, carried the tray up to the bedroom, and Elvis looked at it and said: “What is this?” She told him it was his bacon and eggs. And he gave her an answer that tells you everything about a man who grew up with nothing: “Honey, I’m rich. When I was poor, we didn’t have a lot of food to eat. I want you to go back downstairs and make six eggs and half a pound of bacon.”
She has said something else about him that goes deeper than any of it. Underneath the fame, she describes a “deeply feeling, empathetic person” who loved sad songs, and who had a favorite saying she has never forgotten: “There is great joy in sadness. Because it carves into the depth of your being.”
Linda left in 1976, worn out by life. Elvis died eight months later. She still comes back to Graceland every year for Elvis Week, and every year fans ask her the same small questions. She always answers them.