"I was sitting at a writing desk in a hotel lobby writing a letter, and he just came up to me and started talkin How could you not know who he was even then?. I was friendly and told him I loved his record, Heartbreak Hotel. Then he took me to the gift shop to show me a magazine. This says I'm a hillbilly. I'm not, am I?' he said, 'No, you're a singer.' And after that I was with him and the guys all the time. There wasn't a crowd then, just a few guys. Back then, Elvis was surrounded by the first wave of what would become known as the Memphis Mafia. I was the only woman in the group. Girls come and go but sisters stay forever. This sister lasted forever. We were friends till the day he died. We were like kids in 1956 In the afternoons in Las Vegas we would ride bumper cars at an amusement park and went out for adventures where we could escape the crowds. He loved the fact that I had a light blue Cadillac, and he bought the same car for his mother in pink. One day we drove my car out into the desert, and his cousin came with us. Elvis drove that car as fast as it could go, and I was in the front seat whooping and screaming and laughing. His cousin was on the floor in the back he was so scared. But I'd been a stunt player in the movies, and Elvis couldn't go fast enough to scare me. When they visited Graceland, we stayed up all night listening to Elvis singing and playing the piano. He liked to sing hymns. I didn't know any hymns, but I do now. He introduced me to Amazing Grace." in Los Angeles, where Elvis made movies, I remember going out on a Sunday with him and his friend, actor Nick Adams. Elvis decided to stop in a sports store and buy us bows and arrows. It was just whimsy. We went up to Mulholland Drive and were shooting bows and arrows, and nobody saw us. When his mother, Gladys, died in 1958, Judy came to the funeral. I've never seen anyone as sad as Elvis was. He grieved. He cried continuously. We were in the front hall at Graceland, and he stood there hugging me for a half-hour. He was crying and crying and crying. It was the saddest thing I'd ever seen. In later years, I attended his Las Vegas concerts, and he would stop the show to introduce me to the audience. I had married by then and so had he. By the time drugs invaded his life, I was less involved I never think of him as he was the last year or year and a half," I think of him as so vibrant and beautiful and funny. When he died, a whole part of my life changed, and I died a little.""