ELVIS AND HIS FRIEND JUDY SPRECKEL
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| Elvis And Judy Spreckels, 1956 |
Judy Spreckels was a great friend of Elvis throughout his life.
Once, she described herself as a sister to Elvis, but never as a girlfriend. And they really were like brothers.
”The girls come and go,” he explained. “But the sisters stay forever.”
Remembering the comment now, she says that it was: ”This sister appeared forever. We were friends until the day he died.”
She was with him at many important moments in Elvis’s life. She accompanies him in the April 1956 performances in Las Vegas. When Las Vegas, I wasn’t ready for Elvis yet.
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| Elvis And Judy Spreckels, Hotel New Frontier, Las Vegas, April-May 1956 |
When she visited Graceland they spent the whole night together. Elvis was playing the piano and singing. Judy tells us how much Elvis loved gospel music and that he sang “Amazing Grace” for her.
Judy was a writer, editor, and trial historian. She was with Elvis, especially around the time Elvis was rising to stardom. She knew his family very closely. She had a very good relationship with Gladys, his mother.
When Gladys would die, Judy would accompany Elvis in those moments, the most difficult moments of his life and would also accompany him on the sad day of his burial. Judy stated, “I’ve never seen anyone as sad as Elvis was…He was heartbroken. He cried for non-stop. We were in the lobby of Graceland and he stood there holding me. Half an hour. He was crying and crying and crying. It was the Sadder than I’ve ever seen”
ELVIS: ”I want to tell you a story, before I do this. Do you see this young man here? Her name is Judy Spreckles. And let me tell you a story about her. When I came to Hollywood, I was twenty-one years old, and I was going to shoot my first movie ”Love Me Tender”. His family was the Spreckles Sugar family. You’ve heard of them, haven’t you? Yeah, well, I guess everyone has, because he owns a great company. She gave me a four-star black sapphire ring that I kept until Priscilla and I were married. And Priscilla wore it as an engagement ring.
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| Elvis And Judy Spreckels, Hotel New Frontier, Las Vegas, April-May 1956 |
This lady here did it, twenty years ago… Judy Spreckles. I don’t know where he’s been. She’s been married, in the hills, flying jets, riding horses and all that kind of stuff, She’s a wild woman, but she did that and she comes by every once in a while to check on me…”
(Elvis over Judy Spreckles at the Las Vegas Hilton on September 2, 1974.)
Elvis and Judy met when Spreckels, an heiress who had a ranch in Las Vegas, was living in a hotel where Elvis was staying. “I was sitting at a desk in the lobby writing a letter and he came up to me and started talking to me. The year was 1956 and Elvis was a rising star… I was nice to him and told him I loved his record, Heartbreak Hotel“.
Elvis and Judy were friends until the day they died.
“I never think of him as the last year or year and a half of his life was like,” she says. “I think of him as he was, so vibrant and beautiful and fun. When he died, a whole part of my life changed and a part of me died with him”.
Judy Spreckeld
Information provided by Elvis. El Chico de Tupelo
Rosa Garcia Mora.
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Por:
Roberto Martín
Elvis Radio 24h
