WILD IN THE COUNTRY
– Elvis Presley’s Last Dramatic Role –
(Part 3)
Much more often than Millie Perkins, viewers had the opportunity to see on screen the very young Tuesday Weld (or rather Suasan Ker Weld, because that was her real name) – she was barely seventeen when filming began. The star of the popular musical “Rock, Rock, Rock”, in the second half of the fifties, in which she was joined in front of the camera by the entire galaxy of rock’n’roll artists of the time (including Chuck Berry, LaVern Baker and the groups The Flamingos and The Teenagers) and the Golden Laurel Award-nominated comedy “Rally Round The Flag, Boys!” from 1958, starring Paul Newman, Joan Collins and Jack Carson.
Before landing the role of “bad girl” or, as TIME magazine called her character, “teenage rake” Noreen Martin in Wild In The Country, Weld also made a few cameo appearances on the ABC sitcom The Adventures Of Ozzie And Harriet, which aired in October 1952.
Ironically, the bad girl reputation followed the young actress into her private life, which, according to popular tabloids of the time, was strewn with scandals. The press wrote much more about her controversial behavior than about her films. “There are rumors of her numerous affairs,” Datebook magazine reported in late 1961. “One, supposedly, was with an actor three times her age. She is described as a lover of alcohol, tobacco, gay parties, and partying until the wee hours of the night. She has more notoriety than most older stars on the screen—most of them very bad.” Columnist Louella Parsons, on the other hand, stated bluntly: “Miss Weld is not the best representative of the film industry.”
Few people realized, however, that behind all these excesses and controversies was the extremely difficult family situation of the teenage actress.
Born in 1943, Weld lost her father at the age of three and had to work to help her mother support the family. She began appearing in commercials and posing for mail-order catalogs while still a child. “In many ways, Tuesday was like Elvis ,” recalled Presley’s friend and close collaborator Alan Fortas in the book “Elvis — From Memphis to Hollywood.” “She led an extraordinary life. She never had a childhood, either, because she was an actress almost from the day she was born.
Tuesday and I became very close, and in fact she was one of the few people in Hollywood who could come over to Elvis’ house anytime she wanted .”
And while most Memphis Mafia members didn’t take the visits or even the relationship between the actress and Elvis seriously (“They saw each other from time to time. But they were mostly good friends,” Fortas claimed), the sensationalist press quickly blew the story out of proportion and began to see a fiery romance between the pair, even if both parties denied it.
“Are you and Elvis the same hot couple off-screen that you were on Soundstage?” asked actress Stu Cohran of Screen Parade magazine in a June 1961 article titled “Hottest Love Combo Of Any Year.” “Don’t you think we could all be friends?” Weld replied.
However, when the journalist stated in the next question that “some people go to prison for such friendships“, the actress Noreen Martin stated firmly: “That’s the problem. Elvis and I are just friends, but when it comes to friendship, you can’t draw any lines either .”
Such revelations and media reports greatly worried Colonel Parker. Elvis’ manager was perfectly aware of the unpleasant consequences that could result for his client from being friends with an actress who not only had a questionable reputation in the community but was still a minor in the eyes of the law.
Without listening to any explanations or wondering about the actual nature of the relationship between Elvis and the attractive actress, he decided to intervene and during the next conversation with the singer advised him to be very cautious and, best of all, to end the troublesome relationship.
Interestingly, Joe Esposito, Presley’s friend and later road manager, remembered the whole situation completely differently. “Elvis and Tuesday hit it off right away ,” he wrote in his book “Elvis. Good Rockin’ Tonight.” “Their romance was short-lived and quickly blossomed into friendship. Tuesday was a free spirit and would never have accepted Elvis, who sometimes liked to control his women. ‘Stay home and I’m going out tonight’ or ‘Do it for me. I want it now’ – that was his approach at times. Tuesday didn’t fit in at all. She spent time with us like one of the guys. She definitely had a short temper, but it was a pleasure to be around her. Even if she had a reputation in Hollywood as a ‘bad girl .'”
Other, smaller female roles were played by Christina Crawford – an American writer and actress who gained greater fame than the films she starred in for her autobiography “Mommie Dearest”, published in the late 1970s, which slandered the good name of her adoptive mother, the film star Joan Crawford, Robin Raymond (or rather Rayemon Robin, as that was her real name) and Ruby Doodwin (the actress died a few months after filming began, on May 31, 1961).
Some sources also list British actress Jean Merilyn Simmons among the cast of Presley’s seventh film. Two-time Oscar nominee (for her role in films such as “Hamlet” and “Happy Ending”), star of such blockbusters as “The Robe,” “Sinuhe the Egyptian,” and “Guys and Dolls” starring Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra.
However, the actress’s official filmography does not confirm these reports * .
The fact is that Simmons and Presley met three years earlier, in 1957, on the set of the film “Jailhouse Rock”. At the time, the actress was filming the comedy-drama “This Could Be Night” directed by Robert Wise (the film starred Chuck Berry).
- In 1960, Jean Simmons appeared in three films: “Elmer Gantry”, “Spartacus” and “You Praise Other People…”
Information written and provided by Mariusz Ogieglo, EP Promised Land (Poland) http://www.elvispromisedland.pl/
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