Elvis’ Co-Star Thought the Singer Was a ‘Victim’ of His Life

Elvis Presley’s co-star in the film Wild in the Country, Millie Perkins, enjoyed her time working with the singer. She found him personable, kind, and humble. She also found certain elements of his life to be absurd. Perkins shared why she viewed Elvis as a victim of his own life. 

Elvis’ co-star believed the singer was a victim of his life

In 1961, Elvis starred in the musical drama Wild in the Country. Perkins, who also starred in the film, believed she was one of the few people who didn’t look down on Elvis as they worked.

“I think that everybody making the movie thought, ‘We’re classier than all those other Elvis Presley movies. We’re so much better,’” she said in the book Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley by Peter Guralnick. “Everyone was going around patting themselves on the back for being artists; they were going to do something with Elvis that other people couldn’t, or didn’t want to, do — and I think they didn’t come up with the goods at all.”

Perkins didn’t have any lofty ideas about the type of movie she was making and she liked spending time with Elvis. Still, she said that his life was “on a level that [her] life was not on.” He constantly had people surrounding him, to a point where it seemed ridiculous to her. She felt he had been swept up by it and had no way of extricating himself.

“The guys were on the set every day, you know, wrestling on the floor,” she said. “I didn’t even know what girls he was dating at the time, because it didn’t interest me, his personal life seemed so silly. And yet I knew he was a victim of it.”

Elvis’ co-star enjoyed the time she spent with the singer

While Perkins found Elvis’ life bizarre, she liked the man himself. 

“Elvis turned out to be someone I liked very much,” she said. “I felt there was a man with a heart and soul there who truly cared about people. Certainly he treated me as if he cared about me; there was a mutual respect between us.”

She appreciated that he seemed to recognize when certain elements of the film were a bit ridiculous. He also was humble despite being one of the biggest celebrities in the world.

“He never used his star power — never,” she said. “Maybe he should have. Maybe he did do it on some other level, but he sure didn’t do it on the set. I felt like he was younger than me, this very humble person who would make statements about what he believed in. And I would think, ‘He’s trying to show me he’s a fine human being.’”

He rarely pushed back against his circumstances, even when he disliked them

Perkins felt that Elvis was caught up in the whims of people who had a stake in his life, a whim shared by Priscilla Presley. When he wasn’t happy with elements of his career, he rarely spoke up.

“He could have demanded better, more substantial scripts but he didn’t,” Priscilla wrote in her book Elvis and Me. “Part of the reason was the lavish lifestyle he had established and become accustomed to. The main reason, however, was his inability to stand up to the Colonel. In Elvis’ personal life, there were no stops in letting anyone know how or what he felt. But when it came time to stand up to Colonel Parker, he backed off. Elvis detested the business side of his career. He would sign a contract without even reading it.”

As a result, Elvis began to feel aimless in his own life.