Elvis Openly Flirted With Female Reporters
Elvis Presley rarely talked to reporters once he established himself as a megastar, but it was difficult to avoid them in the early days of his career. Reporters constantly visited him on the set of his movies to get a quote from the rising star. Elvis was typically polite and earnest. When he talked to women reporters, though, he got flirtatious.
Elvis Presley flirted with some reporters
When Elvis rose to fame, he was an incredibly controversial figure. Some believed his dance moves were vulgar and capable of corrupting America’s youth. When people talked to him, though, they discovered he was polite, hardworking, and humble.
In conversations with some reporters, he readily admitted to being nervous about the interview and shared his hopes for the future. He also discussed how much it hurt him that people believed he was a bad influence.
“I think that hurt me more than anything else at first,” he said after hearing a preacher wanted his congregation to pray for his salvation (via Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley by Peter Guralnick). “This man was supposed to be a religious leader, yet he acted that way without ever knowing who I was or what I was like. I believe in the Bible. I believe that all good things come from God.”
His honesty charmed these reporters. Elvis attempted to charm female reporters even further. He flirted with them throughout their interviews.
“I could make you like me if I tried,” he told one reporter. “I’m just teasin’ now, but I’d be sweet and you’d like me because I was sweet, wouldn’t you?”
Elvis rarely talked to reporters
For most of his career, though, Elvis avoided speaking to reporters. Elvis valued privacy — something that was difficult for him to obtain — and didn’t want to bare his personal life to strangers.
“He just never got into the fame thing,” Priscilla Presley said, per Express. “He performed, but if you look back he hardly did any interviews.”
Fans congregated outside the gates of his houses and paparazzi tried to photograph him in his yard. He wanted to take whatever privacy he could get.
“He did what he was supposed to do, but he wasn’t into it,” Priscilla said, adding, “He was a very private person.”
When he did have interviews later in his career, publicists instructed reporters not to ask any prying questions.
He went out of his way to protect his privacy
Elvis was so private that he even safeguarded the inside of his home. He installed one-way mirrors on the upper floor of Graceland so that he could peer out without being detected.
“One question that we always get a lot of is about the upstairs and something you might notice is this privacy wall right here,” Graceland archivist Angie Marchese told Express. “He really had an open-door policy that anyone he was friends with could use Graceland and have people come to Graceland. So, to ensure privacy upstairs he had this wall added and those mirrors you see are actually one-way mirrors where he could see out but no one could see in.”
