Elvis Presley’s Maid Said He Had No Intention of Marrying Ginger Alden: ‘He Had Reached the End of His Rope’
Toward the end of his life, Elvis Presley entered into a relationship with actor and model Ginger Alden. Though he proposed to her, their romance had its fair share of problems. Alden and Elvis fought often, and his family and staff never warmed to her. Elvis even complained about his new relationship with his ex-wife, Priscilla Presley. According to Elvis’ cook and maid, Nancy Rooks, it didn’t seem likely that the pair would ever tie the knot.
Elvis Presley didn’t seem ready to marry Ginger Alden
After Elvis’ death, Vernon Presley kicked Alden out of Graceland. When she left, Rooks noted that she only took a small overnight bag with her. Unlike Elvis’ past girlfriends, Alden had never moved into Graceland. This led Rooks and others to believe that the relationship wasn’t as serious as the proposal made it seem.
“A lot of people have asked me if Elvis had really intended to marry Ginger. I don’t think that he did,” Rooks wrote in Inside Graceland: Elvis’ Maid Remembers. “I think in the beginning he felt like he could change her into someone who could take care of him, but, as time went on, I think he realized that he could not ‘mold her’ like he wanted to. She was just too young and too independent. He had already mentioned to me a day or so earlier that if she did not go with him on this tour, he was going to find someone else.”
According to Rooks, Elvis also agonized over concerns about Alden’s fidelity. He roped Rooks into schemes to somehow catch Alden in the act of cheating.
“He had had her followed on several occasions after she left the mansion, saying she was going home, only to find out that she was going to a nightclub in east Memphis,” she wrote. “I, personally, had called her house, at Elvis’s request, several times after she would leave Graceland telling Elvis she was going home, only to be told by someone at her house hours later that she wasn’t there. I think he had reached the end of his rope with her.”
Priscilla Presley said Elvis complained to her about Ginger Alden
Priscilla Presley was also aware of Elvis’ problems with his relationship. She believed that the age difference between Elvis and Alden was too significant. He was over 20 years her senior and did not seem to enjoy trying to keep up with her youth.
“He was seeing Ginger Alden, who was twenty years his junior, and the difference in their ages was becoming more and more of a problem,” Priscilla wrote in her book Elvis and Me. “He’d say, ‘I’m tired of raising kids. I don’t have the patience to go through it all again.'”
In these conversations, he also expressed to Priscilla how much he regretted allowing their marriage to fall apart.
His fiancée said they set a wedding date shortly before his death
Though Rooks doubted that the couple would make it down the aisle, Alden revealed that they’d taken a major step in planning their wedding. She said that just hours before she found him unresponsive, they had set a wedding date.
“He was in a good mood, we had just set a wedding date literally hours earlier and he told me a couple of weeks before he passed that he had been off too long,” she told Express. “He was ready to go back on stage, something he loved with all of his being. This day had begun with excitement and hope for Elvis and me, but ended in heartache and disbelief.”
