At 4pm on August 16, 1977, Elvis Presley’s father stood on the steps of Graceland and introduced to the world that his son had died.

Two days later, The King’s funeral service was held at his Memphis mansion for 200 invited family and friends.

Many of them had been personally invited by the star’s father Vernon, who oversaw the preparations.

He, in fact, invited Elvis’ ex-wife Priscilla, the mom of their daughter Lisa Marie, in addition to his son’s fiancée Ginger Alden.

But there have been three extra girls there who had shared the icon’s life.

Kathy Westmoreland was Elvis’ long-term backing singer of the ultimate seven years, who had turn into an more and more shut companion throughout the fixed touring of his closing years.

Their relationship had been extra considered one of consolation and dialog, and she or he sang My Heavenly Father Watches Over Me on the funeral.

Ann Margret had starred with Elvis in Viva Las Vegas, kick-starting an nearly two-year affair, and she or he had remained near him and his father.

She introduced her husband Roger Smith to the service. Grief-stricken, she needed to be “pulled away” from Elvis’ coffin.

The fifth girl was Linda Thompson, who was with Elvis for nearly 5 years till the tip of 1976. She was immensely fashionable with Vernon and the entire of the star’s interior circle, the Memphis Mafia.

As Lisa Marie’s daughter Riley Keough took management of Graceland this summer season, for the primary time ever, Linda was formally invited to take part this 12 months within the annual Elvis Week, which commemorates his life and passing.

In her account of her life with Elvis, Linda additionally described how Priscilla blocked Vernon’s plans to have her fly “home” from Los Angeles for the funeral on board the star’s personal airplane. The Lisa Marie.

In her 2016 memoir, A Little Thing Called Life, Linda recalled that Vernon referred to as her and stated he had a spot for her on the personal jet: “Have your things ready to come back home.”

She wrote: “I really did appreciate the fact that Mr. Presley had thought of me when he was trying to orchestrate the logistics of getting loved ones back to Memphis. He was so shaken by Elvis’s death, and yet he’d had to plan and organize the unthinkable task of burying his only child.”

Priscilla was additionally flying again and was not pleased with this plan.

Linda recalled how “hurt” she was by Priscilla telling her: “I don’t think you and I should arrive together. I think I should be the only one like that on the plane.”

Despite the truth that Linda, who had been with Elvis for the higher a part of that decade, was herself grieving the person she had solely simply break up from, Priscilla stated: “I don’t want to land in Memphis and get off the plane to a three-ring circus of the press saying ‘Linda and Priscilla flew together on the Lisa Marie.'”

Linda, who had often flown with Elvis and her daughter on that airplane, determined to spare Vernon any further burden and made her personal preparations, whereas Priscilla, who had by no means been on the Lisa Marie earlier than, made her arrival alone earlier than the world’s press, cementing her place in perpetuity as the primary girl in The King’s life.

Linda stated that Priscilla late got here to elucidate that it was “just a crazy time,” and Linda magnanimously stated, “I understood – it was a devastating time for all of us.”

It could be Priscilla who would begin to form the succeeding narrative over the next many years, additionally, impressively, turning a bankrupt Graceland right into a massively worthwhile enterprise and worthy legacy for Elvis’ life.

Linda would quietly and respectfully stick with it together with her personal life as a profitable songwriter, with marriages to Bruce (later Caitlyn) Jenner after which David Foster.

In latest many years he has began to take part in Elvis fan occasions and share extra of her reminiscences of life with the icon.