Let's Spend the Night Together: Backstage Secrets of Rock Muses and Supergroupies (5 page)

Tura had already lived an unusually untamed life for one so young. She was a spicy seasoned doll with all the finesse that comes with life experience. Her offbeat relationship with the King gathered erotic steam as she continued to play the role of capricious muse to the unpolished Southern boy. "When we first started out, he was kinda like `wham, bam, thank you, ma'am,' until I showed him what to do. Eventually he became much more sophisticated." Does that mean Elvis became a good lover? "Yes, it was worth the effort," Tura says, closing her eyes. "He was definitely worth the effort." Remembering that long-ago night, Tura smiles. "I also showed him how highly sensitive my boobs are.

Elvis was becoming more passionately adept, but there was one very important amorous pleasure he had yet to experience. "Four or five nights later I showed him how to give head." Tura grins. "He hadn't done it yet." Apparently other women had tried to entice Elvis in that direction, but that particular female scent had put him off. "I had just made love to him in the shower, and I said, `Wait a minute! Before I took you in my mouth, I washed you very well, because I don't know who you've been with. And the same applies to me. I will not make love to anybody until I know I'm clean."

It seems Tura instructed Elvis in one of life's finest sensual arts. "When a man wants to give you pleasure, that's what makes the difference-'Honey, not so hard there, just nibble, and when you find that little man, nudge him. Several times. But try to do it gently at first ... then a little harder ... when you've got him nice and hard, then you start to suck. . :

All of a sudden it's very warm in the room. Does anybody have a fan? Can you turn the air conditioning on, please? I'm palpitating here! Hmmm. Should I be crude and ask the obvious size question? Oh, why not, I may never get this opportunity again.

"Elvis was about average in that department, and that was fine with me," Tura laughs wickedly. "It all depended on how excited you got him."

When the Colonel saw Tura's risque act, he suggested that he manage Miss Japan Beautiful, promising to make her a very big star, indeed. But stripping was Tura's form of rebellion. She was totally in control and holding her own reins, thank you very much. "He said, `I could make you a big star,' and I said, `How much of me would you want?' He got 55 percent of Elvis. All he did was act like a big-league bodyguard. He kept Elvis away from everybody, kept him isolated." Her refusal angered the former sideshow huckster, and he went out of his way to break up the lusty lovebirds.

Tura had been lonely on the road for quite a while. "Then Elvis came along and he filled up a big empty hole, so to speak," she laughs. "Literally, too! It was great while we were together. We were both very private people. He didn't like all the hullabaloo about who he was dating." She accepted that the studios made Elvis date his costarlets, but it hurt.

One night after Tura performed in Memphis, a fervent, obsessed fan got into his car, put a double-barrel shotgun in his mouth, and pulled the trigger because she wouldn't date him. When Elvis came to pick Tura up in his pink Cadillac, he came upon the grisly scene. The cops were hassling her, as if she had something to do with the tragic mess. "The shotgun was still in his mouth and his brains were on the backseat," Tura recalls, "and when Elvis got there he said, `Baby, they ain't ever gonnaput you through anything like this again.'" He gave her a diamond engagement ring that night, claiming her as his own. "It was a total surprise-he turns me around, grabs me, kisses me, and says, `God, do you know how much I love you?' He fishes into his pocket and pulls out a box with this beautiful diamond ring." Yes, I had noticed the large flashing diamond on Tura's finger. Swoon. Elvis's ring. "It's three and a half carats," she smiles. "I said, `What is that for,' and he said, `I just asked you to marry me,' and I said, `You did?' At first I said yes. I wasn't expecting it because he knew I had a little run-in with the Colonel."

Then things began to change. Not only was the Colonel out to break up the young couple, his influence over Elvis was becoming stifling. "The Colonel was pulling his strings and Elvis basically let him do it. He often had Elvis strung out, taking stuff to get him to sleep, to wake him up, keep his appetite suppressed. I felt so sorry for him. It was almost like he gave up, especially after his mom died. It was like he signed off." Then Elvis tried to put Tura on that age-old Madonna/whore pedestal. "I told him I couldn't live on that pedestal. I didn't want to be like his mom. I could be his wife and lover, not his mama, but he was trying to combine the two. I didn't mind being worshipped, but I didn't want to be mama."

Tura wore the ring for a while, but Hollywood kept calling the King into the silver spotlight. Elvis told her he didn't want their engagement to be a secret anymore, but he was squiring actresses around. Tura saw the photos in movie magazines. When she tried to return the ring, Elvis wanted her to keep it. "He wouldn't take it; he said, `That's part of me and you. You'll always belong to me as long as you have that ring.' I said, `No, I won't. I will not belong to you anymore. From now on I'm gonna go out with other guys and I'm gonna do what I do best.'"

So Tura Satana taught Elvis Presley how to dance, make out, make love, and give head. Then she kissed him good-bye. While Elvis surrendered to the Colonel's manipulation, making lessthan-stellar movies such as Speedway and Clambake, Tura continued to turn heads and raise blood pressure. She drove Francis Albert Sinatra to dizzying distraction and carried on a blazing love affair with Tony Bennett. She also proceeded to blaze distinctly diverse trails. After eighteen years on the burlesque circuit, she landed the sexy role of an unrepentant prostitute in Irma la Douce, then made cult history in Ted V. Mikels's films The Doll Squad and The Astro-Zombies. She's the star of her very own comic book drawn by wizard Mike Hoffman: Tura Satana: The Ultimate Femme Fatale. But Tura is best remembered as Pussycat's temptress Varla, whom John Waters calls .one of the best villains in screen history." Ballbreaker Varla definitely kicked opened doors for dolls ready to combine strength with their sexiness. Tura's advice to women? "You can be sexy, you can be hot, you can be feminine-and you can kick ass!"

After his stint in the army, when Elvis brought the teenage Priscilla Beaulieu home to Memphis, he was still thinking about Tura Satana. "He always found my phone number no matter how many times I changed it," she says. "We were friends, but he wanted to get back to the physical aspect of our relationship. I always said no." Slowly but surely, the imported sweet-faced brunette who would become Mrs. Presley started looking more and more like a certain Asian burlesque siren. The hair became blacker, piled high on her head; the eyes thick with black eyeliner slanted dangerously upward. "He told me he wanted a replica of me, and I said, `She's totally a different person.' He said, `But I can make her look like you.' I told him it wasn't fair to Priscilla, and he said, `But I want you, and I can't have you.'"

Ooh, what a night it was, it really was such a night! Slightly tipsy and reeling from all the heady Elvis revelations, I thank the magnanimous Ms. Satana and gather up my stuff. We hug each other and plan to stay in touch. Before I head out into the leafy night, I ask Tura if she ever wished things had turned out differently. "I know Elvis was trying to get off the medications he was on," she says, "but he gained so much weight, he felt he had to go back on the pills. Nobody was taking care of him or feeding him the way they should have. They just let him glut on his favorite foods, deep-fried Southern things that weren't good for him." Tura is suddenly sad and slowly shakes her head. "When he died, yeah, I always felt that if I'd been with him, I would have been able to pull him through. I would have had more influence over him than the Colonel or anybody else." As Tura runs her hands through her long black hair, Elvis's diamond ring shimmers in the candlelight.

The Happiest Broken Heart

herry Vanilla. Just her name evokes the flashy, flagrant, shameless exuberance of her most adventurous decadethe gleefully unapologetic '70s. Look Cherry up on the Internet and thousands of entries emerge, revering this punk high priestess.

Actress, author, poetess, DJ, and rock star ... author of the libidinous artbook `Pop Tarts,' her genuinely seductive singing voice made mincemeat of the more feted female vocalists ... ranking high among the most influen- tialfigures on the Anglo-American rock scene....

While I was taking the Sunset Strip by storm in my garters and leopard-print spike heels, I knew I had a sensational counterpart on the East Coast. In those days, the groupie tom-toms were the most reliable form of information as to who was doing what to whom behind closed hotel room doors. I knew Cherry was part of the impudent Andy Warhol posse, that she was a member of David Bowie's tight-knit inner circle and worked for his company, MainMan, as his uberpublicist. She traipsed around with lots of stellar rockers and recorded a couple of raunchy rock and roll records of her own, Bad Girl and Venus D'Vinyl.

I have crossed paths with Ms. Vanilla at glitzy rock functions through the years and observed her on the arm of the exquisite Rufus Wainwright more than once. We've always been full of mutual admiration, but I never had the chance to get the bona fide lowdown about her hunky-dory history. That changed recently when at I encountered the divine Cherry Vanilla in Fairmount, Indiana-the tiny, exalted town where James Dean was born and buried.

We happened to be visiting mutually dear friends at the same time. Dean historian David Loehr and Lenny Prussack reside on Main Street and help keep the Rebel's flame burning bright in the heartland. Running into Cherry so unexpectedly added a colorful twist to my semiannual visit. One afternoon, I happily dragged her all over farm country, scouring antique malls and thrift stores, while we shared torrid tales. She plans on writing her own memoirs, but after much cajoling, she gave in and agreed to be interviewed about her groupie years. I was tickled hot pink.

Before our scheduled meeting in L.A., I gave her two records a spin. Bad Girl and Venus D'Vinyl were rereleased as a doublealbum five years ago, and I got quite a kick out of her nervy lyrics and boisterous tongue-in-cheekiness.