In 1956, one of the most famous young actresses in America flew to Memphis to spend a week with the hottest star on the planet. She lasted two days. Then she picked up a telephone, called her sister in a panic, and begged her to invent a fake family emergency so she could get on a plane and go home. Her name was Natalie Wood — and the reason she ran had nothing to do with Elvis at all.
Natalie was 18 years old and already a genuine star from Rebel Without a Cause. She was fascinated by this loud new singer everyone was screaming about, so she asked her co-star Dennis Hopper to introduce them.
Elvis was 21 and just as starstruck by her — he’d watched her in Miracle on 34th Street when he was still a little boy in Mississippi. Their first dates were something out of a movie. According to her sister Lana, when Elvis took her to the cinema, he bought out the entire theater so they could watch alone. Natalie had never seen anything like it.
Then he invited her home to Memphis to meet his parents, and reality hit hard. Natalie was famous, but she had never experienced fame like this. She said it was like a circus rolling into town the second she got off the plane. A crowd stood outside Elvis’s house day and night. Somebody had set up a wagon selling hot dogs and ice cream to the people waiting. When the two of them went out on Elvis’s motorcycle, a motorcade of fans simply fell in behind them and followed.
Dating Disaster – Natalie Wood And Elvis Presley
But the real problem was waiting inside the house. Elvis’s mother, Gladys Presley, took one look at the Hollywood actress and decided she did not approve. Gladys was convinced Natalie was only after publicity. It didn’t help that Natalie wandered around the house in what one Elvis biographer described as a very flimsy nightgown — which Gladys shut down instantly with a firm “Not in my house!”
Then came the moment that finished it. Natalie watched the biggest sex symbol in America being called over by his mother, who invited her grown son to come and sit on her lap. The two of them were openly, constantly affectionate. Natalie found it deeply unsettling — this wasn’t a rebel rock star, it was a young man completely wrapped up in his mother, in a house where his mother made all the rules.
Two days in, she broke. She called her sister Lana and blurted out the words that killed the fling for good: “Gladys has wrecked everything. I don’t have a chance. Get me out of this—fast.” They cooked up a quick exit strategy: their mom would call back screaming about a family emergency, giving Natalie a clean, polite excuse to bolt. It worked like a charm. She caught the first flight home and never looked back. Later, when Lana asked what she actually thought of the King of Rock and Roll, Natalie didn’t hold back: “He can sing, but he can’t do much else.”