A : Well we had recorded in 1967 a song in Muscle Shoals. We had a session there. Atlantic sent us there to record. And, the session was going O.K. but there weren't any songs that kind of stood out. So a couple of the guys left the session, went into another room. Maybe 40 minutes later they came back with a song that was named after us called "Sweet Inspiration." And, it went on the album and it was our big hit and Elvis heard that song and liked it. And, so he got his people to get in touch. We didn't have to audition. He just knew that we were the ones that he wanted to sing because he wanted a soulful, R&B, gospel sounding female group and a gospel male group. He had it all planned. And so we did it without an audition. He just liked our record. He liked it so much he used it on Suspicious Minds too. But same writer though, same bass player.

(Right: The ever-youthful Myrna Smith gets close with the lucky EIN interviewer! - Sydney 2004)

Q : Where did you meet Elvis?

A : Well, we were starting rehearsals July of 1969 and we were all on the stage at what was then called the International and Elvis hadn't arrived yet, nor his entourage. And we're sitting there waiting for him to come in and all of a sudden he walks onto the stage, walks right over to us and plants a kiss on each one of us. That's how we met him.

(Right: The ever-youthful Myrna Smith gets close with the lucky EIN interviewer! - Sydney 2004)

Q : How were those rehearsals?

A : Well, he gave us pretty much a lot of freedom. Because what had happened was, his people had sent us probably a million albums. And we tried to have a rehearsal, but it didn't work because we weren't too familiar at the time with Elvis material and it was just we were bombarded with too much. So we waited until we got to Las Vegas to learn the songs. And as we rehearsed it we realized, "Oh I know this." But our backgrounds weren't the same sometimes as was on the record. But, he gave us the freedom to do that.

Q : Tell us about your first night in Vegas at the International.

A : I remember Elvis being very, very nervous. And I remember thinking, Gee I hope he has a good crowd. Because I knew he hadn't performed live on stage like that for a number of years, I think 10 years. So I was just hoping that, I had butterflies for him and was I surprised.
 

Looking back at them, the 1976 & 1977 seem to be such sad years.

Q : Tell us about the relationship between Elvis and his audience?

A : He was very playful with the audience and I think he really cared about his fans. He wanted to give them a good show. But he sometimes got upset because I know the show was loud. And sometimes you'd see people their fingers in their ears and he'd get upset about that, saying, "They just have old ears." Because for us on stage, we have monitors, we hear something completely different from what the audience hears. But I know it's loud, but that's what rock 'n' roll supposed to be.

Q : The first performances outside was the Houston Astrodome. There was a story behind that.

A : Well, Elvis -- the Rodeo didn't want us to come. There was a message sent to leave the black girls, they didn't need the black girls. And so Elvis responded with, "Well if they don't come, I don't come." But he was really upset about it. There was one person in particular who had sent the message. So when we got there, we were greeted by this little blonde in a convertible and she had to drive us around and she was his daughter. So Elvis always made sure he got even. I'm sure he said, "And I want your daughter to drive them." But, when it was happening we didn't know. We learned that later.

Q : Tell us about Elvis generosity?

A : To a fault. Elvis was generous to a fault, I think. He gave away most of his fortune, y'know, when he was alive. He rewarded you because it made him feel good. And if he had something, he wanted to share it with you. And you could eat dinner at his house. Even if he stayed upstairs, y'know, dinner was still served at Graceland. And, then you could just sit around and wait for him to come downstairs and we'd go to the movies. And, he just gave us jewelry all the time, big rings that covered half my knuckle. And, he gave me an El Dorado. And he's given a lot of people that he didn't even know lots of things.

Q : Do you have specific gift that is special?

A : I have a gold purse. It's a little square gold purse that he gave me. And when he gave it to me it was full of silver dollars and he signed it inside, Love Elvis. That's pretty dear to me. And, well the reason he gave me the car, the car was dear to me, I just didn't feel that he had to do it. But he did. He felt that he had to do it because there was a little misunderstanding.

And some of the girls walked off stage. Well all of the girls walked off stage, Kathy, Estelle and Sylvia. But I was privy to information that they were not because I had been with Kathy the night before, so I knew what was going on. And the other, Sylvia and Estelle didn't. And, you never try to upset Elvis before a show and he was told not to introduce Kathy in a manner that would embarrass her. And so he introduced all of us in a manner that embarrassed us. So the girls walked off and I stayed and he put a ring on my finger and we talked tussled. Finally, I just kept it because it was holding up the show with him pushing it on my finger and me pulling it off. And then I was on the plane with him and Lisa Marie and, because I was with Jerry Schilling at the time. And, I took off the ring and I said I like the way this looks on you, and I put it on his finger. And he had the most hurt look in his eyes because if he gave you a gift, he didn't want you to return it. Because he didn't know how to say I'm sorry about anything. It's hard for him to say "You know what, I'm really sorry I did that." But he gave all the girls gifts, y'know, a couple of nights later because they missed a couple of nights. And, the next night he took that ring, threw it in the audience.

And a couple of weeks later I guess it was, I was at the house and he'd bought all these cars. I think 11, 12, 14 cars for the guys and all and himself. And I heard him ask Jerry "Come -- Jerry, I want to ask you a question?" Jerry went. And the question that he wanted to ask Jerry was "Is it all right if I buy Myrna a car?" And Jerry said sure. But he didn't tell me. He asked me if I would go with him to the Cadillac dealer to pick out a car for his dad because he's forgotten to buy his dad a car. I said sure. So I go and we pick. I pick out this brown, I don't know what it was, but a nice brown big Cadillac for his dad. And, it's nighttime. The place is closed. We're in the lot. Takes his flashlight out and goes looking, asks me what my favorite color was first. And goes looking around til he found a blue El Dorado and said, "There's your car." And, y'know, how do you respond. You're like What? What? But it was because he had to give me something. If I didn't accept the ring, I had to accept the car, y'know, or he would have just kept doing something like that. But I really appreciated it.

Q : Elvis did have a tender heart?

A : Very. He was easily embarrassed and easily hurt and very forgiving because I've seen people do things to him and -- y'know, he'd be angry at first, really angry. Then he'd calm down gradually and then he'd show them nothing but love. Buy 'em some incredible house or whatever.

Q : Can you explain Elvis sense of humor?

A : Sick. We used to call him squirrelly. Cause he knew we didn't like guns and he loved them. And every night he would come into our dressing room because we were right across from him. After he changed clothes from his show clothes, he'd come into our dressing room, especially if he had a new outfit he wanted us to see. And, he would always take out the gun just because we were scared of it, and start laughing. But, he liked to play with water guns. Y'know, he'd shoot us onstage. We got water guns. He'd come with bigger with machine water guns. So he was very playful.

Q : Were there a lot of hijinks backstage?

A : Not before show. Mostly it was, he would do it onstage. He would do things onstage. But we would do things to him too, like take black tape and put it on our teeth and then when he looked over we'd smile. Do things to crack him up. But he was so nervous before a show that he wasn't ready to play around.

Q : Can you think of one practical joke on the girls?

A : Oh, on us? Elvis really cared about our feelings a lot and he never let anybody disrespect us except for him. Y'know, but he did it playfully. I can't think of any practical joke that he played on me, but yeah, I can. I don't know if it was a joke or not. He took me for a ride in his, let's see, it was a yellow Pantera. He had this little sports car and he asked me if I would take a ride with him. He was so proud of this little car. It was a two-seater. And so I got in the car with him and we'd go down -- leave Graceland, go through the gates and he must have been doing 130 miles an hour. And I knew he was trying to frighten me so I'm just sitting there, y'know, trying to be cool, just sweating. But he kept looking over at me. As we got back, he pulls up to the front. I got out and he said, "How do you like it?" I said, "Oh, it's O.K." And because he didn't frighten me, he took a gun and he shot the car! He just shot the dashboard. And I think that's pretty expensive car, isn't it?

Q : Oh yeah.

A : But I remember, it was Vale, Colorado. And, we couldn't go out during the day so we would go out at night. And all the guys were there and their girlfriends. We'd go out at night, but we wouldn't ski. We would take little, like garbage can tops, just little things, and go down, slide down the hill or he had a ski bike like, and the police came, y'know, security or whatever, came and because they had all ready smoothed out the slopes for the next morning and we were messing it all up. And Elvis has on this ski hat, it was covering this part of his face and his whole head and they said "You guys, y'know, you can't do this. You have to leave." And Elvis walks up and says "Don't you know who I am?" Guy says, "No, I don't know who you are, I'm Elvis Presley. Sure!" And he shows him his face and says, "Oh, we'll have fun." So he takes me up on one of those bikes. I'm sitting on the back and he's driving and we just tumble all in the snow and tear it up. But it was fun. None of us got hurt. He was a daredevil. He drove fast. But he's a very good driver. He'd take out his little siren and put it up there. Stop people if they were speeding. Walk up to their car. But can you imagine being pulled over and Elvis Presley walks up to your car and says I want you to slow down. He didn't give you a ticket.

Q : Tell us about rehearsals with Joe Guercio.

A : When Joe Guercio became conductor for the orchestra at the Hilton and we had to open the show. We did like 20, 22 minutes before the comedian. Before Joe we kinda put our show together ourselves and Joe thought that we could be more Vegas, more slick. And so he put together with our input, and sometimes his ideas overpowered ours because they were better, he'd come up with three or four songs that we should do in our set. And then he would rehearse us. He would have our charts done and he would rehearse us with Ron Feur who's a great audio player. And then we'd have, I mean, the whole orchestra would have parts. And we had our own rhythm section that we took with us. And he'd make sure that our rhythm section couldn't read music, they just played. So he'd make sure that they knew what they were doing. So I think our show really improved when Joe became conductor.

And a lot of times people aren't given credit. But I'd just like to give Joe credit because, y'know, he's put together lots of things for lots of entertainers. He's worked for Gladys Knight. He put together things for her that he's never gotten credit for. He worked with Natalie Cole. And, you know the thing that David Foster with her and her dad? Well, Joe's never been given credit for that. But that was Joe's idea. Y'know, he just wants the credit. And I hope that this stays in so he'll get credit for that. Because he did it long before David Foster ever put it on a record. He's a wonderful man and Elvis loved him because he's a jokester. I hated Joe when I first met him.

Q : Why's that?

A : Because he just walked up to me and just pinched me on the butt! I went like "How dare you?" and he laughed. I said this is a crude man. But then his wife was around, he did it around his wife. I says "Oh, that's just Joe."

Q : How did you prepare for the Aloha concert?

A : Well actually we didn't have to do any more preparation than normal. That was all in the hands of directors and producers and the Colonel. Elvis had to look gorgeous and he did. He looked absolutely stunning on that show. He was down to a good weight. He was down to the weight that he was when I first met him in 1969. And when he came on that stage he had on a chocolate brown suit and no shirt and he was dark, tan and most gorgeous man I've ever seen. And, he wanted to look good for the Hawaii thing. But actually, I don't think we really knew what was going on. They said satellite, y'know. And it didn't click with me. It was just a TV show as far as I was concerned. I think we were informed that it was gonna be satellite, but that was so new to me, and I'm not technical at all. So I didn't know that it was going to be shown the way it was.

Q : Why did Elvis want to record at Graceland only?

A : Well, I only remember one time that he recorded at Graceland. That was the last album, cause I was there on that one. But, I remember going to sessions at RCA when he was recording. And, we were supposed to do a session on Nashville that I was at, but he didn't make it to that one. He cancelled at the last minute and we all had to go home, but he paid us. But he didn't feel, that's when he was not feeling very sure of himself. And he was tired of doing the same thing. He wanted to start branching out and doing other things. He wanted to act really badly, but not the kind of movies he was acting in. He wanted to be a dramatic actor. And, he was very hurt when a couple of things that were offered him he couldn't do because of,
y'know, ego problems.

Q : Like "A Star is Born," for example?

A : Yeah. Well, the Colonel told him that it would be a problem because, there would be a problem with billing because who was gonna get top billing? Elvis or Barbra Streisand? And, of course, Barbra Streisand had brought the idea to Elvis. She and Jon Peters came to the dressing room one night and they were down there until about 5 o'clock in the morning and they were talking to Elvis and he was so excited. They explained the concept. So excited. And then, next night he came down to do the show and it was just like somebody had pulled the rug from under him. He was just real down because the Colonel had talked him out of it for professional reasons. And, Elvis really wanted to do it and he would have been great in it.

1979

Q : Is there a story about Priscilla and Elvis?

A : A story about Elvis and Priscilla. Just that they were great parents. And they both have hearts of gold. Elvis had a heart of gold. Priscilla has a heart of gold still. I mean, I had some personal problems and recently, and I get a phone call and she says, "Myrna, you know, if there's anything you need, you can call me." And I know she means that, y'know? And her mom was trying to help me with my house. Y'know, I was trying to buy this house that I already bought and I was having some problems and her mom is in real estate. She was helping me. Priscilla was helping me. Her sister, Michelle, Gary. I mean, they just, it's a wonderful family.



Q : How was he the last couple of years?

A : I don't know what they saw, but he wasn't depressed when he was around us because we kept him laughing. When I would be around him when the other girls were not, he didn't seem to be, I mean he would have days when he wasn't up to par, just like the rest of us. But I had no idea that, I mean I'd seen him in the hospital with liver problems, with sleep problems and just staying awake for weeks without sleep. And he was all turned around. Like I am, y'know. I go to bed at five o'clock in the morning. Sometimes, y'know. But, I can't go to sleep before three because it's just from the lifestyle. But I've learned not to take anything to come. I go to sleep when my body finally gets tired because, y'know, taking medication to make you go to sleep means you're gonna have to take medication to wake you up. And then you have to take medication to keep you even. So, if I don't sleep, I just don't sleep.

Q : There was no air-conditioning in Rapid City?

A : I don't remember it, no air conditioning?

Q : There was a new building.

A : Oh yeah!

Q : Elvis make-up looked smeared.

A : Well he didn't actually wear that -- oh well, because they were filming, yeah. Yeah. When they did that special I thought Elvis looked great. When you're around somebody a lot, you don't notice that they've put on weight. Plus I had seen him heavy before and he lost it. But, he had been so much heavier before that, that when I saw him I thought he looked fabulous. Jerry called me after we had done the taping and said, "Well how did Elvis look?" I said, "He looked great". And then when I saw the show after Elvis died, I went like "Oh, my God. He didn't look like that to me". But, y'know, when you love somebody I guess, you know, you want them to look good, so they do.

Q : Were you on the way to Portland when you found out he passed away?

A : Yeah, we were in the air. And, I guess the pilot got information for us to turn around and go back to Burbank, because we were on the show plane. And, we thought probably we had left somebody and so we landed so we could tell them to tell the person we left to take a commercial flight, or whatever. And to find out what was wrong. And I don't remember where we landed. I think it was Utah. I'm not sure. Because, Marty Harrell is the one that went into -- it seemed like a small airfield, but I didn't get off the plane cause -- everybody got off and I was just sick of it, y'know? And Marty came back on the plane and said "Myrna, why don't you get off because what I have to