{"product_id":"child-bride-isbn-9780307336958","title":"Child Bride","description":"\u003cb\u003eThe myth-shattering account of the most famous—and most taboo—marriage in rock-and-roll history\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e“Fascinating . . . Finstad’s research and her analysis of Priscilla’s complex character make for a riveting read.”—\u003ci\u003eNew York Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe real story [of Elvis and Priscilla] is infinitely more powerful than the myth and, ultimately, tragic; the true Priscilla more complex. Priscilla Beaulieu Presley is not, and never was, the fragile, demure child-woman she has come to personify; she is, in a word, a survivor, a woman of indomitable will and almost frightening determination.\u003c\/i\u003e—from the Author’s Note\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eChild Bride\u003c\/i\u003e reveals the hidden story of rock icon Elvis Presley’s affair with fourteen-year-old Priscilla Beaulieu, the ninth-grader he wooed as a G.I. in Germany and cloistered at Graceland before marrying her to fulfill a promise to her starstruck parents. But who \u003ci\u003eis\u003c\/i\u003e Priscilla—and what was her role in their infamous relationship? \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eAward-winning biographer Suzanne Finstad perceptively pieces together the clues from candid interviews with all the Presley intimates—including Priscilla herself, along with hundreds of sources who have never before spoken publicly—to uncover the truth behind the legend of Elvis and Priscilla, a tumultuous tale of sexual attraction and obsession, heartbreak and loss.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eChild Bride\u003c\/i\u003e, the definitive biography of Priscilla Beaulieu Presley, unveils the controversial woman who evolved from a lonely teenager bound to the King of Rock and Roll into a shrewd businesswoman in control of the multimillion-dollar Elvis Presley empire—a rags-to-riches saga of secrets, lies, and betrayal.“Priscilla’s secrets come rolling out in a juicy investigative bio . . . backed up   by interviews with scores of sources.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eEntertainment Weekly\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “[A] fascinating biography.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eNew Orleans Times-Picayune \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eSuzanne Finstad \u003c\/b\u003eis the award-winning author of the \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestseller \u003ci\u003eNatalie Wood: The Complete Biography \u003c\/i\u003e(previously published as \u003ci\u003eNatasha\u003c\/i\u003e), named the best film book of the year by the \u003ci\u003eSan Francisco Chronicle\u003c\/i\u003e. Several of her books, including the bestseller \u003ci\u003eSleeping with the Devil\u003c\/i\u003e, have been adapted into movies. Finstad’s works also include \u003ci\u003eChild Bride: The Untold Story of Priscilla Beaulieu Presley \u003c\/i\u003eand\u003ci\u003e Warren Beatty: A Private Man\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cb\u003eChapter 1\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Ann’s Story \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In March of 1963, Priscilla Ann Beaulieu was at  the crossroads of her life. Though just seventeen, a senior in high school, she was  faced with a decision that she knew, with a child’s wisdom, would forever alter the  course of her destiny, and she had a strange foreboding. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e She was desperately in  love, as only a teenager can be—a forbidden love—locked in conflict with her parents,  especially her mother, Ann Beaulieu. Elvis Presley—the twenty-eight-year-old rock-and-roll  idol and movie star, the most famous sex symbol in the world—held the seventeen-year-old  in thrall and wanted her to move into his compound in Memphis as his girlfriend-in-waiting  while she finnished high school and came of age. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e But Elvis was not the object of  Priscilla Beaulieu’s teenage fancy that fateful spring. She was breathless over the  handsome eighteen-year-old star of her high school football team. She did not want  to leave her life in Germany for a dubious future with a rock star. It was Ann Beaulieu,  her mother, who was obsessed with the idea of Priscilla moving to Graceland to become  Elvis Presley’s de facto child bride. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Both mother and daughter feared that Priscilla  might be making the greatest mistake of her life: Priscilla, if she went to Graceland;  Ann, if she stayed. In the end, Priscilla deferred to her mother, as she habitually  did. She packed her bags for Graceland with barely a good-bye to the boy she left  behind.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e As this tale implies, it would be difficult to tell Priscilla’s story  without beginning with her mother’s, for their lives and their destinies would always  be linked in mysterious ways, ways understood only by Priscilla and Ann. They were  bound together by secrets, secrets only Ann fully understood. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Ann, as would her  famous daughter, began life with a different name: Anna. Anna Lillian Iversen. As  a child, she was called Rooney, short for Annie Rooney. Where that nickname came  from—possibly a 1920s cartoon character—the Iversens would not reveal to outsiders.  They were Norwegians who considered the most trivial family detail ‘‘personal and  private.’’ Ann’s family history, they still maintain, is nobody else’s business.  Outside the family, and even to Ann, it is a forbidden topic. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e There was nothing  of portent in her early life. Anna Iversen was the youngest of three children, all  of whom were born in March, each two years apart: Albert Junior in 1922, James in  1924, Anna in 1926. Their father, Albert Iversen, was Nordic-handsome—big, strapping,  and blond; their mother, Lorraine, was a petite mix of Scotch-Irish and English,  ‘‘a pretty little peanut,’’ in the words of Anna’s maternal cousin Margaret. The  year before Anna was born, Albert and Lorraine Iversen set up permanent residence  in New London, Connecticut, a picturesque working-class town on the eastern seaboard  known chiey as a base for the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard. Albert, in keeping with  his potent physical presence and ego, joined the police force. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e As a child, Rooney  sang and acted in skits with her favorite cousin, Margaret, joined a dance club,  and discreetly followed the career of actress Priscilla Lane, the most famous of  the four Lane sisters and a Warner Brothers contract player from 1937 to 1944 who  costarred with Ronald Reagan, Dick Powell, and James Cagney. Like her movie-star  role model, Rooney was fair and blue-eyed, with a wholesome girl-next-door prettiness.  Her most impressive feature was a thick tumble of shoulder-length blond hair. If,  as Oscar Wilde wrote, ‘‘We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the  stars,’’ Rooney’s eyes were fixed on the sky. She chafed under the thumb of her rigid  policeman-father, waiting until she was out the door to apply forbidden lipstick,  using Margaret or her best friend, Fay Heim, as cover for the nighttime adventures  of adolescent girls. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Anna Iversen’s turning point came when she sneaked out to  attend a USO dance during her freshman year in high school. The dances, organized  for the New London-based navy and coast guard eets, were dangerous territory for  any young girl; for Albert Iversen’s daughter, they were taboo. Girls under sixteen  were not admitted; Rooney was barely fifteen. There was a slight stigma attached to  high school girls who attended USO functions; many of them ‘‘got in trouble,’’ as  Fay would remember. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e None of this deterred Rooney. She was in single-minded pursuit  of romance, the kind depicted in the movies, the kind that promised an escape from  her stagnant lower-middle-class existence. One evening at the dawn of World War II,  fate smiled on her. She was asked to dance by the handsomest soldier at the USO,  a dark-haired dream of a boy named James Wagner—Jimmy to his friends, and he had  a million of them, recalled his brother, Gene. Jimmy was a storekeeper third class  in the navy, stationed aboard the USS Beaver, a submarine tender in the Atlantic  Fleet, berthed in New London. ‘‘It was certainly love right from the beginning,’’  according to Rooney’s best friend, Fay. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e ‘‘He was gorgeous,’’ remembered Anna’s  cousin Margaret, swooning. James Wagner was slight—\u003cbr\u003efive feet six or seven—with an  athlete’s physique and a face that would melt a girl’s heart: model-perfect features,  dancing blue-green eyes, movie-star white teeth, and jet-black hair that formed a  widow’s peak. ‘‘Oh!’’ his mother once exclaimed. ‘‘If you see his picture it’ll take  your breath away!’’ He was a bit of a dandy, always immaculate and stylish, ‘‘but  he was not conceited,’’ according to his brother. ‘‘Jimmy wasn’t like that. He didn’t act like he knew he was handsome.’’ \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Anna Iversen concealed her romance from her  parents, calling on Fay or Margaret to act as her accomplice when she wanted to rendezvous  with Jimmy at the USO. ‘‘She’d use me as cover,’’ Fay remarked, ‘‘and then she’d  sneak into the background.’’ Albert Iversen would never have permitted his adolescent  daughter to date a twenty-year-old navy man; she wasn’t even allowed to wear makeup.  Desperate to appear older, Rooney smuggled a pair of her mother’s high heels out  of the house to wear at a dance with her soldier boy. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e That April, James Wagner’s ship set sail for Bermuda, returning to its berth at New London a few months later.  As Americans held their breath, wondering whether the country would be drawn into  war, the Beaver conducted its operations around Long Island Sound, docking at New  London intermittently. For seven months, from May to December, Rooney continued her  trysts with Jimmy. ‘‘We used to go up to the site where he was stationed, and we  used to meet him on the state pier without her parents knowing it,’’ Fay remembered.  Rooney, her cousin Margaret stated, ‘‘was madly in love with Jimmy.’’ \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e On December  6, with the scent of war in the air, the Beaver left New London under sealed orders  to carry supplies to an unknown destination. The families and lovers of the ship’s crew ‘‘stood on the dock and cried,’’ recalled one wife. The next day the Japanese  bombed Pearl Harbor. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Rooney took a part-time job after school at the Boston Candy  Company, the local soda fountain, mixing milk shakes and dreaming of Jimmy. He materialized  again in 1942, at the end of her sophomore year, for a few days’ training in New  London. That fall, the Beaver sailed to Roseneath, Scotland, with James Wagner aboard.  The two exchanged love letters and became secretly engaged. After half a year, Jimmy  wrote with news that he was one of a few men chosen to be trained as navy fighter  pilots. A few months earlier, Rooney’s screen idol, Priscilla Lane, had eloped with  an army pilot and had revealed a secret first marriage and divorce. Anna Iversen’s  own forbidden romance must suddenly have seemed more enticing than ever. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e James  Wagner was sent back to the States to begin classes in March of 1943, and Rooney,  who was then in her junior year, dropped out of high school about the same time.  The family could use the extra money she would make working full-time, but more likely,  she was angling to marry Jimmy. ‘‘She didn’t seem too interested in school,’’ recalled  John Linkletter, a fellow student at Chapman Tech. ‘‘So it looked like she would  rather get married.’’","brand":"Crown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46299945697509,"sku":"NP9780307336958","price":17.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780307336958.jpg?v=1767723638","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/child-bride-isbn-9780307336958","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}