Post by sliderocker on Aug 19, 2015 20:50:56 GMT -5
I was going to include this in my other thread on the Elvis CD but thought thought the better and decided to include it here. All had an Elvis connection of sorts, the last one especially freaky and unbelievable.
First up:
Yvonne Craig, TV's Batgirl, has passed away from complications of breast cancer at age 78. She costarred with Elvis in It Happened at the World's Fair (a minor part) and in Kissin' Cousins, often regarded as one of Elvis's worst. Craig had a major role in that movie. It was a quickie movie, filmed in something like 17 days, and contained one glaring error at the movie's end when Elvis and Lance LeGault (who was doubling for Elvis in the scenes where Elvis had to give the illusion of being two different people) turned to faced the camera at the same time. Craig thought they should've reshot the scene because one could see LeGault wasn't Elvis. But, they kept that scene in.
She also dated Elvis, and figured in one of the funniest stories about Elvis that should've made the news but didn't. She let herself out of Elvis's home in Bel Air one night, turning out all of the light switches. She met one of Elvis's Memphis Mafia aides who asked, "You didn't turn out all the lights, did you?" Craig thought the aide meant that one light should've been left on. She responded, "No, I didn't. I'm not his sitter." That wasn't what the aide wanted to hear but he walked her out and she found out what he was talking about: one of the switches was an alarm that summoned the police to the home, and there were several police cars and policemen trying to find out what had happened. Luckily, they were understanding. The next day, Elvis ribbed Yvonne: "I understand you had a little trouble with the police last night!"
But, Craig, achieved fame as Barbara Gordon/Batgirl. who rode around on a motorcycle in Gotham City, assisting Batman and Robin in defeating Gotham City's strangest criminals. She also appeared in an episode of Star Trek in which she played a green-skinned alien girl who was blown up on a prison planet by a madman seeking to escape from the planet by imitating Captain Kirk. After her celebrity status faded, Craig sold commercial and non-commercial real estate. She still had her real estate license at her time of death. She had numerous acting credits and worked with many Hollywood heavyweights. But, she'll probably always be known as Batgirl, and she seemed to be comfortable with that.
www.cnn.com/2015/08/19/entertainment/yvonne-craig-batgirl-death/
Songwriter and producer Bob Johnston died at 83 and his Elvis connection was in writing or claiming to write several songs for Elvis but crediting them to his wife, Joy Byers. The reason for crediting his wife was that Johnston was tied up as a songwriter to a publishing company that didn't allow their writers to assign songs to other publishing companies. Johnston got around that by crediting his wife as the composer (which she actually was). Besides writing for Elvis (he and Charlie Daniels - yes, that Charlie Daniels, wrote It Hurts Me, one of Elvis's better 60s tunes), Johnston was also a producer who produced albums for artists like Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash. He also signed many other artists to Columbia Records back in the 60s and was a staff producer. He died from heart failure at 83.
www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-bob-johnston-20150819-story.html
And the last one wasn't a celebrity at all but was married to someone who had a connection to Elvis. That person was Elvis's last girlfriend, Ginger Alden. She was married to a gentleman named Ron Leyser. No word on how old he was, but it was believed he died from a heart attack on August 17, 38 years and 1 day after Elvis's death. That's downright freaky, eerie and unbelievable. Other than Ginger, he had no other connection to Elvis although his death gives him perhaps the eeriest connection of any to have in dying 38 years and the day after his former wife's lover (or fiance, if you believe that) died. Strange things do happen!
www.elvisinfonet.com/
First up:
Yvonne Craig, TV's Batgirl, has passed away from complications of breast cancer at age 78. She costarred with Elvis in It Happened at the World's Fair (a minor part) and in Kissin' Cousins, often regarded as one of Elvis's worst. Craig had a major role in that movie. It was a quickie movie, filmed in something like 17 days, and contained one glaring error at the movie's end when Elvis and Lance LeGault (who was doubling for Elvis in the scenes where Elvis had to give the illusion of being two different people) turned to faced the camera at the same time. Craig thought they should've reshot the scene because one could see LeGault wasn't Elvis. But, they kept that scene in.
She also dated Elvis, and figured in one of the funniest stories about Elvis that should've made the news but didn't. She let herself out of Elvis's home in Bel Air one night, turning out all of the light switches. She met one of Elvis's Memphis Mafia aides who asked, "You didn't turn out all the lights, did you?" Craig thought the aide meant that one light should've been left on. She responded, "No, I didn't. I'm not his sitter." That wasn't what the aide wanted to hear but he walked her out and she found out what he was talking about: one of the switches was an alarm that summoned the police to the home, and there were several police cars and policemen trying to find out what had happened. Luckily, they were understanding. The next day, Elvis ribbed Yvonne: "I understand you had a little trouble with the police last night!"
But, Craig, achieved fame as Barbara Gordon/Batgirl. who rode around on a motorcycle in Gotham City, assisting Batman and Robin in defeating Gotham City's strangest criminals. She also appeared in an episode of Star Trek in which she played a green-skinned alien girl who was blown up on a prison planet by a madman seeking to escape from the planet by imitating Captain Kirk. After her celebrity status faded, Craig sold commercial and non-commercial real estate. She still had her real estate license at her time of death. She had numerous acting credits and worked with many Hollywood heavyweights. But, she'll probably always be known as Batgirl, and she seemed to be comfortable with that.
www.cnn.com/2015/08/19/entertainment/yvonne-craig-batgirl-death/
Songwriter and producer Bob Johnston died at 83 and his Elvis connection was in writing or claiming to write several songs for Elvis but crediting them to his wife, Joy Byers. The reason for crediting his wife was that Johnston was tied up as a songwriter to a publishing company that didn't allow their writers to assign songs to other publishing companies. Johnston got around that by crediting his wife as the composer (which she actually was). Besides writing for Elvis (he and Charlie Daniels - yes, that Charlie Daniels, wrote It Hurts Me, one of Elvis's better 60s tunes), Johnston was also a producer who produced albums for artists like Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash. He also signed many other artists to Columbia Records back in the 60s and was a staff producer. He died from heart failure at 83.
www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-bob-johnston-20150819-story.html
And the last one wasn't a celebrity at all but was married to someone who had a connection to Elvis. That person was Elvis's last girlfriend, Ginger Alden. She was married to a gentleman named Ron Leyser. No word on how old he was, but it was believed he died from a heart attack on August 17, 38 years and 1 day after Elvis's death. That's downright freaky, eerie and unbelievable. Other than Ginger, he had no other connection to Elvis although his death gives him perhaps the eeriest connection of any to have in dying 38 years and the day after his former wife's lover (or fiance, if you believe that) died. Strange things do happen!
www.elvisinfonet.com/
