THE THEFT OF CHOICE : SPECIAL EDITION of MISTRESS MANIFESTO FEATURING CASSANDRA PETERSON

The inspiration for this month's excruciatingly uncomfortable subject is the story of her rape in the memoir Yours Cruelly, Elvira by Cassandra Peterson, better known as Elvira, Mistress of the Dark. You may be familiar with the character of Elvira, who years ago started out a long stretch as the hostess of late-night scary B-movies on television, some of them laughable, especially if you were in range of Los Angeles stations. Prior to becoming known as Elvira, Cassandra had what might be called a colorful life, which I'll get to in a moment.

I'm not a fan of horror or scary films and can't remember ever staying up late to watch the show, but I knew about Elvira the way I knew about Angelyne, who I elected as Honorary Mistress of the Month in October 2010, long before she was outed by a mysterious character and then a biopic was made of her life.  If you lived in Southern California in those days then you knew she was around.

Angelyne's mystery was how she could afford to be on so many expensive billboards all around town, how she could afford all the cosmetic surgeries, how she could afford pink sports cars, one after another, and spend so much time driving around Los Angeles and being seen. (She certainly did not seem to have a regular job or much in the way of actual acting work. She did manage to record some music...)  There were always whispers of mysterious benefactors. A friend of mine who had his moment of fame decades earlier and interacted with a number of people in entertainment told me who everyone said Kept Angelyne, which I've never revealed. Just about everything else he had ever told me about various show business people had checked out. But let me get back to Cassandra.

While Angelyne may live 'in character' and be famous for being famous, Cassandra Peterson, who as Elvira in some way got associated in some people's minds with Angelyne, played Elvira as an actor, keeping her private life private but not in a downright secretive way as Angelyne did. Some reviews of Peterson's book mentioned that finally she was getting personal. And she did in her memoir, including about her rape.

Of course Mistress of the Dark uses the term Mistress in a way that I do not here at Mistress Manifesto. Defining Mistress is one of the goals of this blog as we learn about so very many for whom a label such as Mistress might be right. Overall, however, the term Mistress implies a woman who is in command, if not of others, than of her own life, which can also seem to be ironic and contradictory, since in so many novels where Mistresses or Kept women or Courtesans are the main character they are actually subject to a passion that makes them sin.  

When I search for books that are non-fiction in libraries to read and consider for inclusion here, I always encounter hundreds of fictive books in which the Mistress is a character.  Sometimes I think there are hundreds of such books for every one that is non-fiction. Why, I ask myself, are all these novels written, sold, and read?  I think it's because many women do have the fantasy of being in a relationship outside of marriage.

One of the aims of Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot is to to look at the realities. We ask how did (and do) Courtesans, Mistresses, Kept People, Groupies, Harem concubines, and just plain women who have affairs with men who aren't free to marry them, live their lives? We wonder if, as in films, the 'bad girl' is always punished by society or fate.  We do this at a time when people are more open in general about who they are and what they want, and sometimes what they want falls into the category of Alternative Lifestyle.

We love the idea that we have Choice, but how much Choice do we have?

To review the book Yours Cruelly, Elvira:

Cassandra Peterson grew up with an abusive narcissistic mother caused her much pain and a beloved father who did not defend her. She grew up in a lower-middle class home where there was no talk of careers or college for her. She was a Beatles-maniac and long live rock and roll! She became the youngest showgirl in Las Vegas at the time; her parents signed their agreement. She's been Sex Positive and never shy about showing off her physical assets, in particular her breasts. Meeting Elvis Presley, who gave her some wise advice, was the highlight of her life in Vegas. 

Attempting to support herself as she took bit parts and background work, Cassandra Peterson went to Italy where she had some experiences that could have turned out worse. Destitute and squatting, ripped off and escaping a criminal lover, she ended back in America. In Los Angeles she decided to add her natural sense of humor to her bawdy personae. She took classes with the Groundlings comedy troop, which she eventually was invited to join. She and a partner wrote the comedy scripts for the horror show evenings she hosted

In her personal life she was not shy about having sex and didn't hold herself to traditional values. Not religious, she favored the Ernest Holmes Science of Mind way of goal setting. She also lovingly accepted gay men as friends, coworkers, and co-creatives. For a long time she-who-would-someday-be-known-as-Elvira was just scraping by, even when she had room mates or lived with a man to keep the cost of living down, even as she paid her dues and took her acting and improv classes, even as she sought agents, went on auditions, and took rejections.

When I first saw the book as an offering as an e-audio book and an e-book at my library, I thought, what the heck, I'm under no obligation to read it if it turns out it's no good. But it was, surprising so.  First of all, I love e-audio books when the writer/author reads their own work. Cassandra does, expressively, and humorously.  She's frank. And I was surprised at how much I was enjoying the book and could relate to her as a human being. Even if I personally would be far too self conscious to ever be a showgirl, I could certainly understand how much she loved music, how big a deal meeting Elvis and having a good conversation with him it was. I could certainly understand about being true to one's art, even if it didn't pay.

So when I got to Chapter 15, entitled You'll Never Work In This Town Again and she started reading/speaking about it, knowing already that she had been propositioned many times, had been sexually harassed, had been offered work in exchange for sex (in Hollywood called 'the casting couch') by sleazy men, I was unprepared to hear that she had, after fending off and surviving so much, been raped. 

So, this month as a Special Edition here at Mistress Manifesto, the focus is Rape, which is the Theft of Choice and so horribly common, and so hateful towards women, I swear sometimes I think castration should be the punishment. 

Thank You Cassandra Peterson for inspiring this Special Edition.

Cassandra Peterson was married for twenty five years and suffered six miscarriages before finally having a child at age 43. She had long been involved in LGBTQ Rights but had to adjust when she herself fell in love with another woman. When her book came out in 2021 she was seventy years old and had been in that relationship for 19 years. As an activist she has also been involved in PETA anti-fur campaigns. She is also for the Me-Too Movement and is vocal about having been verbally and psychologically abused not only in her childhood, but also in her marriage. 

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You might be interested in reading: ANGELYNE THE BILLBOARD QUEEN : RUMORED MISTRESS OF THE MONTH is in the archives for October 2010

P.S. I'm not suggesting Petersen has been a Mistress or a Courtesan or a Kept Woman. Her memoir does not suggest it.

JOHNNIE RAY : DOROTHY KILGALLEN'S AFFAIR WITH THE GENERATION YOUNGER 1950's POP SINGER WHO BOBBYSOXERS THREW THEMSELVES UPON

Dorothy Killgallen was a personality.  She was normally polite and poised but also was known for her ability to have a good laugh. She wore beautiful clothing and was attended to by a personal hairdresser. She had a tremendous career as a journalist and author and was famous, popular, and social. She had a spacious decorated brownstone to live in and on the fifth floor a personal abode she used as an office, which also was furnished with a bed. She earned money, though how much more than Johnnie Ray is not known.  Why did his older married woman who coaxed her beauty appeal to the singer?

According to Mark Shaw:

Excerpt: "When Johnnie Ray, the rangy, handsome, humble son of a devoted mother and mill worker with the golden voice, appeared on What's My Line, Kilgallen was stumped, and not happy about it.  Regardless, backstage the two chatted for better than an hour."  (Page 57) 

(Johnnie appeared at Jill's fourteenth birthday July 16, 1957. Jill, Dorothy's daughter, and her friends were fans of Johnnie, so Dorothy called his agent and asked if he could send over some records for the party. Instead Johnnie himself showed up with an armful of records and entertained them for an hour. I note that by then, the toddler at the house, youngest son Kerry, was probably Johnnie's so I question why she would have to have arranged this with his agent.)

Dorothy asked Ray if he would go see the film An Affair To Remember with her.  

Ray asked Dorothy to a Count Basie concert.  Both Johnnie and Dorothy loved jazz.  After the concert, he took her back stage and introduced her to Count Basie.

In 1958, with Johnnie, Dorothy hosted "63rd Street" parties at his address, a 2000 square foot New York apartment. (Page 64)

Excerpt: "That Kilgallen paraded her romantic relationship with Ray out in the open air may have been risky for others in the entertainment industry but there is no evidence that she was condemned for this illicit affair in any newspaper or magazine article.  To the contrary, Kilgallen was given a pass as if she had the right to such companionship outside marriage." (Page 65)

(Friends reported that the couple were lusty and could be heard in the den where they cavorted at parties.)

Missy here:  I knew nothing of Johnnie Ray, who's fame and popularity was like that of Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley, in the 1950's. Coming up I'll be telling you about some surprises I learned by reading the book Cry, by Jonny Whitesides. Be sure to watch the videos I've posted.

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SUSAN BERMAN'S LADY LAS VEGAS - AUTHORSHIP AS LEGACY

  You may have just recently heard of a woman named SUSAN BERMAN, because a man named Robert Durst's on trial for her murder, years after it happened.  The new evidence that was revealed in a documentary called THE JINX, involves a secretly recorded confession as well as letters sent in the U.S. Mail.  Durst comes from a very wealthy New York City real estate fortune family, like Ivanka Trump, and like Ivanka's husband, Jared Kushner.  The Durst family has avoided the controversy.  Durst's money provides him the lawyers.





Reading some news articles about the trial, after having watched The Jinx, I learned that Susan Berman supposedly took a loan from Robert, who she had been good friends with since they met as students at UCLA.  She was an author who was perhaps not able to depend on her income as a writer to pay her bills.  So I wondered if she was a good writer.  I read her book LADY LAS VEGAS and thought she was an excellent, creative non-fiction author.  She managed to have a bit of her and her family's story, since her father was instrumental in the development of Las Vegas, woven through later chapters about the development of the town famous for "What goes on in Vegas, stays in Vegas." 


Here at Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot, Virginia Hill, who was the mistress of Ben Siegel, the subject of the Warren Beatty film, Bugsy, credited with building the Flamingo Hotel in the middle of nowhere, was covered in March 2013.  Well, Susan's father and associates took over the Flamingo when Siegel was gunned down in Los Angeles while Virginia was out of town.


Susan, may she be resting in peace, left Vegas as a child, after her father died young of natural but stress related cause, and then her mother had a mental breakdown and eventually commited suicide.  Because of her family's participation in Organized Crime, her murder has been blamed on the Mob, rather than Durst. Was she really a woman who knew too much for her own good?  The Susan in this book was not associated with Organized Crime herself.  On the other hand it has been claimed that because of her family background, Durst was able to confess to her that he killed his wife, Kathy, also a long missing person that there is likely a murder mystery that may involve Durst.  After she was left an orphan, her guardian became her dad's brother, her uncle with a big gambling problem.  She left Vegas and eventually lived in Los Angeles.


As an adult, gone from Vegas for 40 years, and distanced from it though the years and therapy, though with very fond memories of her childhood there as the only child and daughter of Davie Berman, credited as a builder of the town, she went back.  The part about going to the family home in a suburb that had been turned into a law office, her old playhouse in the back yard still there but used for storage, was a bit of a heartbreaker.  Always in her memory as a good time in her life, proud of the achievements that her dad had made, Vegas had changed so significantly it was hardly what she'd remembered as an insider behind "American's Neon Oasis."


There are other books by and about Susan Berman, but I thought my readers might be interested in this one because of some of the people she mentions in the book who have been mentioned here at Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot.  Besides Ben Siegel and Virginia Hill, she mentions Elvis Presley (who sang happy birthday to her), Liberace, and Howard Hughes, who bought hotels and had a mistress in each of them.  We covered Scott Thorson, who Liberace Kept, here in October 2012, and Howard Hughes's Mistress Faith Domergue in May of 2014.  (The Mistresses mentioned here do not include Faith!)


To find these people in this blog, try running a search for their names in the search feature on the sidebar.


Missy.

SHE WEARS MY RING - ELVIS PRESLEY

ELVIS PRESLEY GUITAR

 

From Google Images - search for Public Domain images

ELVIS' GIVES GINGER EXPENSIVE PRESENTS AND SETS UP A BANK ACCOUNT FOR HER - from ELVIS and GINGER

According the book, ELVIS and GINGER, (besides the diamond engagement ring and promises to pay off her mother's house mortgage and install a swimming pool in that yard)  Elvis Presley gave Ginger Alden...

page 206 ) An all diamond TLC (Tender Loving Care) necklace specially made for her.

page 248) A vacation trip to Hawaii in which some of her own family, some of Elvis' employees, and Elvis's doctor Nick and his family are all also paid for and brought along.

page 252) A redecorated dressing area near the bedroom they share in colors Ginger preferred, which eliminates further evidence of his old mistress Linda Thompson and Linda's hot pink carpeting.  (When Ginger moved in Linda's clothes, photographs, and so on were still in evidence.)

page 252) Gave her one of his own jewelry boxes made of inlaid copper and brass to start storing the jewelry he gives her.

page 255) Joe Esposito warned her not to admire anything when they go shopping because Elvis will buy whatever it is without concern for how much it costs.

page 255) A newish car that he had first given his father Vernon, who didn't like the car. 

page 255) "Leading me into the dressing area of his bathroom, he gave me the most singular piece of jewelry I'd ever seen, his own large, ram's head necklace in gold inlaid with diamonds and emeralds. "Always wear it with something black, he instructed."

255) "It was around this time that Elvis decided that I should have a bank account.  He put Vernon (Elvis' father) in charge of opening one for me.  Elvis put $5000 into the account and I received a credit card.  I had made a little money from working at the dress shop, but I was awestruck. This amount of money might have seemed small to some, but to me it was, quite literally, a fortune.  I had never even owned personal checks or a credit card!"

PRISCILLA AND SHIRLEY TRY TO PUSH GINGER TO PUSH ELVIS FOR A WEDDING DATE - BOOK EXCERPT from ELVIS and GINGER

Shirley at the time was the girlfriend of Joe Esposito, one of Elvis' employees.  Shirley talked to Priscilla on the phone when she called and gave her the news that Elvis was now engaged to Ginger.  After the phone call, Shirley urged Ginger to push Elvis for a wedding date.

PAGE 237-238

"I didn't like the idea.  I remembered Elvis once telling me that he thought when it came to marriage it was the man's place to ask, and Elvis had already told me a few times that God would come through and tell him when the time was right.  I wanted him to be sure.  A red flag went up.  Was Shirley trying to help me or hurt me?"

GINGER FINDS OUT ELVIS IS PAYING LINDA'S RENT - BOOK EXCERPT from ELVIS and GINGER

From the book ELVIS and GINGER by Ginger Alden

EXCERPT FROM PAGES 182-183

"That's okay.  You can say it in front of Ginger and Rosemary," Elvis said.  Looking slightly uncomfortable, Joe (Esposito) repeated "Linda called and was wondering if you're going to pay the rent on her apartment in Los Angeles."

I was completely taken aback.  Elvis had been paying Linda's rent?  Why? And for how long?  Elvis was watching me closely,. as he did sometimes, studying my face for a reaction, but I tried not to let my surprise and concern show.

Elvis looked at Joe and shook his head no. Looking back at me he said, "It's not fair to you."  Joe walked away.

"Well Elvis, it wouldn't be right," I said, remembering that Elvis had asked me to commit myself 100% to him, and feeling like he should do the same for me.

Elvis kept his eyes on my face.  "I bought Linda a house not long ago to put some distance between us," he said.

Had Linda lived at Graceland full time until them?  I wondered, but didn't ask, I was too busy trying to absorb this new twist."

GINGER ALDEN : LAST LIVE-IN MISTRESS WAITING TO BE A WIFE OF ELVIS PRESLEY

Like Pricilla first, like Linda Thompson before her, GINGER ALDEN lived in with Elvis Presley as a mistress in wait to be a wife, but only Pricilla, who began her wait as a younger teenager, waited long enough and got  legal marriage and had a baby.  Ginger did get a beautiful diamond engagement ring and a diamond studded Tender Loving Care necklace and is known most for being the woman who found Elvis dead.

Elvis liked very young, you could say "unmolded" women and he clearly had a type he liked and you could say created.  When you see pictures of all three of these women you see similarities in their look, enhanced by Elvis' taste in clothing, jewelry, hair styles and makeup, that are very Bling!

ELVIS AND GINGER

Elvis Presley's Fiancé and Last Love

Finally Tells Her Story

by Ginger Alden

 

 

Ginger was speaking from her heart when she wrote her story, careful to simply tell only what she knew and experienced as a 20 year old local Memphis beauty who was summoned to meet the 42 year old Elvis in 1977, selected by him to be his immediate girl friend-lover before Linda Thompson was completely moved out, and was, along with her tolerant and agreeable family, showered with expensive gifts that included cars and promises to pay off the mortgage of her mother's house and install a pool in that backyard, and so on.  All she had to do was be on call and agreeable, groomed to be his perfect girl-woman, beautiful but also dominated. But several months into the relationship Elvis died before all promises could be fulfilled.

 

It's not possible to eliminate Linda Thompson as Elvis' previous mistress from Ginger's story, but Ginger was Elvis' last relationship and it was she who found him dead in the bathroom adjacent to his bedroom hours after he left the bed they shared. There have been some conspiracy theories attached to his death and she was not, after his death, kept innocent of this, while knowing nothing that could help an investigation.

 

It is because of the terms and conditions of being Elvis' girlfriend-lover that I, more knowledgeable of the ways of men and the world than a 20 year old beauty in 1977, think of Elvis' live-in Graceland TM women as mistresses.  He was one to gift and set up a woman, to have her on call so that she gave up her employment or career ambitions to be there for him.  He provided for himself- and her- some private space away from, but close enough, to family members and employees who lived in also or nearby.  That they knew of the relationship(s) doesn't deter me from thinking of Ginger and Pricilla and Linda as mistresses, not at all.  For through history Kings and their courts have also known and lived with and around, as an example, and sometimes ambitious parents offered up their offspring for the honor.  So there is more than one reason Elvis was called "The King."

 

Elvis loved.  He needed to be loved.

 

When he bought Linda Thompson a place to live in Los Angeles so she could further her career ambitions, it was mostly a parting gift because Elvis had lost interest.  When he announced from the stage that Ginger was his girlfriend or when he had her travel, she is out there in public with him, not hidden away but revealed to the world.  How different though is that to the more ordinary mistress who has met her man's children, is known to his best friends and secretary, and is seen out with him?

 

From past reading around Elvis and Pricilla, Pricilla claims that, through they were sexual, she and Elvis waited till marriage to have actual intercourse and she became pregnant right away.  That is not the case with Linda Thompson and Ginger Alden. I don't believe the sometimes proffered notion that Elvis Presley had a virgin-whore complex, which is why I just think that during all those years of waiting, Elvis had lost interest in Priscilla.

Contrary to much that has been published on the subject, Ginger does not believe that Elvis was depressed or especially drug addicted in his final months of life.  She acknowledges nightly packets of pills delivered to the bedroom.  He is depicted as controlling, moody, and capable of great giving, which to me is often spontaneous and foolish because it eventually becomes estate breaking.  Elvis' great shows of spending worried some of his retainers and family members who are dependent upon him. 

 

By summoning beauty queens whose looks he likes to Graceland TM this famous singer and star who emerged from the early days of Rock and Roll in the 1950's, doesn't have to go out to meet women,  have his every move made public and scrutinized, or go through the usual courtship of a woman.  It's more like they are amazed and mesmerized and agreeable and appointed, even if they already have a boyfriend-lover they will have to break up with right away like Ginger did.

 

How depressed could Elvis be?  Why would he make all these plans for the future if he knew he was sick or dying? After all he was planning to marry her and have a child!  As he had his other mistresses, Elvis told Ginger that he alone would know the right time to marry because GOD would let him know. 

 

Trust him! 

 

Through the story, the young Ginger both dares not question Elvis or their compatibility or the effect on the relationship due to their vast age difference, but is always sensitive to evidence of Linda.  Maybe what she had readily agreed to was to be part of a love triangle?

Elvis enjoyed teaching Ginger and liked her to read to him as they sat in bed.  This was in part because he had glaucoma and his eyes were often irritated and stressed.  Together they read spiritually oriented books.  Elvis had studied karate and also attempted hands on healing.  But there is always the possibility that if he had lived and they had stayed together that she would have become an abused woman. Because in one of his moody shifts of personality he raged and slapped Ginger on the side of her rib cage, saying "No one ever walks out on me when I'm talking!"  Elvis is very much used to and expecting to get his way and capable of anger and punishing behavior when he is questioned. 

 

 Through this month I'll feature some telling excerpts from the book "Elvis and Ginger" by Ginger Alden.

 

 

book review by mistressmanifesto.blogspot.com  / Missy Rapport

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and this blog.

 

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