First, i dedicate this post to the memory of the late Timi Anderson and Dede Smith, who passed away a few years ago. However, we have nothing new about the other two teenagers in the photo, namely Suzie Olson and Anna Skarning who is the daughter of the promoter who hosted the event at the time. Healthy safe evening of Friday, February 12, 2021 to everyone! Remembering the Elvis’ fabulous 1950s. Once upon a time in St. Paul, MN. The Golden Boy King was there. The date was: Sunday, May 13, 1956. The place was: The Saint Paul Auditorium. Here is the incredible story of the then four teenage girls from Saint Paul, MN. who had the honor of meeting Elvis backstage during his visit to St. Paul. On February 13, 2013 Suzie wrote: “Last year Dede Smith and I found each other after a 45 year lapse and she wrote to me the whole story about how this miraculous event was accomplished. Unfortunately she died a few months later which was very sad for me having just found her. Timi Anderson died quite a while ago and Anna Skarning was someone I saw backstage for the first time and never again … Suzanne and Dede were best friends through Junior High and High School in St. Louis Park, MN. The Echo was their school newspaper and their ticket backstage. As as she put it, “hardly qualifying as a real press entity but we were nothing if not determined.” She sent us a copy of a letter that Dede gave her that she had written to her older sister Julie about a week after the show. It provides an excellent example of the perspective of a 14 year old girl fan, which at the time was representative of the majority of Elvis’ audience. As a review, it ranks up there with some of the best. We felt it only fitting to include it here, as written, typos, misspellings and all: Dede meets the King: Dear Julie, So I can have Elvis can I? Well,I’ll tell you what happened since last Sunday as best I can. We waited till Tues. (May 8) before we called Mr. Skarning again. I told him I was for the Echo and he seemed very impressed but couldnt help us much, as he didn’t know. Timi called the Mpls. audit. who said that if we wanted to get in early wed have to get specail premission from sk. So on Thurs. Timi and I went out to see Sk. and he was very nice and told us he didnt know when the plane would get in. Its a very deep dark secret,but he would tell us if he knew. He gave us free tickets of the $ 2.50 varity and shocked us. He also said wed have to have identification from our paper to get in to the press conference they mite-have. Oh gee . …. .. We got Echo passes from Mrs. Moffat and on Fri. I had my hair done and on Sat. I got a new dress and shoes and etc. Sk. said the plane mite come in about noon. So we called him Sun.morn to confirm it Besides he told us to call but when we called he was very nasty and I reminded him I was from the Echo and he said whats that. We went out to the airport at 11:50 and waited till about noon and then decided to ask someone if Elvis had come in. We asked Western Airlines and the man said “Oh he came in last night.” We were so mad at sk. So we went home and called all sorts of hotels and radio stations and various people. When we called the Calhoun Beach Club (we thought he be there as thats where sks. office is) but the man who answered said to call the Lowry in St. Paul and WDGY and the people at the Lowry got mad (it was the fourth time wed called them) and WDGY said someone must be pulling our leg. I tried to get Will Jones but couldnt. (he didnt help much as he was going to the St Paul performance,) Well, it was raining out and cold and quite dismal and at 4:30 we took a taxi to the audit. There were a few other people there who were dressed in jeans and and old jackets. Boy were they ever frumps. The doors were to open at six . Our main intent was to get in there and get good seats. Timi got seperated from Suzie and I in a mad scramble and finally when they opened the doors Suzie and I ran like mad to get in. Somehow we did, and got seats in the second row center and Timi came along and I grabbed her and as we were setting our wet hair she told us that Mr. Skarning. was there. So Timi and I went out and he was very glad to see us and remembered who we were and said to come back at 8:15 for a press conference. Elvis wasnt to go on till 9. At quarter to 8 we got nervous and went out and wandered around till 8 then approached Mr. Sk. who said that if he wasnt there at 8:15 to go to Mr. Davis or Mr. Cannon who he pointed out to us. They were Elvis’ personal manager and his press agent and they seemed very nice. Sk. seemed very proud of us and we werent mad at him anymore. Well we went back and sat down and the show started with some girl singer and at 8:10 we left again just when the girl was singing ol’ man river. Every one thot we were crazy leaving when Elvis mite be on any minute,but of course we knew he wouldn‘t be. We pranced out, as nervous as could be, to find sk. But he wasnt there! We were miserable and scared, we didnt know where to go, and we didnt see Davis or Cannon either. we ran franticly around, asking everybody if they had seen sk. but no one had. We were almost in tears when we saw him walking along, and we dashed up to him and he told us to go around to the other side and show the police men our Echo passes and theyd let us in. (he never for a minute doubted that we were from the Echo and he liked us very much espically me) So anyway we went to the side that would let us backstage and found policemen holding back the crowds. Desprately we pushed to the front and showed a cop our passes but he said that any kids mite have those passes and wouldn’t let us in. We told them that sk. had told us to come back there and they didnt believe us!! Suddenly we saw sk. and ran up to him and said “Oh Mr. Skarning they wont let us in” And he said it was all right and we went in and all those kids who had been standing around and lafflng at us stopped laffing when we got in! Then all of a sudden there he was. Elvis. Our Elvis. He got out of a car and smiled and waved and ran backstage. There were only about 4 other reporters there and we all went in. He wore black. His shirt was open at the throat and he is really much much much cuter than he photographes. He seemed very glad to see us as we were the only girls backstage. We went up to him and got his autograph and a man from the paper took our picture while we were with him! Twice! He was jumping around and acting like he does onstage only in a lesser degree. And oh Julie! We talked to him and he was so sweet and so really charming and so kind and so nice and so twichy and so real and so human and so cute and so honest and so playful and so wonderful and so interested in us and so soft and warm and he was — is – so terribly SEXY!!!!!!! He would be talking to us and someone would run up to him and say “youve got to meet so and so” and theyd drag him off and hed say “be back in a minute honey“ and he came back,too! While he was talking to so and so he looked at us and winked . I asked him what he thot of it when girls screamed and yelled and he said Its when they stop screamin‘ that Ah’ ll start worrying honey. And hed put his arm around me and pull me real close and hold me and then massage my neck . His hand was cold but not clammy. Then he went to his dressing room and got ready for the show. We talked to lots of people , they were all so interested in us. We talked to Al Doerr (Stans brother) who was from the st. paul paper and a nice fat policeman and Elvis’ best friend Eddy who was on leave from the army and had driven up from Tennessee. There were also some other people who were inconsiquental.(?) Anyway, they were. Oh… We asked him if he liked it when girls wore jeans and he said *Honey doll, Ah just like girls, with any kind of clothes or without.” eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeooooooooo!!!!!!! Youd think he isnt the nervous type wouldnt you? well I’ve never seen anyone as nervous as Elvis Presley before he went on that stage. He had changed into his costume of a bright yellow sports jacket and lite brown slax. He had on a beautiful watch with diamonds on it and a huge diamond ring on his right hand. He wasnt wearing blue suede shoes….just dirty black loafers (Eddy said he didnt have time to polish them.) And brown sox with fleur de lies or some such thing on them. Anyway he was just absolutly frantic. He paced the floor. He leaned on Eddy(who was just as nervous as he was) . Now his cold hand was clemmy,too. (he was holding my hand- I guess to try to stop from shaking like a leaf. We had decided not to go back to our seats…we knew wed never get back there again. The fat policeman said we could watch from the wings if we liked. There were a few other people …sk‘s. 2 secretarys were there and they knew us too.Eddy had to almost push Elvis on stage… and once he was on Elvis recovered himself , took a typacally dramatic stance,whanged on that old gee-tar,stomped his foot and wailed “Now since my baby left me…’ Elvis’ legs went into a stuttering —squirming movement, those dark rimmed eyes fixed on infinity, his long hair flopping over his forehead,his body almost rigid with emotional intensity yet throbbing like a high powered car with the gas wide open and the brake set tight. I was hanging out of the wings trying to hear him over the screams and squeals of the audience. The audience was pushing forward towards the stage an the police were holding them back. He was partly hidden to us because of the bass player was in the way, and every once in a while hed kick the microphone forward and pull it back again. Also he kept looking to the wings and hed wink and smile and once he waved at us. Once he looked at us and I motioned for him to come forward a little and he did! You couldnt hear much of anything for the screaming and when he wanted attention hed hold his hand up in the traditional show-business gesture and wave him double jointed thumb around. He wiggled and sang Heartbreak hotel, I Got a Woman, Money Honey, Blue Suede Shoes, Only You, I Was The One, and 2 others that I couldnt hear at all. Once he ran downstage to the foot-lites and the girls howled like madwomen. He was on for about a half hour and then he ran off-stage and kept right on running till he came to a piano at one corner of the stage and collapsed on it. You see, I found out that when he was in St.Paul hed thrown his gituar up in the air and it had gashed his head ,and hed started bleedeng. Sks. secretary had fixed up and she told me about it. It started to bleed again when he got offstage here and everybody was mopping up his awful cut. I guess it was pretty bad- It was covered up by his hair.(poor darling). He is afraid he is going to be drafted as Eddy was and he made us promise that if he was wed write to the President. We said we would. He was just glassy-eyed afterward and could hardly catch his breath. He has the nicest voice. Its real soft and low and he has a darling southern drawl. mmmmmmmmmmm sweetie. He went to his dressing room after a little while and later went out to the car. The cops again were holding back the crowds and he got in the car and motioned to us to come to him and said to me “C’mere baby’ and we started to come and a cop got in our way and before I could get a word out he was gone. He wanted to kiss us goodby too. OOOOOOh that cop. he (Elvis) had been very dissappiomted that no one had been out at the airport to meet him. He said he had been home in Memphis for 4 days and had got here by plane at 10:20 Sat. nite. He also wished there had been more peoplr there at the performance. There were 4000. I still cant believe it happened to me . My Gosh how I Love that guy. He is so wonderful. When I see you I’ll tell you the rest as its really to long to write out. He liked us tho. He likes to be around girls, and we were the only girls backstage. Please save this letter and the other one so I’ll have a written record of it all. Love, Dede (Mrs. Elvis Presley!). February 13, 2013. If you have any other memories to share, leave a comment on my post. Thanks for reading! See you next time and another Elvis story. Elvisly yours, Lanani. MMXXI. My fb.: https://www.facebook.com/memphis.memories1965. For more fun, i invite you to join my own group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/lanani.remembers.elvis. P.S.: Click on the pics for a large view!. To be continued…
