For 55 years, the identity of the girl the young Elvis kissed in one of his most famous photographs had been a mystery.
Until in 2011, the mysterious woman made a call to the Charleston radio station WTMA to reveal her identity. The American magazine Vanity Fair made the news public.
Iconic are the photos of Elvis and the mysterious woman he kissed backstage, on the stairs, behind the scenes of the Mosque Theater in Richmond Virginia, on June 30, 1956.
Actress Diane Keaton said “The Kiss” “was the sexiest picture she’d ever seen of her.”
Alfred Wertheimer photographed Elvis with the girl, but did not ask her name…
Wertheimer said in an interview that he never thought to find out the name of the mysterious woman. “I never realized these photos would become iconic,” he explained.
Barbara has always said that she was not seeking money or fame by revealing her identity. She even signed an agreement in which she gave up the commercial rights to what is considered one of the best photographs in rock history.
“I just wanted the damn photo to finally have my name on it,” she declared.
Barbara said she had grown tired of being referred to only as “the unknown woman backstage” with a young Elvis in a stairwell at Richmond’s Mosque Theater.
When Barbara Gray first saw Elvis, she didn’t even know him. According to Barbara, the day she was photographed with Elvis was the first day she met him. She had boldly called the singer at his hotel when she visited Charleston. The two made plans over the phone to meet in Richmond a couple of days later.
Barbara and Elvis flirted during lunch hours before their two concerts at The Mosque Theater.
Then they took a taxi ride to the Auditorium. Barbara in an interview stated: “Elvis was playing with me all the way and it was only three blocks!”.
When they arrived at the Mosque Theater, Elvis took her to the aisle, just a few meters from the stage where thousands of her admirers were waiting for him… and there he began to kiss her.
We are all probably wondering if something romantic happened between them, from what seemed to be a photo session full of chemistry and magnetism…
After spending the day together, Elvis managed to seduce her into accompanying him to his private compartment on the train that would later take him to New York… Until someone knocked on the door to tell them the train was leaving… to which she replied ” Me too”.
With which, everything ended that night… They never saw each other again…
