Lexie1973 wrote:I'm a bit afraid the Doc is going to want to shoot me for this, but at times I find the diaries a bit monotonous. At some point I started to wonder how many movies Elvis must have seen in his lifetime because sometimes the whole gang would go to the cinema every single night for days and days. So Donna writes that in her diary. A lot of times she writes basically the same: going to The Memphian, what Elvis is wearing, which movies were played, how Elvis behaved and how they would chase Elvis' car going back home.
Off course it is a very rare and unique look into Elvis' private life, as the Doc already stated. He was very very kind and patient with his fans no matter what, that is something that can be read in these books also. What I also find fascinating is how Elvis determined these movie nights. If he didn't like the film, he would say: put another one on. It didn't seem to bother him that anyone else might actually like it. So all these people that were with him there were actually there for him! They didn't mind seeing bits and pieces of movies, just to be around him was enough.
What also struck me as strange was that Donna and her family would go to those movie nights when often it became very very late (or rather early in the moring) and these people had to go to work and all! How did they keep that up??
All in all I found these books fascinating at times because of the look in Elvis' private life although one must keep in mind that it actually is a diary written by a teenage girl at the time.
All of this is true, no violence is necessary. What is important about Donna's three-volume diary collection is they clearly document dates and events, many of which are not noted anywhere else. You need to read through them with a fine-toothed comb to find those moments which add another piece to the puzzle. It's interesting to learn when
D.J. Fontana stopped by Graceland in the 1960s and 1970s. Or when Elvis was back from California. At certain points in time he was hardly in town at all.
Learning which films and actors really moved him during those movie nights is an insight into his Hollywood years, on many levels. Seeing his interaction with family and associates is fascinating ("Burnt."). Davis also documents how much things changed after his divorce, and how Presley gradually drew back from the kind of life he led in the 1960s and into the 1970s while at home in Memphis. Finally, it is very clear she is an extremely nice person who loved her family and adored Elvis, and still basically maintained a normal lifestyle when not being involved in Elvis-related activities. A girl's diary is a very private matter, and we should be grateful she chose to publish them for all the fans. Elvis' first deeply serious girlfriend,
Dixie Locke, kept one throughout their relationship in 1954-1955, a crucial and somewhat mysterious period, but never plans to publish them because they are just too personal. To her credit she did provide
Ernst Jørgensen with some specific dates and places when he was researching
A Boy From Tupelo, which allowed him to note exactly when they attended shows in Memphis, and specific nights when Elvis was at Sun Studios, or doing concerts.
