Bova Question: JB=Fact or Fiction???

I think with a lot of the books about him, you take most of the stories with a pinch of salt..they all like to recount one-on-one conversations with him which unfortunately can't be disputed or verified

These conversations may not be Joyce Bova's exact words: Don't Ask Forever is actually written by William Conrad Nowels. Many of Elvis-books are written by ghostwriters who mould interviews to literature and they often choose the style themselves. Bova's book is indeed romantic and even melodramatic but I still see no reason to doubt the stories she has shared. Elvis propably pushed other people to take pills with him - for example Priscilla and Barbara Leigh, if I remember correctly.
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If i remember right Elvis offered both Priscilla and Barbara leigh pills and they both chose to take them.

Priscilla stopped taking them after awhile and Barbara Leigh only took the occasional sleeping pill.

I don't recall anyone else saying Elvis tried to force them into taking drugs other than Joyce Bova.

lets not forget that Joyce Bova was a grown woman as well.

Sleeping pills are drugs just as the injections Elvis took. These young girls took the drugs to please the Man who did not like to take no for an answer. But I agree with you, it was their own choice.

I don't recall anyone else saying Elvis tried to force them into taking drugs other than Joyce Bova.

Many associated with Elvis tell of his insistence on those with him sharing his use of doctor-prescribed "medicine," and it goes back to 1959 and his days in Germany. Rex Mansfield's testimony on this appears in a book he published with his wife, Elizabeth, who also was with Elvis then.

020901_Sergeant Presley_Mansfield.JPG

Rex Mansfield, Elisabeth Mansfield, Marshall Terrill, Zoe Terrill, Sergeant Presley: Our Untold Story of Elvis' Missing Years (Toronto: ECW Press, 2002)

Ty, Doc.

As you can read from your from the review that you just sent, Williams Conrad Nowels is the ghostwriter - just as I claimed.

Like the Baltimore Sun reviewer, you are mistaken.

The traditional view of a "ghostwriter," as the name clearly implies, is someone who writes something that is credited to someone else. They do not take any formal credit, but get paid for their work.

As we may see, Nowels is clearly given credit, which was Bova's choice. She told him her memories, he worked them into readable shape.

Again, the point is that the words and meaning are all Joyce Bova.

Thank you.

As you can read from your from the review that you just sent, Williams Conrad Nowels is the ghostwriter - just as I claimed.

Like the Baltimore Sun reviewer, you are mistaken.

The traditional view of a "ghostwriter," as the name clearly implies, is someone who writes something that is credited to someone else. They do not take any formal credit, but get paid for their work.

As we may see, Nowels is clearly given credit, which was Bova's choice. She told him her memories, he worked them into readable shape.

Again, the point is that the words and meaning are all Joyce Bova.

Thank you.

No, you are mistaken. Ghostwriters do not write transcribtions, they write books. They do not copy the interviews word for word. Of course, Bova has approved the text before publishing it, but this does not mean that the dialogues represent only direct quotes from Bova.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghostwriter

No, you are mistaken. Ghostwriters do not write transcribtions ...

They sure don't. Can't argue with you there.

Again, the point is that the words and meaning are all Joyce Bova.

No, you are mistaken. Ghostwriters do not write transcribtions ...

They sure don't. Can't argue with you there.

Again, the point is that the words and meaning are all Joyce Bova.

They do "as told to" now. The ghostwriters are FRIENDLY ghosts today!

rjm

No, you are mistaken. Ghostwriters do not write transcribtions ...

They sure don't. Can't argue with you there.

Again, the point is that the words and meaning are all Joyce Bova.

They do "as told to" now. The ghostwriters are FRIENDLY ghosts today!

rjm

The book was published in 1994.

No, you are mistaken. Ghostwriters do not write transcribtions ...

They sure don't. Can't argue with you there.

Again, the point is that the words and meaning are all Joyce Bova.

You always enjoy when foreign people do not master your language perfectly. It sure tells a lot.

Ghostwriters do not write transcriptions, they write books. The words are not all Joyce Bova.

It seems that you have not even read this book. Maybe you should.

You always enjoy when foreign people do not master your language perfectly.

Actually, no.

I have NO idea where you live, so your comment is doubly bogus. Is "Disgraceland" a country, "Albert Goldman"?

Just to set you straight, it is no secret you often take a combative stance on this forum, and often it is aimed at me. My post was a way of taking this typically-negative energy from you and spinning it in a humourous direction. You should try it sometime.

Thank you.

Is "Disgraceland" a country, "Albert Goldman"?

That was funny.

You always enjoy when foreign people do not master your language perfectly.

Actually, no.

I have NO idea where you live, so your comment is doubly bogus. Is "Disgraceland" a country, "Albert Goldman"?

Just to set you straight, it is no secret you often take a combative stance on this forum, and often it is aimed at me. My post was a way of taking this typically-negative energy from you and spinning it in a humourous direction. You should try it sometime.

Thank you.

"drjohncarpenter",

if you do some "research", you may find an ancient topic where you make fun of my spelling. In the very same topic I explained to you that English is not my native language. This incident was noticed also in that "other" forum where people were discussing your "combative stance" in lenght. And I don't think that disagreeing with you gives me "combative stance" in general - and I sure didn't start this round.

If your remark was light-hearted humor, then it was misunderstood because of your earlier comments. Simple as that.

I have no need to argue with you about a book that you haven't read. As I said before in this thread, I recommend Bova's book. And if you haven't read it, I sincerely believe that you would enjoy it.

And this leads me back to the topic: I believe that Joyce Bova tells the truth the way she sees it and the way she remembers it. There are some sad and disturbing stories but they are told with love and emphaty. The book lends some of it's style from romantic genres of fiction - but that is not really uncommon thing for autobiographies. I have read so many memoirs about Elvis that have been written by his male companions that I find this feminine perspective refreshing.

The credibility question is answered by Nash's use of Byron Raphael as a source after the embarrassing Playboy article. It tells you that fact-checking isn't a priority if the story is salacious/interesting enough.

Just because an author makes a mistake elsewhere does not mean all their work should be dismissed. Alanna Nash has written very capably about Elvis, case-in-point Elvis Aaron Presley: Revelations From The Memphis Mafia, which remains an essential book for the serious Presley aficionado.
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I agree that it's unfair to dismiss everything she has written and I'm not doing that. It's a repeated mistake though, not a one off. I don't enjoy reading a book and wondering which stories are in there because they have been properly scrutinized and which are simply there to improve sales.

The latest one was never going to be up my street though. I couldn't care less what Elvis got up to in the bedroom.

The credibility question is answered by Nash's use of Byron Raphael as a source after the embarrassing Playboy article. It tells you that fact-checking isn't a priority if the story is salacious/interesting enough.

Just because an author makes a mistake elsewhere does not mean all their work should be dismissed. Alanna Nash has written very capably about Elvis, case-in-point Elvis Aaron Presley: Revelations From The Memphis Mafia, which remains an essential book for the serious Presley aficionado.
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I agree that it's unfair to dismiss everything she has written and I'm not doing that. It's a repeated mistake though, not a one off. I don't enjoy reading a book and wondering which stories are in there because they have been properly scrutinized and which are simply there to improve sales.

The latest one was never going to be up my street though. I couldn't care less what Elvis got up to in the bedroom.

You're prejudging again. The book is about more than just the bedroom festivities.

I saw a recent documentary featuring Alanna Nash, and she does seem to have an agenda. It's a shame she's being wheeled out as an authority on Elvis' relationships, as she insinuated directly that the 42 year old Elvis was still in the habit of befriending 14-15 year old girls, as some sort of a physcological child in a man's body.

It didn't make for pleasant viewing, and ruined an other wise enjoyable program for me. I can't remember what it was called - it was on a bio or sky arts channel in the UK.

This is why I stopped buying books of this nature. You don't know what's truth and what's made up. When the man has been gone 35 years, I don't see the point of bringing out sorrid details if they are real or not. I can't even remember the last Elvis book I bought! The last two were givin to me as gifts, so it must be years since I bought an Elvis book. Just don't need 'em anymore. 1971 is a bit of a mystery in the life of Elvis, but the decline is very visable after "Aloha" in 1973. Back then, the pictures I saw of him in tabloids or newspapers, I just thought of as natural aging process, some weight gain, looking tired, perhaps from over touring. Never heard of Elvis taking drugs back then, not until "Elvis what Happened" came out! My mother was a life long Elvis fan, but after he died and she read that book...it got her right off of Elvis! She hardly ever played his records again and it was as if she was disappointed in him. I think that book caused her to see her Idol as a fake. That's why I stay clear of tell all books. They do no good for an entertainer's lagacy! They make you feel dirty for having read them!

One thing caught my eye. David Bowie. The timing may be a bit off, unless Elvis was paying CLOSE attention to the pop world, the timing may be a bit off.

From the Bova book, via the review:

" 'Boy, I was a saint compared to what they have today,' he went on. 'I was never vulgar. Did you ever listen to the words in some of those Rolling Stones songs? And that uh, whatsis name? David Bowie? He is some kind of weirdo, man.' "

Here's the WiKi on Bowie's career, particularly his rise to extreme fame, when Elvis would have known enough about him to adjudicate him as "some kind of weirdo, man."

Bowie first caught the eye and ear of the public in July 1969, when his song "Space Oddity" reached the top five of the UK Singles Chart. After a three-year period of experimentation he re-emerged in 1972 during the glam rock era with the flamboyant, androgynous alter ego Ziggy Stardust, spearheaded by the hit single "Starman" and the album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. Bowie's impact at that time, as described by biographer David Buckley, "challenged the core belief of the rock music of its day" and "created perhaps the biggest cult in popular culture."[2] The relatively short-lived Ziggy persona proved merely one facet of a career marked by continual reinvention, musical innovation and striking visual presentation.

"Space Oddity" was a Beatlesque, somewhat Acid-rock thing about a spacey astronaut named "Tom." For the time, not a particularly "odd" weirdo . . . Now, in '72, then . . .

When people remember things, sometimes the years - and the people, sometimes, fade into one another. Perhaps she just mashed up Bowie with Jagger, who Elvis never really cared for. He danced, Elvis said, "like a chicken on Acid." (A characterization I have long adored! ) What I mean is that Elvis could relate to what the Stones were trying to do, since they were, in the last analysis, an R&B band, and he just didn't find them authentic. (They had the misfortune of following James Brown on the T.A.M.I. show, so that's probably what set that image in his mind, as with many others, I'd wager.)

This doesn't discount her memories with Elvis - the direct ones, but one should perhaps approach her characterization of his words - about others, with some caution. I would like to know if anyone else heard him call Bowie a "weirdo, man." Possible, but I hadn't heard it to my recollection. (He WAS somewhat weird, of course. But Elvis knew it was the sizzle that sold the steak, and said so early on. NO one makes it - makes it real big, on just "playin' guitar." It's a fact, and he knew it well.)

I know we're a bit astray from the topic of drug injection, but in her recollections, she does quote him quite a bit, and one should be cautious. Because, now, more people are going to get Bova's book!

rjm

I have no need to argue with you about a book that you haven't read. As I said before in this thread, I recommend Bova's book. And if you haven't read it, I sincerely believe that you would enjoy it.

And this leads me back to the topic: I believe that Joyce Bova tells the truth the way she sees it and the way she remembers it. There are some sad and disturbing stories but they are told with love and emphaty. The book lends some of it's style from romantic genres of fiction - but that is not really uncommon thing for autobiographies. I have read so many memoirs about Elvis that have been written by his male companions that I find this feminine perspective refreshing.

By chance I read it again last month.
I agree with Albert Goldman (oooh, that thought is tough to type!)
It's an interesting read of a young woman’s life on the road with Elvis . Totally smitten by lust or love for Elvis – who led her on that he might marry her.
Just like any (young) person being offered drugs (especially by someone like your new partner or someone with incredible power of you) it was purely peer-pressure.
Elvis was banging them down to try and get some sleep after the uppers of being on stage or staying up all night.
He assumed his girls would need, or want to, do the same.
And thought they would have similar tolerance as he did!

I think MOST of what she writes is true – or true in her eyes.

I love the story of Elvis installing the red Elvis Phone in her apartment.
I wonder how many other women had the same!!?

The way Charlie and the Memphis Mafia called her up at random times and Elvis always thought she could drop her job for him at any point sure sounds like the real thing.

Worth seeking out for a different point of view.

Cheers
Piers

This is why I stopped buying books of this nature. You don't know what's truth and what's made up. When the man has been gone 35 years, I don't see the point of bringing out sorrid details if they are real or not. I can't even remember the last Elvis book I bought! The last two were givin to me as gifts, so it must be years since I bought an Elvis book. Just don't need 'em anymore. 1971 is a bit of a mystery in the life of Elvis, but the decline is very visable after "Aloha" in 1973. Back then, the pictures I saw of him in tabloids or newspapers, I just thought of as natural aging process, some weight gain, looking tired, perhaps from over touring. Never heard of Elvis taking drugs back then, not until "Elvis what Happened" came out! My mother was a life long Elvis fan, but after he died and she read that book...it got her right off of Elvis! She hardly ever played his records again and it was as if she was disappointed in him. I think that book caused her to see her Idol as a fake. That's why I stay clear of tell all books. They do no good for an entertainer's lagacy! They make you feel dirty for having read them!

Since you don't read them, how do you know what are their merits or faults?

It sounds to me like you prefer your worship in a fantasy-world, and that's fine. However, for many other fans, Elvis is a figure of enormous musical and historical importance, so a book by anyone who really knew him is almost certain to be of value. One must simply use their knowledge and common sense to get to the truth. Like I do!

There's only one book - of this type, that I willfully didn't buy. EWH. At the time, I was very young, grieving, confused . . . I knew it was probably mostly true (that post-death quick interview with Elias Ghanem told me plenty), but I just . . . wouldn't do it. I read it several times, right on the newsstands. I read it A LOT. I just never put the money down.

I'm thinking of getting a used copy. (Heck, I remember most of it by heart.)

But, otherwise, I counted how many Elvis books I had well over a decade ago, and it was 300 at the time. Although I like the pictures, I would say it's primarily text. There was even a "Reference Guide" to the many books and articles, going back aways, and I have that, too.

I suppose people can be whatever kind of fan they want to be. I prefer to know what went down; I can't even imagine being a fan - of anyone, and NOT knowing! Which is why even this one passage grabbed me by the throat, and I wanted opinions.

But, people are different, I guess. I like the window seat on an airplane, and I'd rather be awake during any surgery, if possible. I do NOT like "not knowing." It doesn't make me feel bad or wrong, even if I don't like the book. I feel like I have a bit more information to go on, to test out, to try to connect the dots. Ever get a puzzle with some pieces missing? Nothing is more frustrating!

Nick Tosches said "Elvis Presley will never be solved." I took that as a gauntlet thrown. So far, he's winning.

rjm

I have no need to argue with you about a book that you haven't read. As I said before in this thread, I recommend Bova's book. And if you haven't read it, I sincerely believe that you would enjoy it.

And this leads me back to the topic: I believe that Joyce Bova tells the truth the way she sees it and the way she remembers it. There are some sad and disturbing stories but they are told with love and emphaty. The book lends some of it's style from romantic genres of fiction - but that is not really uncommon thing for autobiographies. I have read so many memoirs about Elvis that have been written by his male companions that I find this feminine perspective refreshing.

By chance I read it again last month.
I agree with Albert Goldman (oooh, that thought is tough to type!)
It's an interesting read of a young woman’s life on the road with Elvis . Totally smitten by lust or love for Elvis – who led her on that he might marry her.
Just like any (young) person being offered drugs (especially by someone like your new partner or someone with incredible power of you) it was purely peer-pressure.
Elvis was banging them down to try and get some sleep after the uppers of being on stage or staying up all night.
He assumed his girls would need, or want to, do the same.
And thought they would have similar tolerance as he did!

I think MOST of what she writes is true – or true in her eyes.

I love the story of Elvis installing the red Elvis Phone in her apartment.
I wonder how many other women had the same!!?

The way Charlie and the Memphis Mafia called her up at random times and Elvis always thought she could drop her job for him at any point sure sounds like the real thing.

Worth seeking out for a different point of view.

Cheers
Piers

He let her think what??? Maybe I should read her book again, because anything on it made me think Elvis was really interested on her to that extent. Fiction or not, it's obvious that it was not a riciprocal feeling. As I already mentioned, they only were together like 4 or 5 times!

He let her think what??? Maybe I should read her book again, because anything on it made me think Elvis was really interested on her to that extent. Fiction or not, it's obvious that it was not a riciprocal feeling. As I already mentioned, they only were together like 4 or 5 times!

All indications are this is very untrue.

Off the top of my head, I can name 5 times they were together -- and several are out of the ordinary.

1) December 1970, makes contact during his trip to see President Nixon
2) June 1971, at RCA's Studio B in Nashville, to show off while running a "mock session"
3) August 1971, International Hotel, Las Vegas
4) November 9, 1971, on tour at the Baltimore Civic Center
5) January 8, 1972, at Graceland, on his 37th birthday




With Janice and Joyce Bova, Baltimore Civic Center - Tuesday, November 9, 1971
Note: Janice is Joyce's twin sister, another key connection Bova and Presley shared.

He let her think what??? Maybe I should read her book again, because anything on it made me think Elvis was really interested on her to that extent. Fiction or not, it's obvious that it was not a riciprocal feeling. As I already mentioned, they only were together like 4 or 5 times!

All indications are this is very untrue.

Off the top of my head, I can name 5 times they were together -- and several are out of the ordinary.

1) December 1970, makes contact during his trip to see President Nixon
2) June 1971, at RCA's Studio B in Nashville, to show off while running a "mock session"
3) August 1971, International Hotel, Las Vegas
4) November 9, 1971, on tour at the Baltimore Civic Center
5) January 8, 1972, at Graceland, on his 37th birthday




With Janice and Joyce Bova, Baltimore Civic Center - Tuesday, November 9, 1971
Note: Janice is Joyce's twin sister, another key connection Bova and Presley shared.

Yeah, like 5 times as I said. She doesn't recount any other meetings beacuse there weren't any more.
What are the other several times they were together? Because if they existed she doesn't remember them according to her own book. With all due respect, have you read it?

Yeah, like 5 times as I said.

It's quite likely the number is greater than 5, which was my point. If you have anything to add beside conjecture, please share.

Yeah, like 5 times as I said.

It's quite likely the number is greater than 5, which was my point. If you have anything to add beside conjecture, please share.

No, It's not conjeture. If you know something Joyce Bova doesn't remember please, share.

Yeah, like 5 times as I said.

It's quite likely the number is greater than 5, which was my point. If you have anything to add beside conjecture, please share.

No, It's not conjeture. If you know something Joyce Bova doesn't remember please, share.

In a addition to the five times mentioned above:
August 1969
August 1970
February, March, May and June 1971
(Guralnick)

If Elvis mentioned marriage I don't think that's a very big deal. He did that with most of the women he had a relationship with over a certain period of time. I think partly it was manipulation and partly an characteristically intense emotionally involvement in the moment.