ECHOES OF THE 1960S: HOW SHELLEY FABARES FOUND A LIFELONG FRIEND IN THE KING
“The Untold Elvis Presley Story His Co-Star Never Forgot — ‘When He Walked Into the Room, Everything Stopped’”
Long before Hollywood fully understood the phenomenon that was Elvis Presley, one actress experienced firsthand the magnetic force that made him unlike anyone else in entertainment history. What began as just another MGM casting opportunity in 1964 would eventually become one of the most unforgettable relationships of her life — not romantic, but deeply personal, emotional, and impossible to forget.
The actress, cast as Elvis’s leading lady in the film Girl Happy, admitted she was not even one of the screaming fans obsessed with the King of Rock ’n’ Roll at the time. In fact, she joked that her real celebrity crush had always been James Stewart. She appreciated Elvis’s music, sure — but she never expected the man himself to completely overwhelm her the moment she saw him in person.
Then came that first day on the MGM soundstage.
According to her emotional recollection, the atmosphere changed instantly the second Elvis walked through the doors. He was not performing. He was not speaking. He was simply walking into the room — and yet the entire set froze. Conversations stopped. Crew members stood still. Nobody seemed capable of looking away.
“It was like something supernatural was happening,” she recalled. “You couldn’t even speak.”
That was the moment she realized the world’s obsession with Elvis Presley was not hype. It was real.
She described him as impossibly handsome, but more than that, she remembered an almost indescribable charisma radiating from him. Even people who thought they were immune to celebrity culture suddenly found themselves speechless around him. For her, that first encounter shattered every assumption she had ever made about fame.
But what happened next surprised her even more.
Rather than becoming another flirtation in Elvis’s endless parade of admirers, the two developed an unusually genuine friendship. She eventually became the only actress to star opposite Elvis in three different films — including Clambake — and over the years, their connection only deepened.
Hollywood constantly asked the same question: “Did you have a romance with Elvis?”
Her answer was always no.
She had just gotten married days before filming began, and Elvis quickly understood she was not chasing him the way many others did. Ironically, she believed that honesty may have been exactly why he relaxed around her. For once, he could simply be himself without worrying about seduction, manipulation, or celebrity games.
And that “realness,” she believed, was incredibly rare in Elvis’s world.
She remembered him as the perfect Southern gentleman — polite, funny, playful, and endlessly charming. Behind the global icon was still the humble boy from Tupelo who said “yes ma’am” and “thank you” naturally, not performatively. On set, Elvis loved practical jokes, especially with his close-knit entourage. One of her favorite memories involved a hilarious prank during the filming of Clambake, when Elvis secretly swapped a prop photograph for an absurd image of an old woman missing teeth. The moment she opened the wallet during filming, she burst into uncontrollable laughter — and Elvis nearly collapsed laughing beside her. A photographer captured the exact second, creating what she still calls her favorite picture of them together.
Yet beneath the laughter, she also witnessed the crushing weight of Elvis’s fame.
One story haunted her forever.
By 1966, the arrival of The Beatles had dramatically shifted pop culture, and many critics claimed Elvis’s career was fading. But during lunch one afternoon at the massive MGM commissary, she suddenly felt that same strange energy in the room again. Hundreds of employees abruptly stood up and rushed toward the doors.
Outside stood Elvis Presley.
He was simply peering through the glass.
Within seconds, hundreds of people stormed toward him as if pulled by gravity itself.
She never forgot the look on his face.
Even at what many considered the “lowest point” of his career, Elvis still possessed a level of fame so overwhelming that people could not control their reactions to him. She later reflected on how psychologically impossible that kind of attention must have been for a young man barely out of his teens.
“How could anyone survive that?” she wondered.
To her, Elvis Presley was not merely a superstar destroyed by bad choices. He was also a victim of a machine far bigger than himself — the brutal pressure of show business, relentless fame, and a world that treated him less like a human being and more like a myth.
Decades later, her voice still breaks when she speaks about him.
“I loved him,” she admitted softly. “And I still miss him every day.”
For all the stories told about Elvis Presley over the years, perhaps the most revealing are not the scandals or headlines — but the quiet memories from people who truly knew the man behind the legend.
