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Trezyours
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Post subject: Cynthia Pepper - Kissin' Cousins Co-star  Posted: Thu Sep 21, 2006 12:06 am |
Joined: Sun Jul 23, 2006 2:07 am
Posts: 81
Location: Shell Cove, NSW, Australia
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A kiss is just a kiss, except when it's Elvis
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
By GERI PARLIN / La Crosse Tribune
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Cynthia Pepper remembers the day she kissed Elvis Presley as if it were
yesterday.
It was 42 years ago.
You may forget an anniversary. You may forget what age your kids are. You
may forget the name of your sister's youngest son.
But you don't forget a kiss from The King.
Pepper, who was a TV star, was working on the TV show "Margie," playing the
part of the title character. Elvis was about to make the movie "Kissin'
Cousins." and he was looking to cast the part of Cpl. Midge Riley, the lucky
lady he would end up kissing.
"I had done a lot of episodic television, and Elvis had seen me," Pepper
said. "My agent called me on a Friday and said, 'Get over to MGM. If you can
wear the (WAC) uniform, you're co-starring with Elvis Presley on Monday.' It
's not the kind of thing you forget."
First day on the set, Pepper was greeted with roses in the dressing room.
"It said, 'To Cynthia, love Elvis.'"
"He's in love with me," thought Pepper, but then found out he treated all
his leading ladies to roses. Still, upon first meeting, she held out her
hand to shake his and he said, "No hand, honey, give me a hug."
It's enough to make a grown woman come down with a relapse of Elvis fever.
Yes, Pepper remembered the '50s as a teen screamer swooning over Elvis. And
now she was his kissin' cousin.
When it came time to shoot the kissing scene, Pepper said, "I liked the
scene so much I kept messing it up," she said with a laugh.
Helping her keep all her memories clear is her job working at Elvis-a-rama
in
Las Vegas. She works there two or three days a week and immerses herself in
Presleyana while there.
"It's been 42 years since I worked with him," she said, but the memories are
still clear.
Even as a young actress, she was aware that Elvis was having something of a
career crisis at the time.
"It was in the middle of his movie career," she said, and he didn't like
making one similar movie after another. "I know he was frustrated doing
those movies. They were all alike, but they did makes tons of money."
And he was tons of fun, too.
"He loved to have fun on the set," Pepper said. "He knew your lines and his
lines and everyone else's lines. He did run a fun set. He was like a country
boy. He was a regular guy."
"He was a man's man," she said, but every woman wanted him.
It took three weeks to make a movie, and it gave Pepper a lifetime of
memories.
"Because there's not many of us left who know him," she said, she is always
asked what he was like and what it was like to be with him and to know him.
"I would probably ask the same thing."
Her answer to those questions, she said, is always the same.
"I have nothing but good things to say about him. I think everyone who
worked with him would say the same thing. As a human being, he was one of
the best."
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Sarena
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Post subject: Posted: Thu Sep 21, 2006 7:12 am |
Joined: Tue Apr 25, 2006 7:00 am
Posts: 1895
Location: Switzerland
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Thank you, Trezyours, for posting this!
Maia also posted the link to this some days ago under the thread "kissing Elvis". But it is worth for double-posting!!  
_________________
Christine-Sarena
"ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE IF YOU ONLY BELIEVE"
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Trezyours
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Post subject: Posted: Thu Sep 21, 2006 7:58 am |
Joined: Sun Jul 23, 2006 2:07 am
Posts: 81
Location: Shell Cove, NSW, Australia
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I realised that after I posted! I apologise  I haven't been around for a little while and came across this article today.
Please feel free to delete this thread. I am not sure how to do it myself
Vera
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Wanda June Hill
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Post subject: Posting "Kissing Elvis" Posted: Thu Sep 21, 2006 12:18 pm |
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Joined: Sat Oct 29, 2005 6:47 pm
Posts: 4300
Location: California
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Vera, don't worry, it's always good to read nice things again-and a gain! I got to meet her-just briefly and she signed a picture in black and white, for me. It was her and Elvis, him in "that" wig (he hated it-it itched his neck etc: and hotter than hell" on one knee and her as she is about to "throw" him- Anyway, she was really cute in person, very pretty with those big eyes. I liked her right away though I didn't and don't know her at all-but she gave off such good vibes-wjh
_________________
Wanda June Hill
author of "We Remember, Elvis" & "Elvis - Face to Face"
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Blue Moon
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Post subject: Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 3:54 am |
| Jewel in the Lotus |
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Joined: Mon Mar 06, 2006 10:35 pm
Posts: 2620
Location: USA
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Another interview . . .
Quote: On-screen Smooch With Elvis Still Pays
By Michael Lollar (The Commercial Appeal), Jan 5, 2008
The King saw Cynthia Pepper on TV, suggested her for 'Kissin' Cousins' role
Elvis Presley had seen her in a TV sitcom and suggested her for a role in a 1964 movie in which he would tell her she was "as purty as a little ol' speckled pup."
The movie was "Kissin' Cousins," in which Elvis played a dual role as an Army officer and as the officer's hillbilly cousin. It was the hillbilly character, Jodie Tatum, who used the puppy pickup line on actress Cynthia Pepper.
Cynthia Pepper and Elvis Presley were on the cover of the July 22, 1964, edition of Everybody's, an Australian teen magazine, for a story about "Kissin' Cousins.""I played hard to get, but I succumbed," says Pepper, 67, of her character in the film that still earns her residuals 43 years after its release.
Now living in Henderson, Nev., Pepper will be in Memphis Sunday to take part in an Elvis Insiders Reception and Graceland tour, part of a four-day celebration of Elvis' birthday. He would have been 73 on Jan. 8.
For Pepper, "Kissin' Cousins" was a brief chance to know -- and kiss -- a sometimes self-doubting Elvis. The movie was shot in only 17 days as part of the money-making formula that protected Elvis' wholesome image, but wore on his patience.
"It was entertaining and innocent. The movies obviously were lighthearted. We all know he could have done a lot better. He was a better actor than the movies allowed him to be," says the actress.
Pepper was a veteran actress by the time "Kissin' Cousins" came along. Daughter of a vaudeville actor, she was on stage at age 4 with actress Julie Harris on Broadway. She had her own sitcom, "Margie" set in the Roaring '20s; had a recurring role on "My Three Sons" and played Sandra Dee's roommate in the movie "Take Her, She's Mine." After "Kissin' Cousins," she made guest appearances in several TV episodes, including "The Flying Nun" and "The Jimmy Stewart Show," and last appeared in a cameo role in the 2005 film "Miss Congeniality 2: Armed & Fabulous."
Pepper says she was given the part in "Kissin' Cousins" on short notice. She got a telephone call and was given two days to report to the set.
"My agent said Elvis had seen me on TV and suggested me for the part," says Pepper. Some of the cast members would become better known in other realms. Maureen Reagan, daughter of eventual President Ronald Reagan, had one line in the movie. Teri Garr, who would become a well-known actress, was a dancer in the film.
Pepper played an Army stenographer assigned to accompany a lieutenant (Elvis) to the hills of East Tennessee to negotiate the sale of land to build a missile base. There, they encountered angry property owners, including the lieutenant's cousin (a hillbilly Elvis in a blond wig).
The hillbilly Elvis fell for Pepper in the movie, leading to a romantic scene in which Pepper says she kept "flubbing" lines in order to repeat a kiss with Elvis. "I got to do it six or seven times. I could have done it in one or two takes, but why would I?"
Pepper says she came to know Elvis as a "regular guy. He was a little unsophisticated at the time. He would sit around and talk about trucks and would say 'Miss' or 'Ma'am.' There weren't any airs about him."
As filming went on, Pepper says she realized Elvis wasn't sure of himself at that stage in his career.
"I felt that he was quite insecure at the time," she says. "He said to me one time, 'I don't know what I'm doing here.' I said, 'What do you mean?' He said, 'I should be back home driving a truck.'
"I think he had all the insecurities that we all had. I think that's one reason he had all those guys (his entourage known as the Memphis Mafia) around him -- to buffer himself from the outside."
During her Memphis visit, Pepper will be a guest with former Elvis hairstylist Larry Geller and members of the TCB Band at a reception in Graceland Plaza, followed by a special evening tour of Graceland.
_________________
Blue Moon
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It was great to read and even in just reading it, I could feel the good and loving vibes given off by Cynthia. 
I thought that it was So Cute when she Found Rose's in her Dressing Room, from Elvis and when she went to Shake His Hand he Said No Hand Shake, I want a Hug! AWW! 
anytime!! 
