Whatever Happened To Elvis' Many On-Screen Love Interests?

Before the age of modern internet stars, becoming an internationally heralded celebrity was an incredible feat. Without social media, internet algorithms, 8,000 cable and satellite television channels, and the 24/7 news cycle, gaining such notoriety demanded more than virality. It often took supreme talent and sustained excellence in addition to sheer star power to capture the imagination. During the late 1950s and into the '60s, Elvis Presley embodied those qualities and became one of the first global superstars of the mass media age.

Presley's hip-swiveling antics and otherworldly good looks made him a sensation, but his singing chops cemented his stardom. Some of his biggest songs — all-timers like "Love Me Tender," "Jailhouse Rock," and "Can't Help Falling in Love" emerged from his many forays into Hollywood movies. As an iconic singer of love songs and bona fide heartthrob, Presley was tailor-made for big-screen romance. However, his films (and the songs they spawned) wouldn't have worked without talented leading ladies to play his love interests — actors like Ann-Margret, Joan Blackman, and others.

In the decades since they shared the screen with the King of Rock and Roll, these performers have gone on to build careers and lives of their own, each taking unique twists and turns. Here's what happened to some of Presley's best-known love interests.

The 1956 western musical "Love Me Tender" brought Elvis Presley to the big screen for the first time. Presley portrayed Clint Reno in the Robert D. Webb-directed film, who marries the former girlfriend of his eldest brother, Vance, when the family is mistakenly informed that he has been killed while fighting for the Confederacy during the Civil War. Debra Paget plays the woman who married Clint when Vance was thought dead.

Paget holds the notable distinction of being Presley's first on-screen love and, per The Daily Express, the pair forged a bond during the production of their film. "I was very shy, very quiet and very immature for my age. I was in my very early 20's but I was emotionally more like a 16 year old. Elvis and I just sort of came together like a couple of children really," Paget said in 1997. Paget further recalled bringing Presley home to meet her family, and the King proposing marriage to her, but she would not accept due to her parents' objections.

Now in her '90s, Paget is still making waves. Her "snake dance" from 1959's "The Indian Tomb" went viral in 2025. As chronicled on her IMDb page, Paget made dozens of film and television appearances from the late 1940s to the mid-'60s. Most notably, she appeared in 1956's "The Ten Commandments." She essentially left show business in the mid-1960s after marrying Louis Ling-Chieh Kung, the nephew of the Republic of China's then-first lady, Madame Chiang Kai-shek.

Elvis Presley romanced an actor who would go down as a veritable Hollywood icon in his 1964 film "Viva Las Vegas." In a tale of racecar driving, musical performance, and romantic rivalry, '60s icon Ann-Margret Olsson plays Rusty Martin, the swim instructor who has stolen the heart of Presley's Lucky Jackson. The Oscar-nominated actor still looks back on that film and her relationship with Presley with fondness.

"It was a joy working with E.P.," she told Fox News in 2023. "We felt music the same way. We would listen to music, we would look at each other and woo! We would be moving the same way." She and Presley were rumored to have a connection that extended beyond what was seen on screen, but the stars married other people within days of one another in 1967. Olsson tied the knot with Roger Smith, whom she remained with until his 2017 death, and the world got an inside look into Presley and Priscilla Presley's relationship.

Olsson — who's now in her mid-80s — drew accolades for her efforts in the 1971 film "Carnal Knowledge" and 1975's "Tommy." Later, she was reintroduced to a new generation of moviegoers in "Newsies" and the "Grumpy Old Men" films during the 1990s. However, she worked semi-regularly into the 2020s. She has credited her continuing love of Harley-Davidson motorcycles for keeping her active.

Ursula Andress is best known for being the original James Bond girl, having shared the screen with Sean Connery during his first outing as 007 in 1962's "Dr. No." However, she also shared an on-screen romance with Elvis Presley a year later in the 1963 musical comedy "Fun in Acapulco." The Richard Thorpe-directed film follows a lifeguard-slash-lounge singer (Presley) who overcomes a fear of heights and PTSD to attempt a high-stakes dive. There's also a love quadrangle, which includes Andress' Marguerita. 

Andress was quite taken with the King, saying (via The Daily Express), "The first day I went to work, he came over, this humble man, full of charm, love in his eyes, and kindness, and being so considerate and warm. I was so surprised." Rumors circulated that Andress went after Presley, and that Priscilla may have been jealous of her. In any case, she was still married to actor John Derek at the time. During the late 1970s to early '80s, Andress was in a relationship with Harry Hamlin.

Andress' most recent acting credit came in 2005, according to her IMDb page. However, she worked regularly through the late 1980s. She famously played Aphrodite in the 1981 cult classic "Clash of the Titans." Now in her 90s, Andress was in the news in 2026 when the Italian government recovered $23 million in assets that her late financial advisor purchased with money he allegedly stole from her, per Fox 8.

Of all the on-screen loves from Elvis Presley's filmography chronicled here, Judy Tyler's story may be the most tragic. Tyler starred alongside the King in one of his earliest and most famous films, 1957's "Jailhouse Rock." The Richard Thorpe-helmed feature followed a convict (Presley) who masters the guitar while incarcerated and achieves stardom after his release. Tyler portrayed the music promoter who supports and eventually falls in love with him.

Sadly, Tyler died in an automobile accident on July 3, 1957, mere weeks after production on "Jailhouse" wrapped and months before it hit theaters later that year. She was just 24 years old at the time. According to Cowboy State Daily, she and her husband were killed in a collision near Rock River, Wyoming, on a stretch of road infamously dubbed "Blood Alley." "Nothing has hurt me as bad in my life," Presley later told a reporter (via The Daily Express). "I remember the last night I saw them. They were leaving on a trip. Even remember what she was wearing. All of us boys really loved that girl."

Prior to her death, Tyler regularly played Princess Summerfall Winterspring on NBC's "Howdy Doody" and appeared in the 1957 film "Bop Girl Goes Calypso." She also appeared posthumously in an episode of CBS' "Perry Mason."

One of Elvis Presley's most frequent collaborators, Shelley Fabares starred alongside the rock legend in three films: 1965's "Girl Happy," 1966's "Spinout," and 1967's "Clambake." "Girl Happy" was arguably the best of the bunch, chronicling a singer, Rusty (Presley), who's entrusted with the care of a club owner's daughter (Fabares) during spring break in Florida.

Fabares died in August 2026 at the age of 82. According to People, her cause of death was determined to be complications following a bout with pneumonia. She had been married to her second husband, "M*A*S*H" cast member Mike Farrell, for more than four decades at the time of her death. Between her final Elvis film and passing, Fabares enjoyed an incredibly successful show business career.

Gen-Xers may know her best for her nine-season run on the ABC sitcom "Coach," in which she portrayed Christine Armstrong — a news anchor and the love interest of Craig T. Nelson's Coach Hayden Fox. As a young actor, she was also a principal cast member on ABC's "The Donna Reed Show." Nelson (alongside the cast) reacted publicly to Fabares' death (via Entertainment Weekly), saying, "Shelley was a great and grand lady... just a rock. I will miss her."

Dolores Hart's life and Hollywood career ultimately took an unconventional path. Before she set off on a journey completely outside of the Tinseltown lights, she appeared in a pair of movies with Elvis Presley. First came 1957's "Loving You" — her first big-screen role and Presley's second — which tells the story of a delivery man (Presley) who's found to have superstar potential as a singer; Hart plays a fellow performer and love interest. That was followed by 1958's "King Creole," in which Hart's role was reduced.

Hart, who later found herself engaged to Los Angeles businessman Don Robinson, made the shocking decision at the age of 25 to break her engagement, quit Hollywood, and become a nun. "It was not a lifelong dream," she told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 1998 (via A Nun's Life). "I did not grow up wanting to be a nun. I wanted to be an actress. If it had ever been suggested I would one day be a nun, it would have been the last thing on my mind. It was a million to one shot I would ever be a nun." Nevertheless, she left her career behind in favor of the Benedictine Abbey of Regina Laudis in Bethlehem, Connecticut.

Fast-forward several decades to the 2020s, and Mother Dolores Hart — whose IMDb page shows 19 film and television credits across five years — continues to live the vowed life.

A groundbreaking television actress and queen of early sitcoms (like "The Dick Van Dyke Show"), Mary Tyler Moore starred with Elvis Presley in his final film, 1969's "Change of Habit." The film follows three nuns — one of whom is played by Moore — who go to live and work at a big city clinic before taking their final vows. However, Moore's character, Sister Michelle Gallagher, falls for the doctor in charge of the clinic (Presley).

In her memoir, "After All," Moore wrote that the King copped to crushing on her while they were working together on the film. "He confessed right from the start that he'd had a crush on me since 'The Dick Van Dyke Show,'" Moore wrote (via MeTV). "He was so shy about it he was literally kicking at the dirt below him as he talked. He had a tendency, even though I was younger, to call me 'ma'am' out of respect: 'Yes ma'am. Be right there, ma'am.'"

Moore was one of the biggest stars of the 1970s, thanks to her sitcom "The Mary Tyler Moore Show." However, she continued to land big- and small-screen roles through the 2010s. She was married to her third husband, cardiologist Robert Levine, until 2017, when the beloved actress died at 80.

Although they worked in entirely different genres, Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra were peers as musical and big screen icons of the 1950s and '60s. So it's perhaps apropos that in one of his final films, 1968's "Speedway," Presley starred alongside Sinatra's daughter, Nancy Sinatra. Nancy portrayed Susan Jacks, an IRS agent tasked with wrangling an overly generous NASCAR driver (Presley), who finds himself on the wrong side of a tax bill. The role also marked Nancy's final major film appearance.

Nancy, who's now in her late 80s, still thinks fondly of the King a half-century after his 1977 death, writing on X in 2026, "Elvis was both the funniest person and the most serious person I ever knew. One minute, he could have me laughing with some silly joke, and the next, he would be on the phone late at night, talking about a terrible story he had seen on the news." Added Nancy: "I love and miss you, EP. You are always on my mind and forever in my heart."

A recording icon in her own right, the "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'" singer continued to record and release music well beyond her 1960s and '70s heyday. She also appeared as herself on ABC's "China Beach" in 1998 and HBO's "The Sopranos" nearly a decade later. In 1995, at the age of 54, she famously posed for Playboy magazine. Nancy was married twice.

Yvonne Craig may be best known to modern audiences as Batgirl. She played the DC Comics character alongside Adam West and Burt Ward during the third and final season of the campy, Bill Dozier-produced "Batman" series that aired on ABC during the mid-to-late '60s. However, she previously co-starred with Elvis Presley in two films: 1963's "It Happened at the World's Fair" and 1964's "Kissin' Cousins," playing a secondary love interest in the former film while romancing one of the cousins played by the King in the latter.

Craig and Presley formed a friendship while working together and even dated for a time. On one occasion, the future Batgirl comically triggered an alarm while attempting to turn off the lights when he fell asleep on her during a date. "When we opened the door, there were five Bel Air patrol cars in the drive and security guards with guns drawn," Craig wrote in her memoir "From Ballet To The Batcave And Beyond" (via Internet Archive). "Apparently I'd hit a panic button in the room designed to alert the security company if something was amiss." The next day on set, the King reportedly joked that she had called the cops on him for falling asleep in her company.

Craig, who was married to Kenneth Aldrich at the time of her 2015 death at 78 (due to complications from breast cancer), went on to become a television mainstay over the next two decades. Her final screen appearance came in the Nickelodeon-Nick Jr. series "Olivia," in which she voiced Grandma.

Elvis Presley's most memorable feature film is arguably 1961's "Blue Hawaii," which tells the story of a former soldier who eschews taking over his family's fruit company upon his return to Hawaii to instead become a tour guide. Joan Blackman played Maile, his girlfriend, business partner, and eventual wife in the film. She also appeared with Presley in 1962's "Kid Galahad."

According to Blackman, she and the King shared a deep affection for one another. "When we first set eyes on each other (in 1957), there was a spark, a magic in the air... There was just that special something between us, sometimes so warm and wonderful you could almost reach out and touch it," she said of the experience (via The Daily Express). Presley reportedly even proposed marriage to her, but she had feelings for actor Hampton Fancher III at the time.

Blackman never married Fancher, but she was married briefly on two occasions (before and after her Elvis years). She continued to work in Hollywood, booking film and television roles through the mid-1970s. She later spent her time gardening and singing, her son, Ngai Tarkington, told The Hollywood Reporter in 2026. She died that same year at the age of 87.

Juliet Prowse was greatly admired for her talent and, interestingly, her famous legs. Slayed Lili in 1960's G.I. Blues, which follows the misadventures of an Army specialist (Elvis Presley) who bets his savings that he can successfully woo a desirable dancer (Prowse), only to fall in love with the girl.

According to her niece (who shares Prowse's name), the dancer-actor dated both Presley and Frank Sinatra shortly after arriving in Hollywood. Prowse ultimately chose to be with Sinatra, and was even engaged to the iconic crooner for a time before opting to continue pursuing her showbiz dreams over being Sinatra's trophy wife. The move worked out for Prowse, who, despite not achieving superstardom, spent the next two-plus decades appearing in films and television series and headlining Las Vegas shows. She also starred in a series of memorable L'eggs ads during the 1970s and '80s.

Prowse was shockingly attacked by the same leopard twice in 1987 — once while shooting CBS' "Circus of the Stars," then later while rehearsing for a segment on NBC's "The Tonight Show." Another on-screen romantic interest to die young, Prowse — who was married twice – succumbed to pancreatic cancer at 59 in 1996.