What Happened to Elvis Presley’s Many On-Screen Love Interests?

Long before social media influencers, streaming platforms, and round-the-clock entertainment news turned fame into a global instant, true international celebrity was far harder to achieve. Without algorithms, viral clips, or thousands of television channels, stars needed extraordinary talent, lasting appeal, and undeniable charisma to break through. In the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s, Elvis Presley possessed all three, becoming one of the earliest worldwide superstars of the modern mass-media era.

Presley’s famous hip-shaking performances and striking looks made him an immediate cultural sensation, but it was his powerful voice that made his fame endure. Several of his most beloved hits, including “Love Me Tender,” “Jailhouse Rock,” and “Can’t Help Falling in Love,” came from his extensive Hollywood film career. As a romantic balladeer and one of the era’s most celebrated heartthrobs, Elvis was a natural fit for movie musicals and big-screen love stories. Yet those films also relied on memorable leading women, including Ann-Margret, Joan Blackman, and many more, to bring their romances to life.

Decades after appearing opposite the King of Rock and Roll, many of Presley’s famous on-screen love interests went on to create remarkable careers and private lives beyond their Elvis-era roles. Their paths have varied widely, from Hollywood acclaim to quiet retirement. Here is what became of several of Presley’s best-known leading ladies.

Elvis Presley made his film debut in the 1956 Western musical “Love Me Tender.” Directed by Robert D. Webb, the movie cast Presley as Clint Reno, a young man who marries the former sweetheart of his older brother, Vance, after the family is wrongly told Vance died fighting for the Confederacy during the Civil War. Debra Paget played the woman at the center of that complicated romantic situation, who marries Clint while believing Vance is dead.

As Presley’s first on-screen love interest, Paget has a unique place in his Hollywood history. According to The Daily Express, the two developed a close bond while making “Love Me Tender.” “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. She later recalled introducing Presley to her family and said he proposed marriage, though she declined because her parents objected.

Now in her 90s, Paget has continued to attract fresh attention. Her celebrated “snake dance” sequence in 1959’s “The Indian Tomb” became a viral sensation in 2025. As documented on her IMDb page, Paget appeared in dozens of films and television productions from the late 1940s through the mid-1960s, with one of her best-known roles coming in 1956’s “The Ten Commandments.” She largely stepped away from acting in the mid-1960s after marrying Louis Ling-Chieh Kung, a nephew of Madame Chiang Kai-shek, then the first lady of the Republic of China.

In 1964’s “Viva Las Vegas,” Presley was paired with an actress who would become a Hollywood legend in her own right: Ann-Margret Olsson. The high-energy musical blends race cars, show-business ambition, and romantic competition, with Olsson playing Rusty Martin, a swimming instructor who captures the attention of Presley’s character, Lucky Jackson. The Oscar-nominated star has continued to speak warmly about both the production and her connection with Presley.

“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.” Rumors long suggested their chemistry may have extended beyond the cameras, though both stars married other people just days apart in 1967. Olsson married Roger Smith and remained with him until his death in 2017, while Elvis’ relationship with Priscilla Presley became one of the most scrutinized celebrity marriages of its time.

Now in her mid-80s, Olsson has enjoyed a career that stretches far beyond her Elvis years. She earned major acclaim for her work in 1971’s “Carnal Knowledge” and 1975’s “Tommy,” then found a new audience through 1990s favorites such as “Newsies” and the “Grumpy Old Men” movies. She continued acting semi-regularly into the 2020s and has said her enduring passion for Harley-Davidson motorcycles has helped keep her active.

Ursula Andress may be most famous as cinema’s first James Bond girl, starring opposite Sean Connery in his inaugural 007 adventure, 1962’s “Dr. No.” But just a year later, she became one of Elvis Presley’s leading ladies in the 1963 musical comedy “Fun in Acapulco.” Directed by Richard Thorpe, the film follows Presley as a lifeguard and lounge singer struggling to overcome both a fear of heights and PTSD before attempting a dangerous dive. Alongside the musical numbers and cliffside drama is a tangled romantic quadrangle featuring Andress as 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.”

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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.