Jan Shepard, who acted opposite Elvis Presley in 1958\u2019s King Creole and 1966\u2019s Paradise, Hawaiian Style, and appeared in more than 30 TV Westerns, died at a hospital in Burbank, Calif. of pneumonia brought on by respiratory failure. She was 96.<\/p>\n
In King Creole, noted as Presley\u2019s favorite of his films, she portrayed his on-screen sister Mimi. Eight years later, Shepard played Presley\u2019s business partner\u2019s wife in the \u201960s buddy musical comedy. In an interview from last year, Shepard said she wasn\u2019t a fan of Presley\u2019s ahead of working with him, but \u201conce I met him, I just adored him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Per an official obituary, Presley and Shepard got on well and went to off-set lunches (where Marlon Brando once made a chance appearance). Describing him as a \u201cbig teddy bear,\u201d Shepard once recalled that he gave her a pair of 10-cent earrings as a joke before gifting her a stuffed tiger for her birthday at a surprise party thrown by co-star, good friend (and eventual goddaughter) Dolores Hart, who played Presley\u2019s love interest in King Creole. (Steeped in old Hollywood, she was also Gunsmoke star Amanda Blake\u2019s roommate.)<\/p>\n
Shepard also said that Presley regarded her as a sister in real life and wished the two were related. When Hart noted her shock that the \u201cBurning Love\u201d crooner had actually stopped by the festivities, Shepard commented, \u201cHe said I had to come, \u2018She\u2019s my sister. I wouldn\u2019t miss her birthday party.\u2019 I ran into him in the studio. He said to me, \u2018I hear Elvis was at your birthday party.\u2019 \u2018Yeah, he was.\u2019 He said, \u2018You know he never goes anywhere, people go to him, he never goes to other people\u2019s homes.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jan Shepard, who acted opposite Elvis Presley in 1958\u2019s King Creole and 1966\u2019s Paradise, Hawaiian Style, and appeared in more than 30 TV Westerns, died at a hospital in Burbank, Calif. of pneumonia brought on by respiratory failure. She was 96. In King Creole, noted as Presley\u2019s favorite of his films, she portrayed his on-screen […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8397,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-memorial"],"yoast_head":"\n