She went from rodeo queen to right-hand girl of the King – but a confrontation with the Ku Klux Klan made her shy from the spotlight. Now she’s finally ready to take her bow
‘Oh good, they didn’t send me the photograph of me and Elvis to sign.” Mimi Roman is opening mail in the kitchen of her Connecticut home on an autumn afternoon. “I get three or four fan letters a week and they all send me that picture of me and Elvis to autograph. I just hate that picture. I hate that dress I’m wearing and the bag I’m carrying. I just wish there were one other picture out there.”
Although her friendship with a pre-fame Elvis is often the first line of her bio, Roman has her own place in history as one of country music’s first female success stories, as well as a Zelig of rock and pop’s early years. She witnessed the birth of rock’n’roll, rockabilly and country’s sophisticated “Nashville sound”; performed on iconic stages such as the Grand Ole Opry and recorded demos for the the golden-era songwriters of New York City’s Brill Building. But by the mid-80s, she had quit the business to prioritise family time and became an estate agent – and later assistant to the musician Michael Bolton.
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