The news made national headlines, and the following morning a heartbroken Elvis knocked on the door of his friend George Klein.

Klein recalled: “He said, ‘I’ve got some bad news. Judy Tyler just got killed in a car wreck.’ So we drove around Memphis, talking about, reminiscing about her. How nice she was, how professional she was, and how tragic it was that she was killed in a car accident when her first big motion picture was coming out. And he took it pretty tough.”

Fike added: “It really upset him. He broke down and cried … Elvis couldn’t get over it. He gave an interview to the Commercial-Appeal saying he didn’t think he could stand to ever watch the movie. And he meant it at the time.”