Anne Neyland, who portrayed a love interest of Elvis Presley‘s character in the 1957 movie Jailhouse Rock, died Wednesday, her family announced. She was 84.
Neyland played Laury Jackson and Presley starred as Vince Everett, a construction worker who accidentally kills a man in a barroom brawl, in Jailhouse Rock, the singer’s third movie overall and first at MGM.
She dated Presley during the making of the film and for a spell afterward.
“These last three years he’s been so used to people tearing at him wherever he goes that he’s drawn-into as hell,” Neyland once told Photoplay. “He’s so used to being alone with a few close friends and going for drives and playing records that you can’t get him out of it.”
Also in 1957, the blue-eyed actress appeared as the girlfriend of John Payne’s cop in the Copenhagen-set film noir Hidden Fear, directed by André De Toth, and her character was torn between teenagers good and bad (Steve Terrell and John Ashley, respectively) in the American International Pictures release Motorcycle Gang.
Neyland later had an uncredited role in Ocean’s 11 (1960), her final onscreen role.
Born in Mississippi, Neyland moved to Dallas as a youngster, won a Miss Texas pageant and worked as a model before she played a chorus girl in Singin’ in the Rain (1952).
She went on to appear on TV’s Richard Diamond, Private Detective; Highway Patrol; The Bob Cummings Show; Sea Hunt; and Peter Gunn.
Neyland was a resident of Camarillo, California.
