Meet an Elvis Collector: The King's Queen

Elvis lives on in one woman's heart, mind and incredibly cluttered apartment.

Images from this article

Photographed by Manuello Paganelli

Dubbed Rockin' Robin by Elvis himself, Robin Rosaaen shakes her pelvis with an impersonator friend.

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Photographed by Manuello Paganelli

Dubbed Rockin' Robin by Elvis himself, Robin Rosaaen shakes her pelvis with an impersonator friend.

I lay back and thought how the hygienist must have felt when she put her fingers in Elvis's mouth. How many fans can say they've been where their favorite celebrity had his bridgework done?

40,000 items and 80,000 photos in a Two-Bedroom Apartment

"I was so excited," she remembers. "It was this unassuming office in a strip mall, and I thought, Elvis sat here with a clipboard like we all do and filled out the forms." She experienced a bigger thrill when the dentist let her recline in his patient chair. "I lay back and thought how the hygienist must have felt when she put her fingers in Elvis's mouth. How many fans can say they've been where their favorite celebrity had his bridgework done?"

Rosaaen left the dentist's office that day in 1999 as the proud owner of three X-rays of Presley's teeth, his dental chart from 1967 to 1969, and the patient information sheet he'd completed and signed on a fall day 32 years earlier. Final price: $4,000.

"A steal," says the 60-year-old professional scavenger.

Rosaaen had just added to one of the world's largest caches of Elvis memorabilia, a collection she began in 1968. And what a collection it is—40,000 items and 80,000 photos crammed into the two-bedroom apartment she's lived in for 25 years. Think of it as Graceland's overflow storage. Floor-to-ceiling bins, plastic tubs and metal file cabinets hold Elvis dolls, slippers with his head at each toe, the property settlement from his divorce signed by the King and Priscilla, even dirt from lawns where he lived.

The collection allows Rosaaen only a narrow path to maneuver from room to room. Yet there's always enough space for visitors—Elvis biographers and filmmakers—who arrive from around the world to pore over her many unpublished photos. Fans and collectors alike seek her out to touch or buy something that belonged to the rock icon. Case in point: the King's cream-and-yellow costume from 1966's Frankie and Johnny. Says Rosaaen, "One of my friends put the trousers on over her clothes and said, 'Now I can tell people I got in Elvis's pants!'"

For years, Rosaaen has fought with her San Jose landlord, who deems her collection a hazard and has threatened to evict her. "He gave me 30 days to move a lot to a storage unit," she says. "He was afraid that if we had an earthquake, I would be found crushed under all this Elvisness!"

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