A bed fit for the King

Mathis Winkler

Yes, Thomas W. Lane has slept in Elvis Presley’s bed for the last two

decades.

Yes, he’s hoping to auction off the thing for at least $25,000 in

December.

But when the 80-year-old designer talks about his life, the identity

of his bed’s previous owner seems to be Lane’s weakest claim to fame.

Born in Cleveland, Lane and his family moved to Los Angeles in the

early 1930s after his father, an operatic singer, got a job in the

movies.

“Thank God,” Lane said, sitting on the balcony of his Balboa Bay Club

apartment Thursday. “Cleveland’s a good place to beo7 fromf7 .”

A few years later, when working as the drummer in a 22-piece band, he

ran across a “gal with red hair and a black fox coat on.”

Lane fell in love with Marilyn Louis, then 14 years old, the minute he

saw her. A year later, the couple married and had a son, Kent.

Then came World War II and Lane left his family for about three years.

When he returned, Lane saw his wife’s name -- now Rhonda Fleming -- on

theater marquees in New York City.

“I thought, ‘She must be doing all right,’ ” Lane remembered.

His wife didn’t want him to join the movie business, Lane said. One

family member was enough. So he found himself designing houses instead.

He still keeps photographs of his projects on file and currently works

on projects in Del Mar, Las Vegas and Dana Point. Everything, from

70-foot handcarved wooden murals to marble bathtubs, is 1960s and ‘70s

Hollywood glam at its best.

Lane used lots of shag carpet, surrounded glass bars with jungle-like

settings and included pool tables with hand-carved dragons among his

furnishings.

Although much smaller than his clients’ homes, Lane’s own residence

reflects the style of his work. Huge mirrors cover the walls and create a

sense of space in the rooms that are filled to the limit with antiques.

Lane himself fits right in with the decorations.

Dressed all in white, he wears light brown boots and clunky golden

jewelry. His keeps his hair in the same wavy style he sported in a

photograph taken in the 1940s. His piercing blue eyes remain hidden

behind large Porsche Design sunglasses most of the time.

But back to the bed.

Presley became one of Lane’s clients, working on interior design for

the singer’s Hillcrest home.

“He was probably the nicest client I ever had,” Lane said. “He was

certainly the only one that walked me to my car.”

Lane said he even began hanging out at Presley’s home from time to

time.

Sometimes he’d tell Jane: “Let’s go bug Elvis.” Jane Russell, that is.

Impressed by the name-dropping? Try Johnny, as in Carson. Or Marilyn.

Yes, that Marilyn.

“She was scared like a little girl,” Lane said, adding that he

designed Monroe’s 20th Century Fox dressing room for the production of

“Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” as well as several of her apartments.

“But the minute a flash camera went off, she was ready for every snip

of a flash bulb,” he said. “Just a fabulous person.”

The bed. When the Presley Estate dissolved the Hillcrest household in

an auction following the King’s death in 1977, Lane took the bed with him

and shared it with his third wife, Dori.

“The most beautiful lady you ever saw in your life, inside and out,”

Lane said, lighting a cigarette -- the same brand he picked up from Dori.

She died of cancer three and a half years ago.

While Dori’s pictures still fill his apartment, the conjugal bed will

be gone once a 10-day auction on eBay.com starts Nov. 30.

“I’ll sell it if anyone wants it,” Lane said, adding that he’d almost

forgotten about the mattress’s famous first owner.

“I’ll probably get the same one again or one that raises up,” he said.

“I do a lot of reading, so that’s probably a good idea.”