Star Trek Fans, Elvis Presley Fans, and Fans of Angelique Pettyjohn, THANK YOU! 28 years is a long-time to wait for a book, but if you'll bare with me for just another moment, I will try and explain why it took so long to write this book! When I first announced I was going to write a book about Angelique Pettyjohn in 1992, a few months after her tragic death, I didn't think it would take 28 years to research and write her story. But then, as I began my research, I realized just how truly complex her life was with so many moving parts: her family, friends, rivals, a showbiz career in Las Vegas, a career as a starlet in Hollywood, her appearances on television, four ex-husbands, many lovers, her business managers, the public persona and the private life she tried to protect and nourish, the Star Trek fans and conventions, Elvis Presley and Elvis Junior, and finally sex, drugs and Rock-n-Roll... From my perspective, she had lived the equivalent of four lives! So, I cast a wide net, and started gathering everything that I could find. I received hundreds (if not thousands) of emails and letters from well-wishers who knew her or whose lives were touched by her. They each had their own individual stories about Ms. Pettyjohn to tell, and I wrote them all down. I first published an "In Memorium" online in 1993 for them, acknowledging her death, talking about how much she had meant to me, and recognizing how much she had meant to other fans. In addition to the "In Memorium," I published the last three interviews we did together; those along with the others I had previously released showed up, not surprisingly, at a number of rival websites and in-print 'zines, copied and reprinted literally from my website source as tribute to her memory. I only wish they had given me the credit or citation for those interviews.

Then the fake stories started! One writer who had "borrowed" extensively from my interviews with Ms. Pettyjohn propagated the lie that Angelique had lived a hermit's life in a cabin buried deep in the wilds of Virginia or West Virgina, not unlike the character Jamie Lee Curtis plays in the later Halloween movies. That was simply not true, and that was a fairly easy lie to debunk. Ms. Pettyjohn was a people-person; she loved people, and hoped that people loved her. She would not have abandoned her Vegas apartment on Coconut Grove Court for a cabin in the woods. She was also NOT the mistress of a mob boss who wanted her killed for the secrets she carried. Ridiculous. She was NOT trampled to death by an elephant at Circus, Circus. The fact of the matter is that Circus, Circus hired Angelique to be a Mistress of Ceremonies for the last few months of her life, and that was considered a huge honor! Angelique Pettyjohn died simply from cervical cancer, like millions of others worldwide.

My 28-year-long Search for the real Angelique Pettyjohn. Most of you know that I met actress and showgirl Angelique Pettyjohn at a Star Trek convention in 1982, and we developed a special friendship which flourished during the last ten years of her life. We spoke often on the phone, and I hung out with her at conventions, helping her with her vendor table, or joining her on sets of her movies, or appearing at her shows in Las Vegas. She died in 1992 from cervical cancer at age 48. On her death-bed, Ms. Pettyjohn made me promise to write her amazing story. I conducted my first interviews about a year after her death, talking to several of her girlfriends who knew her the best. I had met them at one point or another during my time with Angelique. They were candid about her, and told me stories about their adventures in Old Hollywood with her. At about the same time, I met her agent, John Harris, and he talked about the various productions she had done. Mr. Harris' only regret was that Angelique Pettyjohn had died before he could put the deal together to make The Kings of Comedy with her and Benny Hill. I also met Sara Cooper, a lifelong Star Trek fan, and her mother Judith Ward, also a fan and convention organizer. Sara actually shared an ex-husband with Angelique, and she and her mother had given Angelique the first serious advice about doing the Star Trek conventions; they even selected the right photos for Angelique to sell at those conventions. Sara was kind enough to send me a yearbook and information about Angelique Pettyjohn's life at West High School in Salt Lake City. I then met and interviewed Angelique's two half sisters, and began piecing together her life as a child and then a teenager, living in Salt Lake City. They were at war with each other at the time, fighting over Angelique Pettyjohn's meager estate; they are both deceased now, and whatever items Angelique's estate had left are now gone, too. Each person I talked to about Angelique Pettyjohn recommended someone else, and gradually all of the pieces in her life came together. I then met her son, Elvis Aaron Presley Junior, and the gigantic jigsaw puzzle which represented Angelique Pettyjohn's life became complete. Each of those who knew I was writing about Ms. Pettyjohn wanted to know when I'd be finished with the final book. They each wanted to purchase a copy of the book. The last people I met and interviewed were Pat Gill, a rival dancer who knew Angelique; Steve Miller, a city council member and club owner who knew her, and Mike Christ, a well-known photographer, like Robert Scott Hooper, who shot photos of Angelique for fashion magazines many times. They all knew her from Las Vegas, and each had stories to tell about Angelique's shows and work in Old Vegas. Because she had been a friend to each of them, they all seemed to have a personal vested interest in seeing this amazing woman's life told.

Title Changes and Other Revisions. In 2019, after over twenty-seven years of writing and research about my deceased friend, I submitted the manuscript for my 20th book, a biography of actress and showgirl Angelique Pettyjohn, to my agent for publication. Elvis Aaron Presley Junior wrote the Foreword to my book, in tribute to his mother Angelique Pettyjohn who had had an affair with Elvis in 1961 and gave birth to the King's one and only son. The manuscript continued to undergo revisions and additions and rewrites, stretching well into 2020 and COVID-19. The book was originally titled The Girl in the Silver Bikini: The Life and Times of Angelique Pettyjohn--Showgirl, Actress, Star Trek Siren, but then, for commercial reasons, was renamed Star Trek Siren: The Life and Loves of Angelique Pettyjohn. CBS which owns the copyright and trademark for Star Trek would not allow me to use the words "star" and "trek" in my title, even though clearly Angelique Pettyjohn played the role of a siren in 1967 on the original series; the real irony is that plenty of Star Trek fans over the years have produced hundreds of fanzines as well as fan-produced television shows and movies using the words "star" and "trek" in their titled projects without once raising the ire of CBS. So, I had to revise my title to Sci-Fi Siren: The Life and Loves of Angelique Pettyjohn and ultimately for commercial reasons to The Sci-Fi Siren Who Dared Love Elvis and Other Stars: The Untold, True Story of Elvis Presley and Angelique Pettyjohn. After purchasing the rights to Robert Scott Hooper's famous photograph of Angelique Pettyjohn, which was used as the basis for a poster and photographs Angelique sold and autographed at her vendor table, I created a mock-up for the cover of the final book. (See above.) Fans might be interested to know I photo-shopped an actual constellation shot by the Hubble telescope into the background of Ms. Pettyjohn, so she is truly a siren from beyond the stars.

Publish the Darn Thing! After 28 long years, many revisions, rewrites and additions, the book was finally published and released on July 5, 2020. My thanks go out to everyone who participated in this book project, and all those great fans who patiently waited for this day to come. Please buy the book and leave your comments on Amazon.com Thank you, John L. Flynn, Ph.D.

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This site was last updated 11/20/20.