It has been less a whodunnit and more of a whowasit? For 55 years the young blonde touching tongues with a 21-year-old Elvis Presley in one of his most famous photographs has remained a mystery. Until now.
Vanity Fair finally revealed the identity on Monday of the woman with whom the King was getting fresh as he prepared to go on stage.
It is a retired real estate manager, Barbara Gray. In an interview with the magazine she recalled what might have drawn Elvis to her. "I was very thin and very stacked," she said.
The photograph, known as The Kiss, is the most famous of a series by Alfred Wertheimer. So famous that it was the star exhibit of an Elvis at 21 show at the Smithsonian last year; the actor Diane Keaton has reportedly maintained that it is the sexiest picture ever taken.
The photograph was takenin June 1956 as Elvis was getting ready to perform in front of 3,000 fans at the Mosque Theatre in Richmond, Virginia. And while it may look like a prelude to something more, Gray insisted it was all in the best possible taste.
Appearing on NBC's Today programme, Gray was asked if there had been sparks. "Errr, no," she said. "Maybe he had sparks but I didn't even know who he was."
But what did she recall of the kiss – and the King's tongue? "He was a very funny kid, he was very silly and we were running around chasing each other and just being young. He narrowed me down in the hallway to ask me if I wanted to go to the Steve Allen show with him and I said: 'No, I'm on my way to Philadelphia to see my boyfriend.' That's when the challenge started for him."
Elvis did in fact manage to persuade Gray to accompany him into his private compartment – Roomette No 7 – on the train for New York.
"He started grabbing me and hugging me, and I finally let him kiss me," Gray told Vanity Fair. "Somehow we ended lying on the bed and he tried to feel me up."
But before things could go further someone knocked on the door to warn them that the train was leaving. And Gray - becoming for ever the girl who said no to Elvis - added: "So am I."
Gray, now 75, also reveals in her interview a life more interesting than most. She had flings with two of Liberace's boyfriends and, after renouncing a somewhat free and easy lifestyle, she found God and was baptised by the singer-turned-preacher Pat Boone in his Beverly Hills swimming pool.
But she never did meet again the playful, handsome boy from Mississippi – although she believes she got a Christmas card.
She insists she is after neither money nor fame and has signed an agreement giving up all commercial rights to one of rock'n'roll's best known photographs. "I didn't get into this to be frustrated and crazy," she said. "I just wanted to get my name on the damn picture."