In the summer of 1957, Judy Tyler was a young actress on the verge of stardom. She had just finished filming Jailhouse Rock alongside Elvis Presley, playing his love interest in what would become one of the most iconic musical films of the decade. The movie was still in post-production when she and her husband decided to drive across the country instead of flying to New York, where she was scheduled to appear on a television program. On the evening of July 3, as their car traveled through Wyoming, another vehicle pulled out from a tourist site onto the highway.

Her husband swerved, sending their car skidding into the oncoming lane, where it was struck broadside by a northbound vehicle. Judy Tyler was killed instantly. Her husband died the next day in a hospital in Laramie. She was twenty-four years old.

Judy Tyler was born Judith May Hess on October 9, 1932, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Her upbringing was steeped in show business in a way that was unusual for a girl of her generation. Her father, a building contractor by trade, had once played trumpet in big bands, and her mother had been a chorus girl in her youth. From an early age, Judy studied ballet, music, and acting.

At fifteen, she left school to pursue modeling, and the following year she was named Miss Stardust in a nationwide contest. Not long after, she moved to New York City, where she found work dancing in the chorus line at the Copacabana. It was there she met her vocal coach, Colin Romoff, whom she later married. After singing in several New York nightclubs, Tyler gained her first national exposure in 1952 when she was cast as Princess Summerfall Winterspring on the children’s television show Howdy Doody.

She held the role for three years, becoming a familiar face to millions of young viewers. In 1955, she moved to Broadway, landing a role in Pipe Dream, the musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein. Her personal life shifted as well. Her marriage to Romoff ended in an amicable divorce in 1956, and she soon married television actor Gregory Lafayette.

In March of 1957, the couple traveled to Hollywood, where they would spend what turned out to be the final four months of her life. Those months were packed with work. Tyler had a substantial role in The Case of the Fandancer’s Horse, the first episode of Perry Mason to be filmed. She then starred in her first film, the forgettable Bop Girl Goes Calypso.

But her breakout part came when she was cast opposite Elvis Presley in Jailhouse Rock. The movie was filmed at MGM’s Hollywood studios from May 13 to June 14, 1957. Presley was front and center throughout, and although Tyler received second billing, her role was not particularly demanding. On screen, she spent much of her time shifting her facial expressions between happiness, confusion, anger, and adoration as the plot demanded.

Because her character was dressed conservatively throughout the film, she appeared considerably older than Presley, who was only three years her junior. Tyler had just two dramatic scenes of note in the picture. In the first, Presley’s character told her he was going to sell the recording company they had started together. In the second, she told him in a hospital that she loved him.

She handled both scenes well, but each was so brief that neither left a lasting impression in a film dominated by Presley’s energy. She also showed some athleticism, twice chasing Presley down from behind on the sidewalk while wearing high heels. Whether anything romantic developed off-screen is a matter of dispute. Most sources, including Elvis’s friend George Klein, maintain there was no romantic association between the two.

When principal photography ended on June 14, Tyler and her husband chose to drive rather than fly to New York City, where she was due to appear on the CBS television program Pantomime Quiz. They took the Midwest route across the country, passing through Wyoming. In the early evening of July 3, a car pulled out of a tourist site onto the highway. Lafayette swerved to avoid it, sending their car skidding into the oncoming lane, where a northbound vehicle struck them broadside.

Tyler was killed instantly. Lafayette died the following day in a Laramie hospital from chest and back injuries. The only survivor of the collision was the driver of the other vehicle. Elvis Presley wept when he learned of Tyler’s death.

George Klein never forgot the morning Presley knocked on his door in 1957. Presley told him he had bad news: Judy Tyler had just been killed in a car wreck. The two drove around Memphis talking about her, remembering how nice she was, how professional she was, and how tragic it was that she had been killed in a car accident just as her first big motion picture was coming out. Presley took it hard.

Later that day, he told a reporter, “Nothing has hurt me as bad in my life. I remember the last night I saw them. They were leaving on a trip. I even remember what she was wearing.

All of us boys really loved that girl. She meant a lot to all of us. ” He added that he did not believe he could stand to see the movie they had made together. Presley told the reporter he planned to attend Tyler’s funeral in New York, even if it meant missing the Memphis premiere of his film Loving You, which was scheduled for the following Tuesday.

A few days later, however, the Presley family issued a statement saying Elvis would not attend the funeral because he did not want to create a disturbance. The reasoning was never elaborated upon publicly, and the decision drew attention in the press. Judy Tyler’s ashes were interred at Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York. Her husband was buried in his hometown of Hopewell Junction, New York.

Jailhouse Rock was released later that year, became a major hit, and is remembered today as one of Presley’s defining films. But for Elvis, the girl who had been his co-star in it was gone before she ever saw her own breakthrough on screen. Her death, coming just days after the end of filming, cut short a career that had barely begun.

She left behind a small body of work, a few television appearances, one Broadway musical, and the memory of a young actress who had been on the edge of something large when a highway accident in Wyoming brought it all to an abrupt end.