Willow Glen News
From Archives November 15 2006
Photograph by Vicki Thompson
Devoted: Robin Rosaaen of
Willow Glen has 40,000 Elvis
Presley items in her extensive
collection. One of those pieces
is a pair of Elvis slippers. She
also has a rare Elvis leather
jacket.
By Laura Rheinheimer
Fifty years ago, The King of Rock 'n' roll debuted in his first film, Love Me Tender, to the delight of Elvis fans across the nation.
As a 9-year-old in San Lorenzo, Robin Rosaaen went to see the film, which premiered in New York City on Nov. 16, 1956, and immediately fell in love. Today Rosaaen's home is a testament to the man who ruled rock 'n' roll.
"Rockin' Robin," a nickname given to her by The King himself, has one of the largest private Elvis Presley collections in the world, according to James Forsher, who recently published The Love Me Tender Diary. Her two-bedroom Willow Glen apartment is covered floor to ceiling with everything Elvis.
Rosaaen estimates she has 40,000 Elvis items, including records, 600 books, scarves he wore on stage, shirts, pins, playing cards, figurines, documents and knick-knacks. She also has his life documented in 80,000 photographs, some of which are extremely rare, including personal messages from Elvis to Rosaaen. Included in her extensive collection are 13 scarves, some of which Elvis gave her during his concerts.
Among her prized possessions is a sweater from the 1962 film Kid Galahad, starring Elvis as a boxer, and pants he wore in the movie Frankie and Johnny.
Throughout the years Rosaaen has collected Elvis items by going to auctions, and buying from fans and celebrity shops. She even lays claim to his dental records, his divorce papers signed by Elvis and Priscilla Presley, and an Elvis Presley leather jacket she purchased in 1988.
Ultimate fan
Rosaaen has been a collector and an Elvis fan since she was a child, but it wasn't until her early 20s that she combined the two passions. She was living in Los Gatos and rediscovered The King while watching his 1968 comeback special on television.
As her fascination grew, Rosaaen sold off her other pop collections, which included the Beatles and the Beach Boys, in order to work on preserving Elvis' memory.
In early 1970, she drove to Las Vegas for her first live Elvis concert. It became a bi-annual ritual, and Rosaaen became a regular front-row face at performances.
It took hard work and dedication, and a bit of cash, to stand out among the throngs of fans, but her persistence paid off during one concert at the Sahara-Tahoe Casino in 1974. That's when Rosaaen became known as "Rockin' Robin."
Rosaaen says she bribed her way to the front row and held up a bumper sticker that read, "I want your body."
Elvis came over and grabbed the sticker and said, "You got it!" Rosaaen reached for his scarf, but he stopped her and said, "Let me do it," and wrapped the scarf around her neck.
Later in the performance, Rosaaen says, "He came over and pointed at me, and said, 'Rockin' Robin.' "
The entire incident is documented in a series of photographs, Rosaaen's most sentimental piece of Elvis history--and her own.
Rosaaen continued to attend his concerts whenever possible and kept track of Elvis' travels.
"I used to write Elvis when I knew he was home," she says, and that correspondence included pictures for him to sign.
It wasn't an obsession, she insists. It was "more of a passion for Elvis the man and entertainer." When the reply letters came, Rosaaen says, her neighbors and friends would marvel at the return address.
"He enjoyed the rapport he had with his fans," Rosaaen says. "In those days, you respected the pleasure entertainers gave you."
Rosaaen was present at his last three shows in 1976.
"He was vocally strong," she says, "but he didn't appear well."
When he died in 1977, Rosaaen decide not attend his funeral at Graceland.
"I wanted to remember him as I last saw him on stage," she says.
After the initial shock wore off, Rosaaen kept his persona alive by visiting Graceland and keeping in touch with other Elvis fans.
She lent photographs and collectibles for book projects, most recently Rockin' Down the Highway: The cars and people that Made Rock 'n' roll, which is available in local bookstores. In 1996, part of her collection appeared in an "Elvis and Marilyn" exhibit at the San Jose Museum of Modern Art, and was on display at UC-Berkeley and the 1996 Olympics in Salt Lake City. Her Elvis collection even made it into a picture book geared toward children. All the King's Things earned Rosaaen fame among Elvis fans around the world, according to various experts.
Over the years as Rosaaen built up her collection, she developed an eye for what were genuine Elvis collectibles. She considers herself a connoisseur of Elvis memorabilia and knows a fake from the real thing. Talk show hosts such as Geraldo Rivera, Oprah Winfrey and Joan Rivers considered her an Elvis expert.
"I never dreamed back in the '60s that being an Elvis fan would get me on to all these talk shows," she says.
Hobby turned job
In 1997, Rosaaen started working at eBay as employee number 41, opening envelopes in customer services. But she couldn't get Elvis off her mind, and pitched the idea of an Elvis trade page and virtual museum on eBay's website to management.
She worked nights and weekends to create the Elvis webpage and named it after the book, All the King's Things.
The idea proved so popular the company made Rosaaen the category manager of the Elvis page.
"My hobby became my job," she recalls.
She served as the Elvis official in the "ask the expert" section, and still answers emails sent to elvis@ebay.com. As part of her job, she checked for fraud and pulled fake items off the site within five hours of their postings.
Rosaaen says the items that are tops on the fraud list include fake autographs and "rare" photographs that are actually copies. Rosaaen's expert eye can tell immediately if an autograph is fake.
Her job at eBay helped refine her own collection. She collected an array of new items, from Christmas cards to an Army pocket guide from his service days that included handwritten margin notes.
Then eBay had major layoffs in 2001, and Rosaaen decided to continue on her own.
She had already made a name for herself among Elvis fans, and found a way to earn a living by offering her Elvis collection and expertise to companies.
She recently worked out a deal with PressPass, a hobby company, to purchase a shirt and a scarf from her Elvis collection, which will be cut into small pieces and included in selected trading cards in the Elvis Lives series that will be sold at Target and Wal-Mart.
"People always wanted a part of my collection," Rosaaen says. "Now they can get it."
Rosaaen's dream is to open a gallery on Lincoln Avenue where she can show and share her extensive collection with the public and Elvis fans.
"Elvis will live on even after the original fans are gone," Rosaaen says. "If I can pass on the pleasure Elvis gave me as a fan, that's kind of the purpose."
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