Jan Shepard, who starred opposite Elvis Presley in the 1958 film King Creole, has died at the age of 96. The Hollywood golden age actress died on January 17 at a hospital in Burbank, California from pneumonia, following respiratory failure. Born Josephine Angela Sorbello in Quakertown, Pennsylvania in March 1928, the late performer appeared in films throughout her career including Paradise, Hawaiian Style in 1966, Attack of the Giant Leeches in 1959 and in TV shows including Death Valley Days, The Lone Ranger and Gunsmoke.
![[American singer, actor Elvis Presley surrounded by actresses Jan Shepard, Dolores Hart, Carolyn Jones and French actress Liliane Montevecchi on the set of King Creole directed by Hungarian-American Michael Curtiz. (Photo by Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images)]](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AD_223664768-09ad.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=646)
She worked with Presley on two features eight years apart – first in King Creole, in which she portrayed his sister Mimi, and then in Paradise, Hawaiian Style, where she played the role of Betty. In the obituary that was published online in commemoration of Shepard, it says that King Creole was Presley’s ‘favourite’ movie that he worked on, and Shepard recalled how the late singer ‘wished’ to have had a sibling like her.
![[LOS ANGELES, CA - JANUARY 04: Actress Jan Shepard onstage during Elvis At The Movies at The GRAMMY Museum on January 4, 2012 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Mark Sullivan/WireImage)]](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/SEI_237622820-c3d9.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=646)
‘She later recalled in interviews that she got along well with the icon; they would go to lunch together, and he said he wished he had a sister like her,’ the obituary reads. Following her death, her son Brandon Boyle told The Hollywood Reporter: ‘She was a good one and will be dearly missed.’.
Her obituary includes an anecdote that she told Elvis Australia about what it was like to meet the Blue Suede Shoes singer for the first time, when they were inadvertently wearing matching colours. ‘I looked at him and he looked at me and we started to laugh. His jacket was the identical material and color of my slacks,’ she said.
